A definition of art and a salad please
Lots of times, I have wondered about the concept of art. The thing is, when we start talking about it, it turns out that people have very different understanding of what art really is. Some would say that everything created by a human is art, since it is a form of expressing ourselves. A table falls under this definition, but I wouldn’t call it art.
For me, art has to involve something with feelings, or at least expressing the side of our self that we don’t usually express, something more personal than the fact that you know how to make a rectangle and put four sticks under it. However, many things involve feelings, some people argue that a dot on a canvas expresses something for the person who made it. Well, maybe it does, but I still wouldn’t call it art. When I was thinking about it, I realized that art for me involves some kind of skill, a five year old hammering away at a piano isn’t creating art, no matter how much emotion there is to it.
Although I may manage to find some criteria for the things I see as art, I’ve realized that a real definition is very difficult to find. Even Wikipedia states that there is no clear definition of art, even though it manages to define love. So, maybe art is supposed to be subjective, because it has to do with things that you experience on a personal level, and hence the definition of art is personal.
However, you could also say that art is not just about personal satisfaction, it’s about reaching out and communicating a message. Also, some people feel like they are in contact with a kind of higher power when they create art, this is sometimes called a muse. In my opinion, this may be connected to the subconscious, which is a place in the human mind where buried thoughts, emotions and undeveloped sides of yourself are hidden (my definition). However, that doesn’t mean that it’s always just the artist doing the art, as I see it, religious experiences often go through the subconscious because they are too powerful for us to understand.
All in all, art can be a multitude of different things, and it’s a difficult concept to understand, but for me, that just makes it more interesting. It really makes you think about how amazing our minds really are, and how little of it we actually understand. As a conclusion, I would say I believe art to be a fundamental part of who we are, because it values the things that are uniquely human, and I don’t believe any animal or computer will ever make real art.
So then the question remains: what is art, in your opinion?
March 30th, 2007 at 4:42 am
Art really is one of those things that is different from person to person because we all connect to different things. I do think that some furniture can be art, like when the table is more than a block of wood supported by four legs and actually has designs carved into the edges. Maybe that should just apply to hand-made furniture, because they more or less sculpt their pieces and tend to really love what they do - it means something to them
A lot of abstract art makes me go wtf? Like somewhere there’s this big spoon sculpture. What could that possibly make the artist feel? What would that really ’say’ to someone other than “the fork is missing”? I wonder about photography too - like photos of nature. The nature is the art so all the person did is take a picture. Sure it might be pretty, it might be a good picture, but it wasn’t created by man. To me though nature is beautiful so when someone says ‘art’ I tend to think of mist coming off a mountain in the morning or a stream gurgling as the water passes over the rocks in the bottom. Maybe I’m just warped 
As far as buyable art - paintings… not abstracts, usually… things that are pretty and make me think like Starry Night or anything by Monnett (sp?). I think I’ll stop rambling now - good entry 
March 30th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Miranda, thank you for your honest comment, I was afraid people wouldn’t bother reading through the entire post. I like your perspective on abstract art, the part about the missing fork actually made me laugh (I visualized this giant fork in mid-air parting from a spoon).
When it comes to photography, I think that some of it is art because the photographer chooses an interpretation of nature, most photographers use deliberate techniques to make the image like they want it to be, and they choose their motive as well. For me, nature is not art in itself because it doesn’t feel anything, it’s the human experience of nature that matters, and that is what the photographer is trying to portray.
March 30th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
To me, art is basically what you stated. In my opinion it’s embarrassing to have a huge canvas with a dot or smear on it in the most famous museum.