Community Day at mima. Photo courtesy of mima.Art is too easily dismissed. Phrases like “it’s not for us” or “art for art’s sake” frequently find their way into everyday conversation. This idea of culture as somehow detached from the ordinary flows of life, a luxury extra even, is rooted in a nineteenth-century conception of art based upon individual expression, the art market and a romantic philosophy founded in critical detachment.
But there is a longer story of art, embedded as a process at the heart of civilization, that takes its form across all human activity: in politics, religion, architecture, music, horticulture, food and so on. It is an idea of art that speaks of a way of doing things, not a set of things in the world designated as art – a democratic understanding of creativity, that goes back to the ancient Greek understanding of art as “human activity”.
One key advocate of this version of art was the Victorian writer, artist, educator and social reformer John Ruskin. Much maligned and marginalised in the history of art, Ruskin campaigned vigorously and tirelessly throughout his life for art, not just as a way to see the world, but also as a tool to enable social change, an ethical imperative to resist the dehumanising effects of industrialisation and capitalism. His most important works expand artistic thinking to profoundly infiltrate the world of economics, education and ethics, with a far-reaching influence that includes the conservation movement, socialism, feminism and education for all.
