response to marek's response to my response to him (-.-)

Marek asked: "Can Art be mundane? Must it be exotic and thought provoking? Can it be 'Ordinary?'"

Mundane (adj.) - Of, relating to, or typical of this world; secular.

I'm nitpicking now, but if we look at the word "mundane" denotatively, then yes; art not only can be mundane, but most of the time it must be mundane.

Religious art is outstanding when viewed in these terms. Now a new question arises - Is the "aesthetic emotion" experienced in the face of good art equivalent to something nonsecular, something divine?

In answer to the first bit, art can be mundane, I think, but it can also be nonsecular, or divine. This is one example among countless multitudes, but many of the Renaissance painters painted divine images, and were often directly employed by entities such as the Vatican.

"Must art be exotic? Thought provoking?"

Art needn't be exotic to be art. Take for example a Renoir, or a Rockwell. These two greats painted scenes from daily life, certainly not what one would consider exotic, and yet they both had incredible abilities to capture emotion, social essence, the peoples' zeitgeist.

This sort of answers the last bit, about art being "ordinary." Great art is not ordinary - it is something that most of us cannot produce. Great art, though, can depict things that are ordinary. A realist painter, Andrew Wyeth, painted a picture of a woman perched in a doorway, the sun slanting in, illuminating her face, as she gazes out into a pasture. This situation is certainly ordinary, and yet it tugs the ol' heartstrings.

So we've established that art needn't be exotic, but when it is, is it a stronger work of art? Is that just the part of us that appreciates things novel, or is there intrinsic value in the alien, the remarkable?