Politics has a significant influence on art and artists. Juan Luna's Spoliarium depicted the suffering of the country under colonial rule, using art to send a political message. Some artists feel restricted in fully expressing their ideas due to political influences. The government utilizes art for propaganda purposes, and some artists feel their skills are used to further political agendas rather than their own visions. While this intertwining of art and politics provides benefits for some, the author hopes it can be a partnership that uplifts all groups in society, including the people, government, and artists.

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Our Arts, Our Culture: That’s What It Means To Be A Filipino
What is the role of politics in arts? And arts in politics?
Art is always influence by politics. How could I say this? Well, as I have remembered from
the discussions that we had in our class, there has always been an effect to every art, a certain artist
has created. What conveys the art that is created by a certain artist, is its surrounding community
either directly or indirectly, however not only the community that he is in but the country as well.
In everything that happens within the community affects much of what the art expresses. That is
why there is so much that politics can do for arts. Remembering that Spoliarium of Juan Luna
depicted how the country suffers from the colonizers, and through it, a message has been brought
forth throughout. And that Arnel’s artwork that showed how they protested on those people and
situation that they felt not favourable in ways they knew of. And with the reactions they had,
showed that politics have a great role in arts. Sometimes we may not feel that somehow there are
certain artists’ work of arts that have restrictions, that they could not really express what they really
intended to convey. That is because of politics, maybe. Can’t we see how it affects everybody?
That is why arts in our country could not really freely express their ideas of a certain thing or even
explore on certain ideas. For art that has been created by artist somehow shows how they feel, and
the way to express it is by its own work. With the art created, the government utilizes it for its
purposes, such as propaganda. It now seems that a lot of artist created their work for reasons that
their skills and talents were used by those who have intentions to, especially when it comes to
political climate. So with this work of arts the artist has created, they could criticize or even depict
what they intend to let somebody see. And not only that, thru their work, they could draw the
viewers’ attention to it and somehow could influence in any way what their work of art could do.
Although this situation must not be so, however, we could never deny the fact, that is happening
in our community. I just hope that arts and politics could go hand-in-hand for the good of not only
those who could get money out of it, but most of all benefit everyone, that includes the government,
people and the artist as well.