Goodbye Cruel World!

for sure! a bit of beauty, whackiness, nonsense, colour, black and white, drop of honey, spoonful of love, a slap n a few flowers, give it a whirl n there u go. So what does your psychiatrist say? :-)

Yes, yes, yes. ..

Absolutely!!!!

YESSSSSS

Happier by means of providing a mental escape. People choose to escape reality by many means; alcohol and drugs for example. Losing yourself in art, either by viewing or creating, is a healthier alternative.

Let me think about it .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................YES!

Makes my world better lol

Well, I would say try living a life without art. I am pretty sure you are referencing "art" as that which we hang or display, but art is in everything we do today. Utilitarian is no longer a norm. The computer I am typing on, the mouse, my iPhone, virtually everything in this world of ours must begin art before it can be manufactured. AND it must be pleasing to the eye (and hand) to be a viable product. Package design, product design, graphic design, art, art ,art.

As I opined to a friend: everything is art, and nothing is art.

I know my world is a much happier place with art in it.

I don't know - I read on FAA constantly about theft and misuse, copyright infringement, images that won't print, returns, and worries about where we are in search - happy - or happier ? I don't know. and if you aren't selling - just how much happier is your world?

yes.
so can wine, chocolate, bubble baths, a child's smile, etc,etc,etc,

Roy, non of that has anything to do with art. All business, sales and other side crap.

I agree with Ronald. I don't sell half as much as I would like but that doesn't stop me from creating. I create because I enjoy it. It's a big part of my world. In fact when I haven't been able to create in a while, that's when I am unhappy. Not because of lack of sales.

Art is a tool, an asset, an activity, a hobby, a business, a therapy, decor, communication, on & on.......its how we apply it to our life like anything else. Escape!!!!!!!!!!!!!! huh? no just ways to cope with reality jeez were not mechanical pieces of metal...were flesh and blood, fragile and strong but not indestructable

People's treatment of others effects happiness in this world.
Art? Way down the list.

How we treat others is also an art form, via how we treat others, via our words, gifts, a beautiful meal etc.....some art is applied and other is fine

Oh yeah, everything and everbody is art and are artists respectively.

Drew, did someone forget to give you your chocolate milk and gold star? Yo sho is crabby... Why are you doing art if you don't believe in art?

L. Cecka, Escape, for some I,m sure that works. As you said we are not mechanical pieces of metal! Drew, art way down the list? For some I'm sure that is true but for me art makes me happy. I also believe that's arts ability to communicate cross language barriers makes it even a bigger deal today than in the past. The world sucks at times but would suck even more without art.

Kevin, my little experiment proves the premise.
If you think before you react then, your interpritation just maybe is exactly what was exspected.
Ronald, relevance of art's importance is an individual one, not global.

No...art cannot make the world a happier better place...and its been around long enough for that to have been proven by now.

But it can make the individuals who create it/view it/use it...happier...at times.

Art itself is mostly subjective and allows those who view it to interpret it as they please. Some get happy making/viewing art that depicts evil...though I'm not sure how it inspires their daily actions.

Not all art is equal nor are all artists. Technically Drew no not everything is art nor everyone an artist...nor does everyone wanna be or should be. Many things can become an art form though.

oops

Hello, Dorthy we can take off the emerald coloured glasses. We have left the realm of the wizard.

Art is topz in Disney World.

Lawrence, have you seen the world without art? Hard to prove your theory. Drew, individuals put together make up the global world.

:))...no Ron...no need to...I see the world with art. (Put the news on)

So what you're saying is...if only we had more art...the world wold be a happier, better place. ;) or will only more "beautiful" art do the trick?

I also said..."But it can make the individuals who create it/view it/use it...happier...at times."

"Happier" / "Better" / "Beautiful" / "Art"...are all subjective...their meanings are based on an individuals mind...interpretation/viewpoint...and inspired by life experiences.


Look at the images from Hubble Deep Field Telescope...The beauty of the universe itself can be considered a work of art...yet it still a violent and a continually changing place.

Drew,

Getting angry at strangers wont help.

It certainly does not fit the logic of any good engineering mind.

