What is Art? How do you define it?

Philosophy of Art
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The phrase “directing one’s thoughts toward the desired end result” in this context refers to a conscious, purposeful mental effort where one imagines the end result and keeps this image in focus while creating something.

It’s about intention + visualization + will, all of which are invested in the process of creation.

A bricklayer doesn’t simply mechanically lay bricks one on top of another. He holds in his mind the image of a beautiful, even, and strong wall; he mentally directs every stroke of the trowel, every choice of brick, every movement toward this image. Even if the wall is very simple, there is a mental focus toward the final result throughout the process.

The opposite is when a person does something purely mechanically, without any inner image and indifference to the final result.

It’s like laying bricks purely according to instructions, without looking at the overall appearance of the wall, without concern for joints, rhythm, or symmetry. Without directing thoughts and will toward the desired quality, this isn’t art, but simply a functional act.

This makes it difficult for me to understand certain types of art, for example, abstract expressionism: it seems the action was intuitive, without a clear “desired end object” in mind (splash paint and done). But there will surely be those who will argue with me here and say that art here is born in the process, not in a preconceived idea.

Tolstoy defines art as the transmission of emotion from the creator to the viewer. Unfortunately, I often find it difficult to understand what the artist intended when splashing paint on the canvas. I’m sure some will argue with me here too, saying something along the lines of it being the viewer’s problem, not the artist’s. Be that as it may, at least I understand for myself what interests me and what doesn’t, using Tolstoy’s approach with a few additions of my own.

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149

I’ll just talk to myself if nobody minds. :wink:

I said this while thinking of the work as a clever stunt, an intentional provocation, not in an emotional sense but as a challenge to the conventions and classifications of the art-world. But the interesting thing is that we might still be moved emotionally after all. There is something moving about encountering an object that is never normally displayed for aesthetic attention, especially when it is beautifully designed and made. Thus our feelings can be provoked by the object’s form and function in a way they are not when using it in a public toilet.

That brings me to architecture. The Victorians believed that beauty required ornament, while structural function was hidden as much as possible behind decoration. Modernism inverted this: the steel beam or the bare concrete surface became the aesthetic object itself.

Anyway, even if I can be moved to tears by a urinal or a curved concrete staircase, this doesn’t support the contention that art always moves us, only that the boundaries of what can move us are open-ended. Art need not move us at all—but when it does, it may do so in ways we didn’t anticipate, through objects and contexts we never thought of as art. That unpredictability is itself a reason to keep the concept open.

In English-language philosophy, one of the most prominent recent philosophers who thought a definition was worth finding was Arthur Danto. But Danto’s so-called definition looks to me a lot like “it’s art when we call it art,” which is not really a definition at all—it’s a redescription of the practice. For Danto, the cave paintings at Lascaux are art because the present institutions of the artworld have placed them in its books and histories. But this just pushes the question back: what makes the artworld’s judgments authoritative?

Danto intended to give a definition, but he may have ended up closer to Wittgenstein than he realized, since in the end what matters for both positions is how the concept is used in social practice. This is satisfactory for Wittgenstein but not so for Danto, since he was after something much more definitive. But I don’t think he can find it: there was no “artworld” when those cave paintings were painted, so did they become art only when the art historians decided they were?

150

I like this very much. I think the idea that it is human-made is central to the concept of calling anything art. Art is an activity of humans, and captures some intention of the part of the artist.

For example, the photo below - the artist is the photographer, not who or whatever created the ladybug and the leaf and the water droplets.

ladybug on leaf resized
ladybug on leaf resized400×224 15.4 KB

151

Thank you for introducing me to Arthur Danto. I did some Googling and arrived to this essay by John Woodcock -

Art as World-Discloser

In the first few pages, this conclusion is made – that the artistic moment lies in the process/movement from the artist’s being to the final product – the art (i.e. being > actuality). That art is the way “to bring new realities or worlds into manifestation from the cauldron or well-spring of be-ing.”

A supporting quote from Salvador Dali – Dali wanted to – “materialize the images of my concrete irrationality with the most imperialist fury of precision…and make the world of delirium pass onto the plane of reality.”

Or, as Arthur Danto simply stated - “A work of art is a meaning given embodiment.”

(If artwork embodies meaning, it is incongruent with nihilism.)

