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 Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning f

A work of art can be a successful one if it is able to gain attention from many people. However, if an art piece is not able to gather the cognizance of many people, the art can be rendered merely with merit. There are several factors that influence an art to gain merit from the public. In my opinion, I mostly agree with the claim in the prompt and argue that a successful art is mostly able to deliver itself to a wide population.
To begin with, the most iconic pieces of art in the history have been observed to deliver a message that is vivid to a targeted population. For example, few of the most iconic films in either Hollywood or Bollywood are those that have sent a clear message along with the movie story. Such films include Training day featuring Denzel Washington, Three Idiots featuring Aamir Khan, etc. The former has delivered a message to spread awareness about the consequences of corruption in a government service and the latter example has served to elucidate the endless possibilities of a career for a student working on the field he or she is passionate about. Clearly, these movies sent an understandable message to most people, who were inspired at some level to appreciate the art used in the films. Thus, the most successful pieces of arts tend to be the ones that are understandable to most people.
In support to the discussion above, history has shown countless more examples where the art is successful after being able to clearly reveal itself and people are able to understand the art. Taj Mahal, for instance, is one of the seven wonders in the world in terms of architecture and is appreciated for its beauty. The elegance of the structure is clearly understood by the tourists because they are in awe of its design.
In contrast to above discussion, some art is not able to send a clear message but is still lauded by many people. For instance, the most famous painting by Leonardo DiCaprio – Mona Lisa. This painting has a very subtle portrait of a lady and people have hard time deciphering the emotions of Mona Lisa; happy, sad, neutral, etc. Although here the understanding of the art is not very clear, people are attracted to it and find the portrait amusing. An aesthete can sometimes spend hours looking at Mona Lisa to grasp the real emotions displayed by the image. Thus, the art of Mona Lisa purports that an art can be successful when people are not clearly able to understand the truth behind the art. Nonetheless, the scenario is not that people are not able to understand the art, rather people are putting efforts to understand the subtleness of emotions displayed by Mona Lisa.
In conclusion, most of the time, a piece of art has merit when it can be understood by most of the audience. However, there may be very few exceptions to this rule such as the Mona Lisa, which is difficult to be able to be understood by many people and yet holds merit in the art industry.