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The Definition of Art

The definition of art is controversial in contemporary philosophy. Whether art can be defined has also been a matter of controversy. The philosophical usefulness of a definition of art has also been debated.

Contemporary definitions can be classified with respect to the dimensions of art they emphasize. One distinctively modern, conventionalist, sort of definition focuses on art’s institutional features, emphasizing the way art changes over time, modern works that appear to break radically with all traditional art, the relational properties of artworks that depend on works’ relations to art history, art genres, etc. – more broadly, on the undeniable heterogeneity of the class of artworks. The more traditional, less conventionalist sort of definition defended in contemporary philosophy makes use of a broader, more traditional concept of aesthetic properties that includes more than art-relational ones, and puts more emphasis on art’s pan-cultural and trans-historical characteristics – in sum, on commonalities across the class of artworks. Hybrid definitions aim to do justice to both the traditional aesthetic dimension as well as to the institutional and art-historical dimensions of art, while privileging neither.

1. Constraints on Definitions of Art

2.1 some examples, 3.1 skepticisms inspired by views of concepts, history, marxism, feminism, 3.2 some descendants of skepticism, 4.1 conventionalist definitions: institutional and historical, 4.2 institutional definitions, 4.3 historical definitions.

• 4.4 Functional (mainly aesthetic) definitions

4.5 Hybrid (Disjunctive) Definitions

5. conclusion, other internet resources, related entries.

Any definition of art has to square with the following uncontroversial facts: (i) entities (artifacts or performances) intentionally endowed by their makers with a significant degree of aesthetic interest, often greatly surpassing that of most everyday objects, first appeared hundreds of thousands of years ago and exist in virtually every known human culture (Davies 2012); (ii) such entities are partially comprehensible to cultural outsiders – they are neither opaque nor completely transparent; (iii) such entities sometimes have non-aesthetic – ceremonial or religious or propagandistic – functions, and sometimes do not; (iv) such entities might conceivably be produced by non-human species, terrestrial or otherwise; and it seems at least in principle possible that they be extraspecifically recognizable as such; (v) traditionally, artworks are intentionally endowed by their makers with properties, often sensory, having a significant degree of aesthetic interest, usually surpassing that of most everyday objects; (vi) art’s normative dimension – the high value placed on making and consuming art – appears to be essential to it, and artworks can have considerable moral and political as well as aesthetic power; (vii) the arts are always changing, just as the rest of culture is: as artists experiment creatively, new genres, art-forms, and styles develop; standards of taste and sensibilities evolve; understandings of aesthetic properties, aesthetic experience, and the nature of art evolve; (viii) there are institutions in some but not all cultures which involve a focus on artifacts and performances that have a high degree of aesthetic interest but lack any practical, ceremonial, or religious use; (ix) entities seemingly lacking aesthetic interest, and entities having a high degree of aesthetic interest, are not infrequently grouped together as artworks by such institutions; (x) lots of things besides artworks – for example, natural entities (sunsets, landscapes, flowers, shadows), human beings, and abstract entities (theories, proofs, mathematical entities) – have interesting aesthetic properties.

Of these facts, those having to do with art’s contingent cultural and historical features are emphasized by some definitions of art. Other definitions of art give priority to explaining those facts that reflect art’s universality and continuity with other aesthetic phenomena. Still other definitions attempt to explain both art’s contingent characteristics and its more abiding ones while giving priority to neither.

Two general constraints on definitions are particularly relevant to definitions of art. First, given that accepting that something is inexplicable is generally a philosophical last resort, and granting the importance of extensional adequacy, list-like or enumerative definitions are if possible to be avoided. Enumerative definitions, lacking principles that explain why what is on the list is on the list, don’t, notoriously, apply to definienda that evolve, and provide no clue to the next or general case (Tarski’s definition of truth, for example, is standardly criticized as unenlightening because it rests on a list-like definition of primitive denotation; see Field 1972; Devitt 2001; Davidson 2005). Corollary: when everything else is equal (and it is controversial whether and when that condition is satisfied in the case of definitions of art), non-disjunctive definitions are preferable to disjunctive ones. Second, given that most classes outside of mathematics are vague, and that the existence of borderline cases is characteristic of vague classes, definitions that take the class of artworks to have borderline cases are preferable to definitions that don’t (Davies 1991 and 2006; Stecker 2005).

