Art Doesn’t Have Meaning

By Emily Garza
Web Content Contributor

We all have seen art. We all have tried to get the meaning of a piece of art. Even when it doesn’t always make sense, someone somehow finds the meaning of a piece of art.

Is there a meaning in this piece of art?

No. There isn’t. I decided to put paint in a cup and dump it onto the canvas and move the paint around. There is no hidden picture or meaning in this piece of art I created. It is just red, black, pink, blue and gold paint on a canvas.

When I first showed my parents this painting, the first thing they asked was, “What’s it supposed to be?” It’s not supposed to be anything! It is just paint dripped onto a canvas. There is no object I was trying to purposely paint. I just decided to make a painting like that because I saw Jenna Marbles do it on her YouTube channel.

Why is there this need to find a meaning in a piece of art when sometimes the artist doesn’t even attribute any meaning to it? Why do our teachers in school try to make us find meaning in art that doesn’t affect our life? Many people create art just because it is fun, and they love doing it. You don’t even need to be good at it to make it! You can just slap some paint onto a piece of paper and call it a day.

Each time I doodle or paint, there’s always someone that asks, “What is that supposed to be?” or, “Who is that supposed to be?” I have no idea! I just felt like doodling this. Most of the time, it is not supposed to be anything you can easily recognize as a real-life object; they are just shaped connected together to make one big drawing.

Even if there is meaning to a piece of art, not everyone is going to get it. The meaning of art is subjective and is different for everyone. Not everyone is going to get something out of it and not everyone will get the same “meaning” from the piece of art. Whatever you get from a piece of art is not wrong, even if your teacher says it is. Don’t let what your teacher says make you think you aren’t smart enough to analyze a piece of art. You just see it differently than them.

Featured image by Emily Garza.