There is a drive within all of us to create and express ourselves through art. This drive comes from a need to achieve a balance within ourselves. Art refers to the theory and physical expression of creativity found in human societies_and cultures. Its major fields include literary arts, performing arts (e. g. theater and dance) and visual arts (e. g. drawing, painting, photography, film and sculpture).

Art is essential to our culture because it provides us with a deeper understanding of emotions. Through art, we learn to feel joy in times of happiness and we see pain and despair in times of suffering. Creating art allows us to slow down and experience a full range of our emotions, while viewing others’ art can release the emotions within us and allow us to explore our feelings. This can help us heal and grow, and succeed both personally and professionally.

Art encourages critical thinking and promotes communication. Throughout the entire process of creating and appreciating art, we need to make decisions. We use logic and reasoning to find meaning in what we see or create. Art is a medium to share thoughts, ideas and visions that may not be expressed in other ways. Through art, we gain a better understanding of past and present cultures. Yet more importantly, there are no language barriers in art and therefore it is universal.

Art also enhances our lives. The process of experiencing art engages both the body and the mind and provides us with time to reflect. That’s why art is a necessity, not a luxury. It can make a community more beautiful and a workplace more interesting. Our homes reflect our personalities through the art we choose to display. Art can inspire us, make us happy and even motivate us.

We need to express ourselves through art. When we take a closer look at our world and begin to see the art and creativity in it, it can soothe, enrich or encourage ourselves. Art is beautiful , and beauty is an aesthetic quality.

What is the place of art in a culture of inattention? Recent visitors to the Louvre report that tourists can now spend only a minute in front of the Mona Lisa before being asked to move on. Much of that time, for some of them, is spent taking photographs not even of the painting but of themselves with the painting in the background.

One view is that we have made tourism and gallery-going so easy that we have made it effectively impossible to appreciate what we’ve travelled to see. In this society, experience becomes goods like any other. There are queues to climb Everest as well as to see famous paintings. Thus, leisure is considered as hard labour rather than relaxation.

In the rapidly developing society, what gets lost is the quality of looking. Consider an extreme example, the late philosopher Richard Wollheim. When he visited the Louvre he could spend as much as four hours sitting before a painting. The first hour, he claimed, was necessary for incorrect impression to be removed. It was only then that the picture would begin to disclose itself. This seems unthinkable today, but it is still possible to organise. Even in the busiest museums there are many rooms and many pictures worth hours of contemplation (沉思) which the crowds largely ignore.

Marcel Proust, another lover of the Louvre, wrote: “It is only through art that we can escape from ourselves and know how another person sees a universe which is not the same as our own and whose landscapes would otherwise have remained as unknown as any there may be on the moon.” If any art remains worth seeing, it must lead us to such escapes. But a minute in front of a painting in a hurried, harried (烦扰) crowd won’t do that.

John Dominis was one of the staff photographers of LIFE Magazine. He joined LIFE in 1950 and shot one of the most classic pictures of the 20th century; Tommie Smith and John Carlos giving the black power salute at the Olympics in Mexico.

Here, LIFE looks back at one of his lesser-known shoots—the African antelope, which was a cover story that earned him Magazine Photographer of the year in 1966 and later became a book. In the Editor's Note that accompanies the story. Dominis described how he was able to get the dramatic photo without a telephoto lens.

“I wanted to get low-angle shots that gave a dramatic sense of their speed. I built boxes and mounted cameras inside of them.” Dominis explained. “John and I worked for three weeks with them. We'd go a mile ahead of a herd and put down the boxes and hid them. Then we'd hide a quarter of a mile away and wait maybe for several hours. Meanwhile the light might change and there was no way I could change the exposure on the cameras. If the animal reached the boxes, I pushed the button that set off the cameras by a radio signal and ran off a whole roll of film. I must have exposed 40 rolls, but ended up with only one really good photo.”

The Briscoe Center recently acquired John Dominis's works. “These pictures and collections have something to say about how Americans perceive the outside world,” said Ben Wright of the Briscoe Center. “They are not only beautiful and interesting; they're historical evidence that help historians to understand the past with accuracy and integrity.”