Probably everyone’s asked themselves that question, especially with modern abstract art and to be honest, for me, there isn’t an exact answer to it. On one side it has to show skill and creativity but that would make Math a form of art when it obviously couldn’t be further away from it. When you think about it a little more it has to be a form of self-expression. Doesn’t seem quite right, though, there’s got to be more to it. When one comes to think about their favorite piece of art there’s usually one thing that connects all forms of art and that’s emotion. How a certain work of art makes us feel makes a big part of what makes it art. Putting it as shortly as I can say it’s creative self-expression that provokes an emotion. What makes it good, though?
There are countless numbers of artists around the world and in history but only some of them are considered good and even fewer are remembered in history. One of the reasons for it is the fact that they expressed themselves creatively in a way that made others feel something in a different way. There’s no way that would be enough to make the next Mozart, Freddie Mercury or Bresson. If we keep digging deeper into the history of art, we’ll realize that there have been a lot of artists that were ahead of their time, but they were still great. Look at Vivian Maier for example. Her work is absolutely stunning, but it was left unappreciated. Why weren’t all of them appreciated? They were ahead of their time… Let’s add that to the list, then. What makes a great artist is someone who is skilled enough to express themselves and make others feel something in the meantime, differently than all the other artists out there, but not too differently for people not to understand it. How do you balance it, though? This is what great artists shine at. They somehow intuitively know how to make great art differently than everybody else that provokes an emotional response but at the same time isn’t radically different than what’s out there.
One of the biggest influences in world rock, metal and pop music was Kurt Cobain. He reached his peak in the early 90’s after starting his career around 10 years prior. Everybody knows him as something like the god of grunge. He didn’t start grunge, though. According to Wikipedia grunge was first used to describe the “grinding, sludgy sound of Seattle” in the 60s. There have definitely been a whole bunch of great grunge musicians before Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden came to be but they weren’t talented enough as Kurt, Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell to balance being different with being understandable. This is exactly what made them that great.
To sum up, art is hard to understand. It’s hard to even write down a clear definition of what good art is. Good art is perfectly imperfect. Put in three words art is emotion… Emotions are usually hard to understand and that’s exactly what makes them beautiful.
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