Answering Questions Vol1

In my present post, I made15 questions regarding to graffiti. From today, I would like to answer these questions. In today’s post I will answer questions one and two.

http://graffiti-controversial.blogspot.jp/2016/06/questions-regarding-to-graffiti.html

1. What do you think is “ART”?

In my guess, “ART” is paintings, acts, music, sculpture, etc. that is shown to other people. This is still my guess, so I searched it on different dictionaries. I referred on these dictionaries because I think they are one of the most famous dictionaries in the world and they have long history, so they should have done many researches to provide correct information to people.

Oxford Dictionaries said that it is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power”.

Collins School Dictionary and Thesaurus says it is creation of works of beauty, especially paintings or sculpture. It also says when it is “arts”, literature, music, painting, and sculpture are considered together.

In Japanese dictionary Kojien, I researched the word “GEIJUTSU” which means art in Japanese. It said art is the activity and effort by people who create things, such as paintings sculpture, construction, poetry, music, or acts, which has appreciable value by using their techniques, body, and materials.

Thus, according to these definition it is clear that it should be creative, impressive, imaginative or beautiful and created to express important feelings or ideas. My guess was true in that paintings and sculptures are included in art. In the Japanese dictionary, it also included all of the other things that I mentioned first. From these definitions, I think graffiti can be accepted as art because they are paintings and they have strong feelings and ideas to express.

2. When and where did graffiti come from?

To find out when and where graffiti came from, I used three sources used for education. They all have the way to contact and basically had same information.

According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 5^th Edition, the definition of graffiti is “rude, humorous, or political writing and pictures on the walls of buildings, trains etc.” Referring to this definition, it can be said that graffiti existed since thousands of years ago when people started to writing things on caves. In the Ancient Rome and Greek, people wrote their names and protest poems on buildings. The term “Graffiti” also came from the Greek word “graphein”, which means to write.

The modern graffiti, which usually use sprays to paint, seems to have appeared in Philadelphia in early 1960s and reached to New York in late sixties. In 1971, an article about one of the graffiti writers was published by New York Times. The term “Graffiti” was also used for the first time by them. In the early 70s, Art Galleries started to buy graffiti. In the late seventies to early 80s, hip hop culture emerged. At that time, Keith Haring, one of the most famous graffiti artists started his activity to put black paper on blank advertising walls and paint on the paper. Graffiti became to be abandoned at this time but at the same time, they also became to be respected as art, especially by young people.

I discovered that paintings on buildings itself have quite long history. I am now also curious how writing names or poems on the buildings was thought at that time.

Bibliography

• Art - definition of art in English from the Oxford dictionary. Retrieved June 22, 2016, from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/art

• Collins school dictionary & thesaurus (First ed.). (2009). Glasgow: HarperCollins.

• Shinmura, I. (2008). Kojien. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.

• Lifer. Birth and Evolution. Retrieved June 22, 2016, from http://csdt.rpi.edu/subcult/grafitti/Birth_and_Evolution.html

• Artcrisis. (2014, September 20). Graffiti History. Retrieved June 22, 2016, from https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/graffiti-history-6022612

• The history of graffiti. Retrieved June 22, 2016, from http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/skills/reading-skills-practice/history-graffiti