Written by: Cleo
Many people think art is just a hobby that is not too important in society. Because of this, many think technology like Gen AI can easily replace it. But in reality, many fields rely on art just as much as they rely on other subjects like math and sociology.
Firstly, many items we use on a daily basis require a blueprint to follow in order to create them. This blueprint is created or drawn by a designer that the company hired. The designer is also no ordinary person, but rather a person with a degree in art and an understanding of the subject, as the design is not only required to be functional but also appealing to the audience. This includes the media used to advertise the product, as they need a designer to create proper billboards or ads that can grab the target audience’s attention. If a product or its advertisement is created without art, it will look bland and will not sell well. Therefore, art is required in many fields.
Secondly, art can also be a useful tool in communication. Many forms of communication have been created using art in the form of drawings. An example is emojis, which are commonly used to convey emotions through text when words cannot. Many people also use art as a form of communication when words cannot be used to properly describe their thoughts. For example, some people may point to images or drawings to communicate if they are mute and/or can’t write. Since some people, mostly children, may also understand certain concepts or explanations if they are explained with drawings, if drawings don’t exist, not everyone will be able to understand easily.
Art was one of the first ways humans learned to communicate with one another, whether for those in their era or for the future era. Throughout thousands of years, many experts have discovered many forms of art created by many human civilizations during the prehistoric, ancient, and even modern era. With each piece of found artwork telling a story, whether as a little journal talking about their day-to-day life or even trends and social statuses, these artworks aren’t random but rather documentations of the current era of human civilization. With art, experts were capable of discovering many things about the lives before us.
An example of this is cave paintings drawn by prehistoric humans. The presence of silhouettes of human hands told how many people had lived in or simply visited said cave. There are also various doodles of cavemen, animals, and structures which documented the cavemen’s hunts, family, and daily life.
Another example is drawings from the ancient eras, like ancient Egypt. They are famous for their wall paintings or tomb paintings, which displayed figures and many religious elements. These paintings were carved onto the walls of many structures for religious purposes, one of them for the purpose of guiding those in the afterlife. We may not be able to fully interpret what the paintings tell, as they hold no writings and can only be understood from the standpoint of ancient Egyptians, but because of the existence of visual storytelling within the drawings, we can at least have a glimpse of what their beliefs were like. Without these paintings, we may never be able to tell what their life was like, let alone what they believed.
Through art, we can learn a lot about history. Before the times of cameras, we had artists who were commissioned by many people who wished to be remembered. Through art, we were able to know what historical figures looked like and how they were treated back in the day. Not just that, we were also able to know what the norms, beauty standards, and social statuses were in the time of the painting. Many paintings were also used to help depict religious figures that were followed back in the day, and like the wall paintings of ancient Egypt, they gave us a glimpse of what the beliefs of people back then were like and how far they have come to now. Many of these paintings may even paint a glimpse into the daily life of common folk, becoming beautiful documentations of the people before us—how they saw the world, how they felt, how they lived, and who they were.
In conclusion, art has its important role in society just as much as other fields and subjects. Its work may be subtle and easily swept under the rug, but it cannot be replaced or erased. Without it, civilization may not be as advanced as it is now. It gave us an understanding of what the world was like throughout the ages, a reminder of who we were and who we are now. Art cannot be stripped away from us. It was one of the first things we learned and used to see the world and understand it. No matter the age, we will always continue to learn something new about our world every day, so why erase one of our first teachers who taught us about the world?
