Art, to me, is by definition, without definition, as it is indisputably highly subjective based on personal experience, preference, and point of view. These sentiments fall most in line with Pablo Picasso’s assertion that “that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth”. This quote reminded me of the famous question posed by Belgian artist Rene Magritte, who presented an audience with a painting of a pipe and asked what the viewers saw before them. “A pipe” was the obvious answer, but Magritte’s own response was “a painting of a pipe”. This scenario merely reminds us as viewers that art is obviously not the object being depicted; it is a recreation of the object. However, the manner in which is it recreated is often what is so alluring to audiences and what enlightens and influences our outlooks after experiencing it. To me, this is truly what art is: a depiction of something commonplace and ordinary, or of something wildly anachronistic or obscure, in such a way that the audience is made subtly aware of the creator’s intentions and yet can still formulate their own. Although many people would argue that beauty or aesthetic value in a piece of art is what determines its value, as Georgia O’Keeffe states, “filling space in a beautiful way”, I feel that this minimizes and undermines the true nature of art, which is far more complex than simply seeming pleasing to the eye. Beauty is, for one thing, possibly the epitome of subjectivity, and furthermore communicates no kind of message or counsel to an audience. Instead, beauty is used to enhance a message, to provide irony or emphasis, contrast or support. Art is not something to absorb and assess on a shallow, surface-level basis of simple beauty or attractiveness. It is meant to communicate the creator’s sentiments in a way other than bald statement.

As far as literature goes, I consider Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five an artistic masterpiece. The chronicle of Billy Pilgrim’s erratic and dynamic “odyssey through time” as he encounters individuals in an episodic format, allowing Vonnegut to comment on various lifestyles and mentalities, culminates in one of the most impactful anti-war novels ever composed. Through Vonnegut’s sardonic black humor and incorporation of advanced scientific theorems in contrast with children’s nursery rhymes, the novel takes on a confusing yet coherent texture which the author skillfully uses to communicate the tragic effects of war. The fact that his chapters consist of multiple paragraphs in which Billy Pilgrim experiences different time periods gives the reader a sense of hopeless confusion, yet reinforce the idea that war destroys the natural sequence of events in a person’s mind. I was personally most effected by the recurring symbols in the novel like the smell of mustard gas and roses, a pornographic picture of a woman and a Shetland pony, and other such random objects which continue to show up in the random, disconnected stream of consciousness that is the plot. The reader experiences a peculiar sense of déjà vu as the distinct smell of mustard gas and roses is used to describe the narrator’s breath late at night after the war as well as the pungent odor of decaying bodies in the first corpse mine discovered in the ruins of Dresden after the firebombing. The picture of the Shetland pony and the woman attempting to have intercourse with it is first mentioned in the war as Billy Pilgrim is being tormented by an anti-tank gunman named Roland Weary, and the photograph later makes an appearance in the back of a hidden bookshop in New York City. These tiny details which repeatedly turn up in the plot gave me the strangest sensation of having seen or lived through this part of the story already, just as Vonnegut attempted to convey the fact that war has the effect on the pawns that are humans of distorting their sense of rationale, time, and logic. This subconscious communication of the theme was immensely impactful to me. However, what truly compels me to define this work of literature as true art was the ending: Poo-tee-weet? Vonnegut has already introduced exposed the reader to this onomatopoeia during the war; he even tells his audiences how his own book will end on the very first page. This knowledge of how the story will end already embodies Vonnegut’s own message that all events happen as they were destined to happen, and that fate is solely responsible for the turn of events. The Tramalfadorians, Vonnegut’s fictitious alien species, describe moments of time as mountain ranges, where one can always see how they have and always will unfold, unlike humans who view one moment as individual and disconnected from another. Vonnegut’s decision to end his novel in such a way seemed to complete his underlying message that we need not waste energy or time fighting the inevitable or worrying about the misfortune that fate has delivered us; as he so often repeats throughout the novel, events will happen as they are meant to happen: so it goes. His novel was so touching, so poignantly outrageously humorous and yet so disturbing in the surreal method in which he communicates the contorted effects of the destructiveness of war. This is what art truly is: the expression of an idea or message in a way below our human consciousness and in a metaphorical or symbolic manner that makes its communication all the more effective.
In regards to movies, I would have to say that the film rendition of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help is the most moving film I have ever seen. Although I loved the book, the combination of the music and the human aspect of the movie moved the plot to another level. I knew it was going to be a rough ride when I started crying during Skeeter’s flashback of her childhood during which she was too ashamed to tell her mother that no one had asked to a school dance. The scene in which the truth is revealed about Skeeter’s old nanny, Constantine, who was fired because her daughter, Rachel, came into the house through the front door during a white women’s meeting, was also heart-wrenching in the cheesy and cliché details that I normally detest: the dramatic hand against the door as it is closed on a pleading face, the loving stroke of the hand over the marks of height against a doorframe. The worst by far, however, was the scene in which Aibileen is fired, wrongly accused of having stolen silverware, and the child she has been caring for, Mae-Mobley, is pounding against the window as she leaves. These scenes were vital to the plot progression on their own, but combined with the dramatic music and cinematic effects of camera angle and lighting, the events that were touching on paper are moved to a new level of tear-jerking, heart-squashing, sob-worthy effectiveness that put me to shame in a movie theatre full of middle school girls.

Although I feel that many people in this modern age in society will wholeheartedly disagree with me, I cannot appreciate the works of “art” that are so proudly displayed in our American museums of modern art, namely the creative brainchildren of Andy Warhol. The simplistic, find-the-beauty-in-everyday-objects seems to have inspired in our society a love and appreciation for people who really can’t paint at all and instead present photographs of objects smeared in different colors and duplicated in cubes or sketches. I completely understand that beauty in simplicity is powerful but I cannot understand how Andy Warhol’s work can possibly be seen as art when he is very literally stacking cans of soup or painting a purple banana on a blue backdrop. If you can’t draw or paint, there are other ways to express yourself! Yes, these THINGS can be aesthetically appealing in their modern style and attractive in that their owners feel a part of a stylish and minimalist new era of trendy portraits of pickle jars, but to me, these are hobbies, not art. They communicate no idea or theme disguised in a subtle or symbolic way—they are exactly what they look like: bizarre representations of multi-colored household objects. So although I applaud Andy Warhol for discovering a way to make money while exercising no brainpower or creative skill, I cannot call his obscurely colored photographs art.