Second Musing on Tolstoy

Without any form of art, would we, as human beings, would we be able to survive? Tolstoy says art is used as a basic communication form. But is it more than that? Has art, in this day, become so crucial to our lifestyle?

I know that I would not be able to survive without art and art is very important to my continued existence. In my art course this semester, we are constantly exploring how human beings have used art both for practical purposes and for coping with the human condition. Many artists I have researched and appreciated art by have had emotional or psychological problems and have used that art to cope with whatever they dealt with. But without that art in their lives, I feel they would not have made it very far.

Why do we go to the movies (or why did we used to go to the theater)? We did it, subconsciously most of the time, to remind ourselves of what it means to be ourselves--human--and to escape and relax. And in this way, art is always practical because it helps keep us mentally and emotionally stable by giving us an unbiased entity to communicate our own feelings to. 

I feel that many people these days ignore art and it is not as important to everyone as it once was. I am on the opposite side, as I expressed before, I feel art is something that cannot be ignored and is crucial for physical and emotional life.