As an art historian, I know exactly how to answer this question, yet funnily enough, it is a question that I tend to overlook on a daily basis. It wasn't until last week when my professor posed this question in one of my classes that I really started to think about why I'm writing about art. I wish more people would ask me this question rather than the dreaded question of what exactly I'm going to do with this major. It's got a slightly better tone to it, and now that I think about it, my answer for this question could suffice for the dreaded question as well.

Art history is a discipline that is not too far off from history; the difference lies in the main material being studied, but what keeps the two connected is how the materials are contextualized. Despite this, art history is placed below history when it comes to the importance of the discipline's purpose. Frankly, I believe this to be the case due to the misunderstandings of what art history really is.

While historians have a huge focus on studying documents of various sorts, art historians focus on studying art, but within the world of art history, art is a document. Art is studied beyond its aesthetic value; it is contextualized and harbors a variety of purposes, which may be dependent on the artist's intent in some cases. These purposes vary from cultural responses, propaganda, academia, iconography (religious or secular) and the artist's background and emotions, just to name a few. Both historians and art historians create concepts from their so-called documents, shedding light on the organic relationship between the document, object or artwork and the greater idea that emerges from these concepts.

When you break down the term "art historian," you get two different focuses in one word. My focus is largely based on the second word; I'm big on history, I love it. I believe that art has so much to do with major historical events. In the past, it was one of the main frameworks of history, just as social media is the framework of our contemporary society today. I want to emphasize how important art was and still is to the course of our history not just as a nation, but also as a world. Although social media continues to reign as the most dominant influence to every aspect of our society, I still believe that art harbors a great deal of social commentary, and I want to shed light on this.

So why write about art? An easy answer of mine is that I love it and it's what I'm most passionate about in this world. Big picture answer, I believe that there's a lot to uncover in art history. It's anything but a dated discipline; it's one of the keys to understanding a culture, and now more than ever, that is something this world needs. I could write a book on this one particular question, but for the ones who are still skeptical, I'll stop boring you. It's ok to not be passionate about this, but I just want to share with the world that this particular passion of my colleagues and mine is something worth mentioning. It has a purpose, it has a place, and it's important.