What is Art?

From the cave dweller who found a need to leave his hand print to the most exquisite painting by Botticelli "The birth of Venus" there is a common link. We as humans have a natural desire to express ourselves in any medium we find available. It is human condition and that condition can be described as art. We can criticise art as much as we like and any view is valid but there is no objective reasoning that can deny an intention. Art is an intention the result can be judged but you can not deny artistic intent.If that cave man never found the desire to paint or leave his mark Botticelli would never have lifted a single brush. They are brothers in desire and only ability separate them. Without the childish scribble no great master was ever painted. Admire the masters but do not discount the artist.

This is almost true.

The intention itself is not art; the product which comes about as the result of the intention is. But the intention is necessary for the product to be art; and it could be argued that the intention which motivated the creation of the product is all that is required for it to be art.

A much more difficult question is:

What constitutes "good" art?

That is a hard one and I think we could argue over that for centuries. It is a subjective question that comes through a certain understanding or education. I think the judge has to be judged also. But maybe I am being elitest and the best is what the majority find "good". There is a formula so are we simply being manipulated by mathematics?

That is a hard one and I think we could argue over that for centuries. It is a subjective question that comes through a certain understanding or education. I think the judge has to be judged also. But maybe I am being elitest and the best is what the majority find "good". There is a formula so are we simply being manipulated by mathematics?

Well, I think Ayn Rand was onto something in the way she evaluated art (although I think she was way off in the actual definition of it). At the end of the day, I think that in order to evaluate art, you have to ask two questions, neither of which are necessarilly easy to answer:

1. What is the artistic product attempting to express?

2. How effectively does it do so?

But of course, these two questions are further complicated by the fact that in the case of question 1, really great art often expresses something that is outside the social paradigm, and, in the case of question 2, being able to answer that accurately presupposes that you have accurately answered question 1.

It's enough to make your head spin.

Education can help -- BUT -- all education builds a paradigm -- if the art is outside the paradigm, then education is no help -- and it may even be a hidrance.

That is a hard one and I think we could argue over that for centuries. It is a subjective question that comes through a certain understanding or education. I think the judge has to be judged also. But maybe I am being elitest and the best is what the majority find "good". There is a formula so are we simply being manipulated by mathematics?

Well, I think Ayn Rand was onto something in the way she evaluated art (although I think she was way off in the actual definition of it). At the end of the day, I think that in order to evaluate art, you have to ask two questions, neither of which are necessarilly easy to answer:

1. What is the artistic product attempting to express?

2. How effectively does it do so?

But of course, these two questions are further complicated by the fact that in the case of question 1, really great art often expresses something that is outside the social paradigm, and, in the case of question 2, being able to answer that accurately presupposes that you have accurately answered question 1.

It's enough to make your head spin.

Education can help -- BUT -- all education builds a paradigm -- if the art is outside the paradigm, then education is no help -- and it may even be a hidrance.

I just know what I like and dam the rest. I do appreciate the artist who has ability and skill but it may not lead to me enjoying his work in an emotional sense. I want to be moved, uplifted, sick, annoyed but not bored.

That is a hard one and I think we could argue over that for centuries. It is a subjective question that comes through a certain understanding or education. I think the judge has to be judged also. But maybe I am being elitest and the best is what the majority find "good". There is a formula so are we simply being manipulated by mathematics?

Well, I think Ayn Rand was onto something in the way she evaluated art (although I think she was way off in the actual definition of it). At the end of the day, I think that in order to evaluate art, you have to ask two questions, neither of which are necessarilly easy to answer:

1. What is the artistic product attempting to express?

2. How effectively does it do so?

But of course, these two questions are further complicated by the fact that in the case of question 1, really great art often expresses something that is outside the social paradigm, and, in the case of question 2, being able to answer that accurately presupposes that you have accurately answered question 1.

It's enough to make your head spin.

Education can help -- BUT -- all education builds a paradigm -- if the art is outside the paradigm, then education is no help -- and it may even be a hidrance.

