Art VS entertainment !
- Evi Key
- 30 avr. 2017
- 4 min de lecture
What is the difference between Art and entertainment ?
Disclaimer : As the other articles of this blog, this answer is a "suggestion", it's up to you to understand it as you wish and to make it whatever you want. I personally think that it's essential not to confuse Art with entertainment for the following reasons...
Art may entertain. But entertainment can't be qualified as Art.
Why ?
... Let the fight begin !
Round #1 ! : The intention
Why do we create entertainment ? Why do we create Art ?
As every action of a human who wants to conceive something, it must comes from an "intention". Without intention, no action. As Science says : "Nothing could appear from nothing".
Examples : A human builds a roof in the intention to shelter. He lights a fire in the intention to warm up. He goes to work in the intention earn money...
Entertainment is produced in a purely commercial intention. The fundamental principle of marketing is to create a need to sell the solution. So it consists in satisfying the customer in the intention to make him buy.
So the basic intention is : to make money.
Artist who creates is driven by an impulse, by inspiration. A need to share something, to reveal a secret deep inside himself, to denounce the sources of his suffering, to enrich the world with the colored and fantastic universe inside him...
So the basic intention is : to express oneself.
Results of round #1 :
Entertainment : money (material thing)
Art : expression (human nature)
So we can observe that the intention of entertainment is much further from human than Art. Then we'll see the consequences of this difference in the round #2...
Round #2 ! : The reaction
Which reaction to entertainment ? Which reaction to Art ?
Entertainment causes superficial reactions, sometimes very hard if the job is well done. We can be surprised, excited, scared, softened, saddened... We keep an external point of view of the piece of work and our reactions are directly related to it.
Example : I'm watching a movie. A sad music plays at the moment where the hero dies. I am sad fr the hero, helped by the music and the staging. All « ingredients » are collected for making me feel like that. Nevertheless (and that's where the different takes place), I don't think about anything else, I stay in the moment of the movie. The emotions I am feeling don't evoke anything else than the pain to see the hero dying. I don't feel personally concerned.
Art deep and intensive reactions, sometimes hard to explain because it can strike a note we didn't even expect. These reactions are true emotions that integrate us to the piece of work. We are no more spectators, we are actors. We live the piece of work. We find ourselves through it. It feels like the creator had read in us.
We feel ourselves going beyond, our own life suddenly appears to us.... Emotions bring up questionnements, memories and/or very strong feelings.
Example : I am hearing a music. The atmosphere take me away, the lyrics and/or melody make sense to me as if it translated my thoughts. The song absorbe me as if I was connected to it.
Results of round #2 :
How to explain that ?
Simply with the round #1 .
Entertainment is made from a materialist intention. So it will superficially touch its public.
Art is made from a human intention. So it will deeply touch its own.
Round #3 ! : The print
What happens next ?
As entertainment causes only superficial reactions, these ones don't stay printed in the people's mind.
The only solution for entertainment to be reminded is to make an important numbing on its public (it means the piece of work has been so much diffused that it imposed itself to people's mind ==> great speciality of "advertising" : posters, slogans, radio, Internet banners, television…)
Art strikes us deeply. It feels like a special linked had been created between the piece of work and ourselves. That's why, if you find an Artist who strikes you this way, don't lose him. There is a connection between both of you because the piece of work is a part of himself and touches a part of yourself.
That's all the beauty of Art : connection between the Artist and his public.
Result of the duel :
It seems that, in spite of this beautiful duel, entertainment wins in the world we are living now...
Why ?
Entertainment must be sold. That is its final purpose, the reason why it has been created. This way, creators will do their best to make it reach most of "customers" possible thanks to advertising, medias, critics… So, particularly efficient sales strategies are developed (as the numbing).
Art has not as first intention to touch many people but to be the most true and authentic possible. This way, Art will certainly bring less money (excepted some exceptional cases where an Artist strikes naturally an important number of people with Art), but for the people it will strike, its value is priceless. Art is priceless.
The problem is that our system exclusively works on economical principles. Quantity worths more than quality. Human emotions worth less than greenbacks. To sum up...
... System gets Art K.O. ! ...
Here's why it's hard for Artists to survive : they offer extraordinary things but the system doesn't see any "profit" in it. They offer dream, magic and this can't be bought... this means to be shared.
Change the game ?
… If the public of an Artist decide to thanks him, to help him by allowing to carry on creating, so they can change the end of the game.
The public is the only one able to save Art !
The Owlie's word : « In conclusion…Why is it so important to distinguish entertainment from Art ?
For the same reasons it's important to distinguish hobby from Passion... pleasure from Happiness... affection from Love... machine from Human. »
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