Art for Whatever's Sake

Prehistoric cave painting (public domain, via Pixabay)

Paleolithic people painted cave walls to ensure success in the hunt. Egyptian artisans decorated tombs to provide sustenance for the departed. Medieval monks illuminated manuscripts with dragons and griffins to break the monotony of copying texts. Modern retirees take up painting not for profit, but for the pleasure of creating.

There are many reasons to make art. The idea that it exists to earn cash is relatively new and, for most us who create, largely irrelevant. There’s nothing wrong with making a few — or even a lot — of bucks from your work. But when money becomes the primary focus of art, expression itself is reduced to a commodity, and artists, mere cogs in a machine that serves the ends of commerce.

Art also exists as part of a web of communication linking artists with one another as well as with their audiences. Writers who read Flaubert were moved to become the realists. Painters who attended a certain exhibition in Paris emerged as the Impressionists. Every artist works in dialogue with those who came before. Perhaps the only act of pure individual creation was when that very first person realized that dabbing ochre on a cave wall could conjure the world onto a flat surface.

So write that novel. Draw your dog’s portrait. Start your day with a poem. Do the best you can — but don’t worry if it’s not original enough to impress a critic, or polished enough for someone to buy the rights to. Share fearlessly. And if you’re not competing with a working artist for their livelihood, borrow what you need to. Add your thread to that vast and ancient web of creativity that stretches back to the first cave painting — or the first yarn spun around a campfire.