Functions of art

Today, every schoolboy of middle age knows that art has arisen in ancient times. The first cave paintings, which reached our contemporaries, date back to the Upper Paleolithic. It is then that the foundations of both the material and spiritual life of mankind begin to be laid.

There are several points of view on the origin of art. The first belongs to the idealistic art criticism, which claims that art owes its appearance to the biological nature of man, which is distinct from all other terrestrial beings. Thanks to the fact that religion and magic appeared in people's lives, people began to create their own unique works.

In fact, the first functions of art just boiled down to trying to influence nature using magic. It is unlikely that any other creature will perform magical rituals before the hunt, although games and idiosyncratic ritual "dances" are common to many terrestrial beings. But this is more likely to happen at the level of instinct, and not as a result of analytical reasoning.

Another point of view belongs to GV Plekhanov and his followers. They argue that labor and only labor are the primary cause of the emergence of art.

Again, remembering the ritual before the hunt (and this is difficult not to consider work activity), we define the functions of the art of the initial period as a reflection of work activity - once, and the subject of work activity - two. After all, it was almost impossible to perform a rock drawing without special adaptations and without certain skills (and not only artistic taste and creative thinking).

The third point of view (perhaps she has a birthday in this article) does not refute any of these statements on the origin and development of art, but only tries to promote their reconciliation.

After all, labor is available in varying degrees to every living creature: almost all living things on Earth are building dwellings (burrows, nests, hollows), extracting food and even preparing supplies for the winter, taking care of the offspring. But no creature, except man, sculpts sculptures, does not write pictures. Although many birds can sing and can sing. True, without words.

Hence, it is impossible to throw off an exceptional biological human essence from the accounts. We do not know whether an animal can understand the beauty of nature or music, but experiments show that cows give more milk if they are allowed to listen to classical music. Some dogs and cats try to "sing along", listening to certain musical works.

Probably not only people have high feelings and understanding of beauty. And the main functions of art today are precisely based on the possibility to influence the senses of people, bringing to them the secret thoughts and feelings of the author of a work of art.

Another thing is that it is hardly possible to meet a fox who in her burrow will drag an absolutely useless statue of a dancing ballerina from her point of view. And if he does, then only so that her offspring could have an opportunity to play with her and sharpen her sharp teeth. No elegant aesthetic feeling in animals will cause any aesthetic sense.

Actually, gradually and people began to seek the practical benefits of art. And if at first the songs were born simply because, as the saying goes, "the soul sang", then gradually words began that already had meaning and purpose. So the functions of art began to acquire a social character.

People, viewing sculptures or paintings, listening to music or singing, reading a book or poems, plunging into theatrical art or cinematography, not only enjoy on a sensual level. Today, social functions of art are more defined than ever. Art can relax, giving a bliss, or can call for barricades.

Hardly anyone can look without tears films, which depict the subjects of unjust humiliation, both moral and physical, weaker. Good art should play an educational role in society, make people better, cleaner, kinder.

Often today the question arises among art critics whether it is worth considering ancient figurines depicting a sexual act between people of different sexes or the same, between people and animals, art objects or should they be banned as pornography? If this is recognized as art, then what are the functions of the art of such a plan? But this question is still open.