What is art for?

Art keeps us hopeful
- We need pretty things close to us not because we are in danger of forgetting the bad stuff (wars that
happened back in the days) but because terrible problems weigh so heavily on us, that we are in danger
of slipping into despair and depression.
- Prettiness matters as it is an emblem of hope, which is an achievement.
- Those flower and blue skies and kids in meadows painting is hope bottled and preserved for us when
we need it.

Art makes us less lonely
- There is a lot of sadness and regret that we cannot express from fear of seeming weird or a loser.
- Art can reassure us of the normality of pain.
- Art fights the false optimism of commercial society as it reminds us with dignity that every good life has
extra ordinary amounts of confusion, suffering, loneliness and distress within it.

Art rebalances us
- The art we love is frequently something we are drawn to because it compensates us for what we lack:
it counterbalances us.
Examples:
1. The painting got the tenderness we long for, but our jobs and relationships are currently lacking.
2. The painting is suffused with a pain and drama we have had to stifle but want to get in touch
with.
- Sometimes a whole society falls in love with a certain or art, because it is trying to rebalance itself.
Example:
1. France in the late 18th century that wanted David as a corrective to its decadence.
2. Britain in the 19th century that looked to the pre-Raphaelites to counter the effects of brutal
industriallisation.
- Art helps us to be more rounded, more balanced and more sane.

Art helps us to appreciate stuff
- Art returns glamour to its rightful place that has been stolen by the artists now, highlighting what is
genuinely worth appreciating.

Art is propaganda for what really matters
- It is a sort of propaganda in the sense of a tool that motivates and energises you for a cause – only it is
propaganda on behalf of some of the most important and nicest emotions and attitudes in the world which uses it’s skills to make newly appealing and accessible
Examples:
1. Propaganda about the simple life.
2. The need to broaden one’s horizons
3. It can be about a more playful, tender approach to life
- It s a force that stands up for the best sides of human nature and gives them a platform and an
authority in a noisy, distracted world.