The Relevance of Arts to Practical Living

INTRODUCTION
For the avoidance of doubt, the idea of the arts can be viewed from two perspectives. On the one particular hand, the arts may well be understood to imply the subjects 1 can read at college or university which are not scientific, which do not employ scientific procedures. Subjects such as history, languages, religion, literature, and so forth, would be acceptable examples. Nevertheless, it may well be interpreted to encompass a wide variety of inventive activities bordering on the skillful and imaginative expression of concepts, feelings, measures or events. Music, literature, theatre, and art (in the sense of painting, drawing, sculpture, and so forth) are what make up the arts in this sense. For the objective of this discussion, nonetheless, our concentrate is on the second understanding of arts as proffered above.

The arts can then be classified into literary arts (poetry, prose, and drama), carrying out arts (music, dance, theatre) and visual arts (encapsulating the whole inventive activities covered in the field of fine and applied arts: drawing, painting, sculpture, graphics, textile, and so on).

WHY THE Query OF RELEVANCE?
In created economies of the globe exactly where the standard necessities of life look to were met, the Query as to no matter if the arts are relevant or not to sensible living is no longer an challenge. Thousands of American citizens would troop down to the auditorium in Bard School to hear Chinua Achebe's reading of his Points Fall Apart, not minding that they have heard the similar reading over and over once again, not minding that the book is over fifty years old; the similar way the English audience would cluster at The Royal Theatre in London to watch the presentation of Wole Soyinka's The Trials of Brother Jero or any of the plays of Shakespeare, not minding that Shakespeare wrote centuries ago. In the similar vein, even although Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo are long dead and gone, Italians would spend their really final lira to watch an exhibition of their paintings.

In our own context, financial hardship and the search for standard necessities of life have meant that only a couple of have had the time to appreciate the arts for what they are value. In other words, the challenge is not irrespective of whether the arts are relevant or not, for it is not in doubt that the arts are relevant to sensible living as significantly as any profession, or even additional so. The real challenge lies in the truth that persons are too hungry or too busy to see the real value of the arts. A man who lives on a month-to-month salary of paltry ten thousand naira, with seven mouths to feed, and so quite a few other household challenges to resolve may well not very easily spend 5 hundred naira basically to watch a drama presentation; a Nigerian graduate who has walked the streets of Abuja, Lagos, or Port Harcourt in search of a job for 3 years without having achievement would know what to do with funds rather than pay it on a piece of landscape paintings; likewise, a young man who has had absolutely nothing to eat for days, and has no hope of exactly where the subsequent meal is coming from, would not possibly be coordinated sufficient to study, not to speak of appreciating, functions of poetry. If arts can not satisfy hunger or thirst, can they nevertheless be mentioned to be relevant?

THE RELEVANCE OF THE ARTS
The word 'relevance' presupposes usefulness and worth. So the suitable inquiries really should be: are the arts useful in any way? And our answer: yes, they are. Do they have worth? Our answer once again: yes, they do. If the arts have use and worth, and these are the Points that relevance implies, then we can say that the arts are relevant. That conclusion raises a different important Query: in what methods are the arts relevant? The relevance of arts can be discovered in the after regions.

Entertainment/Relaxation: The several types of the arts said above present 1 form of entertainment, amusement and relaxation or the other. In Biblical occasions, although the spirit of God deserted King Saul and he was tormented by evil spirits, David was employed to play his harp. The sound of music created by David's harp kept Saul's mind at peace, for anytime David was not about to play his harp, the evil spirits came back. In ancient Mali too, court poets/historians known as Griots had been recognized to entertain the audience throughout national festivals by reciting long narrative poems recounting the heroic achievements of their forebears. At a time in history, court jesters had been employed to entertain the king or the queen and their guests by telling funny stories and jokes (as can be noticed in most of Shakespeare's plays). In conventional African societies, moonlight tales had been a veritable supply of each entertainment and relaxation for each old and young. Praise singers and dance groups entertained the crowd throughout communal ceremonies.

In modern day occasions, in the not too distant previous, the late Sani Abacha was alleged to have employed the popular comedian, Chief Zebrudaya, to deliver entertainment for him and his cohorts through his funny jokes and stories. It was as well reported that the former Head of State, Olusegun Obasanjo, is a good patron of stand-up comedy. Apart from, at least a single out of each 3 persons in the planet currently come across peace of mind in music; one particular out of just about every 4 Nigerians relax at household at the close of perform to watch a property video; and one particular out of just about every 5 relax in bed with a literature book. Because the advent of stand-up comedy in Nigeria, even although hardship has continued unabated, significantly of Nigerians have begun to appear at the lighter side of Points. Mere listening to one volume of 'Nite of A Thousand Laughs' would drive away sorrow in folks's hearts. Due to the fact those developments started, I bet that had the healthcare practitioners began taking stock, they would have located that higher blood stress and other pressure-connected situations have lowered by over half over the previous decade.

Economic Worth: The arts are equally a really profitable venture for severe-minded artists. All arts practitioners who are value their salt make a living out of their practice. So quite a few examples of such people today might be located about us. The popular Osuofia (Nkem Owoh) is a living example. The majority of the practitioners in the film business these days had been not even initially artists. Their professions may perhaps not deliver for them, and so they switched over to the arts. Apart from, performs of art, specially paintings, are viewed as really very beneficial intellectual residence that can be accepted as collateral the very same way that gold or diamond or buildings would be accepted.

Didactic: The arts are recognized to teach sensible moral lessons. The old folklores around the tortoise and his craftiness usually ended with a single moral lesson or the other. The story of the feast in the sky exactly where the tortoise claimed that his name was Mr. All of You, for example, ended with the lesson that greed normally landed one particular in disaster, merely as the story of the stunning girl who refused to marry all the young men authorized by her parents only to lastly fall into the hands of a ghost taught that it was not wonderful to disobey 1's parents.

