What's the best artistic medium?

Answer 1

Oh, as you know, there is no one answer to this question. It depends on what medium the artist works in best and/or what medium the viewer/listener prefers.

Is oil better than watercolor or pen and ink? More dramatic, I suppose. Used in more famous works, I suppose. But better? Who knows?

Is marble better than stone, teak than oak, for the sculptor? Not if the artist does something magnificent in oak or limestone. I've seen glorious sculptures out of barbed wire or junk from the junkyard.

I have a personal preference for collage (or mixed media): the artist takes scraps of throwaway stuff--newspaper clippings, photos, pieces of paper, cloth, paper clips, cardboard, old posters, candy wrappings, what have you--and arranges them in a new and satisfying design.

Is the violin or the piano a better medium than the harmonica or accordion? More versatile, I suppose. But not if the only instrument you have, or can play, is a harmonica.

Ultimately, perhaps the most universal medium is the human body moving: dancing.

Or words. Poetry is the language of the soul.

Pablo Neruda wrote, in Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair,"

I want/
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

You can't beat that: twelve monosyllabic words plus one bisyllabic.

But then Maria Sumpter translated these thirteen words into paint. [See /www.epilogue.net/cgi/database/art/view.pl?id=93112 ]

Maybe paint is the best artistic medium.

Answer 2

Please don't tell me that there are "artistic mediums"...