Just an emotion is not art, but when we put that emotion in a box, so that the observer has to think about it, and little by little, he will get a glimpse of what the creator wants to say, then it becomes beautifull.

Kasper.

Then art is enhanced and much more effective communication.
I think is it.

Dewey commented about the Greek notion of art. It's perhaps still current as when someone says, about for instance an economical car ,"this model is a work of art".Etc.So this is 'work of art' which is a way of praising something, but it's not these days a philosophical definition of what art is.

Do you think that, if something may be considered a piece of art, that the creator of the object must have the intention of calling it that, or does the audience of the object, say, the critics of it, have the authority of entitling it that?

(Stirling)

I think that the maker of the work may define it as art, but has no authority to do so. An audience, or readership, who are experienced in that particular art form are those who have the authority to call it 'art'. The maker and the viewers/readers may evaluate the thing similarly, but the maker on his own is still not the ultimate authority on his creation.

Performing arts are different from permanent arts with regard to definitive performances or authoritative performances. A conductor of an orchestra may give a definitive performance. But a composer, even although he is not such a good conductor as the professional conductor gives the authoritative performance when he conducts his own work.

Or a playwrite may act a part in his own play and may give an authoritative performance, as who else can have the authority to say what the part means? But the producer almost invariably gets a professional actor to play the part in order to give a better or, in the case of a great actor, a definitive performance. The playwrite's authority is consulted by the producer and the director.Same goes for filmplays.

Here's an example of both words in the same sentence:
[(Googled)
... Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003 A Guide to your Rights Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003 A Guide to your Rights This booklet is intended as a short guide for individuals on their data protection rights and on the data protection obligations of those who hold and process personal information. It is not an authoritative or definitive interpretation of the law. If, after reading this booklet, you require further information, please consult the Data Protection Commissioner's website www.dataprotection.ie ...

Humanity has been want to express himself since his dawn. Cave drawings, carvings, at a time when there was no money exchange. Same goes for sexual expression and certain levels of pornographic expression. One of the differences between Humans and animals is we know where to draw a line, at least in theory.

(Juice)

What then is not art but has some of the characteristics of art? Where is the line to be drawn? Pornography is one useful way of naming an antithesis to art. Pornography uses the same techniques to represent an idea as does art. What pornography does not do is represent truth. Pornography sets out to tell a lie which is that some basic emotion of hate, fear, or sex is all that matters.Pornography with its side kick, consumerism, misses out on expressing the whole human being who is most often a contradiction of love and fear.Art expresses the human condition. Even some trivial prettiness may be art if it also expresses the more whole truths of beauty.

That public dissection described by Juice, at least made Juice think about what could have made the dead person give permission. Perhaps a display like this is art because the producer of it intends to make people think, and probably succeeds. The pathos of the dead body, what could have motivated the deceased, what motivates the audience, the locus of the deceased's soul, the line between the pornography of horror and objective research, All these and more can be expressed in such a display, even if the anatomist were only doing it to make money.

Well why not call it 'nature' , or 'everything'? Many people do as a matter of fact, distinguish art from other events and ideas. Is there a criterion for calling something 'art', or 'a work of art' that you could argue for , or against?
A criterion would look like this: if it's art, it matches the criterion. If it's not art it does not match the criterion. Then you argue for or against the criterion(or criteria).

Anything can be considered art. The conditions, or criterion, that something must have to be considered art is dependent upon an observer. However, since an observer can observe anything, anything is art.

But any definition of what constitutes art does not depend upon observers who are not members of a society which follows certain cultures of beliefs, feelings and methods' True, beliefs, feelings and methods change as cultures undergo changes.Artists are often progenitors or leading expositors of changed beliefs, feelings and methods.
To me, art is expression of value , which is communicated with skill, and either reflects communal values, or gives form to communal values that are about to be born.

PatternofPatterns that is not what I said. Sometimes if I am misrepresented here I dont deign to reply,as the misrepresenter is known as someone who does this. But you are usually a good arguer so I am pointing this out to you.

