What is the purpose of art?

[jelly]

"Business box," I like it. I'm probably gonna steal that for the future.

I've never actually taken one of those tests - are there any good ones available on the internet, for free?

[Marvin D.]

See, one message I don't think is gotten across enough is this: You don't have to understand art the same way the artist does. In fact, you don't even have to "understand" it at all. People don't want to feel uneducated when they don't "get" an Expressionist/Cubist/abstract piece of art, and then try to force themselves to somehow connect to the piece and wind up being either hopelessly confounded or quite pretentious
The fact is, we're not supposed to "get" everything in the sense most people think about it. Life isn't all about getting it.

[~JCGJ~]

"Business box," I like it. I'm probably gonna steal that for the future.

I've never actually taken one of those tests - are there any good ones available on the internet, for free?

Yeah, all the ones I've taken were just free, online tests. I wonder about the validity of them, but considering they all gave me virtually identical results, I'd say they're reliable enough.

[darcie]

I thought this one was an interesting brain hemisphere test- http://en.sommer-sommer.com/braintest/

[~JCGJ~]

That one is a good one if you want the quick solution. However, because it uses the results of only a handful of tests (only one time each), it is far from reliable (however, it did give me 57% left, 43% right, so it's congruent with the rest of my results).
The best way to take these tests would be to take as many as you can, several times each, and then average the results... Or just pay for one of those "professional" tests, and spend weeks in some shrink's waiting room, just so he can tell you that you need a daily prescription of 90-bucks-per-dose rat poison to keep from going off the deep end. The choice is yours.

[ric]

I'm not a huge fan of those tests. I think most people probably come out between 40-60 or so.

So if art is not intended to make you understand something, is it intended to make you feel something? Just emotions? Or perhaps emotions about a certain subject that can further your understanding of that subject?

[American Eagle]

I'd like to thank you all for your brainwork. As a business student, I don't know the first thing about art or culture or expression. My humanities professor asked us to write a paper defining the meaning and purpose of art, and you all gave me a plethora of ideas.

[darcie]

The ToO: A dating and popular culture site for Christian teens.