How to define "art"?

[WayOutThere]

I made a thread recently asking people what the greatest piece of art they have come across is, but I pre-defined "art".

As I did in that thread, I'm going to recommend you read this:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,24493980-5014239,00.html

From that, you can see where I'm coming from. Art is the exploration of human emotions. There seems to be no simpler or all-encompassing way to define it. This defintion is elegant.

But, how do you define it?

 

[pigeon_of_doom]

I'm really mixed on how to define it, to be honest. One the one hand, you could say it's an expression or exploration of human emotions, but then what does that make of painted portraits or landscape pictures, or pieces of photography that have a fantastic aesthetic effect but convey nothing beyond their own flamboyance? Would you deny those things the title of art? And to what point does the artists influence make it art? Does giving a woman's portrait an enigmatic smile make it art, when without it it would not be such?

But then, sheer craftmanship is not enough to make something qualify as art. Otherwise every tailored jacket or carpenter made chair could be placed in a gallery. Effort and technical proficiency isn't enough to raise it up, I mean, then you could easily make a case for Windows XP being a work of art. So perhaps, in agreement with Oscar Wilde's immortal words "All art is quite useless" as in it has no practical merit? But art can enlighten, inspire, challenge, teach, provoke, assure and much else besides. And what's more important? Being told how to exit the plane safely in the event of an emergency by a sequence of images, or being shown how to respect your fellow humans by 'To Kill a Mockingbird' or anything else that has a huge impact on you?

I suppose what I'm getting at here is that, for me, art is something that has no practical benefit to humanity (an intellectual benefit at most, I would never deny 1984's illuminating allegory the position of art) and requires a high degree of craftmanship to create. Exploration of ineffable truths and other high minded pursuits are optional as far as I'm concerned. I just put down my thoughts in a few minutes, so this is far from my comprehensive theory of art (if I even had one) and there are certainly many holes in my argument, but hopefully it can provoke discussion.

 

[TheNumber1Zero]

art is in the eye of the beholder

 

[Legion]

Art is tricky, I know what I would consider art and what I would not but cannot convey it properly.

I do not consider planting a fully grown tree upside down in the ground art for example, and yet a famous "artist" was paid a considerable amount of money to do so.

 

[Chicago Ted]

art is in the eye of the beholder

And that's how it is linked to beauty.

 

[Taerdin]

Art is exactly when someone creates something, calls it art, and puts it out into the world.

Art can be as simple as nothingness, or as complex as the most complex thing imaginable

It is completely subjective, and cannot be 100% defined or outlined

Art is everything and yet it is nothing.

 

[Florion]

I'm really mixed on how to define it, to be honest. One the one hand, you could say it's an expression or exploration of human emotions, but then what does that make of painted portraits or landscape pictures, or pieces of photography that have a fantastic aesthetic effect but convey nothing beyond their own flamboyance? Would you deny those things the title of art? And to what point does the artists influence make it art? Does giving a woman's portrait an enigmatic smile make it art, when without it it would not be such?

But then, sheer craftmanship is not enough to make something qualify as art. Otherwise every tailored jacket or carpenter made chair could be placed in a gallery. Effort and technical proficiency isn't enough to raise it up, I mean, then you could easily make a case for Windows XP being a work of art. So perhaps, in agreement with Oscar Wilde's immortal words "All art is quite useless" as in it has no practical merit? But art can enlighten, inspire, challenge, teach, provoke, assure and much else besides. And what's more important? Being told how to exit the plane safely in the event of an emergency by a sequence of images, or being shown how to respect your fellow humans by 'To Kill a Mockingbird' or anything else that has a huge impact on you?

I suppose what I'm getting at here is that, for me, art is something that has no practical benefit to humanity (an intellectual benefit at most, I would never deny 1984's illuminating allegory the position of art) and requires a high degree of craftmanship to create. Exploration of ineffable truths and other high minded pursuits are optional as far as I'm concerned. I just put down my thoughts in a few minutes, so this is far from my comprehensive theory of art (if I even had one) and there are certainly may holes in my argument, but hopefully it can provoke discussion.

