What_Precisely_Is_Art_to_You_

Identify a piece of art which has communicated beauty to you, what precisely is this beauty and how is it that art manages to convey it' “Art” and “beauty” are two very common terms that we meet in our daily life; however, there are questions about them. What are the definitions of “art” and “beauty”, and who in our society, are qualified to rate something whether it is beautiful or not' Immanuel Kant defined that beauty is in the eye of the beholder . In my opinion, a beautiful piece of art should be something that is able to convey a message to the others. Also, the art work should include proper use of colours, with fine arrangements and shapes. Other factors, such as materials, may affect my decision. Again, we can see that it is almost impossible to establish a standard of “beauty”, and it is even more difficult to judge whether a piece of work is “art” or not. Let us look at the painting: Massacre in Korea, by Pablo Picasso. This essay will study why this is a piece of art and how beautiful it is, as well as what message is conveyed through the picture. Again, we can see that it is almost impossible to establish a standard of “beauty”, and it is even more difficult to judge whether a piece of work is “art” or not. Is it also the fame of the painter make the work beautiful' Let us first look at the meaning of the picture. From the name, we can understand what the work is basically about. The picture is painted in 1951, as a criticism of American intervention in Korean conflict . On one side, there are soldiers with guns and swords, while the other half contains naked children, women (some of them are pregnancies). The soldiers are portrayed as fully protected with modern weapons. The soldiers represents the South Korean Army, supported the U.S Army and other allies. They are covered with amours, pointing guns and sword at the civilians. The faces of these soldiers are full of coldness. They look rather like robots than humans. They are about to execute the civilians without any hesitation or sympathy. Most likely, they are no better than killing machines. On the other side, stand the innocent civilians, including children and women. One of the children is still playing with soils. Probably he is too young to feel the fear of war; he ignores the fact that he and the others are going to be murdered. The others are seeking the adults (most likely their mothers) for help, as they are scared of the killing machines, they tried to hide. However, one of the adult’s face seems to be cold and fearless. Probably, she knows that they cannot avoid the deadly fate. Among the other civilians, there are some pregnancies. They are scared, their face showed the fear: they are screaming and crying. We can also realize that there is no man among the civilians. Most probably they are sent to the war fronts. Back home, the innocent children and women are killed by the heartless soldiers. The setting tells pitiful facts of the war. The soldiers stand on green grass. Is not the green grass usually used to symbolize peace' Mean while on the other side, around the civilians is rotten, soiled land with a destroyed house and burning trees. The civilians are naked. Are not they hungry and poor' The war has taken away everything: life supplies, peace, and left them with soiled land and destroyed houses, and lastly, these innocent civilians are killed by strangers. Hence, we can see the beauty of the work from its meaning related to the historical event. It showed the fact that war took away mostly innocent people’s life. The war was meaningless. The factual data gave more than a million of civilians were killed during the 3-year-war between the North and the South Korea. The painting portrayed the real face of the war. It was not a librating operation, but was a massacre. The aliened - heartless killing machines arrive and bring hunger and death. The painting rises a question: was American intervention in Korean war sufficient' To some people, this painting might not be perfect in terms of colouring, shapes and arrangement. Human are portrayed with abnormal appearances. They look somewhat like alien, both the soldiers and the civilians. Picasso did not follow any regular figure of a man to portray the characters, however these “mutations” could still represents human beings, in different ways. If we compare and rate the “Massacre in Korea” to some other pictures, such as “The last supper”, probably the Last supper will earn more points in terms of colouring, and especially the characters in “The last supper” look more like human. But again, the question that we need to bring up is: what message does the painting convey' “The last supper” is a picture, portrayed an event, according to the Bible – Jesus Christ’s last supper before he is being executed on the cross. The painting has a different value from the “Massacre in Korea”. It is related to religion believes, however, behind the piece of work there are stories leading up to it. Looking at “The Last supper”, people would ask: why is it Jesus’ last supper, why does he have to die on the cross' The same thing applies to the “Massacre in Korea”. It relates to the history. The audiences will ask themselves: why did Picasso portray all the soldiers in that manner, why did not he give the North Korean civilians any cloths' Was not the war in Korea so bloody and was not it a massacre' Did the USA always bring peace and justice to the world' There are usually history behind the historical paintings and art work. The examples of the paintings prove that, to me, “art’ and its beauty is what it represents, the beauty is shown through the message that the piece of work conveys. A piece of art also contains the composer’s creativity, his soul and his mind. The work may not need to be fully related to real life, it may modify some aspect of daily life, the composer can hence, put in to the work his imageries and creativities. Probably no one can actually know how exactly our Lord looks like, but the imageries of a perfect person with characteristics of being kind, forgiving, gentle, etc. build up the portrait of Jesus Christ in the picture. In fact, different painters draw different faces of Jesus, but all of them represent the same person, someone who sacrificed himself, who died on the cross for human’s sins. Thus, a piece of art contains a message; it is designed with the composer’s creativity and imagination. The art work should be filled by the composer’s feeling. Many artists said that they had put all of their soul in to work, and when the work is sole, they become soulless. So to me, the artist’s feelings and passion put into the piece of work is very important to decide whether it is beautiful or not. In conclusion, I would say that no one can define what is art precisely. It is the matter of what is art and beauty to somebody. I believe that to me, “beauty” is shown in the meaning of the work, the message that the art work want to convey. Other factors, such as the combinations of colours are also important. Probably without colours, the artist will not be able to compose his work piece, and the work will not be able to attract and catch people’s concern. The term “beauty” and its definition here is also applied to other aspects of life, such as to human: a beautiful lady should be kind-hearted, and of course, she should own a good appearance and a beautiful voice! (1278 words) Bibliography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_in_Korea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War http://arthistory.about.com/cs/leonardo/a/last_supper.htm http://www.artchive.com/artchive/P/picasso.html ACS(I) Y4 – POD Text book.