• exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    14 hours ago

    If you remove the art from the context, would it still mean the same to you?

    Kinda depends on the artwork, right?

    When you know that a Eric Clapton wrote “Tears in Heaven” for his dead 4-year-old son, it does hit different.

    Picasso’s Guernica also carries a lot of meaning from its context, in its anti-war message. The symbolism in the painting itself can be debated, but the context of time and place (and the author’s chosen title) clearly conveys a message that war is horrible and that the specific bombing campaign on Guernica was cruel.

    Filmmakers love long one-shot scenes not just because of the content itself, but also because of the technical feats required to actually make it.

    The context can add quite a bit of meaning to art. It doesn’t always, and often isn’t intended to, but for a lot of artwork stripping away the context actually strips away some of the artistic value.