You've definitely hit on something with the idea that "craftsmanship alone is not art" But I don't think art necessarily has to be useless. I believe that art has to be created for the purpose of being art. It may be useful by the way, perhaps because it wants to say something about its function, but if it was created in order to be a tool or a thing to make money with, it's not art.

 

[RemoteControlRox]

I had to discuss this in Psychology and one of my Art Histories. If I start having flashbacks, I apologize.

Taking Dada and other movements that many people find nonsensical into account, art can be considered the application of an idea or concept into an aesthetic form. Creativity combined with craftsmanship, and...

Well, pigeon_of_doom and Florion did a good job of putting things to words. Better than I can manage, anyway.

 

[Zukonub]

Anything that evokes emotion out of its audience.

 

[Zacharine]

Art is the expression or application of creative skill and imagination, usually with no immediate functionally useful goal in mind.

A doorhandle might be art, if the craftsman used creativity and likely finess in crafting it. Ie. it was not intended to act simply as a doorhandle, but also as a 'vessel' of the crafters creativity and imagination.

 

[DrDeath3191]

Something an artist makes.

 

[Uncompetative]

I made a thread recently asking people what the greatest piece of art they have come across is, but I pre-defined "art".

As I did in that thread, I'm going to recommend you read this:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,24493980-5014239,00.html

From that, you can see where I'm coming from. Art is the exploration of human emotions. There seems to be no simpler, more elegant, or all-encompassing way to define it.

But, how do you define it?

You are making a fundamental mistake in trying to define art, or expect others to define it for you.

Art is a process which consensually (re)defines itself with the aid of its audience.

I don't even think you need the context of a gallery, a artifact, or the agency of an artist producing said artifact to validate it as Art.

The "eye of the beholder" answer would seem to cover this, but then what of tactile sculptural art for blind people?

The point I'm making (as someone who actually has done a degree in Fine Art) is that there can be no fixed definition of something which is evolving as our sensibilities and culture evolve. In the future there may be things that are indisputably accepted as art that we currently do not even perceive as being anything to dwell upon as we haven't attuned ourselves to look at them in that way.

It may be that art will undergo a revolution and free itself from needing artists and artifacts just as it has already done so with galleries, as you encounter something "artistic" out-of-place in an everyday environment. It may become completely abstract and immaterial and just be a "way of looking at the world" or "thinking about things", like a form of directed meditation.

However it evolves, it won't remain fixed. There will never be an unchallenged definition of it. It is a process, a mind-expanding pursuit.

 

[arcstone]

An interpretation I like is that throughout our history, man have created two things.

Tools and art.

Tools is that which has a practical purpose, and art is that which has not.

 

[DrTrevelyan]

I think that there are three drives that fuel mankind:
1. Survival
2. Sex
3. Art

Art can be anything that doesn't fit into the first two categories. As long as it fulfills some other emotional drive, then it's art. Food sates your hunger. Sex sates your lust. Art sates your creativity

 

[Zacharine]

You are making a fundamental mistake in trying to define art...

Art is a process which consensually (re)defines itself with the aid of its audience.

So you are saying that art is an inherently iterative process, where the viewer is as important as the artist?

That is an interesting point of view. But it does not help us with defining what is and isn't art. And such a definition is needed, I feel. How do you otherwise separate a visually empty, pure aluminimum beer can from, say...., the Sistine Chapel or perhaps Bethoven's 5th? If everything can be art, then 'art' as a term becomes meaningless.

Certainly, I would agree that what is and isn't art changes as the society changes. Even to the extent that what once was art might not be so in the future.

But I still think we should be able to define art with a definition that includes those changes within itself, in meaning if not in accurate words at the very least.

 

[pigeon_of_doom]

I believe that art has to be created for the purpose of being art. It may be useful by the way, perhaps because it wants to say something about its function, but if it was created in order to be a tool or a thing to make money with, it's not art.

That sounds quite good, although I think it may be a little naive? A lot of art has heavy elements propaganda (as in being a vehicle for the artist's beliefs) and thus a kind of tool, and I wouldn't use that against it. And, of course, concessions to the consumers of art pieces are commonplace, radical artists who make exactly what they want to create are becoming rarer in these days of corporate management, but I don't know if they were even that common to begin with as there was always an oppressive force or financial worries prompting artists to become more commercial.

