Everything we do serves an organic need. We brainwash our children into color preferences, educated taste and acceptable behavior. Art is the act of capturing the feeling of something from something that stimulates thinking of something other than itself. We give our facial gestures too little credit in communication. Imagine having to communicate with a bag over one's head all day, even with peep holes.
Painting are our proof our our species' ability to sustain coexisting multiple realities.
Some criticize that art is the rich man's fancy. What they don't realize is that art is all around them. Pornography is sex too literally represented for certain folks' morality. Sex however, in abstract visual form can be unabashly depicted. Aesthetic is constantly remoulded by the brainwashing effect of advertising.