Art for Life's Sake

Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, photography, sculpture, and paintings. The meaning of art is explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics. The definition and evaluation of art has become especially problematic since the early 20th century. Richard Wollheim distinguishes three approaches: the Realist, whereby aesthetic quality is an absolute value independent of any human view; the Objectivist, whereby it is also an absolute value, but is dependent on general human experience; and the Relativist position, whereby it is not an absolute value, but depends on, and varies with, the human experience of different humans. Traditionally, the term art was used to refer to any skill or mastery. This conception changed during the Romantic period, when art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science". Generally, art is made with the intention of stimulating thoughts and emotions.

The nature of art has been described by Richard Wollheim as "one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture". It has been defined as a vehicle for the expression or communication of emotions and ideas, a means for exploring and appreciating formal elements for their own sake, and as mimesis or representation. Leo Tolstoy identified art as a use of indirect means to communicate from one person to another. Benedetto Croce and R.G. Collingwood advanced the idealist view that art expresses emotions, and that the work of art therefore essentially exists in the mind of the creator. The theory of art as form has its roots in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and was developed in the early twentieth century by Roger Fry and Clive Bell. Art as mimesis or representation has deep roots in the philosophy of Aristotle. More recently, thinkers influenced by Martin community Heidegger have interpreted art as the means by which a develops for itself a medium for self-expression and interpretation ,

largely in all literatures that have reached a definite stage of The relation of art to life is a question that has always figured development. Most often, the question has been answered in one of two directly opposite senses. Some say: society is not made for the artist, but the artist for society. The function of art is to assist the development of man's consciousness, to improve the social

Others emphatically reject this view. In their opinion, art is an aim in system. itself, to, convert it into a means of achieving any extraneous ain, even the most noble, is to lower the dignity of a work of art.

For those who believe in art for art's sake methodology of creation, art is created for its own benefit and that it exists in a world that is outside of social understanding. Rather, the artist is a distinct force in the world where few, if any, can understand and their voice in guiding the creation of art. The artist's purpose is to create art and pursue its development in listening to their own voice and that spirit of creation. Little else matters in this pursuit. To some extent, we can see this in the Renaissance artists like Michelangelo, or in the Romantic writer John Keats. In more modern senses, the ending of Joyce's characterization of Stephen Daedalus could also represent such an idea. In contrast, art for life sake is seen as the creation of art which is to mirror reality or even change it. In this setting, art cannot exist outside of its social contingencies and is often influenced by it. Art for life sake is a mode of art where the artist must depict reality in the hopes of changing it or to be an effective mirror of it. The artist is a part of the world and with their gift of creating art can alter it or mirror it. They are driven to display this connection through their art. Lord Byron and Wordsworth would be an example of this, along with Mary Shelley. Another example could be Flaubert, whose realist beliefs compelled him to create art that was a mirror to reality, though he did not feel it was his place to overtly advocate changing society through the depiction of art.