Folks we barely know each other on these boards. We need to have more manners than
we would have with the cat.

Peace out Drew,

Dave

Ronald,

I am having the time of my life working as an artist.

Art makes the world happier yes, and more unhappy as well.

Propaganda is a two sided coin. One of the sides is meant very
often to create losers in our society. For every artist that creates
nice work for the abode, there is another artist selling us gasoline,
cigarettes, white flour, sugar, alcohol, etc.......

So how strong is your point?

I believe almost all mammals are burrow animals. We have our homes
to feel secure in. So making decor, or filling gallery and museum space,
makes most people happier, more secure.

But as one group or one generation ascend, they bring their propaganda with
them.

Is it the human condition to build happiness on other people's disease and death?

Dave

Yes Ronald. Life is a hell of a thing to happen to a person. Especially an Empath!

Uplifting!!!!!!

Snide...like the sound of that word....Sha-ni-Da! poetic! Artistically contrived. I personally like the term "Snippy" ....Sha-nip-nee. Similar notes and just as applicable.
My use of the term "You" is used in a plural or global since. Those who took it singularly or personally are obviously self centric. Not my problem!
Paraphrasing a scene from the book Wizard of Oz was absolutely applicable and still is.
Troll? Who's calling whom names? Who is the troll here? Oh yeah, if one does not agree with anothers candor, they must be a troll.

"Getting angry at strangers wont help. It certainly does not fit the logic of any good engineering mind. "
@David, Did not know you were an engineer! sorry you got angry! Are you still obsessing over your wounds from the other day:(
Self-imposed wounds I may add !
I do hope you find peace David!

Drop your paint brushes, cameras and digital interfaces and take a hike, in the forests. ....nature out shines any and every work of art ever created.
Of course you always have those emerald glasses!

Drew,

huh???

Dave

Dave, are you confused ?
Ronald, Talented? Such an over used ambiguous term but you use it soo well.LOL!
Skilled in probably a more precise term and it implies acquired ability from hard work. Talent implies a gift, something not worked for.
Stirring the pot, doing that causes the pot to stink......oh well, pull the shades and spray the perfume.

Just how much time do you guys spend on this forum?
I'll leave it with you,
Goodnight cruel world....hehehe

Rhetorical questions, right?



---------------
~ Bill
~ US Pictures .com

Everything manmade and in nature is design, whether good or bad. Good or bad it affects our psychic. Walk into a room with a beautiful interior, it makes you feel good.

Drew,

Life is too short to be at odds with everyone. You know?

Dave

I make art, therefore I am happy.
I am happy, therefore I create art.

If I could put the above in a circle I would.

Can art make the world a happier place can only be answered if first the question of "what is art" is answered. I post this Essay by Tolstoy which is in the public domain and can be reproduced.
It's long but thought provoking: I particularly like #7 & 8

#1. In order correctly to define art, it is necessary, first of all, to cease to consider it as a means to pleasure and to consider it as one of the conditions of human life. Viewing it in this way we cannot fail to observe that art is one of the means of intercourse between man and man.

#2. Every work of art causes the receiver to enter into a certain kind of relationship both with him who produced, or is producing, the art, and with all those who, simultaneously, previously, or subsequently, receive the same artistic impression.

#3. Speech, transmitting the thoughts and experiences of men, serves as a means of union among them, and art acts in a similar manner. The peculiarity of this latter means of intercourse, distinguishing it from intercourse by means of words, consists in this, that whereas by words a man transmits his thoughts to another, by means of art he transmits his feelings.

#4. The activity of art is based on the fact that a man, receiving through his sense of hearing or sight another man's expression of feeling, is capable of experiencing the emotion which moved the man who expressed it. To take the simplest example; one man laughs, and another who hears becomes merry; or a man weeps, and another who hears feels sorrow. A man is excited or irritated, and another man seeing him comes to a similar state of mind. By his movements or by the sounds of his voice, a man expresses courage and determination or sadness and calmness, and this state of mind passes on to others. A man suffers, expressing his sufferings by groans and spasms, and this suffering transmits itself to other people; a man expresses his feeling of admiration, devotion, fear, respect, or love to certain objects, persons, or phenomena, and others are infected by the same feelings of admiration, devotion, fear, respect, or love to the same objects, persons, and phenomena.

