How art improves our lives :: Essays Papers

How art improves our lives Art is a deliberate recreation of a new and special reality that grows from one’s response to life. It improves our existence by enhancing, changing and perpetuating our cultural composition. â€Å"The great artist knows how to impose their particular illusion on the rest of mankind,† proclaimed Guy de Mauspassant. Art improves our lives by directly and indirectly lift the morale of individuals, creating unity and social solidarity. Art creates awareness of social issues. Art may express and reflect the religious, political, and economical aspects of cultures. Art is and can be what ever a culture says it is or what ever they want it to be. It involves all people, those who conceive the idea of the work, execute it, provide necessary equipment and materials, and people who make up the audience for the work. Art forms as diverse as architecture, body decoration, clothing manufacture, and memorial sculptures reflect social status. Art echoes the natural world. It gives order to the world and intensity to human life. Art is a means of communion as well as communication. It provides pleasurable experiences along with cerebral wealth. Art also helps us to express our sentimental relations. It can beautify, surprise, inspire, stimulate imagination, inform, tell stories, and record history. As someone once said, â€Å"Art is life.† Therefore, as teachers, it is our jobs to teach students about life through art. We must have a penetrating comprehension ourselves of how art affects our society in order to teach our students to comprehend the complex purposes of art. We must be aware of the global culture and heritage from which art emerges. For example when teaching our students art aesthetics, we must never let them think that there is only one way to view art. Students, and especially teachers, should be acceptable to all ways in which art evaluation can occur. Western aesthetics is based primarily on individuality, originality, permanence, and form. These factors cannot be applied to art from every culture. For example, African art is understood in terms of rites of passage, healing, power, control, and commerce. Students must be taught to understand the principles of art as they are understood by the cultural group in which they belong in order to truly achieve global awareness and appreciation for art. Obvio usly, teachers must gain this awareness themselves before they can impart it to their students. Travel, physically or intellectually, is necessary for teachers who truly aspire to instill a devotion to open-mindedness and tolerance in their students.