I have a fine arts degree. I have a shelf full of books on painting, sculpture, textile arts, etc., both historical and modern. I’ve been to art museums all over the world. If I were in Paris for three days by myself with no obligations, I would spend all three of them at the Louvre, from opening to closing every day, seeing everything I can. My wife gets tired after four or five hours in a museum; I am energized.
When we went to Florence a few months ago, I took my family to the Uffizi. My wife went off by herself so she could see the highlights she wanted to see and take guilt-free breaks from time to time, and the kids attached themselves to my arms and said “show us the art.” After many museum tours, they know I am good at explaining this stuff, finding the simple, basic entry points that engage them and make them feel like they’re mastering knowledge. For example, at the Uffizi, knowing the emphasis on sculpture, I pointed out that artists carving a standing figure in marble needed to consider structural stability, so notice how the statue always has a tree stump or rock formation behind one leg; now start looking for examples of the sculptor coming up with clever new approaches, like a drape of clothing reaching the ground instead of a natural object. They spent the next couple of hours going from statue to statue, pointing out the sculptor’s solution on each, and thinking about how the heavy material is being held up.
So, yeah, I take this seriously.
And I say, you have no “obligation to Art.”
Art is not a thing in and of itself. It’s not even that Art is an intangibility or an abstraction, because Art is not separate from you. Art happens inside you. When you look at a piece of Art, you take it into yourself and you see what happens. You may consider the piece entirely on its own merits, or you can consider the historical or thematic context, or you can attempt to speculate about the artist’s mindset and intentions while and for creating it. However you approach it, whatever your reaction is, it happens inside you. When you’re creating art, you similarly take an idea or an inspiration into yourself, and then something happens, and a piece of work comes out.
Your obligation, therefore, is not to Art. Your obligation is to yourself.
Be open. Be free. Be honest. Be self-critical — not in the sense of whether the Art is “good enough,” but in the sense of whether you are genuinely listening to your own creative voice and not getting in your own way with irrelevant considerations. This is equally true whether you are simply consuming Art — opening your eyes and mind to allow the work an opportunity to do something to you (and it may not) — or creating it.
The act is both selfish and generous. It is a paradox. It’s a simple thing, but it’s difficult in its simplicity. It’s very Zen in that way.
And when it’s really working, the feeling is transcendent.