Why Should You Care About Art?

(Photograph: TJ Khayatan/Twitter)

In 2015, a “modern art” installation titled “Where Are We Going to Dance Tonight?” by the so-called Italian artist couple Goldschmied & Chiari was thrown into the litter bin after the cleaning staff mistook it for rubbish [1]. This is not the only instance of this phenomenon. A similar case happened in 2014 when a cleaner threw away works made out of newspaper, cardboard, and cookie pieces [2]. In an opposite case from 2016, a pair of glasses left on San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art floor were mistaken for art [3]. In 2017, at Robert Gordon University in Scotland, a man left a pineapple at a local exhibition. When he returned a few days later, he was amazed to discover that the museum staff had enclosed the pineapple in glass and made it an official part of the exhibition. The local journalist who covered the story concluded, “Trash can be art sometimes” [4].

These are only a few humorous yet deeply revealing examples of the way art is viewed in our culture. Both the glass and the pineapple instances were pranks, but the museum staff, people who are supposedly educated in art history, were oblivious. They even went as far as collaborating with the pranksters and providing a glass enclosure, as we’ve seen in the case of the pineapple. The most outrageous contemporary example I could find is the serial charlatan Maurizio Cattelan. In 2019, he famously taped a banana to a wall, later selling it twice for $120,000. This man is a multi-millionaire.

Art, apart from religion, is the only field where this level of charlatanism is possible. Across the realm of religions, there are rabbis who sell their blessings for thousands of dollars, megachurches who scalp attendees for donations under the guise of charity for goodness, and many such cases. To Cattelan’s credit, at least his product adds some nutritional value.

In this essay, we will delve into the evolution of art, its underlying philosophical principles, and the profound impact that these principles have on artistic expression. It begins with a definition of art and its philosophical foundations in metaphysics and epistemology. The essay examines how different civilisations, from ancient Egypt to the Renaissance, reflected their dominant philosophies in their art. It then focuses on the decline of art in the 18th and 19th centuries—influenced by philosophers like Kant—and explores how modern art movements further deviated from traditional aesthetics. In its conclusion, the essay provides an analysis of current trends and the potential for a new cultural renaissance.

What Is Art?

Art is a very abstract concept, yet it is also a directly perceivable concrete object. On the one hand, we can look at Michelangelo’s David and immediately recognise it as art. However, when asked to define exactly why it is art, or more broadly, what art even is, we face a challenge. This is similar to how we perceive an airplane: we can instantly identify it and understand its function, but comprehending the complex laws of physics and engineering that enable it to fly requires deeper knowledge. Similarly, to truly define art, we must first understand the underlying philosophical principles that shape it: metaphysics and epistemology. These branches of philosophy study the nature of reality and the means by which we acquire knowledge, respectively. Without grasping these foundations, any attempt to define art remains superficial.

The study of art falls under the philosophical branch known as aesthetics, and is heavily reliant on fundamental branches of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics, with a particular emphasis on metaphysics and epistemology. One way to think about this is to liken it to studying electrical engineering—one needs to have a strong foundation in mathematics and physics before delving into the field. Without this groundwork, it would be difficult to grasp the core concepts of electrical engineering.

Metaphysics studies the nature of the universe. Is it accessible to human nature? What is a human being? Is man the rational animal, the emotional animal, or is he defined by something else? Is the world operated by immutable, logical laws, and is therefore understandable by the human subject, or is it unknowable? 

Epistemology studies the means and processes by which we acquire knowledge. While metaphysics tells us whether or not there is such a thing as truth, epistemology discovers the process by which we acquire truth. Religious metaphysics would instruct us that the world is God’s creation; therefore, all truth is that which God says. Epistemology will guide us on how to reach God’s truth, mystical revelation, faith, etc.

Furthermore, the type of metaphysics and epistemology we hold dramatically affects the type of aesthetics we hold. If the universe is a flux of constant change and is therefore unpredictable and unknowable, then art will be as well. Today, it might be Michaelangelo’s David. Tomorrow, it could be a banana on the wall. If we are to embrace a rational approach to philosophy, that is, to accept the fact that the universe is operated by the laws of logic, we understand that every entity in the universe is limited to its own nature—that A is A. We understand that contradictions do not exist. We understand that a car is not a giraffe and that a giraffe is a giraffe and not something else. The same applies to more abstract concepts such as art. To exist as a valid, meaningful idea, art has to mean something. It cannot be, as that journalist stated earlier: “trash can be art sometimes.” Trash is trash, and art is art. It’s either or. Such a statement is comparable to saying that “giraffes can be  tables sometimes.” It’s senseless. In order to make sense, our definitions have to be specific and non-contradictory; crucially, the definition has to be made in essential terms—the fundamental thing that makes it worthy of having a unique concept. 