Exposing and Correcting Societal Ills: All elements of the arts are deeply involved in the crusade against societal ills like corruption and bribery, ritual killing, and so on. They have all been involved, for example, in ridiculing the excesses of political and religious leaders also as the gullibility of the followers who fall victims to the whims and manipulations of the tricksters. This they achieve through satire. By so carrying out, offenders who had earlier believed that their activities had been unknown would commence to retrace their measures whilst they discover that their so-known as secrets were exposed. Intending offenders would consider twice, even though would-be victims whose eyes will were opened by such exposition would come to terms with truth and turn into wiser. Cultism on our university campuses has been fought to a lowered rate through the instrumentality of the arts: music, drama, novels, and so on. All those have produced society a much better location to live in.

Aesthetic Worth: The arts have beauty and face worth, Apart from their intrinsic qualities. We speak around the beauty of a poem, a play, a story, a piece of music, but this beauty applies additional to the visual arts, the ones a single can see and admire their physical outlook, like drawing, painting or sculpture. Persons go to art exhibitions to discover, behold and admire the beauty of art performs. These who can afford them get them and use them for interior decoration. How good it is to walk into a properly furnished sitting area to behold art performs exhibited on the walls! They equally serve as status symbol for these who can afford them.

Preservation of Culture: The arts serve to preserve a people today's culture. Art itself is an integral part of culture, that is, culture in the sense of customs, beliefs, practices, art, way of life, and social organisation. So several elements of Nigerian cultural practices, for example, that would were lost and forgotten are recaptured through the arts. Just before the look of Factors Fall Apart in the planet literary scene, Western writers like Joseph Conrad and other people had led the planet into believing that the African continent was a single long evening of darkness and that Africans themselves had been uncultured and barbaric monkeys who had tails and lived on tree tops, and who had no souls worthy of salvation. But Items Fall Apart and other functions following it joined in the crusade and changed the globe's perception of Africa by presenting the actual image from the within. Africans, the globe came to see, had been right after all a affordable persons with heart, physique and soul, developed by 1 and the identical God. They had culture and a mode of worship guided by norms and regulated by the principles of human relations even Prior to the advent of the Europeans. Constantly, African poems, novels, plays, music, paintings, and so forth, as significantly as feasible portray life in each conventional and modern day African societies. The rest of the planet has continually shown growing interest in African arts and culture. Some of us with a sense of history would keep in mind that in the course of the early colonial period, some of Nigerian artifacts had been stolen by the colonial masters and taken to the British National Museum. An example of such is the Benin bronze mask.

Fame: It is incontestable that the functions of Chinua Achebe and the Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, have brought a lot more fame to Africa than the achievements of all the African political leaders place with each other. It may well be argued that Ahead of the emergence of those men, the continent was only a dot on the map of the globe. But their functions and the functions of other individuals following them proved to the globe that a thing excellent may perhaps soon after all come out of Nazareth.

THE Troubles
The issues facing Nigerian artists are multifaceted: lack of encouragement and patronage at each the house front and outdoors, disparaging comments around artists, the neglect of the arts by the government, amongst other people. Lots of residences nowadays discourage their young children from going into the sensible arts effortlessly Due to the fact they do not believe that a man can feed his household basically writing literary operates or merely drawing and painting. Till not too long ago musicians have been noticed as wayward persons and young children who opted to sing had been disowned by their parents. Men and women nonetheless see actors and actresses in the light of the roles they play in films or stage plays. A single certain actor was almost mobbed at Aba in Abia State of Nigeria for his role in a film: a wicked man who killed his brother.

For the literary artist, it is incredibly a attempting time. Reading culture is at its lowest ebb. Students of literature would rather watch a half-cooked movie version of Shakespeare's Macbeth than study it in print. Quite a few of them do not even know the encouraged texts. So, for these who write, they face the lowest patronage. The books never buy purchased. Even while the books at some point uncover their way into the syllabus, pirates effortlessly swing into action. The similar predicament faces film makers and musicians. The government on its part does not support matters. The dilapidated state of the National Arts Theatre, Iganmu, is a pointer to this truth. Considering that FESTAC '77, no concerted effort has been produced towards the promotion of the arts or the encouragement of artists. Concerned citizens and corporate bodies were crying out, but the government has turned deaf ears to all the yells.

In the face of all this, I nonetheless believe that arts practitioners in Nigeria may well make a head way the moment we start to appear inwards. The sooner we start to see the arts as a significant market, the superior for us. Names like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ben Enweonwu, John Munonye, J. P. Clark, Niyi Osundare, Odia Ofeimun, Chimalum Nwankwo, Chimamanda Adichie, and so forth became family members names Considering that they thought in the arts and in themselves and took the arts definitely. No 1 can save us but ourselves. At a time whilst Communist Russia faced a single of its greatest trials, though the nation was far behind the West in technological advancement, Stalin rose to the concern. 'We are over fifty years behind the rest of the globe', he told Russians. 'We have only ten years to catch up with them. We either do this or they will exterminate us'. Pious pronouncements have been backed up with optimistic measures, and inside the subsequent ten years Russia was on the verge of becoming pronounced a planet energy.

In the very same spirit, arts practitioners, each established and intending, must stand up to the problem and not be discouraged Due to the fact these who Query the relevance of the arts are themselves amongst the greatest patrons of the arts, one particular way or yet another. They ought to hold their heads higher, and hold their own against other professions. They ought to start to feel of who to replace the Achebes, the Soyinkas, etc. They should usually keep in mind how esteemed above other professions they are Considering the fact that they are co-creators with God, who himself is the foremost artist. Till this is performed, folks will continue to Query the relevance of arts to sensible living.