Art & Censorship

6 Pages 1484 Words

Art has been around as long as imagination. There has been much controversy over art; some controversy has come up with artist such as Sally Mann and Andres Serrano’s. The public, along with legislators, cannot agree on what art is, what kind of art should be funded, and what art should be censored (if at all). The problem is that one person’s opinions cannot decided on what art is and if it should be censored. If art should ever be censored for any reason, it should be only to those not old enough to appreciate the true meaning and beauty of art.
The first question is…what is art? No one person can ever really define art within a set of guidelines. Art is whatever you want it to be, it is an expression, one person’s opinions, art has been around since imagination, it is the story of a culture. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, “art, in all its forms, feeds and nurtures the soul of a society; provokes thought and debate; causes critical thinking; and fosters understanding of things foreign to our own immediate world. In the end, arts plays a primary role in encouraging healthy tolerance of the diversity in any culture.”# Therefore, one person, or even a group of people cannot really decided what can be considered art.
Art has been around for a very long time and the issue with censorship has always been at hand. Public art has been controversial even before the Amendments were written up and before the National Endowment for the Arts were even established. The form and content of art is controversial because it attracts a storm of attention, passion, and controversy that raises this issue of censorship. The public is sensitive to topics such as nudity and viewing things that are not morally right and this is what causes so much controversy. Photographs can cause a great deal of controversy because of the...