The Dictionary defines art as the expression or application the conscious use of skill and creative imagination of human creative skill (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). Art in the simplest words is the expression of human emotions. Culture is the way of expressing those emotions. However, art in a finer sense is a beautiful flower that blooms in the nutritive grounds of culture and both shares a close interrelation each affecting and being affected by the other forming a closed circle.
Though art is just a part of a broader culture, it forms the stimulation or driving force that pushes the culture forward. Without art and its beauty no culture can ever bloom. The very history of mankind and its progress is written and governed by this single law. However, the nature of art is always debatable in every context. Many instances have been recorded in the history when art has shown its rebellious nature. But in the longer run, it has always proven to be worthy of that rebelliousness and has always given its hand in driving the culture, mostly in the right direction.
In general, culture is not a fixed concept. It is continuous, evolving, and changing all the time, and it is being influenced by many factors (Yuanqing). Different forms of art is the factor, which controls, guides and drives and let the culture evolve into something better over time. The creativity of man in the form of language and more symphonic music and molded in the burning hunger for knowledge and beauty to give rise to science and then technology has always pushed a person’s limits to a higher value.
Whereas the scientific thirst has proven always to drive man, the direction of that drive often was in the hands of art. As we say, necessity is the mother of invention; it could be very precisely stated with art, being mothered by emotions. In the form of dance, music, paintings, theaters, films, and more, art has inspired humanity over a few thousand years and continues to do the same in the modern industrial and post-industrial economies of the world.
Culture-based creativity is a powerful means of overturning norms and conventions with a view to standing out amid intense economic competition. Creative people and artists are key because they develop ideas, metaphors and messages, which help to drive social networking and experiences (Kern). Thus the role played by art and creativity in shaping the individual behavior as well as the cultural and even economic characteristics of a society is way beyond the scope of an essay.
To conclude in a few simple words the purpose of art is to connect and be connected, to pull together, to guide the existence, to drive humanity in the right direction, and to define our self and thus in a way to liberate and bind us simultaneously in the form of culture.
