| Painting - the art of putting colours on flat
surfaces. Are there praise-singers and oral historians? These
are poets and their art is part of poetry. Dancing is much more
important in Africa than in Europe where only a few people are
interested in Ballet, which is dancing performed on a stage with
formal music. In traditional society people designed and built
their own houses. This is part of Architecture. An art which is still found in Africa but which has almost died out in America and Europe is that of the Story-teller. In Europe the storyteller who travels from place to place has been replaced by the writer and film-maker (but a few people are reviving this art). In societies where the language was not written the work of the novelist was done by the storyteller. Praise-singing as a poetic art has also died out in Europe (though perhaps it has been replaced by the business of the Public Relations Consultant - a branch of advertising and, some might say, of lying). You should think about the difference between telling a story and writing it down. That is, what are the different skills needed by a story-teller and a novelist? All of the arts require the brain to be working in a certain way, differently from the way it is used to calculate the results of mathematical equations. All of them require something more than logical thought. What that something more is, may be discovered by reading on below, especially in the poetry section. What are the Arts for? As far as I know all human beings enjoy doing things for pleasure as well as to fulfil their basic needs of food and shelter. It is the way people are made. There are probably no societies in which people spend all their time working only to feed, house and clothe themselves. Some of the earliest signs of human beings are paintings found in caves in Europe and the Sahara. These are thousands of years old and show that the art of painting is also very old. Stone carvings even older have been found. There is no doubt that human beings have been doing these things as long as they have been on earth. Of course archaeologists cannot dig up remains of the arts of language in the way they can dig up ancient pottery but all people of today have them, so that probably we are not wrong if we say that people in the past had them too. The arts of music are also probably as old as the others. Pictures of musical instruments have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs which show that the ancient Egyptians used musical instruments similar to those still in |
use in East Africa. Why do people practice the arts? First because they enjoy them. Why do you like singing or listening to music? People like doing something well - even to do it better than is needed for everyday use. Eight hundred years ago people in Europe started building huge cathedrals, most of which still exist. The people who built them lived in poor houses. They said the cathedrals were built for the glory of God. Another way of saying that is that they were built for the joy of doing something well. Perhaps too the cathedrals were built to have certain emotional effects on the people who entered them while music was playing - emotions which made them think of God. The effort to create new things may be necessary to wake the brain up so that all of it, not just parts of it, can be used. Music has often been said to be necessary for complete human development. Great architecture, as in the mediaeval cathedrals, has been said to have the same effect. If so, the arts are a necessary part of everyone's education. Why did the storyteller tell stories? Why did the people listen? I can't answer these questions. But the questions: Why does a writer write? and Why do people read novels? are the same. They are artists. What is an artist? An artist is someone who practices an art. He might be a painter, sculptor, musician or writer. He does it because he wants to do it better and better. He does not do it only because he can earn money that way - although usually an artist will try to earn money through his art. But many artists continue to practice even though they make little money. They do it because they don't want to do anything else. Of course if people like his work they will buy it. Sometimes an artist can make a lot of money. But most artists don't make much money from their work. And of course not everyone who wants to be an artist is good enough to make money. Probably many who want to should not. An artist is someone who shows a talent for a particular art. Sometimes an artist shows this talent from a very early age. This is often true of musicians. It sometimes happens that a young child sees and hears a certain musical instrument and knows that he must play it. He (or she) may be very good at it even without teaching. Many well-known performers and composers started as children. One of the most famous of the composers of European classical music, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, began composing music at the age of four years. Another is the modern violinist the late Yehudi |
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