#5. And it is upon this capacity of man to receive another man's expression of feeling and experience those feelings himself, that the activity of art is based.

#6. If a man infects another or others directly, immediately, by his appearance or by the sounds he gives vent to at the very time he experiences the feeling; if he causes another man to yawn when he himself cannot help yawning, or to laugh or cry when he himself is obliged to laugh or cry, or to suffer when he himself is suffering - that does not amount to art.

#7. Art begins when one person, with the object of joining another or others to himself in one and the same feeling, expresses that feeling by certain external indications. To take the simplest example: a boy, having experienced, let us say, fear on encountering a wolf, relates that encounter; and, in order to evoke in others the feeling he has experienced, describes himself, his condition before the encounter, the surroundings, the woods, his own lightheartedness, and then the wolf's appearance, its movements, the distance between himself and the wolf, etc. All this, if only the boy, when telling the story, again experiences the feelings he had lived through and infects the hearers and compels them to feel what the narrator had experienced is art. If even the boy had not seen a wolf but had frequently been afraid of one, and if, wishing to evoke in others the fear he had felt, he invented an encounter with a wolf and recounted it so as to make his hearers share the feelings he experienced when he feared the world, that also would be art. And just in the same way it is art if a man, having experienced either the fear of suffering or the attraction of enjoyment (whether in reality or in imagination) expresses these feelings on canvas or in marble so that others are infected by them. And it is also art if a man feels or imagines to himself feelings of delight, gladness, sorrow, despair, courage, or despondency and the transition from one to another of these feelings, and expresses these feelings by sounds so that the hearers are infected by them and experience them as they were experienced by the composer.

#8. The feelings with which the artist infects others may be most various - very strong or very weak, very important or very insignificant, very bad or very good: feelings of love for one's own country, self-devotion and submission to fate or to God expressed in a drama, raptures of lovers described in a novel, feelings of voluptuousness expressed in a picture, courage expressed in a triumphal march, merriment evoked by a dance, humor evoked by a funny story, the feeling of quietness transmitted by an evening landscape or by a lullaby, or the feeling of admiration evoked by a beautiful arabesque - it is all art.

#9. If only the spectators or auditors are infected by the feelings which the author has felt, it is art.

#10. To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art.

#11. Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them.

#12. Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.

#13. As, thanks to man's capacity to express thoughts by words, every man may know all that has been done for him in the realms of thought by all humanity before his day, and can in the present, thanks to this capacity to understand the thoughts of others, become a sharer in their activity and can himself hand on to his contemporaries and descendants the thoughts he has assimilated from others, as well as those which have arisen within himself; so, thanks to man's capacity to be infected with the feelings of others by means of art, all that is being lived through by his contemporaries is accessible to him, as well as the feelings experienced by men thousands of years ago, and he has also the possibility of transmitting his own feelings to others.

#14. If people lacked this capacity to receive the thoughts conceived by the men who preceded them and to pass on to others their own thoughts, men would be like wild beasts, or like Kaspar Houser.

#15. And if men lacked this other capacity of being infected by art, people might be almost more savage still, and, above all, more separated from, and more hostile to, one another.

#16. And therefore the activity of art is a most important one, as important as the activity of speech itself and as generally diffused.

#17. We are accustomed to understand art to be only what we hear and see in theaters, concerts, and exhibitions, together with buildings, statues, poems, novels. . . . But all this is but the smallest part of the art by which we communicate with each other in life. All human life is filled with works of art of every kind - from cradlesong, jest, mimicry, the ornamentation of houses, dress, and utensils, up to church services, buildings, monuments, and triumphal processions. It is all artistic activity. So that by art, in the limited sense of the word, we do not mean all human activity transmitting feelings, but only that part which we for some reason select from it and to which we attach special importance.

#18. This special importance has always been given by all men to that part of this activity which transmits feelings flowing from their religious perception, and this small part of art they have specifically called art, attaching to it the full meaning of the word.

