What is Art?

Use this forum to have philosophical discussions about aesthetics and art. What is art? What is beauty? What makes art good? You can also use this forum to discuss philosophy in the arts, namely to discuss the philosophical points in any particular movie, TV show, book or story.
Post Reply
User avatar
ThomasHobbes
Posts: 1122
Joined: May 5th, 2018, 5:53 pm

Re: What is Art?

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Jan Sand wrote: August 18th, 2018, 12:05 am Art is a mode of communication.
Two things.

1) Describing but one aspect of a thing does not define it, exhaust it or encompass it. For example. "American is where you get hamburgers"

2) Art is not always a mode of communication.
User avatar
ThomasHobbes
Posts: 1122
Joined: May 5th, 2018, 5:53 pm

Re: What is Art?

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Number2018 wrote: August 17th, 2018, 8:59 pm It is impossible to define art, because this word signifies absolutely different expressive practices: are Michelangelo's David
and Duchamp's Fountain belong to the same "art"?
The Fountain is not art.
It is anti-art.
Jan Sand
Posts: 658
Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am

Re: What is Art?

Post by Jan Sand »

And anti-art is art.

Since people recognize art when they see it it must have qualities that can be defined.
User avatar
Hereandnow
Posts: 2837
Joined: July 11th, 2012, 9:16 pm
Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars

Re: What is Art?

Post by Hereandnow »

Jan Sand:
All things are not under observation. Art is when someone points to something to convey an idea that fits into an art category, When an artist consciously creates something as art that makes it a communicable element. Andy Warhol made an ordinary soap box art when he indicated it should be worth considering for its physical characteristics but also as a product of our culture and what it might convey under that consideration. A sunset is not beautiful until someone perceives its delightful characteristics and how it might be a symbol of an ending of a day. To someone blind, a sunset cannot be beautiful. But, from the point of an observer in space, the sun doesn't set. One must be on the spinning planet to see a sunset. It is as much a product of the observer as it is of the sun and the spinning planet and that can make it considered as a kind of art. If it is observed by an Earth bound astronomer who views it scientifically it might be acceptable to not consider it as art.
When you say not under observation you mean, as the jargon goes, they are not deemed as art episodically. If I say the piece of driftwood looks heavy, this has nothing to do with art and the driftwood is nothing more that this, with an emphasis on weight. But if I say it is beautiful, then by my word it becomes art, at least for me, perhaps others as well. This means that art is what is taken up AS art, and I recall something similar from an aesthetician named Arthur Danto (think clouds in the sky, There is a camel, there a turtle, and so on. We summon these into existence by a mere perceptual interpretative act.
This is a great idea and very close to the way to account for what art is. But: if it were a matter of defining reason, say, it would be a straight forward examination of rational constructs possessed by thought and judgment (Kant). But here, things are not so clear, for when I look at something AS art, what is it that I have do be doing in order to make my interpretation one of an artistic nature?
User avatar
ThomasHobbes
Posts: 1122
Joined: May 5th, 2018, 5:53 pm

Re: What is Art?

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Jan Sand wrote: August 18th, 2018, 1:41 pm And anti-art is art.
Not as far as I am concerned.
Jan Sand
Posts: 658
Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am

Re: What is Art?

Post by Jan Sand »

Any object, an artist's construction, a found object, a mathematical proof, or that famous pissoir which is offered for consideration under cultural values of aesthetics thereby becomes art. That urinal in an art gallery is not placed there as a urine receptacle but as a form to be considered as a spacial solid object. The same article in a men's room is not there to be analyzed for its form but as a utility and not necessarily as a sculptural form - but it is up to the observer to make that choice. Each type of perception is valid and each requires a mental approach quite different which has contextual connotations.The act of placing an object for abstract consideration in an art gallery makes it art.
User avatar
Hereandnow
Posts: 2837
Joined: July 11th, 2012, 9:16 pm
Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars

Re: What is Art?

