July 2010
The question is often asked, and the answer nearly impossible, about the boundaries between art and simple entertainment or amusement. Especially when the quality of the latter reaches high levels, one wonders what should be the reason, beyond some academic distortion, that justifies the question.
However, exercises around terminology and definitions, when done without dogmatic intentions and rigidities, help understand the essence of things. Particularly in areas like art, where mystery and abstraction prevail, it's common for things to borrow their essence from their names. If we define as art everything that is done with knowledge of the rules, with respect to tradition, with discipline in execution, with aesthetics as a companion, and with the goal of perfection, then many human activities could rightfully claim this name. And then it remains to find a new, more specific and comprehensive term to map the stricter definition of art as we understand it. And of course, one must always know and accept that the areas close to the two sides of the boundaries are, and must be, confused, indefinite, and ambiguous.
The efforts to define this stricter artistic area and to distinguish it from simple entertainment have been many. And all, from their very intention, are absolutely legitimate and correct. For example, entertainment relies on adjectives, while art relies on nouns. The former is necessarily "useful" and "practical," since it serves enjoyment, while the latter, when not done "For the Greater Glory of God" ("Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam"), still serves only itself, seeking its own emotion. Entertainment (and its creator) exists because its recipients exist, while art starts with its creator and seeks its recipients. Entertainment is limited to the external aspect of things, even when it seems to be daydreaming. Art explores the connection between the outer and the inner world, using tools like implication and metaphor to turn dreams into reality and reality into fantasy.
But beyond all this, it is not unreasonable to add a series of distinctions from the recipient's side: viewer, listener, reader. The recipient enjoys entertainment passively and exhausts their interest during its duration. However, in front of a work of art, the recipient is required to mobilize their active participation and to exceed the temporal duration of the work, since their spirit and soul will continue to be inhabited by it. The entertained recipient enjoys untroubled, allowing only a part of themselves to participate in the process. In contrast, the recipient of art is moved thoughtfully. Art requires the presence of a creative and fully available recipient. And importantly, it contributes to shaping them. Thus, when the artistic emotion and spiritual enjoyment peak, the creative recipient is rewarded with a strange feeling: they feel more worthy and more human than they usually think they are. Perhaps this is even the most significant achievement of artistic creation.
Plato Rivellis