Honestly Please Leave Your Thoughts Under This In Any Way - Tumblr Posts

While working on my art portfolio to apply for my local art school/university I realized just how much of an aesthete I am or in other words just how much I do things simply for the beauty (and therefore the aesthetic) of it and not for any particular meaning behind it.

After sending my portfolio in, my friend let me look through hers and it’s very creative and beautiful and so full of meaning and feelings and it made me feel a tad bad about myself because my own pieces have so very little meaning besides being somewhat pretty (don’t get me wrong, I’m not an amazing artist but I’m trying my best) and that’s because I never had the intention to give them much meaning. Ever since I started drawing and painting I only ever did it for the feeling I have while creating and the outcome at the end but never to actually put feeling and meaning into it. The outcome has to be beautiful to me and not meaningful (which doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate meaningful art — quite the opposite actually. I adore it and I love to think and talk about it. I just never created anything the like myself).

I always thought of it as a flaw, to be honest. Creating art for beauty’s sake and not for emotion and meaning. But thinking about it some more I start to wonder, why it’s considered such a bad thing to do things just for the aesthetic of it? As long as I enjoy doing it (and obviously don’t harm anyone else in the process) there shouldn’t be anything wrong with doing things just for the aesthetic, right?

It’s okay not to always want to make a statement with everything, right? But to do it just for the pure joy it brings. Or maybe that’s the whole meaning behind it? Or does it make me pretentious? Then again, is it really so bad to be pretentious?