What do you think about pictorial art? What is it actually FOR?

@indexer (4852)
Leicester, England
October 29, 2018 5:18am CST
This is a question that has plagued artists and philosophers of art for centuries! Oscar Wilde took the line that "All art is quite useless", which sounds more dismissive than it actually is - Wilde believed that art had a purpose, but being of actual use was not it. Do you agree with Anish Kapoor that artists make mythologies as opposed to objects? I quite like what Bansky is reported to have said, namely that art should "comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable", which does assign a purpose to it that Wilde might not have agreed with. Any ideas to add?
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2 responses
Go Crossbones
@crossbones27 (53005)
• Mojave, California
29 Oct 18
Funny you say this I think a band listened. You do not need to listen to the song but look at the title. How neat is that?
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John Welford
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
29 Oct 18
I wonder who came up with the phrase first? Maybe both the band and Banksy took it from the same source?
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Go Crossbones
@crossbones27 (53005)
• Mojave, California
29 Oct 18
@indexer Punk is sneaky and to be honest did think it was the band but now that you wrote this probably think smarter men wrote it but still neat they one of the only ones that would notice such a great saying. My friends have or had conversations just on the title. Our conclusion it gets no more punk rock than that.
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John Welford
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
29 Oct 18
@crossbones27 I have a feeling that some of our religious friends might be able to add something here. This sounds like something that Jesus said about his mission in the New Testament - although I can`t bring the actual words to mind right now.
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Fiacre Banks
@xFiacre (14804)
• Ireland
29 Oct 18
@indexer I’ll have to get back to you on that, but my immediate reaction is that pictorial art creates a lot of jobs for critics, historians, curators and other hangers on.
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John Welford
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
29 Oct 18
That is certainly a thought, although I don`t suppose that Titian put paint on canvas with a view to job creation centuries later!
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