Real Art as the Capacity to Make us Nervous Research Paper

Real Art as the Capacity to Make us Nervous - Research Paper Example For the Greeks, art was neither significant nor true. In short, what they were trying to say is that the painting of a chair is no good if someone is not going to seat on it. However, lie or no lie, art considerably has a certain value since it is a form of therapy. It has the capability to make people feel nervous and send their minds on a thoughtful journey depending on the object you are viewing (Sontag 1). With regards to the Greeks, the mimetic theory of art goes together with the view that art is figurative, all the times. However, they should not close their eyes to the fact that art is always abstract and decorative. The misleading notion that art is unavoidably a "realism" can be scrapped or modified devoid of ever going outside the issues surrounded by the mimetic theory (Sontag 1). This paper will discuss why art makes an audience nervous. It will base is on Sontags claim that real art has the capacity to make people feel nervous. It will also present its arguments using a number of performance art and the effects they had on the audience to dispute the Greek notion of art. Performance art has had its fair share of criticism over time. Most people deem that it is clearly weird, having heard rumors of bulls semen, dancing naked and even howling. A majority of individuals in the art world believe that since its halcyon days in the 60s and in the 70s, the medium has lost its power (Swan 1). No matter the side someone stands, chances are performance art makes them unbelievably nervous or maybe even cynical as some critics believe. The nervous feeling, a majority of the dramatists confirm is the proof of arts unique power to make people think afar and also feel something different. Performance art is live art and when it is really good, it creates a direct and overly personal effect on the audience (Heathfield 8). For  instance, in Lesbian National Parks and Services by Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, Dempsey's knuckles are raw and bleeding when he eventually became tired to knock on the door. A majority of the audience has gradually frittered away, but some returned periodically to watch.