Inspired by Tolstoy, I would add –

The artist’s being > the artwork > the receiver’s (observer, reader, listener, etc.) being

But someone saw them? Someone appreciated them?

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154

Astorre, your definition of art doesn’t work for me. I don’t think the idea of art being almost anything at all is a useful one. If everything is art, then nothing is art.

I think the idea of art being an “open concept” works.

I don’t think this is useful, it’s a simplistic conception. Art may well move us in ways completely unintended by the artist. The idea that the artist knows what they are doing or has an emotional purpose is not always known or relevant to a work. Some of my favourite art (which I used to collect) is tribal masks, I admire them for their design and skill. Their intention was ritualistic and often specific, to warn off bad spirits or provide protection. To me and collectors, they are satisfying aesthetic designs and they didn’t start as art, they became art.

156

It’s fascinating the differences in what people like. I’m not much interested in representational art. I prefer abstract works or ancient artefacts like Etruscan and Pre-Columbian pottery. Maybe that’s another reason why Tolstoy’s histrionic approach doesn’t appeal - art rarely moves me. I am more likely to find satisfaction in shapes, colours and composition.

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Tolstoy’s is just another of the myriad attempts to define art. Looks like it falls short of the mark for some better acquainted with the art world.

The last piece of art I saw was by a local, self-taught artist. A huge wall piece of horses galloping in a field. It was well-executed as far as I could tell. He got the colors right, the horses were kinetically charged bullets, and he seems to have taken time to draw in a light breeze as well (this was a treat). I met him and congratulated him on his art; he was elated about a new job, for a big hotel that was paying him better than his usual clients.

Art can get very cerebral, highly technical, and obstruse in the blink of an eye. Art experts expose the superficiality of the ordinary person’s understanding of art. This “ordinary person” maybe a point of interest if it refers to a particular social stratum.

So true, art can be as emotionally barren as a monkey-wrench around a bolt in the boiler room of a steam ship.

158

Then it wouldn’t be art to me.

159

So any work of “artifice” that doesn’t move you personally isn’t “art”? Tom was bored by Anna Karenina. Would it be fair for him to say the novel isn’t art?

Tolstoy thought art should be universal (hence he condemned that art that can only be appreciated through sophisticated training). He also thought art should be “uplifting” (religiously or socially).

I’ve been to the cave paintings of Tito Bastillo. To get to the paintings (which are skillfully executed) one has to walk through a half-mile of winding passages. Why did the painters go so deep into the earth to ply their trade? How did they light their way? What ancient rituals did their paintings support?

As good as the paintings are, the mysterious ambience adds to their resonance. Same with the Duchamp “Fountain”. It jars the viewer because it is surprising and out of place (in an art museum). Any productions of artifice designed to entertain our fellows are “art”. Whether they are good art is a matter of taste.

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It is a natural consequence of an absence of a good definition.

Some think art should have emotional content, others think the opposite.

I myself am undecided.

This current epoch is the age of specialization (some might resent it as hyperspecialization) and gone are the days when the ordinary man could connect (“get infected”) quite effortlessly with art. Art has expanded in content/technique/style/etc. and unless you’ve studied the subject to some depth failure to tune into the station is inevitable.

Perhaps art/artists has/have reached a saturation point and a paradigm shift is on the horizon. It would be interesting to speculate on what will precipitate out.

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Abstract works are great. Ancient pottery doesn’t appeal to me – but contemporary ceramics/clay are beautiful.
Art rarely moves me as well. I don’t feel intensity in art, but the balance of colors, shapes, composition is readily attractive to me. Life itself has enough drama already, so I don’t think artwork should compete with life.

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162

Very interesting position. Do you think this affects what you can be moved by, or are you fairly sure it is the fact you’re not moved that’s lead to this attitude?

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I shouldn’t say I’m not moved by art – buildings do wow me. But paintings are a different matter. I don’t want the Death of Marat. A masterpiece, yes.
But paintings should be like a companion.

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Tolstoy’s definition of art emphasizes the feelings of the artist. It suggests that the artist intends to communicate these either to the exclusion of his thoughts or along with them but it’s his feelings that he’s mostly concerned with. So appreciation of an artwork is not achieved/is incomplete until the audience experiences those same emotions.