This is Ayn Rand’s definition of art: 

“Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments.” [5] 

Selective re-creation means that the artist uses some medium, like music, painting, or sculpture, to present a heightened version of reality that presents their metaphysical value-judgments, i.e., their profound views about the world. Art could be something small, like a fruit painted in a very lively (or very unlively) manner, or it could be something massive and dramatic, like Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. 

Art has a deeply rooted connection with the field of epistemology. It has a special, more direct access to our minds. Consider, for instance, if we want to portray what the ideal man looks like. One could write a lengthy article describing all the attributes of the ideal man: impeccable physical state, extreme intellect, creativity and sense of humour. However, it’s only once you read a story about such a man that you are able to grasp what that ideal is fully. One of the best examples of such a work of art is The Fountainhead, which tells the story of the ideal man—Howard Roark. After reading the book, the abstract concept of an ideal man is condensed into two words: Howard Roark. This concept can guide us when facing dilemmas. We can ask ourselves, "What would Howard Roark do?" The answer could lead us to the right course of action. The same is true for the opposite case. Suppose you want to detail what a despicable human being looks like, and what the psychological implications of committing a heinous crime are. There’s no better way to grasp that complex notion than to read Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” after reading that novel,  you can simply say: “Don’t be Raskolnikov.”

The same applies to music, which concretizes our emotions. For example, Beethoven’s 5th Symphony takes us on a journey that starts very dramatically, eventually becoming more positive, ending in a glorious, beautiful finale. It conveys to us that it is possible to overcome great challenges; it motivates us, and it speaks to our unique states.

(Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich, 1818)

With paintings, the same is possible. If we take “Wanderer Above The Sea of Fog” by Caspar David Friedrich as an example, we see what it looks like to reach a summit in all its glory. The image of the Wanderer—which is hung above my desk— accompanies me every day, and reminds me that I must aim higher. These are only a few examples of the great conceptual power that art has; indeed, life without art is an incomplete life.

To achieve art’s unique power, it has to mean something; it has to re-create reality according to the artist’s metaphysical value-judgments. If it doesn’t convey the artist’s elevated (or diminished) version of the world, if it doesn’t illustrate what is of importance to him–his values–then it is not art. It doesn't perform its function. At best, it is a nice object of decoration, and at worst, it is a nihilistic laughing stock–like the examples we examined at the outset.

Imagine a baker who claims that every item in his pastry shop is a legitimate form of pastry. According to him, a pain au chocolat is just as much a pastry as a fake cardboard one. Such a baker would likely go bankrupt. Although, in today's world, he might actually become a TikTok sensation! Most people would consider him a fraud. In the field of art, however, it's not only acceptable to be fraudulent, but celebrated. This "industry" is worth billions of dollars. What went wrong?

The History

From ancient cave paintings to the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, etc, art has always been part of human civilisation. Across these civilisations, attitudes towards art ranged from hostility to celebration. For instance, the ancient Greeks celebrated art, while the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages suppressed art, only allowing the production of art in service of the church. 

Nevertheless, art has always been created to a certain degree. The attitude towards art within the civilisation had a direct influence on the kind of art that would be produced. In sum, the predominant philosophical trends within the civilisation prescribed the themes and styles of the art. 

( Lady Sennuwy, ca. 1920 BCE.)

As illustrated in ancient Egypt, life on earth was viewed as a kind of prison, with death being their goal of life, i.e. salvation. Operating under this premise, the Egyptians built great monuments to death: the pyramids. Their statues can be characterised as two-dimensional and always forward-facing, which symbolised an eternal, unchanging presence. This was particularly important for statues of deities and pharaohs, who were considered divine or semi-divine. Their frontal stance indicated their eternal watchfulness and presence in the afterlife. On the other hand, the Greeks were focused on the present life, which manifested in their statues; they were three-dimensional, free-standing, and had human-like expressions. Essentially, ancient Greek art was the opposite of ancient Egyptian art. As art historian H. W. Janson noted:

