[Personal] Violent Art

Credits : DeviantArt

What is art? What can be considered as art? The answer for both these questions depends highly on the artist and its spectators. The intentions of the artist, the quality of the work and the response from its viewers are all factors that needs to be taken into consideration. Just like this can a piece of art be considered as violent art? “How can we know that art is violent?” This is one possible knowledge issue I have chosen after analyzing the above title. The real life example I have chosen is graffiti art. Graffiti is considered to be art in some cases while others consider this type of art to be violent. In the following essay I shall attempt to state the different views from various perspectives relating to the two areas of knowledge the arts and ethics.


When looking back at the title, the extent of violence would differ from each perspective you are looking at. Violence is basically the behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage or even in some situations kill someone. It can also be know as the strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force. Violence is very much related to emotion and in most cases emotion is what triggers violence. Various factors such as your background, the culture in which you were brought and even religion could play a role when it comes to the extent you interpret violence.


Graffiti is a form of art. It could be drawings of pictures, words and designs. Graffiti has come a long way since the ancient times whereby our ancestors used graffiti to draw inscriptions and figure drawings found on the walls of ancient ruins and sculptures. Although in some people’s perspective, today, graffiti tends to be vandalism though it has helped historians interpret the event that tends to have occurred in the past.


When it comes to the arts, what one may consider as violent art may not be the same for someone else. In some other perspective, that art might be considered to be magical and they might really have a liking to it. In the case of graffiti art, we could consider the graffiti artist’s perspective. The intention of the graffiti artist differs when it comes to considering the extent of violence in the art. He/she might have drawn the graffiti to protest or mark the territory of a gang in some cases. Moreover, the graffiti might also have been intended to cause violence within the community. In both these cases, ethically this would be consider to be wrong as the graffiti would eventually lead to a high degree of violence.


Furthermore, when looking at this from the perspective of the person, who owns a property, in which graffiti may have been drawn on, he might consider this art to be violent as well. In his point of view, he might consider this to be vandalism. Vandalism means to devalue or destroy another person’s property. Ethically, vandalism is wrong and should not be done. But in the other hand. Could graffiti be considered as vandalism? Its just a work of art but in his perspective, the art on his property takes the value of the property. In the owner’s view it may show lack of respect for the owner and the property which he have likely worked hard to get.


But on the other hand, sometimes artists tend to draw graffiti to express his/her emotions and have no intention of violence. The artist may have tried to show off his/her talent of drawing to the community around as well. In both these cases the extent of violence in the graffiti is minimum to non. But in this case the perception of the viewer needs to be taken to account. Again, the viewer may consider this to be violent regardless of the intention of the artist. The viewer in the other hand may recognize the intention of the artist and like the art drawn. For that viewer the art may even make him happy. Emotions could differ the extent in which the person perceives the art to be violent.


In addition to all this, we could also look from the perspective of the government of a country. In some countries, graffiti art still remains to be illegal. From the government’s perception, graffiti art tends to cause violence within the community. In their case, they would be trying to reduce violence within the country to a minimum. Thus they label, graffiti art to be violent and then rule it as illegal.


Yet, In order to learn Hebrew, In Israel, the children uses graffiti’s on the streets and alleys of Florentin. While some people take this art to be an act of vandalism, these children tend to take this as an opportunity to learn a language. The children, does not consider this form of art to be violent at all but rather use this as a way for them to enhance their Hebrew. Due to this the violence in art is taken out in the children’s perspective. This art tend to be livelier and attracts viewers and get their attention more thus becoming a good way for the children to learn the language.


So after evaluating the claims and counterclaims regarding the extent of violence in graffiti art, at the end it comes down to the viewer’s perception. Relating this back to the knowledge issue, “How can we know that art is violent?” , various people have different perspectives on the extent of graffiti being violent. There is not a definite answer to what extent art can be violent. In my own perspective, I think you can’t definitely say that graffiti art is violent. In my opinion, graffiti is just another typical form of art and it all depends on the way they perceive that art to be. On its own, it isn’t violent at all unless it is said to be violent in the knower’s perspective. Reasons and the extent to which the art being violent differs from person to person.

By - Ibrahim Reemaz