Post by Hereandnow »

And, Jan Sand, the art lies in the perception of the object as art. It's independent features are accidental, that is, mere occasions for artistic judgment. But still the question is begged: art? What does it mean to observe a thing AS art? What does one bring to bear upon this thing that makes for an art experience? Everything can be art, and that is why this approach has merit. But the essence of art still remains undisclosed.
Jan Sand
Posts: 658
Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am

Re: What is Art?

Post by Jan Sand »

The nature of mind in all its facets in birds and fish, in dogs and cats, in grasshoppers and human beings, is to seize what it can discern and fabricate from that an integration of some sort of reality. No mind can see or understand the moment by moment cascade of everything that flows through time and experience so we take a bit here and there and manufacture what we presume to be important and act on that. Pavlov's dogs fabricated dinner from the sound of a bell. We fabricate a universe from tiny spots of light and fabricate loveliness from a rectangle of paint smeared canvas assembled by DaVinci called the Mona Lisa. But almost anything can become dinner or loveliness if we can convince ourselves it is there. Art is loveliness or hatred or fear or delight seeking a home in whatever we accept as appropriate to place it.
User avatar
Hereandnow
Posts: 2837
Joined: July 11th, 2012, 9:16 pm
Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars

Re: What is Art?

Post by Hereandnow »

It seems you are saying that artistic responses may include every conceivable emotion, disposition or mood. It is in the "fabrication of some sort of reality" that elicits, not Clive Bell's aesthetic rapture, but any response at all. But are you suggesting that art can be a dinner bell that elicits salivation? Is appetite potentially an artistic response? Or reading a scientific treatise? Your last sentence seems to say that everything is art, for art is everything. This, of course, requires more, for if all things and all possible responses to them, are art, then nothing is art.
Jan Sand
Posts: 658
Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am

Re: What is Art?

Post by Jan Sand »

The universe is diverse, a bundle of the best and worst that must be selected in its variety to manage sobriety and insanity. Everything is everything and perception divides and subdivides what is offered to provide the raw material for the substantial and the spiritual. To take what's given and convert it into whatever may be useful and trash the rest as rubbish is a huge error. A clever thought, a skillful hand can command all sorts of results. Warhole's Brillo Box exists to confront the eye and philosophy with all the strength of Michelangelo's chopped marble chunk and validates with equal integrity the currency of human culture.
Jan Sand
Posts: 658
Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am

Re: What is Art?

Post by Jan Sand »

Incidentally, that ideal of aesthetic rapture strikes me as a rather shallow objective of art. Ballet and music may have problems with emotions other than delight but much of writing and theater and painting and sculpture take no hesitation in plunging into the most wonderful strengths of what may be viewed as more disturbing emotions.
User avatar
3uGH7D4MLj
Posts: 934
Joined: January 4th, 2013, 3:39 pm

Re: What is Art?

Post by 3uGH7D4MLj »

Art is just art. Sometimes there's rapture, essence, significant form, whatever. Doesn't mean it's art or not art.

Art is the most important thing in my life and I do not understand this conversation. Art is a simple category of objects. There's no mystery.

Art is art. Everything else is everything else.

I like your posts Jan! And HAN, I loved your sensitive rendering of Kierkegaard elsewhere on this board, I never thanked you for that, but... because anything can be art then nothing is art? Does that really make sense?
fair to say
Jan Sand
Posts: 658
Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am

Re: What is Art?

Post by Jan Sand »

Art is a way of seeing and reacting to the world and especially those human constructions meant to create a reaction. Whether they are puzzles like Escher's things or Malevich's blank canvases or John Cage's silent piano or the oddity of a mobius strip or a tesseract or the very Freudian Eiffel tower or the Washington Monument or the famous urinal or Carroll's " Brillig were the borogoves". they all evoke emotion and strain the normality of perception and conception and that is their value.
Jan Sand
Posts: 658
Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am

Re: What is Art?

Post by Jan Sand »

Sorry, at my age memory plays tricks. My comment should read for Carroll "Twas brillig and the slithy toves"
Jan Sand
Posts: 658
Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am

Re: What is Art?