I could have just misunderstood your meaning of "tool" and "thing to make money with" though. I have little confidence in my own opinion on art but I'm just trying to expand the discussion here.

Art is a process which consensually (re)defines itself with the aid of its audience.

The form it takes may evolve and expand as it has over time, and of course creates a new challenge as the intelligentsia rush to attempt to define it, but don't you think there's a more reliable criteria than a person's individual response to it? We may always be restricted to a limited mode of expression at the moment, but art often seems to tap into the same part of a person (just in different areas and through different methods) so perhaps its effect is less broadly defined.

If everything can be art, then 'art' as a term becomes meaningless.

There will always be certain things that may have a profound impact on an individual person, but those feelings shouldn't be confused with art, although the strength of that feeling is something art often wishes to emulate. For example, with me, when watching an early episode of Friends (mildly lusting over Jennifer Aniston throughout), and then, seeing Jennifer Aniston now in a trailer, I just got hit by a revelatory, almost tragic sense of the inevitability of time passing that I can barely describe. But I would never claim that trailer of Marley and Me was art, it just happened to coincidentally provoke that reaction in me. Perhaps intentionally putting the pieces in place for that kind of reaction is what some art aspires to achieve. But that's the key. Intent

Fucking humans. We find meaning in the weirdest things.

Ok, this was actually quite a short post before I started responding to other people's replies.

 

[WayOutThere]

It is completely subjective, and cannot be 100% defined or outlined.

I find that to be a depressing idea. Just because it is subjective doesn't mean it can't be defined.

or expect others to define it for you.

I find that both ridiculous and needlessly insulting.

Art is a process which consensually (re)defines itself with the aid of its audience.

I don't even think you need the context of a gallery, a artifact, or the agency of an artist producing said artifact to validate it as Art.

yes

The "eye of the beholder" answer would seem to cover this, but then what of tactile sculptural art for blind people?

You're not serious are you?

as someone who actually has done a degree in Fine Art

And look at how much good its done you.

(that whole "needlessly insulting" thing back at you)

is that there can be no fixed definition of something which is evolving as our sensibilities and culture evolve.

You are missing the ENTIRE point. Art can evolve all it wants but it will always be about effecting us emotionally. What effects us emotionally at one point changes as our sensibilities and culture do.

 

[pigeon_of_doom]

You are missing the ENTIRE point. Art can evolve all it wants but it will always be about effecting us emotionally.

I think the emotional response is something that has taken a much larger precedence in the last few hundred years or so, possibly thanks to the Romantic movement and the ever increasing use of pathos. Seeking only to provoke an emotional response from an audience has always seemed too limited to me as a definition for art. I don't think it's been completely a good thing (although I'm a bigger emotion-junkie than most) as it may have contributed to our current culture to the point where you see things like the massive outpourings of grief over the deaths of people like Jade Goody and Princess Diana (at least here in the U.K).

I'll add my eternal caveat here though: I could easily be wrong.

 

[WayOutThere]

You are missing the ENTIRE point. Art can evolve all it wants but it will always be about effecting us emotionally.

I think the emotional response is something that has taken a much larger precedence in the last few hundred years or so, possibly thanks to the Romantic movement and the ever increasing use of pathos. Seeking only to provoke an emotional response from an audience has always seemed too limited to me as a definition for art. I don't think it's been completely a good thing (although I'm a bigger emotion-junkie than most) as it may have contributed to our current culture to the point where you see things like the massive outpourings of grief over the deaths of people like Jade Goody and Princess Diana (at least here in the U.K).

I'll add my eternal caveat here though: I could easily be wrong.

An emotional reaction does not have to be shallow. I think you're point about this definition being limited only works if emotional reactions aren't deep and subtle.

 

[Just_Karol]

If you break it down, humans have invented two things in their time: Tools & Art.

Tool: Anytime that is created for living and survival.

Art: Anything that is created for pleasure and enjoyment.

There's nothing to it.

EDIT: Only coped on that someone has made made this statement (now I feel Like and idiot, moreso)....
Damn you Arcstone.