Is there a thing as “superficial art”. I am going to say no. First I think I want to touch upon the definition of art. I decided to look it up because I guess I too consider someone else’s words better than my own, but what i found was:
1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.
2. the class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria; works of art collectively, as paintings, sculptures, or drawings
I think “of more than ordinary significance” right away negates it’s ability to be superficial. Also, if an artist would try to be superficial, then his trying would probably equate to a deeper meaning, wouldn’t it? Also, I think that viewers tend to give art or look for a deeper meaning then the artist may have intended. So I could blindly throw paint on a canvas or snap a picture without looking through the lense, and someone could spend hours analyzing it and then get something, some meaning out of it that I didn’t intend. So I guess what I am saying is that I don’t think it’s impossible to have art that is just supposed to be there, look pretty, be superficial, because someone wil always make more of it, especially if it is hanging on a museum wall.
Although I have to go back to a discussiont that we had in some class, probably 295, where we debating on whether or not there are things that are ‘better’ or if the distinction exists between good art and bad art or not art at all. Some days I really hate how everything is connected. I feel like I never make any headway because I always hit the same road blocks of love, art, reality… etc. Sometimes I just want facts, data, and to just get away from the big questions. I wonder if I am killing my love of art, of literature by obsessing over it. I guess, to steal the idea, if you analyze it too much it means nothing.
“And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword”
-Oscar Wilde