Some thoughts on Types of Art

"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
-Saul Bellow


I am sure that many a people have already spend countless hours in discussing and writing about a commonly agreed upon definition of aesthetics and its classification. I certainly can't have any pretentions of coming up with anything novel or more exact or more comprehensive than what is already known. Reams and reams of philosphical literature is dedicated to concept of beauty and its relation to art. Many great philosphers starting right from Emmanuel Kant uptill Benedetto Croce in the previous century have come up with novel ways of defining the concept of what constitutes art and what is its relation to beauty. Much of it expressed by means of almost huge mounts of logical analysis and is usually very complex.( Though complexity is no gaurentee of correctness, as in many cases the complexity of the logical thesis is sometimes an indicater to an error in the basic premises). My own objectives are more modest as I want to avoid all this complexity and still come up with a simple enough definition of art and its types, which is satisfactory to my intution and compatible with my daily life and which may help me in better appreciating my own like and deslikes regarding it. It would also help me in explaining those like and deslikes to my friends and kin and provide a context for comparisons. To avoid all the mountains of logic and definitions which are usually resorted to in defining aesthetics, I will let go all objectivity in relation to quality of art. I would also consider the concept of beauty to be purely subjective and deny any universality in its appeal. This would ofcourse make the job quite easy, which is exactly my original goal. In the term "art", I would include the classes of cinema, literature and painting. Though, while making my definition, I am limiting myself to those few categories only, I am sure that those definitions would also make sense for most other fields which are commonly held to come under the purview of the the term "art".
Now let us move to the definition.

Art is an artificially constructed stimulus whose only goal is to affect our state of mind.

Not much information here, and unfortunately I couldn't come up with any better definition. But then, the definition of Art itself is not my primary goal. The commonly held beliefs and associations with real life instances would suffice to define the term for me. What I am more interested in defining is a generic classification which would apply to all categories of art equally and would additionaly provide some psychological insight into its effect. The primarily classes which come to my mind are those listed below.

1) Reflective Art
2) Escapist Art
3) Intellect based Art

I define Reflective Art as the art which act as a reflection of the society or an individual. In the psychological context the primarily object of study is the mind. This may be collective mind, as in behavior of the society or it may be solitary mind as in the mental habits or feeling or prejudices of an individual. Sometimes instead of the mind the thing reflected may be purely physical as in a landscape painting or literary description. But even this purely physical reflection is linked to the quality of perception of the artist and is ultimately indicative of the artists mind. It still tells us something about ourselves. Like a mirror it makes us aware of something which we may already know partially or unconcisously. Many times the artist may choose the reflection to be purely non-judgemental, e.g. a comedy or tragedy or an impressionist painting. Other times it may be more judgemental and take a form such as satire.

Escapist Art is the second primary class. It purpose is not to make us aware of that which we are or what we already know to some extent. Instead here the primary purpose is to create new mind content or reinforce the existing content. Here the author may create new notions in the mind of the reader and helps him escape his own reality. Sometimes the existing stereotypes of the reader may be use and enhanced for the use of the artist. Notice the difference with the reflective art. Reflective art may also use the existing prejudices of the reader, but only to make him aware of them. On the other hand escapist art would usually enhance the readers stereotypes taking them as a fact rather then pointing to those. Genres like Science Fiction or Fantasy may be taken to be forms of Escapist Art. In fact almost all of the Hollywood and Bombay Cinema is also form of escapist art.

Both the above types have their uses depending on the need or state of mind of the person viewing at a given time. Escapist art lets us escape our everyday existence, by making make use of our imagination and escaping into newly created worlds. Reflective art help in understanding our true being and being more aware of it.

Intellectual art can be considered the third kind of art. It is very rare I am not sure if this can be rightly considered a form of art. Here the artist or producer relies entirely on stimulating our intellects rather than our feelings. Since art is most of the times directed towards feelings or sensation, without the intervention of logic, this form may be very different from other two categories. Here everyday existence is neither studied nor are new worlds created. Most of the times some intellectual problems are put forth which helps to get the involvement of the logical faculty of the reader . Another much simpler way of delineating intellectual art from the other two forms is that it is the only form liked by Colonels.