An Exploration by Curt Johnson: What is Art?
What is art? While such a simple question ostensibly has a simple answer, its complexity is boundless. When I, someone with no artistic bones in my body, was asked to write a column about art, I quite frankly had no idea where to begin. That’s when I conveniently turned to Riverdale’s art department to investigate the different intersections of art forms and their manifestations at school.
My journey began with a conversation with Mr. John Lettieri, a pianist, organ player at the Bedford Roach Church, and conductor who has dedicated the majority of his life to music. When asked about his perspective on the different ways he has witnessed overlap between different art forms, Mr. Lettieri began to explain how music is often written in response to literature, collaborating to tell a story of different emotions. That’s when it hit me. My line of questioning wasn’t getting at what was lurking behind the scenes.
I decided to do what any English teacher would do and ask a really open-ended question: “What does music mean to you?” Mr. Lettieri took a moment: “Music has the ability to express and evoke feelings that are hard to express visually or with words”—in particular, “feelings that come deep within.”
Inspired to delve deeper, I interviewed visual arts teacher Mr. Nicky Enright, a renaissance man of art, if you will. I met him in his studio where I began by asking him point blank what art meant to him. He explained that he actually asks his sixth grade students a similar question at the beginning of every year: “What is art?” However, he admits that this is more or less a trick question because, in his opinion, no one has the authority to ultimately define or decide what art is or what it is limited to. In his opinion, anyone who does is an “amateur.” He continued to say that “art is a human mystery. We really don’t know what it is - all we know is it is a really important dimension in our lives.”
Art has played an inextricable role to humanity, he argues, which can be seen by its presences in every civilization we know. And that’s when I had my second revelation: we are surrounded by art at school. In fact, art serves an essential pillar to our Riverdale curriculum. Our perception of history, for example, is largely extrapolated from stories, architectural ruins, and artifacts, all of which can be directly tied to art. As we talked, we came to the realization that, as Mr. Enright eloquently put it, “art is like the pursuit of anything serious: the deeper you dive into it, more questions are raised.”
I ended this journey with a final interview with Ms. Kayley McGonagle, a teacher of the visual arts division. She told me, like Mr. Enright did, that “art is everywhere, all around us. It is visual, it is visceral, it engages all of our senses and emotions.” She continued to describe a similar understanding that “art is this mysterious, spiritual process that has this impulse behind it, this impulse that a person had and they needed to create something that didn't exist before. It's just... it's so many things, it is everything and anything to each person you might ask this question to.” That’s when I began to understand that art is personal. It means something different to everyone and anyone, and that's why it cannot be restricted to one definition. So, I will leave you with what Ms. McGonagle left me with: “Art is everywhere. It is within everyone's power to be an artist, and art is an essential and universal part of the human experience.”
