Culture and Art

Accorrding to The Concise Oxford Dictionary culture is defined as ´the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively´.

What do we mean bz ´art´? We use the word a freat deal and in many different contexts. We talk about the art of the film-maker, for example, but what we actually mean by the world ´art´ alone is reallu quite different. As a general definition we will consider art to be the creation of something that is ´aestheticaly plaeasing´.
The definition of what is high and what is popular culture has changed enormously over the last twenty or thirty years . increasingly, ´high culture ´ is being consumed by the masses. Many ´purits´are opposed to this and argue that high culture is being ´dumbed down´or ´made easier ´for popular consumption.

Let´s take TV, for example. If you were given a choice, would you rether watch Newsnight or Step by Step? What would happen if you only had a TV diet of documentaries, chat shows and dramas? Would you lose the ability to converse ´intelligently´if you were constantly exposed to TV? Or should TV only be about entertainment? In fact, it all comes down to personal taste. And there exist as many tastes aj there are people. One man´s meat is another man´s poison. Let´s agree thet our tastes differ.

Anyway, not everybody was born with that extraordinary ability either to create art or to perform it. Those lucky ones who are gifted enough can make a living of art as actors, actresses, directors, condutors, musicians, paiters, sculptors and writers. The vast majoritz of the human population are those who only consume works of art. Moreover, there is also the third categoru of those who only consume works of art. They scorn the former ones for not being able to create a ´proper´work of art and the latter ones for not having taste. If people cared about their highbrow coments on art, art would no longer exist.

The arts in all their forms draw large audiences. Those interasted in music can listen to philharmonic or chamber orchestras, choirs in concert halls. Keen theatre goers can watch various types of dramatic art, operas and ballets in historical buildings of theatres. Fans of popular culture usually prefer open air concerts. To store works of fine art galleries have been built. They exhibit masterpieces od different types from portraits to landscapes. Since the Lumiere brothers developted the camera and the projector, film has become the most influential and profitable industry.

Speaking about a stricly practical point of view, art is useless. It does not feed or clothe people, it does not heal the sick or make the blind see, but then does it have to?
The point of art is to stimulate the imagination, to try to make the viewer understand some of the emotions and ideas experienced by the painter when he was creating his work of art. There are many things that can feed the body, several things that can feed the mind, but only the arts in general and art in particular can feed the imagination.