There are several reasons as to why people practice the arts. We will be taking a look at each of these reasons that motivate people to practice the arts in turn. These are issues of interest for several reasons. Firstly, most of the people who practice the various arts tend to get very deeply involved (spending countless hours in practice, even when they seem to be making no headway). Some actually end up becoming recluses in the process. Secondly, most of the people who practice the various arts end up expending lots of money on their practices. That is something they do even when they see absolutely no hope of ever recouping their investments and getting any returns. These ‘irrational’ artistic behaviors are baffling. Many people seek answers upon encountering these behaviors. They seek to understand why people get so deeply involved in the various arts that they practice. They seek to understand why, in the first place, the people who practice the various arts do so (seeing that there are other less involving pursuits they could get involved in).

Those are some of the questions we’ll be answering, as we explore the key reasons as to why people practice the arts.

Without further ado, some of those reasons as to why people practice the arts include:

1. The desire for self-expression: arts provide perfect opportunities for self-expression of the people who practice them. This is just as well, seeing that a good number of the people who are artistically inclined are either highly sensitive people or highly opinionated people. Those are the folks who need some sort of outlets, otherwise they may ‘explode.’ The arts thus serve them as avenues for such self-expression. That is how we end up with folks who don’t care whether or not they earn anything from their artistic pursuits. So long as they get a chance to express themselves through their artistic creations, that is a reward unto itself. This is also how we end up with folks who keep on producing artistic works, even when nobody else really appreciates the works. You are looking at, among others, those ‘musicians’ who produce songs that don’t really become hits, yet who keep on producing the music, because the writing of the songs is cathartic – and that is a ‘reward’ in its own right.

2. The desire for fame: arts provide a ‘short cut to fame.’ The desire to be famous is very strong in some people. And while people can become famous through other avenues (such as politics, innovation and wealth accumulation), those are certainly tall orders. Instead of following those hard routes to fame, and probably end up failing, one only needs to come up with an impressive hit song, and soon he or she would be a ‘household name.’ Instinctively awake to these dynamics of fame, many people who desire to become famous pursue the arts, especially the performing arts — which are viewed as shortcuts to fame.

3. The desire for wealth: it is possible to become rich through the arts. One only needs to come up with impressive art work (whether that happens to be music, a movie concept, a book manuscript or anything else like that), and promote it in the right way. Not many artists will confess that they are in it for the money. But further probing often reveals that their pursuit of the arts is actually motivated by nothing else besides the desire to become wealthy.

There are three major types of arts. We will be examining each of these types of art in turn. For each type of art, we will be seeking to understand several things. Firstly, we will be seeking to understand what each is all about (and, by extension what the products of each type of art are). Secondly, we will be seeking to understand which types of people typically pursue each type of art. Thirdly, we will be seeking to understand why the people who pursue each type of art do so.

Without further ado, the three major types of arts are:

‘Fine’ arts

Here, we are looking at arts such as drawing and painting. Extended, this category would also incorporate arts such as pottery, sculpting and so on. These products of these arts are items that are visually appreciable (and, indeed, items whose value is largely visual). Those are things like drawings, paintings, pottery products and sculptures.

As is the case with all other types of arts, fine arts typically attract folks who have a feeling that they have ‘talent.’ This talent may be inborn or developed. Actually all talent is developed, the ‘inborn-ness’ only yields the inclination for development of the talent. Unlike certain other artists, the people who practice fine art often turn out to be sociable, fun-liking folks. But they often get too engrossed in their artistic pursuits, to the detriment of other areas of their lives.

Many of the people who practice fine arts seem to get a certain level of satisfaction from the artistic pursuits alone. This makes it possible for them to pursue the arts just for the sake of it. Increasingly though, visual arts are turning out to be well paying pursuits. On that account, another crop of fine artists has come up: these being artists who pursue the arts solely for financial gain. Conventional wisdom held that such financially motivated artists would turn out to be mediocre artists. But increasingly, we are seeing monetarily motivated artists actually turning out impressive works, hence challenging that piece of conventional wisdom.

Literary arts

Here, we are looking at arts like writing and poetry.

The products of this group of arts are things like novels, short stories and poems.

The practitioners of these arts often turn out to be introverted, sensitive and reclusive folks. Even when they are within groups of people, they often turn out to be observers, rather than full partakers of the fun. This is what forms the material for the deep observations on the human condition they make in their literary works (that is, the observations they make in the few human interactions they have).

The practitioners of these arts are mostly motivated to pursue them by the desire for expression of the ideas and feelings they accumulate ‘in their chests,’ thanks to their hypersensitive nature. A few are motivated by the desire to make money (and these often lose interest fast, when the money seems to be taking too long in coming).

Performing arts

Here, we are looking at things like theater acting, movie acting, the musical arts, acrobatics and so on.

The products of these arts are therefore things like theater plays, TV plays (and drama programs), movies and the various types of music.

The practitioners of these arts often turn out to be very outgoing people. They are the most outgoing of all groups of artists. They are typically fun loving party animals.

Some folks are motivated to pursue these performing arts by the desire to become famous. Others are motivated to pursue the arts by the desire to express themselves (especially those who get into the musical niches). Yet others are motivated by the desire to become rich.