What is art?

[icymist]

What do you consider art? Could it be a formal oil painting of a realistic scene? Maybe a full frontal nudal hanging over a bar. Some people consider a colorful display of pastel with no form what-so-ever as art. When I sketch a plant:

Is this art or am I merely recording what I see. In the 19th Century, these types of sketches were common place among the wealthy, well-educated. Could this be the reason that art is so well regulated? These days, when I tell someone that I'm an artist, the first thing off their tongues is that I'll be starving. Bullshit! In fact, I'm over-weight and worrying about my health. Of course, the last 15 years I've spent working in the healthcare field. None-the-less, I'm still an artist, I'm not starving, and I'm about to display my latest. So, what is art? Is it while I'm living it while producing this to you all? I really want to know.

[skyblue]

1. Like the plant because

it isn't "perfect" it's twisted. Plus I'm partial to drawings. Are you comparing sellable art to art that can't be sold? I think of it in the same terms as music. Lots of music is fabulous but today what sells is Crap (see American Idol) so, many times what sells is probably not original or inspiring.

[cleofus1]

2. art is...

the expression of the known...the unknown and the unknowable...


now put that on a motherfuckin' bumper sticker....

or a refrigerator magnet...(either is good)

[greyl]

4. Heheh, yup, I'd agree with that.

In addition to the bumper sticker and magnet, how about on random melons at the market?

[greyl]

3. Ah, the perennial question.

Conversations about this can get very deep, but to keep it simple at the beginning, I think it only depends on intention.

If someone intends to create their own representation of a concept, idea, or actual object and then does so, the product is art. Beauty may remain in the eye of the beholder, but art is in the domain of artists. In other words, a critic doesn't have the right to say that an artist's creation is not art. They only have a right to not like it.

On a related tangent:



I thought it was a mind blowing statement at the time. :)