Post by Jan Sand »

Perhaps it makes more sense to to question that very important word "is" which so concerned the philosopher Korzybski. "Is" is a dull axe of a word that chops reality into ragged chunks leaving pieces of other things still attached.The universe, after all, is one "thing" and even us who delight in attempting to define ourselves as individuals are intricately intimate in our massive connectivity to everything else so we are deeply stained with the colors of infinity and eternity as well as full of cockroaches and galactic dust. Many years ago, back in the early 1950's I worked on a short job creating murals on glass panels for the Santa Fe Railroad to be installed on one of their trains. The boss on the job was an old guy named Maragliotti who was a professional mural painter for movie houses and a couple of young artists were hired to make the floral decorations. They had just graduated from Cooper Union Art school and the one I remember was named Alex Katz who has, since, done fairly well as a fine artist. There is an article about him at https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018 ... ife-in-art and he is, unlike me, a real artist. I take stabs at it when I get an idea but never took it that seriously. We worked in a huge studio on top of New York's Grand Central Station and I did some of the research on the technique for painting on glass. I was a year older than Alex but he was a serious artist and I have never been. He was still fishing around to find himself but lived in a loft when that was still illegal at that time on East 27 Street in Manhattan and I had lunch with him at his place where he gave me one of his early small abstracts which seems to have been a colorful piece of trees and sky. Unfortunately, my son, who knows nothing about art, threw it out when I was away on a trip. Since it was unsigned it probably had little financial value but it was a good painting. I mention Alex because he has a very individual style and it took me quite a while to appreciate what he was about and why he is so currently appreciated. It requires a good deal of depth of understanding to see that he is not a primitive as some of his efforts seem, at first, somewhat cartoonish . But examining a range of his efforts makes clear the depth and originality of his approach.

This is relevant to this discussion since the range of painting alone, aside from the other arts, benefits from experience with a large spectrum if art in many cultures and ranges from the wonderful cave paintings through all the eras of human history and culture. It's not easy but it is fascinating and worth the effort and does not surrender easy answers.
Post Reply

Return to “Philosophy of the Arts and Philosophy in the Arts”

2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise
by John K Danenbarger
January 2023

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023

The Unfakeable Code®

The Unfakeable Code®
by Tony Jeton Selimi
April 2023

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
by Alan Watts
May 2023

Killing Abel

Killing Abel
by Michael Tieman
June 2023

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead
by E. Alan Fleischauer
July 2023

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough
by Mark Unger
August 2023

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational
by Dan Ariely
September 2023

Artwords

Artwords
by Beatriz M. Robles
November 2023

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope
by Dr. Randy Ross
December 2023

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes
by Ali Master
February 2024

2022 Philosophy Books of the Month

Emotional Intelligence At Work

Emotional Intelligence At Work
by Richard M Contino & Penelope J Holt
January 2022

Free Will, Do You Have It?

Free Will, Do You Have It?
by Albertus Kral
February 2022

My Enemy in Vietnam

My Enemy in Vietnam
by Billy Springer
March 2022

2X2 on the Ark

2X2 on the Ark
by Mary J Giuffra, PhD
April 2022

The Maestro Monologue

The Maestro Monologue
by Rob White
May 2022

What Makes America Great

What Makes America Great
by Bob Dowell
June 2022

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!
by Jerry Durr
July 2022

Living in Color

Living in Color
by Mike Murphy
August 2022 (tentative)

The Not So Great American Novel

The Not So Great American Novel
by James E Doucette
September 2022

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches
by John N. (Jake) Ferris
October 2022

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All
by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
November 2022

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

The Smartest Person in the Room
by Christian Espinosa
December 2022

2021 Philosophy Books of the Month

The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God's Plan

The Biblical Clock
by Daniel Friedmann
March 2021

Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe

Wilderness Cry
by Dr. Hilary L Hunt M.D.
April 2021

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute
by Jeff Meyer
May 2021

Surviving the Business of Healthcare: Knowledge is Power

Surviving the Business of Healthcare
by Barbara Galutia Regis M.S. PA-C
June 2021

Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure

Winning the War on Cancer
by Sylvie Beljanski
July 2021

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021