There are many kinds of art in the world. However, the bulk of contemporary art is exhibition art. It is intended to be seen by the public at a museum or in exhibition rooms where we walk around and look at the artworks. We move from work to work, looking at each one for 5 to 30 seconds. We may dwell at a particularly “interesting” artwork. That takes a bit longer, though rarely more than a few minutes. It is claimed that real experts can spend days in front of a given picture. But that probably only applies to real experts! 

For more ordinary people, this modern form of interest in art occurs something like 3 to 6 times a year, for something like an hour or two per visit, an art book now and again, perhaps an art quiz on TV – and that is that. 

We must also face the fact that today experts accept only leisure art. In fact, they suppress all other forms of art. In my view, this is a catastrophe because it lacks any real positive meaning for society, culture or people. If we briefly regard some of the other forms of art – religious, political and folk art – I will make my argument. 

Religious art has nothing to do with leisure art. For example, there is an incredible number of representations of the Virgin Mary with the Infant Jesus in her arms, a deeply moving and beautiful motif. In their origin, these pictures are not for entertainment, for exhibition, for sale or in any other way intended for individual pleasure! 

The same goes for political art. Take the many sculpted representations of Ramses II and Stalin, Ramses – majestic, dignified, sovereign, tough, far-seeing, Stalin – I don’t know what. What is important here is not whether the art is aesthetically successful, but that it is used with rational social intentions. Neither Ramses nor Stalin were “interesting” hobby art or “intellectual” leisure activates. Neither Ramses nor Stalin – the sculptures – were intended for exhibitions, museums, private possessions, not to mention investment objects. Here, too, as with the Virgin and Child, the idea of art dealing is not only to be repugnant but also alienating. 

Finally, one more kind of art must be mentioned – namely the best: the art of the common people. Folk art was a “leisure activity”, but not only that, since it had a social meaning, too. It gave a content and meaning to life to an even higher degree than political and religious art. The great thing about folk art was its closeness to daily life, its omnipresence. 

It contained a desire to decorate, a joy and a will to beauty that were in themselves inspiring, elevating and educative. For that reason, it would be appropriate to call it ART AS A WAY OF LIFE. 

Leisure art and folk art (art as a way of life) constitute the extreme poles in the field of pictorial art and illustrate the difference between aesthetics (barren elitist culture) and ethics (viable popular art). It is characteristic of ethical culture-bearing art that it isn’t meant to be seen in the usual “look-at-art” way. It is not meant to be evaluated or subjected to any kind of intellectual processing. Ethical art has an effect, even without being seen. It addresses itself primarily through the feelings, and in this way achieves a much larger, much broader meaning. 

If we look into the home of a traditional Northern European farm, we shall find that in the living rooms not only are the walls decorated, but the ceiling too. There is painted shelf paper on the shelves, and the edge is probably furnished with a lace fringe. All cupboards, drawers, chests and benches are decorated, their hinges and fittings lovingly executed in wrought iron. Clothes, covers and pillowcases are handmade in the prettiest colours. And – this is crucial – everything has been done with the greatest care. 

Where everything has been artistically worked (worked here means treated with a gentle hand), when everything has received a good and embellished decoration and has thus become art, when people’s entire surroundings have been in someone’s hands and have received spirit, then that is – art as a way of life. 

A work of decoration will succeed to the extent – and only to the extent – that it is inspired by feelings of love and human solidarity.