"The Greek sculptures are truly freestanding, without the back slab that supports Egyptian stone figures. In fact, they are the earliest large stone images of the human figure that can stand on their own. Moreover, Greek sculptures incorporated empty space (between the legs, for instance, or between arms and torso), whereas Egyptian figures remained embedded in stone, with the spaces between forms partly filled. Early Greek sculptures are also more stylized than their Egyptian forebears. This is most evident in the large staring eyes, emphasized by bold arching eyebrows, and in the linear treatment of the anatomy.” [6]

(Riace Warrior, ca. 450 BCE)

If we are to abstract away these important distinctions between the Greeks and the Egyptians, we conclude that the fundamental common denominator was that they both used art to concertize their metaphysical value judgements; their art portrayed the dominant views in their culture. For the Egyptians, it was the afterlife; for the Greeks, it was this life (Which is the reason Egyptians didn't have philosophy. What's the use of philosophizing about your prison cell? The first concern is to escape.)

Throughout art history, we observe similar trends. In general, the more a “this-worldly” philosophy dominates a given culture, the more art is produced and the more it focuses on life. On the other hand, the more the philosophy is focused on the “other-worldly,” the after-life, the world of Forms, the noumenal world, etc, the less art we see, and the less concerned the art is with reality.

As civilizations transitioned towards a focus on the other-worldly and abstract realms, the emphasis on beauty in art diminished. In ancient Greece, art celebrated the human form and the beauty of the natural world, reflecting their philosophy that valued life on earth. The Greeks created sculptures and paintings that showcased idealised human bodies and harmonious proportions, embodying their belief in the potential and greatness of mankind.

“Beauty was more than an idle conceit for Classical Athenians; it also had a moral dimension. Pose and expression reflected character and feeling, which revealed the inner person and, with it, arete (excellence or virtue). Thus contemplation of harmonious proportions could be equated with the contemplation of virtue.” [7] - H. W. Janson

As we move into the Roman era and then into the Dark Ages, this focus on earthly beauty wanes. The Romans, while still creating impressive works, often imbued their art with a sense of duty and propaganda rather than pure aesthetic beauty. This trend worsened in the Dark Ages, when art became more about religious symbolism and the afterlife, often depicting man as frail and sinful rather than strong and beautiful.

This is not surprising when we consider how anti-art Plato, the father of this other-worldly philosophic tradition, was. Indeed, Plato viewed our world as a sort of projection of the perfect world of Forms. Therefore, everything in this world is less “real” and further away from the truth. Consequently, Plato gravitated towards the more abstract science of mathematics, which he regarded as the noblest field of study. As art is an imitation of reality, being an artist would be a double crime; not only does the artist fail to acknowledge that this world isn’t real, but he also makes imitations of it. It’s a fake of a fake. It misleads people to think that this world is real and, therefore, art is bad.

To quote from Plato’s Republic:

“Then the imitator [the artist], I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image. For example: A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter.” [8]

Since Plato lived in the naturalistic, reality-oriented civilisation of the ancient Greeks, he still maintained a connection to this world; thus, his philosophic tradition still incorporated elements of this life; art was still possible.

Fast forwarding to the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of the supremacy of the Catholic Church, we have observed a dramatic decline in the amount of philosophical writings and the production of art. That is because the ideas of Christianity, like those of the ancient Egyptians, celebrate the afterlife. They were focused on death. When one’s focus is on death, why bother with writing treatises on how to live a good life (ethics), or explaining what the nature of the universe is (metaphysics), or trying to figure out what the proper method of understanding reality is (epistemology). Under such a mystical and death-worshipping society, these ideas are only of significant importance insofar as they explain how to worship god. Therefore, the art during these dark times was only in service of religion and the religious authorities. 

No beauty. 

No elevation of man.

Only portraying man as a weak and pathetic animal whose only hope is salvation.

(The School of Athens, Raphael, 1511)

As the Renaissance brought the rediscovery of Greek ideas—primarily the this-worldly ideas of Aristotle—Western civilization emerged from the darkness of the Dark Ages and witnessed the rebirth of art. Thanks to great philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas, more this-worldly ideas began to dominate Western civilization. Aquinas sought to reconcile Christianity with Aristotelian philosophy, emphasizing reason and empirical observation as means to understand the world. He argued that faith and reason are not mutually exclusive but can complement each other. It is thanks to these epistemological foundations established by Aquinas that we saw a flourishing of intellectual and artistic achievements during the Renaissance. This period gave rise to giants such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Titian, and many others who created the most magnificent artworks in history. The lesson we can draw from this period is that it is possible for a civilization to change.

