An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. explain this.?

Question

Just explain it in a simple way.

Answer 1

The coolest question I've read here. My simple answer.

Art and imagination can reach more people.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Albert Einstein

Answer 2

I have to agree with reader, that is a huge generalization that is completely incorrect.

Any intellectual that says a simple thing in a hard way is not truly intellectual but is instead simply a bad communicator.

Knowing many artists I have to say - they don't necessarily say hard things in easy ways, sometimes they simply don't say anything at all. Sometimes art is just for the sake of art. Why people assume that just because something is visual that makes it easy to understand is beyond me.

Answer 3

Great artists speak to our emotions as well as our intellects.  In doing so they allow us to comprehend sometimes very complex ideas because art is (usually) more engaging and accessible when working on both levels.

An example:

A few nights ago I watched the film version of the Michael Frayn play 'Copenhagen'.  The action centres on the very real but never explained wartime meeting between the great quantum physicists Werner Heisenberg (a German) and his erstwhile friend and mentor Niels Bohr (a Dane living in occupied Copenhagen).  By the end of it I had a far deeper and more profound appreciation of the uncertainty principle and complementarity than I had gained from reading several text books on such issues - but would you enjoy it so much without reading those books first?  Well, my 16-year old son watched it with me and he loved it too.

So I'd suggest this play for an insight into quantum physics, or Picasso's 'Guernica' if you're researching the Spanish Civil War... or possibly watch the film 'Adaptation' for a direct and artistic answer to your question on interaction of intellect, circumstance and emotions on the artistic process.

And enjoy!

Answer 4

I can't, because I completely disagree with the statement. I think it is entirely fallacious. You would do well to analyze it closely before you accept it as any version of the truth.