As a writer, trying to conceptualise the meaning of art is something I find difficult to do, how can something be so difficult and complex? I started writing poems as a child before I knew what it was called, I could remember how retarded those words were, I called it my thoughts in lines. The main idea behind it was to find a way to write down my thoughts in a way only I would understand but gradually from just thoughts in lines it became poems. Eventually I got introduced to hive blockchain a place I believe to have the capacity of offering an audience to my poems. Whenever I get comments on my poems and all, only a few people were able to decipher some of the hidden meaning behind the words and that is the beauty of art work.
Most people only care about the pleasant experience they get from a work of art while others it is understanding its meaning that is pleasurable to them. We all seek out art work from different reasons. A division of art I so much admire is painting, you might be looking at a painting in an art gallery and all you see is a drawing of a thing or human, it could be something as disoriented as a splash of paint on the wall, you keep staring at it and all you see is just disorder from their the idea begin to form. You will start wondering what state of mind the artist was while making the piece, was he/she trying to pass a message? Or probably not but for curious minded people and lover of art this is how their mind works when they see a work of art.
Does a work of art necessary needs a meaning behind it? It is a tricky question you see but as an artist this I can say, every work of art is created for a particular purpose an artist might not even realise it at the moment but as time goes by it becomes clearer, that is why you see some artist create art works and would be unable to find a name for it at the moment, it suddenly feels like there is no right words to describe their creation. For every art work with a purpose or reason for its creation, its meaning is carved out of it, the lowest of all art work have a meaning even if its meaning is unidentifiable at the moment.
I remember a time during my higher national diploma days, I was offering a subject called critical writing, our lecturer walks in one day and asked us about a movie, only few of us seems to know this movie, can't really remember the movie name but it was a documentary. She asked us to go home and jot down any points that stand out in the movie. I waited till weekend before I watched the movie but one thing I can say that actually stand out about the movie was that it was extremely boring. It was not something I could just skip through, I tried my best to jot down some points, in our next class she asked if we have watched the movie we all nodded but from our facial expressions it was obvious that we didn't enjoy the movie.
Then she went ahead and taught us how to review and critique a movie, after the class was over I went back home to watch the movie again surprisingly I was seeing things I never saw before, it is kind of difficult to find what you don't understand and also it is easy to miss what you aren't looking for. The movie had other meaning to me after I watched the second time, in fact it was more entertaining. So what if I say understanding the message of a work of art is what makes it more entertaining. Truly there are other forms of art like music that you don't necessarily have to understand the lyrics but you can still vibe with the music, it is what I do with some south African songs, I don't really understand what they are saying but I vibe with the sound.
This write-up was inspired by weekly featured content titled "Meaning to art" in hive learners community.
Image 1 - Source
Image 2 - Source