This seems a bit too restrictive. The audience should be at liberty to feel whatever they want and this is to be expected because no 2 snowflakes are every identical. One can’t expect a victim of an acid attack to emote in the same way as a supermodel when looking at Venus.

Tolstoy also doesn’t seem to specify the valence of art-evoked emotions. Disgust, terror, hate are as equally valid as awe, love, joy. So long as the artist’s emotional message is conveyed with fidelity the art has been grokked. This, for sure, enhances artistic expression an audience appreciation but this may have unexpected, undesirable consequences. For example the mysterious Somerton Man (d. 1948) was found with a slip of paper with the words “Tamam Shud” torn off The Rubaiyat penned by Omar Khayyam.

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What is art? How do you define it?

Tolstoy said he considered art schools destructive to genuine creativity. I disagree with this sentiment as taking fine art courses has allowed my creativity to find ways to express itself in the way I intended. Otherwise, my untrained ‘genuine’ creativity would produce works of mess, or in art school named works of ‘muddiness’.

I’ve read through most of this thread and many here have made excellent points regarding what is art, so I’ll try my best to explain what I have personally experienced as a painter, woodcarver, craftsperson, interior decorator as to what and why I produce what I produce.

When first starting oil painting after taking many technical courses, I found I enjoyed the meditative, free-style laying of paint on canvas, rather than the subject matter. Although, I did select subject matter not so much from any emotional place, but rather mostly from observing nature, or creating a special painting for a friend where the subject matter would hopefully evoke familiarity with facets of their life’s experiences.

Jumping to now, I create what many here would call crafts to decorate my garden. It may also be called ‘upcycling’ but that’s not what drives me to create these pieces.

I simply admired the deep blue color and light refraction from a blue wine bottle, so I macramed a cradle for the bottles and hung them off of branches in my backyard to catch the sun. This is for me, nobody else but my family noticed them and came to me to express that they like it.

I now saw another’s upcycling piece, three sticks connected to form a triangle and an interpreted white twine spider web woven in between. I wasn’t emotionally affected by the others’ art, I found it whimsical because I suppose I was feeling whimsical at the time and want to recreate that feeling by replicating that. Is it a feeling or an appreciation or a study of nature that elicits interest or thought?

I think the word ‘art’ is open to interpretation and discussion rather than giving it specific defining parameters which Tolstoy seems to have felt he had the right to do.

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166

I like this expression. I also find that objects wow me (buildings especially), but I am rarely moved by recognisable emotional reactions. A work strikes me as aesthetically pleasing in the way it presents itself to me as something (often ineffably) striking.

When I briefly studied aesthetics at university in the 1980’s, the philosophy department was in the thrall of Monroe Beardsley. The definition of art we were taught was that art is something deliberately arranged to produce an aesthetic experience. The value of art, therfore, lies primarily in its capacity to generate this experience.

Beardsley was also careful not to confuse the artist and whatever they said about the work, with the work itself. He (and another critic) called that the intentional fallacy. An artist might be inarticulate, mistaken, or confused in their own understanding of a work. The assumption that the artist is the expert on their own work is not always correct, but it fits our “great man” view of creativity.

I don’t subscribe to Beardsley, but he gives us things to think about.

I think the main problem with trying to define art is the tendency to isolate what is supposed to be essential to it, without recognising that this often places limitations on creativity and the aesthetic experience.

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Isn’t creativity and aesthetic experience essential to art?

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Maybe, but not the only two elements surely?

The point being that if you say art is only A and B, you are providing unnecessary limitations. In the case of this OP, it was some eccentric notion of how an artist imbues a work with specific emotions. Surely that looks inadequate to many of us?

169

I have this uncomfortable feeling that true philosophers of art and true artists and real artsy folks find my interpretation of Tolstoy and my own take on art, as appears in my posts, laughable and impoverished.

My childhood was marked by vitamin art deficiency and I don’t think my soul ever recovered from that blow. It’s partly my own doing though, I didn’t put in the requisite effort points. Nobody had told me that there was “no royal path to geometry,” as it were.

To speak on artists and not the art itself is to leave out half the story. :melting_face:

170

Hmm … I think this is a misrepresentation of Tolstoy’s theory. I recommend you read his “What is Art?” to get a better understanding of his position