Quest for Meaning, Conestoga College, Fall 2006

What is Art?

What is art? The definition of art is elusive. It is difficult (or perhaps

impossible) to come up with a single definition that will include all forms of
art and please everybody. However, that shouldn't stop us from trying. Art
requires creative perception both by the artist and by the audience: a cliche
comment about some modern art is that "my five-year old child could have
painted that." This statement implies that the work is somehow less worthy
of the title "art" either because the viewer fails to find meaning in the work,
or because the work does not appear to have required any skill to produce.
Thus, the word art connotes a sense of ability, of the mastery of
a medium, of the efficient use of a language so as to convey meaning,
immediacy or depth. Making this judgement requires a basis for criticism:
a way to determine whether the sensory input meets the criteria to be
considered art, whether it is perceived to be ugly or beautiful. Perception is
always colored by experience, so a reaction to art as "ugly" or "beautiful" is
necessarily subjective. Countless schools have each proposed their own
ways to define quality, yet they all seem to agree in at least one point: once
you have accepted their aesthetic choices, the value of your work is
determined by its capacity to transcend the limits of its chosen medium in
order to strike some universal chord (which, oddly enough, tends to be the
most personal one).
Art also appeals to human emotions. It can arouse aesthetic or
moral feelings, and can be understood as a way of communicating these
feelings. The artist has to express himself so that his public is aroused, but
he does not have to do it consciously. Art both explores human emotions and
ways to arouse them - the good art brings something new and original in
either of these two respects. Consider photography: are photographs of un-
posed, "real life" to be considered art? The common answer is
overwhelmingly yes, even though many of these photographs simply seek to
mechanically reproduce what people can see with their own eyes. This is
also one of the goals of found art: to recontextualize the art of everyday
objects.
Good art communicates on many levels and is open to many
interpretations. If returning many times to the same work of art uncovers
variations of meaning over and over again, it passes an important test. Great
art communicates with people across different cultures and stands the test
of time, possibly the ultimate test for any work of art.
A piece of artwork reflects the culture that created it, though
this might not be apparent to its contemporary observers. Art depends on
context. Available materials, subjects, themes, metaphors, politics, and
technology all influence the creation of art. The audience's insight into a
work improves as an understanding of the artist's culture grows. Artistic
expression takes many forms, primarily abstract. References are common
and important; a strong piece of art is a self-referential system; that is, all
parts of the system contribute to the organic integrity of the whole.
Extraneous or missing elements are seen to degrade the artistic integrity of
the work.
 "Pure" art is aesthetic rather than utilitarian. In contrast, design
is the process of making utilitarian objects more beautiful. Clothes, parks,
and cool-looking automobiles are designed; paintings and sculpture are art.
There is, however, considerable grey area; architecture, for instance, falls
somewhere in between, depending on the nature of the undertaking. In
addition, purely aesthetic objects can be said to have, at the very least,
entertainment value, which can be considered useful.
There is no definite limit to what can or cannot be called art; in the
end, it is up to the audience. The musician Frank Zappa believed that
"Anything can be music, but it doesn't become music until someone wills it
to be music, and the audience listening to it decides to perceive it as music.
Most people can't deal with that abstraction--or don't want to." Perhaps we
can conclude by stating that art deals with creativity. Creativity deals with
creating something new. How can we create what is new if everything is
already a recycling of what went before us?