The Significance of Art

For a large part of my life I failed to see art as more significant than mere entertainment. This includes everything from poetry to film and visual art. My first realisation regarding art came in high school. I was sitting in English class flipping through a World War I poetry booklet contemplating the differences between poets before and after the war (Rupert Brooke vs. Siegfried Sassoon, for example). The differences were fairly obvious; poets like Brooke wrote that war would be a grandiose experience while Sassoon described the horrors of war.

The significance of this difference soon became apparent. The poetry had managed to capture the opinions and thoughts of the time period. This at first seems like an obvious conclusion, but if one were to consider that all poetry manages to do this the implications become more interesting. The study of history usually draws upon political documents, records and books to detail the progression of humanity through the years. This approach is excellent for studying past events; but art highlights a different aspect of human history. The way people think and perceive the world is in constant flux. Art provides a record of how human minds have perceived the world over the years.

The implications of this are even more interesting. Through the study of art from different time periods one can determine the emphasis put on different values in the past, see how morals have changed and notice how people used to approach various problems. By analysing trends one could make more accurate projections of how the human mind will evolve to perceive the world in the future. Fields like marketing and product development could benefit from such knowledge.

Art has a greater significance than this. At first I only thought that art provided a record of human perception, however I recently realised the extent to which it actually influences our thought on a day to day basis. One example is the recent fixation with vampires and werewolves in popular culture. Now groups of teenagers across the Western US have begun organising themselves into ‘Wolf Packs’. They dress and act as ‘werewolves’, including sporting an attachable tail and tinted contact lenses. This behaviour emerged exclusively because of popular literature and film. Companies such as Starbucks have benefitted greatly from their positive portrayal in film. Youth smoking rates are also related to how frequently cigarettes are seen in film. In short, art tells us how to dress, how to respond to common situations and dictates which behaviours are acceptable.

For these reasons art should not be underestimated. Its role in describing the history of thought and perception is great enough. Its role in influencing thought and behaviour increases its significance even more. This influence is quite strong and it is debatable whether or not care should be taken to prevent negative and destructive behaviours from becoming too widespread.