I just know what I like and dam the rest. I do appreciate the artist who has ability and skill but it may not lead to me enjoying his work in an emotional sense. I want to be moved, uplifted, sick, annoyed but not bored.

LOL!

Actually, this is where Ayn's explanation works well -- all [good] art expresses a certain "sense of life" -- which is the spiritual core of a human being -- the very source of a persons true value system. Such art which appeals to man's sense of life will appeal to him. That which is alien to it -- will not.

Art is INNER EXPLORATION.

That is the best definition. Everything that came out of your inner exploration is considered art. A sound that was just copied from others for example isn't art, but a song that you heard from your inner exploration, this is definitely art.

Art is INNER EXPLORATION.

That is the best definition. Everything that came out of your inner exploration is considered art. A sound that was just copied from others for example isn't art, but a song that you heard from your inner exploration, this is definitely art.

Meditation is a form of "inner exploration." Is meditation art?

Art is INNER EXPLORATION.

That is the best definition. Everything that came out of your inner exploration is considered art. A sound that was just copied from others for example isn't art, but a song that you heard from your inner exploration, this is definitely art.

Meditation is a form of "inner exploration." Is meditation art?

The lessons you get from meditation, yes. That's how lots of poems are made.

There is the "meditative" and there is the "expressive". One exists within ideation and the other within process; the two parts of a creative encounter. Both must be laboriously undertaken to get to any "art". The product of this - the object, poem, song or performance is incidental and only incidentally relevant as a spark for some other individual's creative episode.

Art is INNER EXPLORATION.

That is the best definition. Everything that came out of your inner exploration is considered art. A sound that was just copied from others for example isn't art, but a song that you heard from your inner exploration, this is definitely art.

Meditation is a form of "inner exploration." Is meditation art?

The lessons you get from meditation, yes. That's how lots of poems are made.

This is innaccurate. Art can be about self-exploration; but it doesn't have to be -- and although I'm sure you won't admit it, you just conceded that self-exploration is not always art.

Art is self-referencing experience. There are many other things that it can be -- but all other functions are secondary to this basic principle.

-- Updated April 7th, 2012, 5:37 pm to add the following --

There is the "meditative" and there is the "expressive". One exists within ideation and the other within process; the two parts of a creative encounter. Both must be laboriously undertaken to get to any "art". The product of this - the object, poem, song or performance is incidental and only incidentally relevant as a spark for some other individual's creative episode.

This is also innaccurate, I believe. Art has to be some tangible product; an experience; whether visual, audio, abstract (e.g., literary), etc. If no tangible product (or experience) is generated, then what you have is not art, but merely recreation/mental exercise.

The key to all art is that it must be an experience -- and its primary purpose must be to be experienced for its own sake.

And so long as it achieves this purpose -- regardless of how it was achieved -- it is art. It may or may not be good art, but it is art.

If no tangible product (or experience) is generated, then what you have is not art, but merely recreation/mental exercise.

No, if it is merely recreation or mental exercise then it (the act) never possessed the intensity, dynamic nor the required excessive effort to be art. And the effort, as it IS quite tangible by its interruption and commandeering of physical forces during process, is FAR more the substance of a created "thing" than a mere sedentary and only lingering leftover.

A 12 hour day at your vocation or avocation cannot ever produce art...THOSE are the the mental exercises and the recreation.

Art is INNER EXPLORATION.

That is the best definition. Everything that came out of your inner exploration is considered art. A sound that was just copied from others for example isn't art, but a song that you heard from your inner exploration, this is definitely art.

Meditation is a form of "inner exploration." Is meditation art?

The lessons you get from meditation, yes. That's how lots of poems are made.

This is innaccurate. Art can be about self-exploration; but it doesn't have to be -- and although I'm sure you won't admit it, you just conceded that self-exploration is not always art.

Art is self-referencing experience. There are many other things that it can be -- but all other functions are secondary to this basic principle.

I still think inner-exploration is the best definition of art. If we divide the world into art and science (left and right brain), meditation would be art because it uses more the artistic side of the brain. It's not just being expressed, that's why we don't call it art.

What is art? Science. Science is the same as art.

