Esthetics - the Role of Art

 

What is art, and what is its role? This is the last question we must answer.

 

According to an artist's value-judgments, art is the re-creation of reality. Expressing the artist's vision of reality on a medium - be it music, a canvas, or rock - is what he is doing.

 

The artist's own "sense of life" - how he sees life in general - is dependent on the selection of values done by him. In the face of an incomprehensible universe, a work of art may glorify despair and futility, or may glorify man's abilities to accomplish masterworks. Man as a depraved, snarling beast, or as a rational animal capable of the most noble sentiments, may be portrayed. Hatred, mindless destruction and death, or harmony, constructive action and life may be evoked.

 

That art is the food of the soul is held by Objectivism, and when it appeals to the highest philosophical and spiritual desires in man, it best fulfils its function.