What is art, and what is it for?

My son, Nathan, has been awarded a 2:1 in his fine art degree. He is delighted, so are we.

He insists that most of the bullshit written about art is simply bullshit with no discernible meaning or value. The bullshit includes the vast majority of critical appraisals and the overwhelming proportion of "artist's statements" which he thinks are meaningless. Nathan's own art is certainly not straightforward pictorial or representative art. When artists produce work which is "difficult" are they being difficult to hoodwink the public or to explore the boundaries between the perceived and the unperceived?

It is easy to like art and images which we already know: Van Gogh's sunflowers are striking to us and the image is loved all over the world but when he first painted them he couldn't sell the painting. Much of Picasso's work is "difficult" but some is very easy to appreciate so that gives us the confidence to believe the other work is worth studying. Once we become familiar with his weeping women (for instance) we come to love the huge distorted eyes, the juxta-positioning of different views of the same object, the vibrant clashing colours, the distortion.

Tonight I had a few alternative pictures to blip. One of water and reflections under a bridge, had echoes of Monet (with rich and complex greens intermingling). Another image was more in keeping with modern photographic fashion - a wide patch of negative space, some reflections, also iterated elements (railings, pillars), muted colours. But here I've chosen a blip of graffiti, a universal form of mark-making, and also art.

I don't know what its for; entertainment or egomania?

Answers, on a postcard...