Why Art is Important.

Why is it that in the grand scheme of our immediate world, art is continually shoved to the back of the line? The back of the line for funding, for development, for space, for scheduling, for air time, for our personal attention? Recently I heard a talk radio host asserting that we needed to limit arts and humanities majors because they were not academically rigorous. That we needed more engineers and scientists.

Engineers and scientists are important. But what do they do? They build things better. They research and explore the way that we work and the way that the world around us works.

Why?

So that we can build more efficiently. So that we will live longer and healthier lives. So that we can better utilize our resources. So that our lives will be easier.

Why? What do those things accomplish? What is their ultimate end?

I am not saying they are not important. Vital, even. I am just saying that they are not the end. They are the means.

We desire to make the world around us better for a reason. Us. And all of those who will come after us.

We can build a hospital with the latest technology. We can develop medical science that is breathtaking in its complexity and its effectiveness. But ultimately the goal is the patient, the one that comes to us who is sick and wants to be well. We minister to their health. It is not the roof over the hospital that makes the patient well, it is the doctor employing a body of knowledge and intuition that changes a person from one state to another.

That is also the job of the artist. The artist is the minister of the human condition. The photograph that makes a person weep or laugh. The aria that makes your heart pound and hum in your chest. The communion shared between an actor on stage and an audience. Art helps people grow and heal and connect with one another in a way that cannot be accomplished through science or technology.

Everything that we do, that we build, that we study, we do in an effort to make the world around us better. Everything the artist does, we do to make the world inside us better. Stronger. Richer. Truer. What’s more,  art, which is the creation of something out of nothing, is multiplied as it happens and the people who experience it take it with them and incorporate it into their own internal mechanics. Oil in the machine. So that what they do, whatever they do, is better for having shared it.

Art outcomes are frustratingly difficult to assess. Like thought, and dreams, and fears. Slippery and fleeting. But the impact can last for days or for a lifetime. Art can be a lot of things but to summarily throw the entire branch of study into the catch phrase “not academically rigorous” demonstrates a naive outlook on just how the world works.

I can understand the perspective. An architect can design a beautiful home. An artist can make you understand why it doesn’t feel like one, even though you’re family is there. Technology can show us where we are on a map anywhere on the globe. An artist can show you why you still feel lost. A scientist can show us the intricate relationship between biology and chemistry. An artist can show you the intricate relationship between your heart and the sunrise.

All of these are important. Important separately, important together. So that the idea of randomly throwing areas of study into one category or another simply serves to divide groups of people that not only need one another for balance but can enrich the outcomes of both as they find their common grounds and shared goals.

Tags: art, artist, education, humanities