During the Renaissance, which was a more secular time, the painters commissioned by the Catholic Church were interested in portraying religious subjects as real people. They depicted religious figures in a realistic manner, emphasizing their human qualities and not portraying them as abstract, otherworldly beings. This shift was significantly influenced by Aquinas's integration of Aristotelian thought, which valued the material world and human experience. By contrast, during the Dark Ages, art was heavily influenced by the mystical and otherworldly focus of the Church. Jesus was often depicted as a suffering figure, emphasizing his divine nature and the transcendental aspects of Christianity. However, in Michelangelo’s Pieta, he beautifully portrays the tragic loss of a loving mother, capturing the humanity and emotional depth of the religious narrative.

These key historical examples prove that art history cannot be studied in isolation from the history of philosophy. In fact, they are so intertwined that I will claim that anyone who studies art history in disregard of the existing philosophical trends of the time, does not even begin to enter the subject. 

Moreover, aesthetics is a branch of philosophy which illustrates philosophical ideas in concertized form. It provides us with a unique lens into a civilization that a history book could not provide. Although we could spend hours explaining ancient Greek culture, there will always be a missing link. What does it look like? Art history provides us with that missing link. Thus, I must also make the claim that a full study of history is incomplete without the study of art. By solely studying history, one misses a key element that makes our understanding of the culture more profound. We can capture the most crucial elements of ancient Egyptian culture by examining a great statue in depth. Not only does it provide us with what it looks like (thus concretising our understanding of the culture), but it also presents us with the culture’s sense of life; the common implicit metaphysical views from the lens of not a philosopher but rather a simpler member of society: the artist. Of course, one must compare multiple objects to find the common denominator. One or two pieces of sculpture are not enough. There are anomalies; in fact, there are more anomalies as history moves on due to the expansion of various philosophical traditions leading to a wider spectrum of variations.

That was a brief overview of general art history until the age of the Enlightenment. As this essay does not intend to represent a full art historical overview, I will jump forward to the 18th and 19th centuries, when art began to deteriorate gradually.

So far, we’ve always had art that has been mimetic; that is, regardless of the wide spectrum of themes and styles of the art, it has fundamentally always been based in reality. Art always portrayed man. Regardless of how beautiful or how ugly, how perfect or how disfigured, there was always a portrayal of human beings. It is only when we reach the later centuries that that foundation begins to fade away. And, as we’ve realised throughout art history, it is a result of the dominant philosophy.

The Crack

In the 18th Century, we are met with the emergence of the most influential philosopher; it is he who has resurfaced ancient, Platonic ideas to the core of the philosophical mainstream. That person was, of course, Immanuel Kant. Kant’s metaphysics and epistemology are based on the idea that true reality, what he has called the “noumenal world,” is inherently inaccessible to the human mind. Therefore, the true nature of things is unknowable. Moreover, through a complicated doctrine called “Kant’s Copernican Revolution,” Kant declared that every knowledge we consume is a result of our collective human mind structure:

“Thus we ourselves bring into the appearances that order and regularity in them that we call nature [reality], and moreover we would not be able to find it there if we, or the nature of our mind, had not originally put it there.” [9]

Human cognition is inherently subjective. Hence, man is condemned by his very nature to never be able to access “that we call nature.” As you can infer, it is a very complicated philosophy which is far beyond the scope of this essay. Nevertheless, it’s crucial to understand the core subjectivity of knowledge and the inaccessibility of truth inherent in this philosophy. Kant’s philosophy had a catastrophic effect on art. If all human knowledge is subjective, so is our understanding of art. Because everything is inherently subjective, how can we know that one piece of art is art and the other isn’t? According to Kant, we are categorically unable to ascertain; after all, there’s no objective reality to refer to as the arbiter of truth.

Thus, the window has been shattered. What followed was a wave of philosophers who accepted Kant’s key notions and pushed them to their extremes, popular among them being Hegel and Schopenhauer. Let us examine a few examples of how art embodies these ideas. Firstly, with the dawn of the 19th century, we are beginning to witness the slow death of epistemological clarity.

“The world is my representation.” - Arthur Schopenhauer [10] 

(J. M. W. Turner, The Slave Ship, 1840)

In the 19th century, artists started using their art to express their inner emotions rather than focusing only on the outside world. J. M. W. Turner was one of the pioneers of this movement. Turner's work elevated emotions and incorporated expressive use of colour, influenced by the predominant philosophical trends of the time. He expressed the idea that, since we cannot access the true nature of the world, all we have left is our inner emotions, a concept advocated by Kant and his followers. However, despite Turner's dramatic and emotional art, it is important to note that because he lived in the 19th century, his art was still fundamentally about representing reality. As you can see in the “Slave Ship,” we have recognisable subjects, but the style is about showing a vividly colourful portrayal of that dramatic event. This is art because it conveys the artist's metaphysical value-judgments and illustrates how Turner saw the world in all its dramatic glory.

