What is Art?

[cthulu2016]

A thing or experience created by a human being with some intention (not necessarily the sole intention) that it be experienced by some real or hypothetical other human being as beautiful.

(And beautiful is, of course, a lot harder to define!)

Beyond that simple definition we get into modifiers of art... great art, bad art, high art, low art, and so on.

It is best to not fetishize art. A decorated cake is certainly art, as is a typical item of clothing or furniture. These things may not always be exultant all-caps ART, but they are surely art.

A definition of art that required that art have great aesthetic merit would render the phrase, "bad art" an oxymoron.

[BlueJazz]

1. (for me) When I can say "Thou art art"

[patrice]

3. Not always sure about beauty myself, as it can have qualities that are quite other than

what is conventionally meant by that term, qualities related to "terrible" or, for want of a better word, something like the awful.

Anyway, you did say that was another discussion, so perhaps you'll consider adding to your definition "... experienced by some real or hypothetical other human being as beautiful" or as having emotional power.

[rrneck]

4. Beautiful?

Willem DeKooning - Woman



Picasso Le Demonsille D'Avingione




Goya - The Horrors of War



I would say that art is anything made intended to give a deeper insight into the human condition. That insight, like some introspection, can be far from beautiful. Although such insights can lead to beauty.

Art doesn't give us a place to stop for anything. It offers us a place to start. Great art does it for hundreds, or even thousands, of years.

[Brickbat]

5. Well said, and I agree.

[WinkyDink]

10. "intended to give a deeper insight into the human condition" = a BRILLIANT definition! THAT is the

reason the Liberal Arts are CRUCIAL to civilization.

[cthulu2016]

15. The definition hangs on the definition of beauty, of course.

To me, beauty has very little to do with pretty or pleasant and much to do with profound feelings like awe and wonder.

But most of all, since beauty is an aesthetic concept, beauty has to be defined relative to aesthetic experience.

Beauty is that thing in art that is more than mere function.

A circular definition, yes. But not a useless circularity, since I didn't want my definition of art to be exclusive.

[Agnosticsherbet]

6. Oscar Wilde had something to say about art in "The Pictue of Dorian Gray"

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.

-- OSCAR WILDE

[porphyrian]

7. Is Dada art, then, or non-art? n/t

[porphyrian]

11. For reference...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada

http://www.google.com/search?q=dada&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=JU9eUI2QFqm4yQH4roD4Cw&ved=0CD0QsAQ&biw=1920&bih=962

[surrealAmerican]

8. "Beautiful" is the wrong word.

Try replacing it with "meaningful" and you might have a good working definition. Either meaning or aesthetic merit needs to be the main purpose of the work for it to be art, otherwise, like your cake decorating or furniture, it would more properly be called "craft".

There's nothing inferior about craft as opposed to art; it just means that there is a function in addition to the aesthic appeal of the object. Art is not a value judgement, there is bad art.

[porphyrian]

9. ...and there is a museum for it...

http://www.museumofbadart.org/

[nolabear]

12. Best definition of "Aesthetic" I ever heard: Opposite of "Anaesthetic".

Art wakes something in you. Something essential and important. No always pleasant but always alive.

[MrScorpio]

13. Art, like beauty, has always been defined by the eye of the beholder nt

[GReedDiamond]

14. Personally, I think that "art" is whatever I decide it is...

...and I don't mind if others have a differing opinion.

I have made a living as an "artist" (and musician) since 1976.

But I do not think that a lot of what I've done as that "job description" is actually art, in the sense of, art gallery/museum level art.

However, I would consider a lot of what I've done since 1976 "pop art," if nothing else - in the sense that it has been seen and "consumed" by, literally, millions of people, most of whom have no idea who I am or that I did whatever I did when they see the work in whatever context it's in, whether it be in a movie, on tv, or a garment they are wearing on their body.

I do occasionally show work in galleries (though not lately), but I'm not talking about gallery art here, it's more "commercial" art, for underground comix in the 70s, record/cd covers, tee shirts/denim and other garments, tv/movie costume graphics, backdrops for museum installations or stage shows, etc.

I also collect art, and sometimes sell it, and I have three requirements for purchasing art:

1) I can afford it
2) I like it, a lot
3) It has a reasonable chance of appreciating in value, or at least maintaining its value

And, to the question concerning dadaism, yes, I consider dada to be art, anti-art was just the way it was "sold."

If any of us were to come upon an original work of "dada art," by say, Duchamp, or Hans Arp, or Kurt Schwitters, to name a few, and it was possible to authenticate, it would be worth a considerable amount of money.

What any given individual on the outside of the "art world" thinks about a particular piece of art, or any given "art movement," is irrelevant to the "art world" and its proponents, sellers/collectors, museums, scholars and historians.

And, for the record, I saw one of the "Piss Christ" photographic prints in a gallery in Santa Monica, CA, about twenty years ago. It was magnificent!

Amazingly, there was nobody anywhere around trying to destroy the piece, or burn down the gallery, or even complaining about it.