#19. That was how man of old -- Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle - looked on art. Thus did the Hebrew prophets and the ancient Christians regard art; thus it was, and still is, understood by the Mohammedans, and thus it still is understood by religious folk among our own peasantry.

#20. Some teachers of mankind - as Plato in his Republic and people such as the primitive Christians, the strict Mohammedans, and the Buddhists -- have gone so far as to repudiate all art.

#21. People viewing art in this way (in contradiction to the prevalent view of today which regards any art as good if only it affords pleasure) considered, and consider, that art (as contrasted with speech, which need not be listened to) is so highly dangerous in its power to infect people against their wills that mankind will lose far less by banishing all art than by tolerating each and every art.

#22. Evidently such people were wrong in repudiating all art, for they denied that which cannot be denied - one of the indispensable means of communication, without which mankind could not exist. But not less wrong are the people of civilized European society of our class and day in favoring any art if it but serves beauty, i.e., gives people pleasure.

#23. Formerly people feared lest among the works of art there might chance to be some causing corruption, and they prohibited art altogether. Now they only fear lest they should be deprived of any enjoyment art can afford, and patronize any art. And I think the last error is much grosser than the first and that its consequences are far more harmful.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
#24. Art, in our society, has been so perverted that not only has bad art come to be considered good, but even the very perception of what art really is has been lost. In order to be able to speak about the art of our society, it is, therefore, first of all necessary to distinguish art from counterfeit art.

#25. There is one indubitable indication distinguishing real art from its counterfeit, namely, the infectiousness of art. If a man, without exercising effort and without altering his standpoint on reading, hearing, or seeing another man's work, experiences a mental condition which unites him with that man and with other people who also partake of that work of art, then the object evoking that condition is a work of art. And however poetical, realistic, effectful, or interesting a work may be, it is not a work of art if it does not evoke that feeling (quite distinct from all other feelings) of joy and of spiritual union with another (the author) and with others (those who are also infected by it).

#26. It is true that this indication is an internal one, and that there are people who have forgotten what the action of real art is, who expect something else form art (in our society the great majority are in this state), and that therefore such people may mistake for this aesthetic feeling the feeling of diversion and a certain excitement which they receive from counterfeits of art. But though it is impossible to undeceive these people, just as it is impossible to convince a man suffering from "Daltonism" [a type of color blindness] that green is not red, yet, for all that, this indication remains perfectly definite to those whose feeling for art is neither perverted nor atrophied, and it clearly distinguishes the feeling produced by art from all other feelings.

#27. The chief peculiarity of this feeling is that the receiver of a true artistic impression is so united to the artist that he feels as if the work were his own and not someone else's - as if what it expresses were just what he had long been wishing to express. A real work of art destroys, in the consciousness of the receiver, the separation between himself and the artist - not that alone, but also between himself and all whose minds receive this work of art. In this freeing of our personality from its separation and isolation, in this uniting of it with others, lies the chief characteristic and the great attractive force of art.

#28. If a man is infected by the author's condition of soul, if he feels this emotion and this union with others, then the object which has effected this is art; but if there be no such infection, if there be not this union with the author and with others who are moved by the same work - then it is not art. And not only is infection a sure sign of art, but the degree of infectiousness is also the sole measure of excellence in art.

#29. The stronger the infection, the better is the art as art, speaking now apart from its subject matter, i.e., not considering the quality of the feelings it transmits.

#30. And the degree of the infectiousness of art depends on three conditions:

On the greater or lesser individuality of the feeling transmitted;
on the greater or lesser clearness with which the feeling is transmitted;
on the sincerity of the artist, i.e., on the greater or lesser force with which the artist himself feels the emotion he transmits.
#31. The more individual the feeling transmitted the more strongly does it act on the receiver; the more individual the state of soul into which he is transferred, the more pleasure does the receiver obtain, and therefore the more readily and strongly does he join in it.

#32. The clearness of expression assists infection because the receiver, who mingles in consciousness with the author, is the better satisfied the more clearly the feeling is transmitted, which, as it seems to him, he has long known and felt, and for which he has only now found expression.

