Art is meant to be experienced. Recently in Massachusetts, there was a major push to promote the arts. Social media lit up with people holding signs that read why the arts matter—which was genuinely encouraging to see. I love art, and I commend their enthusiasm. But I’m always surprised by how many people rest their entire case for the arts on one idea: self-expression.
In my opinion, this is one of the weakest reasons to defend the arts. It doesn’t do much heavy lifting. Narcissism can’t be the foundation for why art matters—though, yes, some might say the label fits many artists. If it does, I submit that it’s incidental. “I have something important to express!” “No, I do!”—and so on, endlessly.
To be fair, expression certainly occurs in both making and appreciating art. But is it really the main reason art matters? That’s what I find disheartening. I remember walking into a museum once and spending time with each painting. Some were astonishing in their detail and technical skill. Others had beautiful color schemes. But one work caught my eye for a different reason: I couldn’t make sense of what it was supposed to express. So I pulled out a knife and sliced the canvas from end to end, saving the art world from this injustice.
(That’s fiction.)
But it raises the question: why should what one person wants to express be so supremely important?
Often, it isn’t—at least not in any universal way.
Do we always care what an artist is expressing or trying to express?
I doubt it. Sometimes we just want to be in the presence of something that inspires us.
Do we always know what an artist was trying to express?
Certainly not.
Yet somehow, we still enjoy the art. Often deeply. Even when we don’t understand what the artist meant—or even know who the artist is—we’re drawn in. There’s something else going on, something more fundamental. The term “aesthetic worth” is contentious, but whatever we call it, we recognize its pull.
If I want to express myself clearly, I use words. They’re more efficient—less ambiguous, at least in theory. But when it comes to art, expression is often ambiguous by nature. Many works we admire contain layers of interpretation—often contradictory ones. While discussing an artist’s intent can be fascinating, I find it doubtful that this is art’s primary purpose.
When we look at a wide range of artworks, can we confidently say that what the artist intended to express was actually communicated? Take Georgia O’Keeffe: some interpret her work through a feminist lens, yet she claimed she was simply trying to show people what she saw. If art is only about expression, then isn’t its success largely guesswork?
Again, I didn’t destroy a painting. But I’ve often seen people enjoy art they don’t “get”—and that’s the point. Art offers something more than a message. Its primary purpose, I believe, is to offer a uniquely aesthetic experience. That may involve beauty, the sublime, or other aesthetic qualities. These are what draw us in, again and again—regardless of whether we understand what the work is “saying.”
In fact, it’s usually the excellence of the artwork, broadly conceived, that makes us care about its expression in the first place. (Yes, I’m aware that some art is intentionally ugly—but that’s a different discussion.)
Of course, we may disagree on which works achieve aesthetic excellence, or to what degree. But the core idea is this: when a work lacks that excellence—when it doesn’t engage us aesthetically—we usually don’t care what it’s trying to express. We walk away. We forget it. We don’t ask questions about meaning because there’s nothing pulling us deeper.
My concern is that we’ve reduced art to self-expression, at the expense of its other, more enduring qualities. It’s the aesthetic experience that captivates us. Expression may add intrigue—but it’s rarely what brings us back.
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