But value is a quality that does not exist apart from individuals' perceptions of it.

Some individuals'perceptions are better than others' perceptions.Although truth and beauty are culturally relative artists working within those cultures have a clearer notion of truth and beauty and can portray truth and beauty better than others who are not artists.

Joshua, what a good idea. I think often a work of art does refer to a narrative, as you illustate. Sometimes when I hear music it does not seem to refer to anything though. Some music , called 'programme music' does refer to something such as spring in the countryside(e.g. Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony) but a lot of music such as real jazz, or a Mozart symphony refer to nothing except its own internal balance of harmony, style, rhythm and melody.

I wonder about paintings and sculpture. Although a sculpture, say one of Thomas Moore's, may be 'about' a woman's form, that is only superficial, and what the sculpture has to say is not a narrative about how pretty, how spiritual, or how fat the woman is, but about something that I personally cannot put into words.

Popular songs are so evocative of their times and places that their meanings, the story they told as the lyricist meant the story, has been overlaid by connotations of time and place and the pop song becomes an icon of its time and place, so that the story its tells is not only the story as the lyricist conceived it, but also the story of a lot of people who were affected by the song at that time.

A searching question from Joshua:

Which then makes me wonder, would I sit and gaze at a living, naked young man for hours on end (without being forced to)? And if I would...then would that make that young man a work of art?

First I am glad that you enjoyed the statue of David on this abstract level as you describe. I suspect that you have yourself done some sculpting.

I have myself wondered how natural beauty is art,or not art. If I chanced upon a lovely scene of a small waterfall, ferns, smoothed rocks,an overhanging rowan tree, without knowing whether or not some gardener had created the scene artificially, I'd not know whether or not to call it art.However, my appreciation of the natural beauty is not without value, since I will be influencing others about natural beauty. I guess the same goes for a lovely human body. It's said by the faithful that God created lovely human bodies, in which case they are works of art, as is all of God's amazingly fantastic creation. Others believe that lovely human bodies are the products of determinism with no artifice involved, neither God's artifice nor man's artifice. I may say that I am one of the latter sort of believers.

I think your question goes further than this though. Your question also brings in the consciousness of the human participant in an experience, and asks whether or not the human participant, audience or gazer upon David, is an active agent in the status of the artifice as 'art'.

This is rather like the old metaphysical question 'if the tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?'I belive that this depends upon how one defines 'sound' and for the art audience, how one defines 'art'. As far as I'm concerned,since I don't believe that art exists in a vacuum, but is bound up in the life of a society, your participation increases the value of David as a work of art. Likewise your loving appreciation of the real living human body increases that body's value to the model or the lover, and whoever else is concerned.

on the idea of calling something that was not made by a human a "work of Art", the first question that arises for me is - so who is the Artist? God? Mother Nature?

Me, I'd say that in the case of natural beauty the artist is human consciousness. And that human consciousness arose from nature.What would you say?

Some natural beauty is so amazing that I want to say 'thank you' . There is every reason to express gratitude and there is no necessity to imagine an object of the gratitude.

"Art is the undefinable defined".

Puts derivative works in their place which is not art.
Art then , is a vanguard of consciousness activity. If is is not in the van it is not art. How then can we say that the sacred music of Bach or Poulenc is not art? After all, the sacred was not undefined by previous artists in all media before Bach, or Poulenc. I could say that these composers made authentic works of art (given definitive performances)because of novel interpretations of the sacred. Then each novel interpretation of the human condition defines the undefinable human condition.Therefore the human condition is the undefinable which art defines.

Art, together with religion, integrates individuals into their cultures. Individuals dont live only by their biological needs and the instruments by which they get their biological needs, i.e. science, education and technology. No, individuals are, besides hungry and procreating, also social and so have evolved to include art and religion in each of their cultures.

(after Malinowski)

Stirling, then you want answers to the question
'what constitutes a work of art?'

