Painting and sculpture, striking installations, performances and shows of light and sound - all this is today perceived as an indisputable manifestation of art. The perception of such phenomena depends entirely on the mind of the beholder, the degree of his awareness of cultural issues, readiness to understand and realize something new. To some, bold steps towards beauty seem wild and worthless, to others - inspirational and truly decisive, and someone is absolutely indifferent to such manifestations of art.
In every city in the world you can find walls on which all sorts of inscriptions or drawings flaunt.
This is real street art, perceived by some as vandalism.
From the depths of human history to today
It is hardly a secret that the fact that everything is new is simply the well-forgotten old. By and large, the inscriptions on the surface of the walls are by no means a know-how for humanity. Recall, for example, the drawings of the Paleolithic era, which the representatives of the world archaeological community continually find in different parts of the globe.
Of course, in this case, we can say that at that stage of development, such manifestations of craving for beauty had a completely different meaning, but there is no way to escape the similarity in relation to physical manifestations. From this point of view, graffiti is just a small legacy of our great past.
It all depends on the interpretation
Few people know, but in the archaeological and art historian this term is used quite actively, although it has a slightly different meaning. In the minds of ordinary people, graffiti is any drawing or inscription located on a wall, a fence, and, by and large, on any horizontal or vertical surface (let's not forget about three-dimensional drawings on asphalt, which are gaining popularity around the world).
In historiographical representation, the term has a slightly different, deeper and more concrete meaning. In the broadest sense, graffiti is any image or inscription applied to the surface with paint or, for example, embossing, scratching. In a narrower view, only scratched images and letters belong to this kind of archaeological finds, due to the etymological origin of the term. Everything else is referred to as dipinti.
A small historical background
For those who believe that graffiti is exclusively a manifestation of vandalism, it should be noted once again the fact of the antiquity of such a phenomenon on the path of world development.
Gradually, primitive pictograms improved, acquired a certain meaning and were reflected in the era of Antiquity. Graffiti art can be found in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, which is located on the territory of modern Turkey, and the ancient Romans didn’t tend to decorate not only walls, but also statues with inscriptions.
No matter how strange it may sound, this method of recording and transmitting information was quite commonplace in Ancient Russia. In Novgorod, Kiev and other cities, hundreds of wall paintings and inscriptions have been preserved, which are now considered full-fledged historical monuments. By the way, such phenomena say a lot to the modern world about the development of writing.
On the walls of the Egyptian pyramids, you can also find scratched names of French soldiers residing in this territory.
Present day
In fairness, it should be noted that all of the above historical evidence can be described as "graffiti" in an exclusively cultural sense. All these inscriptions were scratched on the walls of temples, on statues and stones, while today such things are manifested exclusively with paint. Today, graffiti is the art of the streets, it is paintings painted on the walls, among which you can sometimes find really beautiful things: replicas of Dali's paintings or original works that just take your breath away.
The problem of society itself
In this case, you say, where does such a huge number of people come from who consider such manipulations with paints to be exclusively vandalism and do not want to look at things even a little differently?
This point of view is really quite common at the moment, and there is no getting around it. The thing is that the perception of the beautiful is, firstly, a thing that is purely individual, and secondly, that requires thorough cultural training. In order to consider that graffiti is an art, it is necessary to have minimal ideas about aesthetics in general and its modern manifestation in particular. This applies not only to the beholder, but also to the painter - it is difficult to call the inscription for the sake of the inscription itself a masterpiece. Especially if it is done sloppy and completely thoughtless.
The same inscription, however, with proper presentation can become an exclusively aesthetic object.
Banksy
That's who exactly demonstrated the art of graffiti to the world. Photos of the works of this artist circled the entire Internet and at one time became a real sensation. In particular, this was reinforced by the audacity with which the problems of modern society were revealed in street paintings . Many of the works of this artist were a real political satire. Others are simply conceptual drawings that allow you to think.
Paintings appeared on the walls of various cities every now and then, the style became more and more recognizable, however, the identity of the street artist was still not possible to establish. Moreover - to this day no one has succeeded.
For Banksy and people like him, graffiti is something between the way of self-expression and the tool of working with the
mass consciousness, since there is simply no way to find any work that does not make you think.
Politics and the rise of street art
Oddly enough, street paintings are so popular today largely due to the activities of American political activists who sought to express their point of view by any means available.
From 1969 to 1974, graffiti was actively developing, new styles appeared, methods of applying paint to walls, until the popularity of this type of art reached a kind of apogee. Since then, not only the streets and underpasses began to be full of "tags", but also metro stations.
Political slogans gradually began to be diluted in other words, from citations of literary works to swear words. Perhaps, it was during this period that the question: graffiti is a form of art or vandalism, was the most relevant.
Decline in popularity
Naturally, such antics could not remain unpunished for a long time. Due to the outbreak of the “crack epidemic” and the increase in the use of swearing on city walls, the government had to take action, and gradually they became more and more decisive.
This naturally led to a decrease in the popularity of this art form. For a long time it went into a state of decline.
Commercialization and the return of popularity
Despite the fact that this type of art practically turned into graffiti on paper and did not find any reflection on the city walls, there were always true fans of such modern “cave inscriptions”. In cities, new paintings continually appeared, which at times even acquired the status of a sight.
Quite often, the walls of various shops and shopping centers became the “victims” of graffiti. Entrepreneurial owners, able to appreciate the benefits of such phenomena, quickly took note of a similar way of attracting customer attention, and soon graffiti on paper turned into full-fledged paintings, made to order. For many artists, this has literally become a way to earn money, and it is not at all surprising that this phenomenon fits so well into the concept of pop art.
Modernity
Today, graffiti is a predominantly non-commercialized phenomenon, however in almost every city in the world you can find some cafe or bookstore decorated in this style.
The paintings placed on the walls and fences, then acquire a greater aesthetics, then give way to inscriptions that have an exclusively political context. It depends, first of all, on the situation in a particular country, the level of stability and well-being of the population.
Despite the fact that the tendency towards aesthetization definitely takes place, in the moments of popular upheaval the original purpose of graffiti art is returning, and a period of flourishing culture of street paintings follows a forced decline.
How to relate to such manifestations of art is everyone's personal business. Someone prefers not to notice them at all, someone writes angry posts about them on personal blogs, and someone collects and enjoys a simple contemplation of freedom of expression.
An unsuccessfully written inscription can sometimes spoil even the greatest building, considered one of the greatest architectural monuments, but sometimes just a few colored touches can turn the most ordinary ruins into a real object of art ...