While I think many things, perhaps even anything, Can be art, most things are not. Art is something that has Intentional symbolic or inherent meaning. Nothing without meaning in this sense, essentially, anything that doesn't have metaphor, is not art. Metaphor alone is a necessary, but not sufficient condition of art.I think that Art also must be done for a purpose, but for something to be art, it doesn't have to be limited to the single purpose of making art, but expressing an idea with intent is a requirement. This is why I don't think that everything is art, and indeed, most things are not art. I'm not even discrediting bad art in this description, because that is art, it's just not good according to some people's goals and requirements of 'good' art. A work has to be consciously made as art at least in part. I also think art isn't limited by any method of expression. And all forms of art are equally valid. Literature is just as valid as art as a painting, and even art made by a computer is still art (the artist is the person who told/ programmed the computer to make the art, because the computer couldn't make art with intent, at least not yet).

I have quite personal understanding of what is art. I went through various stages, including my interest (Ive been teenager and later student when I was passing through this stage) with everything that is "alternative", controversial, mind-provoking, "breaking borders", ironic and is considered satire or social commentary. So, to me art was simply anything from Bunuel to South Park with artistic pornography, punk music, philosophical debates and David Lynch in between. Now, I have a different approach to art. While I still respect thought-provoking artists I consider art something that requires a talent to achieve, a long-term proofs that an artist is truly an artist and most importantly - hard work. So, now I am more prone to call a renaissance painter an artist rather than Marcel Duchamp with his urinal. I think our understanding of art has much to do with age and our current state of mind.

From artist perspective: there are artists who remain restless or scandalous up to their final years, but there's a difference between genres. While musicians get calmer, painters (or more general: visual artists) or writers sometimes get vicious with age. It would be interesting to study why it is so. The easy explanation is that playing musical instrument consumes energy and while aging you have less and less vital powers, so you "naturally" shift into slower and calmer sounds (sidetopic: can sport victories be considered an art?). Visual arts and writing dont consume that much energy, so you can express yourself with the same energy as when you were young. But there may be different explanations and I dont feel powerful enough to pursue this topic.

Anyway, whatever "art" you create you still try to express yourself and look for audience, so we can agree that art is some form of self-expression and communication. (Sidetopic: is art possible to exist if you dont have an audience? Is philosophy possible if one can't talk and write - one could ask. )

Now, is showing urinal at the exhibition an art as much as Piero della Francesca's Resurrection is? Let me tell you a story.

Years ago, when I was attending the tourist guide course in my town our group reached the Cathedral's tower. The professor started to tell us a story of an imaginary peasant, who in medieval times, travelled for many days to the city. He was born in a village and spent his whole life in it, but for some reasons he was forced to travel to the town. So, after many days, in times when travels took days (really) he approaches the town and he notices the tower (the highest building in town) from a distance. He approaches the tower and sees the state's emblem on it. It's the first emblem he sees in his life, first "picture", first sculpture, first object covered with paint, first abstract representation of something, whatever. Now - professor almost started to shout - imagine what an impression this sight made on the peasant. How he should have felt seeing something like this for the first time in his life!

I think he grasped what is art in this very moment.

Art is beauty, like the music of the spheres - timeless, transcendent, immutable. Such beauty is grounded in truth. As the poet said: “‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’ - that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1819). It is - it must be - of Nature’s origin. Ruskin, in his critique of modern painters, looked at art in the focus of truth: “Of Truth of Space,” “Of Truth of Water,” “Of Truth of Skies.” John Ruskin, Modern Painters, I (1843). One’s impression of such analysis is that it would be “subjective,”i.e., that art is subjective; that beauty, as the saying goes, is in the eye of the beholder. But is truth subjective? - Can a great piece of music, for example, be measured scientifically (viz.“objectively”) by the number of its notes? (Is Mozart greater than Beethoven by sheer volume?) I think not. A great work of art - its distinguishing characteristic, so to speak - is that it reflects the truth. This is not objective or subjective, for, in truth, they are the same. Both the artist and the scientist - in their passion and precision - seek the same thing: the truth.