#33. But most of all is the degree of infectiousness of art increased by the degree of sincerity in the artist. As soon as the spectator, hearer, or reader feels that the artist is infected by his own production, and writes, sings, or plays for himself, and not merely to act on others, this mental condition of the artist infects the receiver; and contrariwise, as soon as the spectator, reader, or hearer feels that the author is not writing, singing, or playing for his own satisfaction - does not himself feel what he wishes to express - but is doing it for him, the receiver, a resistance immediately springs up, and the most individual and the newest feelings and the cleverest technique not only fail to produce any infection but actually repel.

#34. I have mentioned three conditions of contagiousness in art, but they may be all summed up into one, the last, sincerity, i.e., that the artist should be impelled by an inner need to express his feeling. That condition includes the first; for if the artist is sincere he will express the feeling as he experienced it. And as each man is different from everyone else, his feeling will be individual for everyone else; and the more individual it is - the more the artist has drawn it from the depths of his nature - the more sympathetic and sincere will it be. And this same sincerity will impel the artist to find a clear expression of the feeling which he wishes to transmit.

#35. Therefore this third condition - sincerity - is the most important of the three. It is always complied with in peasant art, and this explains why such art always acts so powerfully; but it is a condition almost entirely absent from our upper-class art, which is continually produced by artists actuated by personal aims of covetousness or vanity.

#36. Such are the three conditions which divide art from its counterfeits, and which also decide the quality of every work of art apart from its subject matter.

#37. The absence of any one of these conditions excludes a work form the category of art and relegates it to that of art's counterfeits. If the work does not transmit the artist's peculiarity of feeling and is therefore not individual, if it is unintelligibly expressed, or if it has not proceeded from the author's inner need for expression - it is not a work of art. If all these conditions are present, even in the smallest degree, then the work, even if a weak one, is yet a work of art.

#38. The presence in various degrees of these three conditions - individuality, clearness, and sincerity - decides the merit of a work of art as art, apart from subject matter. All works of art take rank of merit according to the degree in which they fulfill the first, the second, and the third of these conditions. In one the individuality of the feeling transmitted may predominate; in another, clearness of expression; in a third, sincerity; while a fourth may have sincerity and individuality but be deficient in clearness; a fifth, individuality and clearness but less sincerity; and so forth, in all possible degrees and combinations.

#39. Thus is art divided from that which is not art, and thus is the quality of art as art decided, independently of its subject matter, i.e., apart from whether the feelings it transmits are good or bad.

#40. But how are we to define good and bad art with reference to its subject matter?

Don't hold back, tell us what you really think. Smile.

Wow! Thanks for that it was long but quite interesting!! I liked a lot of it but particularly liked #s 22 and 34.

The world is a circus - so it ought to be - "goodbye cruel circus". go join the off-worlders - who are supposed to be much happier.

Ronald,

As per your title to this thread, DONT do it, not the eraser.

Dave

If the world was a circus, what would you be?

elephant

Ronald I am glad you liked the post and yes # 34 is definitely a very important point. The whole essay is very though provoking. Thanks for appreciating me posting this.

As to the question "If the world were a circus...

I think it already is but lets say it wasn't and I had to think in terms of what I know a circus is and what role I would want to play, I definitely would have to say
"I would want to be a black hole!"

~~~~~

Jason you may want to reconsider wanting to be an Elephant in a circus, it's a miserable life.

..... a free elephant in a world circus of free elephants where guns are made of fruit and love and tooth aches are but a mere distant memory, and the plains are endless and the word savanah and eden coalesce into endless tropical dreams of bountiful happiness and hummingbirds fly with extra energy and the days are made of .... poetry

only now do i see the elephant smile

elephants might fly

on some distant small planet.


but im sure we would call them

aliens

I hate circus and will not go to them. Sooooo if the world was a circus I would jump off!

Dang Jason, that was cool!

Have Heart-connections! Converse, confide..celebrate life!
..and CREATE beautiful art in that happy State of Mind :-) Cheers everyone!

That's beautiful Jason!

You Jason what you wrote. That's Art. I will have to memorize it.

Ronald unless it's "cirque Du Soleil" style. There is hope yet, don't jump.

gravity keeps me fairly anchored to the earth I'm afraid!