Sarah E. Moffett

What is art?

Snoozing, aren’t you.

I generally am too when someone pulls that gem out of the air. Then I heard an answer in the most unlikely place.

If only all of life’s mysteries were discoverable in the midst of a rock opera complete with laser show, faux-snow, and pyrotechnician’s dream.

Paul O’Neill, one of the founders of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and creators of the above seizure inducing music show, said,

The purpose of art is to create an emotional response in the person that is exposed to that art. And there are three categories of art; bad art, good art and great art.

Bad art will elicit no emotional response in the person that is exposed to it, i.e.; a song you hear in an elevator and it does nothing to you, a picture on a wall that gives you the same emotional response as if the wall had been blank, a movie that chews up time.

Good art will make you feel an emotion that you have felt before; you see a picture of a forest and you remember the last time you went fishing with your dad, you hear a song about love and you remember the last time you were in love.

Great art will make you feel an emotion you have never felt before; seeing the pieta, the world famous sculpture by Michelangelo, can cause someone to feel the pain of losing a child even if they’ve never had one.

And when you’re trying for these emotions the easiest one to trigger is anger. Anyone can do it. Go into the street, throw a rock at someone, you will make them angry. The emotions of love, empathy and laughter are much harder to trigger, but since they operate on a deeper level, they bring a much greater reward.

These words led me to a moment of utter and ridiculous sappiness in which it occurred to me that we are all capable of art. The news headlines are filled with examples of bad art in the form of violence and hatred. The museums are full of critically acclaimed good art that occasionally becomes something more in a moment of human understanding. But perhaps with a sprinkle of love, hope, and peace, we can find it within ourselves to create great art without paints, typewriters, or clay to inspire in others emotions never felt before. Emotions that remind us and those we touch that we are human, we are flawed, but we are…living art. Which is something, in my mind, that goes beyond great art.

~Merry Christmas from an art junkie.

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