Is it relevant or even worthwhile to ask the question, ‘what is the purpose of art?’ For most of history, art has been seen as a utilitarian prop to various social and political entities, institutions and individuals. In spite of the level of belief in its effectiveness by afforesaid propogandists, measuring the extent of increase of religiosity or devotion to the cause is fraught with difficulties. The propagandised manipulation of art by governments or religions is inevitably short lived and based upon fear. Whatever people believed or the god that they followed, art was never more than a reminder of dictums of faith and the pathway it supposedly provided to a higher level of existence was a mirage. For all of the attempts to link art to National Socialism, Communism or any other supposedly value-driven social philosophy, none was effective for long. In corralling art in this way, the underlying thinking was that art was solving a problem. Essentially, it was, and is convergent thinking – that is thinking that expects that social organisation + art will produce of pre-ordained result. The east Germans were of the opinion that they could control public thought and behaviour through grandiose murals of the struggle and achievement of the working class but that experiment lasted little or no time and had no lasting effect. Art was always going to fail in this regard in that the creative process is based not on convergent thinking but divergent thinking. If the freedom needed for creation is paired with the freedom-limiting strictures of the social philosophy the best you can hope for is compromise.

There has also always been a belief that art provides a spiritual pathway to a higher level of being and whether this be a god or self-realisation, as a purpose of art it is self-defeating. A mystic such as Hilda af Klimt and the current crop of mystics believe that symbols, mandalas, colours and shapes are the pathway. Each of the major religions provides a means of reaching a higher spiritual plane beyond mere existence, including prayer, meditation, yoga and self-denial. What they all have in common is that sensual stimuli, experience, place, time and material all have to be jettisoned. The higher level of existence exists beyond such limiting factors. Paradoxically, the end product of the creative process inevitably involves a convergent object such as a painting, a sculpture of even a performance offered as a solution, and while it may be perceived as a vehicle to discover that higher plane, its very existence denies that possibility.

As part of the creative process every artist has experienced moments, often brief and gone in an instant, where everything seems to make sense. This has probably been the case since humankind first drew on cave walls. In the interim we have come no closer to controlling access to, or sustaining, that feeling in spite of the efforts of generations of artists and some remarkable works of art. As a purpose though, the search for self-realisation and attaining that higher state of being has to deny the audience. What an audience brings to a work of art is littered with ambiguous emotions and personal baggage. That people are moved by art is not in question. How that process works however, is open to question. There is an assumption in the art world that what an artist is conveying will be understood by the audience – even an audience of one. There are some curious ideas behind this. One is that the artist knows with some kind of precision what he or she is trying to convey. There is a sliding scale associated with this kind of knowledge. The second is that unless the artist knows the mind of the audience, in that without both parties being on the same page, communication is improbable, the chances of knowing anyone are limited. How often have you heard something similar to, ‘I knew her/him all of my life but didn’t know her/him at all’. Strangers are even more remote as knowable beings. If the purpose of art is to communicate ideas on whatever basis, the process is fraught with impediments.

As a recent curiosity, I’ve noticed the number of people putting up their work for comment and advice on Facebook – often with the rider that the artist doesn’t know if the work is finished and needs help. That suggests that not only doesn’t the artist know him or herself to the extent of understanding what they are conveying but that there is an expectation that someone else will. The expectation of communication is high but the reality is anything but.

In philosophical terms, there are two kinds of knowledge at work here – the inner knowledge of the artist and an outer knowledge of what the audience understands. As a corollary to this I was in residence for the afternoon at my current exhibition and explaining what the work was about. The blank looks and failing concentration levels suggested that I wasn’t doing a very good job. A physical description of the work and its provenance was hardly adequate – even if I was telling the complete truth about how it all evolved. After numerous verbal and written versions, I am sure I was into self-justification after the fact. Was what I was saying what I experienced at the outset and what role had mediation come to play? I could no longer be sure of what I was saying, and neither could the audience.

Paintings and other works of art give pleasure through approximations of beauty even if a definition of beauty can seem to be precarious.  We find something in the way the subject and materials are presented that stimulates pleasure. It is commonly confused with happiness and one of the stated aims of philosophies and constitutions is the pursuit of happiness. No one will ever guarantee its attainment through art even if it can be adequately defined. In a 2018 study by Dr Jess Bone PHD “Do the arts make you happy? research suggested that attending a significant number of similar art events resulted in less happiness, while attending a broader range of types of art events, even if less frequently, correlated with more happiness. She concluded that there is “a comparatively modest, but still significant, effect of arts on happiness,” that goes beyond mere escapism or temporary relief. Perhaps my exhibition was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

In the Divine Comedy, Dante entered the Inferno of hell looking for Beatrice. He was in a dark place, literally and emotionally. A dead Beatrice couldn’t help and sent the Roman poet Virgil to act as guide. Art was to show the way to redemption. In many respects the society we now live in resembles the hell that Dante created. Moral and ethical questions go unanswered in that traditional sureties offered by religion, government and monarchs have been substantially eroded through news media platforms. Perhaps in the end the only valid purpose of art is to ask moral and ethical questions rather than offer solutions. Both the Venice and the Adelaide Biennales of 2022 asked artists to present positive versions of the future and the prizewinning work of Sonja Boyce from the UK and French artist Zineb Sedira looked backward and forward in addressing extant concerns of colonialism and race. The crowds currently streaming through the exhibitions in the wake of several years of social turmoil may well be expecting an artistic catharsis but whether the open-ended questions provide convergent, cosy answers or divergent thinking, remains to be seen.