In order for any work of art for example a film a novel a poem or a song to have merit it must be understandable to most people

Art has been made for about 40,000 years and, for the same period of time, art has generated discussion, debate, and even turmoil. For what it’s worth, art has also engendered much confusion. In response, the prompt suggests that, for a piece of work to have merit, it must be comprehensible to the majority of its observers. However, I mostly disagree with this stance for the following two reasons, although I do concede that, if the goal of an artist is to spread awareness of a particular issue, then mass comprehension is conducive to that goal.

First of all, in many cases, art is made either for a small subset of the population or for the artist himself or herself, not necessarily a large group of people or a significant segment of society. For instance, high artists consider it a point of pride that their art is not for laypeople, or, for the masses as they are commonly referred to. To provide another example, the films that are shown at Cannes Film Festival are often ambiguous in nature, a characteristic that is considered a virtue rather than a fault. Finally, a great number of artists especially painters do their activity not for any outside validation, but only as an inward expression of their feelings, difficulties, and anxieties. A perfect example of such is Winston Churchill, who completed hundreds of paintings not for any mass distribution, but simply to pass his time in retirement. If many artists, by their own admission, do not want their works to be understood by a great majority of people, then, by definition, art does not have to be comprehensible in order to have merit. If art has merit according to the artist himself or herself, then the strong assertion made in the prompt does not apply.

Secondly, the purpose of art is, at a fundamental level, to generate discussion, provoke feeling, and be prone to multiple interpretations. Having art be understood by everyone implies that there is only one correct interpretation, violating a core tenet of what makes art art. Take the most famous painting in the world, The Mona Lisa, as an example. Is she smiling? Is she pleased? Or is she depressed and hiding her sadness behind the thin veneer of an artificial smile? But isn’t that the entire purpose of the painting – the generation of numerous viewpoints? Isn’t that why we – as a society – find the picture so intriguing? Furthermore, the world of cinema is no exception, as evidenced by Cristopher Nolan’s arguably greatest film, Inception. The ending of the movie is purposely vague, and viewers are unsure whether the protagonist is in a dream state or actually living in reality. It is this inherent ambiguity that elevates the film, not hinders it, thus indicating that prompt’s firm stance is not necessarily valid. If art were to be instantly comprehended by most individuals, the art has now lost an essential quality of what makes it so special.

However, if an artist has the goal of spreading awareness of a particular issue, then having the work be accessible to a large portion of society is desirable. Take Picasso’s Guernica for instance. This massive painting was completed to show the horrors of the Fascist regime in Spain during 1930s. Had this painting been too ambiguous – too arcane – the gruesome brutality of Franco’s government would not have been spread around the world. Further, social and urban photographers often have a mission of publicizing the damage poverty I doing to the United States. If these photographers wee to just take a picture of an obscure reference that merely symbolizes poverty the message would not have the intended reach. Thus, the photographs tend to be direct in their portrayal and understood immediately by all those who view them.

To conclude, in determining the value of art, one should not look to its comprehensibility. Rather, it should be recognized that much art is completed for a subset of the population and that art, almost by definition, demands multiple interpretations – not one correct understanding. It cannot be denied though, if an artist has a specific intent to raise awareness of an issue, then making said art more accessible is prudent.