“It may be generally stated that Turner is the only painter, so far as I know, who has ever drawn the sky, not the clear sky, which we before saw belonged exclusively to the religious schools, but the various forms and phenomena of the cloudy heavens; all previous artists having only represented it typically or partially, but he absolutely and universally.” [11]

Turner’s unique approach added expressivity to the art, which made for some intriguing artworks, and it is not fundamentally wrong from an aesthetic perspective. While Turner has a certain style, it is very lacking in the epistemological realm; that is, it is lacking in its crystal clear way of communication. Granted, sometimes we don’t want crystal clarity; sometimes we relish in vague mystery and drama. So I don’t find anything particularly offensive about Turner. His unique style represents an interesting development that some people may gravitate towards. However, the negative influences Turner’s art had on later schools of art are indeed destructive.

(Impression, Sunrise, Claude Monet, 1872)

If we are to jump forward a bit–to the Impressionists–we identify a further development on the issue of expressive colour and brushstrokes. This time, with the added theme of capturing a passing moment, an “impression” of the reality that stood before them at that particular time of day. As we progress in time, and as the ideas of subjectivism become more popular in the culture, the art loses focus and becomes obscured into a blur.

As we approach the 20th century, the dominance of subjectivist art, known as modern art, is even more popular. Though it is important to stress that there are still links to reality preserved by many of the artists during that time, their art has become steadily more overtly subjectivist.

(Large Blue Horses, Franz Marc, 1911) 

With the turn of the 20th century, we are seeing the rise of expressionism. This movement was explicitly about expressing the artist’s emotions and using reality as a means to that end. We witness a complete disregard for the concretization of any remnant of an objective reality. However, we still experience recognizable objects, such as horses, that Franz Marc portrays in his iconic blue fashion. The meaning of the blue has a different meaning to each individual. Nothing about the blue colour of the horses provides us with a specific concentration of directly perceivable metaphysical value-judgments. Thus, it’s not clear how to understand what Marc attempted to communicate in his art, rendering the piece a less effective means of communication. It lacks the crystal clarity we enjoy in a Vermeer painting. These are subjective representations of metaphysical value-judgments; for each viewer, they could convey different values. Still, it does convey the artist’s metaphysical value-judgments and is still a re-creation of reality. For this reason, I don’t believe it can be said that this is not art.

(Self-portrait grimacing, Egon Schiele, 1910)

Another trend of the 20th century is not only the subjectivity of the style and subjects, but also the elevation of ugliness. Up until that point, virtually all art schools accepted the notion that art should be beautiful. The likes of Egon Schiele sought to bring ugliness to the front. With this development, we not only see the disfigurement of the human body, which extenuates the anti-reality elements in modernism, but we also see their implicit negative view of man. Linking us back to medieval times, this trend backtracks us to when art portrayed man as a disfigured, despicable being.

All of this was made possible due to the philosophical trends of the 20th century, which openly declared that we cannot know reality. In the emergence of Existentialist philosophy, with writers such as Sjoren Kirkegaard, Dostoevsky, Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger, man was no longer regarded as the rational animal but rather the irrational animal. Characterized by its irrationality, the animal, according to Sartre, experiences a constant feeling of anguish and nausea. For that reason, it is no wonder that beauty vanished from art and was replaced with ugliness and irrationality.

“And why are you so firmly, so triumphantly, convinced that only the normal and the positive--in other words, only what is conducive to welfare--is for the advantage of man? Is not reason in error as regards advantage? Does not man, perhaps, love something besides well-being? Perhaps he is just as fond of suffering? Perhaps suffering is just as great a benefit to him as well-being? Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering, and that is a fact.” - Dostoevsky [12]

I must stress that the first half of the 20th century was still mixed. Especially in the field of music, there were many great artists, with giant composers such as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel, and Sergei Prokofiev able to emerge and achieve wide success. Great painters such as Gustave Klimt and Edward Hopper carried the tradition of the 19th century more than they embodied the spirit and philosophic trends of the 20th.

It is in the 20th century that we reach the breaking point.

The Break

(Fountain, Marcel Duchamp, 1917)

To escape the horrors of World War I, a group of so-called artists from around Europe relocated to neutral Switzerland. It was in the “Cabaret Voltaire” nightclub in Zurich where that group formed a new movement: “Dada.”