That is a really interesting question. It focuses on the intention of the transmitter and also the interpretation of the receiver.I think both transmitter(the artist) and the receiver(the interpreter) are points of view that need consideration before something is a work of art.

(I know that we sometimes say 'that's a true work of art' when all that we mean is that it is cleverly made or that we find it beautiful, but what we are trying to find here is a definition of a work of art.)

The attributes of a work of art are the maker's skill in the particular idiom whatever that is. Also that the work of art contains truth and honesty and is not merely entertaining or useful as is the intention of the paper clpi maker in the OP.***Skill can be objectively estimated by comparison with other works in the same field. But when I say 'contains' I have to say whether or not the work contains truth and honesty on the part of the maker, or on the part of the interpreters, or both maker and interpreters together.

If there is no possibility that the work's truth and honesty can ever be interpreted in any way by anyone, then the work is not art , it is madness. The avant garde is not madness because it can be interpreted by a few persons and in the cases of some works the numbers of people who can interpret them will grow and those people will grow in moral stature the more they interpret the works.

A work of art makes people better people.If it does not make people better people then it's not a work of art.

*** The paper clip can be made into a work of art but not by the intention of the inventor or technologist of the paper clip. Stirling's story about paper clip people may be a work of art because Stirling then becomes the artist whose mental raw material largely includes paper clips. But in addition to Stirling's creativity for the paper clip people story to be a work of art it needs a theme that is honest to the human condition (this does not rule out humour)on the parts of both Stirling and his readers.

Anyone can call anything a 'work of art', ther is no law against this.I am trying to define 'work of art'. I choose the criterion of truth and honesty in portraying the human condition because a work of art is a great thing that influences people to be compassionate and reasoning.

For instance, take Nazi works of art that were inspired by the Nazi party and often had their themes and styles dictated by the Nazi party. These are skilled works. But they tell lies. The lies that they tell are that the German race is superior, heroic, beautiful and prosperous to the exclusion of other, lesser races. These are lies because Nazi ideology is not true to the human condition. The human condition is, as a matter of fact, that individuals of all 'races' have biological and affiliative needs and individuals of all 'races' can contribute to any and all nations' prosperity, bar none.

We understand why Nazism arose. But free peoples won and free people can see that racism is not true, and therefore it's bad if not dishonest.

Some great works of art cross cultural boundaries because they are true of the human condition universally;such as those make us feel for and understand intellectually. Other, ethnic, works of art are true only of the isolated rather sequestered societies in which they originate, but even these can reveal how certain themes such as the human needs for food and societal integration are universal and not just ethnic needs.

Stirling ,
I too would rule out popularity as a criterion .I would also rule out market value of originals as criterion.

What you are describing 'observing the object for what it is' is what I was taught to call 'formal criticism'. The little that I can understand of this is that to criticise the form of a work with no reference to its meaning is largely to comment on human psychology. Thus, e.g. I daresay that that the human brain is inherently satisfied with golden section proportion.Or I daresay that it is inherently exciting to view intense red and intense green in juxtaposition. Then there is op-art of which red/ green vibes are a one example. Personally I dislike having my perceptions worked upon by that op art which 'makes' whirling patterns.

Perhaps you can help me to understand abstract art.That is, art from which meanings have been abstracted.

I have already said that a work of art is partly defined by the criterion of skillful making.But I also said, and I hold to this, that a work of art is also defined by the scope and depth of its truth and honesty as transmitted from the artist as interpreter of the culture to the receivers who are participators in the culture looking to the artist to interpret it skillfully, and to educate them towards new insights.

To confine my interest to abstract art is like confining my sexual interest to incest.Art is or should be about learning and not simply descriptive of inherent psychology.

While interpretative artists have always used psychological tricks such as two-eyedness, hue juxtapositions, and perspective, these have traditionally been used to convey meanings more dramatically. To this extent I am traditional. I think thta abstract art had to be done but that it is a cul de sac.