In order for any work of art—for example, a film, a novel, a poem, or a song—to have merit, itmust be understandable to most people.

To claim that art needs to be understood by the most people to have merit, as the statement above claims, is an untenable assertion. Although in some fields of art being understandable to most people can be regarded as an advantage, it does not necessarily merit the art.

To begin with, in the arts, simplicity has an advantage of attracting more viewers. People prefer being exposed to things that can be immediately understood. Such an approach of art takes advantage from this point and earns significant money. Consider many of the Hollywood directors. Based on a simple scenario, simple dialogue, and a simple end, more people can be attracted than those films based on a complex concept. Such simple films are a box office hit because the majority of people prefers simple contents. These arts can entertain the viewers, but is not influential and inspiring enough to possess merit.

Yet, there are other approaches of art intertwined with complexity and many people are not able to understand them: abstract arts. In abstract arts, it takes a while to be intimate with the art piece. Furthermore, to understand them, viewers need to possess prerequisite information. Thus, most people cannot understand abstract work as they do not have its prerequisite literacy. Nevertheless, we cannot reject such arts to have any merit merely because of their complexity and not being understandable by the most of the people. To illustrate, Consider abstract works of Van Gogh, one of the greatest painters. His posthumous fame is due to introduction of him by few artists. During his life, no one understood the value of his works, but were not his works worthy of any merit? Still, there are people who cannot understand the concept of his art worthy of millions of dollars.

Finally, the merit of the arts is not exclusively depended on being understandable to the most people. The effect of art is conveyed via many different ways, and only one of them is through understanding. Think about Celine Dion. Her singing is not understandable by those who do not know what she sings with French lyrics. Here, other factors carry the merit of her art. She can impress people’s emotions directly without the need of perceiving her words.

In short, as discussed in the body paragraphs, the merit of art is not necessarily tied to being understandable to most people. There are many expendable films that they own highest record in selling, but they do not have any merit other than the money they can bring for their producers. At the same time there are abstract forms of art which is not popular among people, but for centuries still they have their own value as the abstract work of Van Gogh. And finally, some sort of arts influence audience directly without the need of understanding.