3 purposes of art

1. Art as fantasy: Here art plays the role of an outlet for the masses, who generally live oppressed lives (like in India). Art takes people to that fantastic realm, away from the harsh reality that the common man faces. A little bit of nitrous oxide, a little tickle and run, a little dancing-around-trees - and the working man is convinced that he should go on toiling more and more: art for the sake of the common consumer.
2. Art as the mirror of reality: A more refined sense of art, dominant mostly in the western intellect. Art has a function of mimesis: to reflect back the reality to the oblivious thinker and scholar, so that he can keep tabs on it, so that it does not get out of his hand. He needs art to control reality or to make a satirical caricature of it! Art - almost like a diary that chronicles one's inner feelings, so that one does not lose oneself in one's own depths. Art as the effect of the command: "Know thyself!" Art for the sake of the sophisticated consumer.
3. Art: not for the sake of the consumer, but for the sake of the artist. Art - not for the sake of purpose, but to create purposes: falsifying, but also transforming reality, and thereby creating the audience too, the consumer! Both a satire and fantasy - a midway between the first two senses of art, but neither the first nor the second. Art as the rare rays of the comet following its own path in the night's sky.