Dada was an anti-art “art” movement, which put forward works that were essentially a mockery of all the good that art stood for. It was a nihilistic, anti-reality, anti-reason, and anti-logic movement. 

As Hugo Bell wrote in the infamous Dada Manifesto:

“I shall be reading poems that are meant to dispense with conventional language, no less, and to have done with it.” [13] 

The Dadaists utilised mediums of art, such as theatre, poetry, and visual arts to dispense their art. The biggest symbol for that was Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain.” This was the ultimate manifestation of all the trends leading up to this point: the ever-lower status of an objective reality, objective truth, and disregard for beauty. The “Fountain” represents the philosophical trends of time as there is no way to ascertain true or false objectively. Anything goes; everything can be art, even urinals. Duchamp acknowledged his own lack of interest in creating proper art:

“I wanted to get away from the physical aspect of painting. I was much more interested in recreating ideas in painting. For me the title was very important. I was interested in making painting serve my purpose, and in getting away from the physicality of painting. For me Courbet had introduced the physical emphasis in the 19th century. I was interested in ideas—not merely in visual products.” [14]

Our contemporary versions of the urinal include the banana, the pineapple, and the glasses, which we discussed in the introduction. These examples are mere copies of the urinal. Alas, they don’t even have a claim to originality. At least Duchamp had that going for him.

Conclusion - Is There Hope?

We have witnessed how art progressively became more hostile to the essence of art. It became less about recreating reality and concretizing metaphysical value-judgments. Art reached a point where it didn’t accomplish anything, resulting in “art” movements like Dada, which represented a rejection of art in its proper meaning.

These developments result from the philosophical trends of our times. In aesthetic terms, we have now reached a level worse than that of the Dark Ages. At least in the Dark Ages, bananas taped to a wall were not sold for hundreds of thousands. Because of this, the majority of people are sceptical of art. They think it’s a waste of time which, is justifiably so if what we mean by art are these monstrous works of charlatanism. To regard a field riddled with scammers and charlatans negatively is common sense. To change the course of art, we must uproot the philosophic foundations of our culture in all fields of philosophy and science, including aesthetics.

The Renaissance demonstrated that it’s possible for a culture to change its philosophical premises. We need talented artists who celebrate a pro-life, pro-reason perspective, and create art that motivates and reaffirms people’s rational aspirations. Art should demonstrate that achieving greatness and happiness during our limited time on this earth is possible. With enough such artists, philosophers, scientists, and entrepreneurs who believe in these ideals, we can change the course of history.

Instead of descending into another dark age, we can achieve a second Renaissance.

So why should you care about art? Because it’s the most revealing signal of where we are headed as a civilisation. As Aristotle said:

“Poetry [art], therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular.” [15] 

Art displays what is possible for us; history displays what has already happened. Art is about what we ought to do; history is about what we have already done. Without art, we lose that foresight. Imagine a world where art once again inspires greatness, where sculptures, paintings, and symphonies elevate our understanding of what it means to be human. This is the potential of a new Renaissance, one that we can create if we choose to value and cultivate true art.

---

Thank you for reading Philosophy: I Need It. If you enjoyed it and want to see more content, consider supporting me by clicking the button below. Every dollar counts.

---

Works Cited

[1] "Janitor Mistakes Art Installation for Trash, Throws It Out." Artnet News, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/janitor-throws-out-art-installation-347937.

[2] "Cleaner Throws Away 'Rubbish' Art." BBC News, https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-26270260.

[3] "Pair of Glasses Left on US Gallery Floor Mistaken for Art." The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/27/pair-of-glasses-left-on-us-gallery-floor-mistaken-for-art.

[4] "Lad Leaves Pineapple at Museum and It Gets Turned into Art." LADbible, https://www.ladbible.com/funny/viral-awesome-lad-leaves-pineapple-at-museum-and-it-gets-turned-into-art-20170508.

[5] Rand, Ayn. "Art and Cognition." The Romantic Manifesto.

[6,7] Janson, H. W. History of Art. 8th ed., Chapter 5.

[8] Plato. The Republic. Book X.

[9] Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. A125.

[10] Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation.

[11] Ruskin, John. Modern Painters. Vol. I.

[12] Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Notes from the Underground.

[13] Bell, Hugo. Dada Manifesto.

[14] Duchamp, Marcel. "The Great Trouble with Art."

[15] Aristotle. Poetics. XI.