Is all art meaningless without an audience?

Question

Do you think Shakespeare wrote for himself or did he do it for the heart of others and a vast following, for example. Or, in comparisons, how is art any different than a design?

Answer 1

If you define the artist as an audience, then it requires an audience.

Answer 2

Only if the tree falling in the woods with "no one" to watch makes no sound?   :))

Answer 3

I think art can be both a very priceless and personal creativity, but also a marketable creativity, depending on the purpose behind it.  Art that is very unmarketable and yet a treasure to you as the artist is no less superior than popular art.  

Art can be the great exception to the values of capitalism.  It can be about the way one obtains euphoria in living, and since the key to happiness is not always wealth and profitability, art delivers that utility which cannot be bought or sold.  

In this sense, creating for you and then inspiring others to create their personal art for him/herself's satisfaction is as beautiful as creating for an audience.

Answer 4

Art is a means of self expression. This is true in any form, as we write music and poetry based on emotions and ideas that we feel strongly about. We have to feel inspired to create it, and in doing so, gain a sense of self-satisfaction.

The earliest art works of man were not necessarily for the benifit of others, but were created to express ideas that people had, quite often by shamans in a trance. People did not necessarily go and see these after, they were simply a means for the shaman to express themselves in the trance.

Art does not necessarily therefore need an audience to be art. It can be art as long as the person created it intending fpr it to be art.

Answer 5

I think art is communication.

If you don't communicate, it isn't art, and if there's no one to communicate to, it isn't really art in the same sense. I think self-expression for the sake of self-expression can be valid... but "art" to me means communicating something between one person and another.

As far as Shakespeare... dunno. An artist needs to feed themselves, but the point is art, and a paycheck is secondary. I don't get paid for the art I do, but I still do it. I think he would, too.

Saul