Whether any definition of art does account for these facts and satisfy these constraints, or could account for these facts and satisfy these constraints, are key questions for aesthetics and the philosophy of art.

2. Definitions From the History of Philosophy

Classical definitions, at least as they are portrayed in contemporary discussions of the definition of art, take artworks to be characterized by a single type of property. The standard candidates are representational properties, expressive properties, and formal properties. So there are representational or mimetic definitions, expressive definitions, and formalist definitions, which hold that artworks are characterized by their possession of, respectively, representational, expressive, and formal properties. It is not difficult to find fault with these simple definitions. For example, possessing representational, expressive, and formal properties cannot be sufficient conditions, since, obviously, instructional manuals are representations, but not typically artworks, human faces and gestures have expressive properties without being works of art, and both natural objects and artifacts produced solely for homely utilitarian purposes have formal properties but are not artworks.

The ease of these dismissals, though, serves as a reminder of the fact that classical definitions of art are significantly less philosophically self-contained or freestanding than are most contemporary definitions of art. Each classical definition stands in close and complicated relationships to its system’s other complexly interwoven parts – epistemology, ontology, value theory, philosophy of mind, etc. Relatedly, great philosophers characteristically analyze the key theoretical components of their definitions of art in distinctive and subtle ways. For these reasons, understanding such definitions in isolation from the systems or corpuses of which they are parts is difficult, and brief summaries are invariably somewhat misleading. Nevertheless, some representative examples of historically influential definitions of art offered by major figures in the history of philosophy should be mentioned.

Plato holds in the Republic and elsewhere that the arts are representational, or mimetic (sometimes translated “imitative”). Artworks are ontologically dependent on, imitations of, and therefore inferior to, ordinary physical objects. Physical objects in turn are ontologically dependent on, and imitations of, and hence inferior to, what is most real, the non-physical unchanging Forms. Grasped perceptually, artworks present only an appearance of an appearance of the Forms, which are grasped by reason alone. Consequently, artistic experience cannot yield knowledge. Nor do the makers of artworks work from knowledge. Because artworks engage an unstable, lower part of the soul, art should be subservient to moral realities, which, along with truth, are more metaphysically fundamental and, properly understood, more humanly important than, beauty. The arts are not, for Plato, the primary sphere in which beauty operates. The Platonic conception of beauty is extremely wide and metaphysical: there is a Form of Beauty, which can only be known non-perceptually, but it is more closely related to the erotic than to the arts. (See Janaway 1998, the entry on Plato’s aesthetics , and the entry on Plato on Rhetoric and Poetry .)

Kant has a definition of art, and of fine art; the latter, which Kant calls the art of genius, is “a kind of representation that is purposive in itself and, though without an end, nevertheless promotes the cultivation of the mental powers for sociable communication” (Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment , Guyer translation, section 44, 46).) When fully unpacked, the definition has representational, formalist and expressivist elements, and focuses as much on the creative activity of the artistic genius (who, according to Kant, possesses an “innate mental aptitude through which nature gives the rule to art”) as on the artworks produced by that activity. Kant’s aesthetic theory is, for architectonic reasons, not focused on art. Art for Kant falls under the broader topic of aesthetic judgment, which covers judgments of the beautiful, judgments of the sublime, and teleological judgments of natural organisms and of nature itself. So Kant’s definition of art is a relatively small part of his theory of aesthetic judgment. And Kant’s theory of aesthetic judgment is itself situated in a hugely ambitious theoretical structure that, famously, aims, to account for, and work out the interconnections between, scientific knowledge, morality, and religious faith. (See the entry on Kant’s Aesthetics and Teleology and the general entry on Immanuel Kant .)

Hegel’s account of art incorporates his view of beauty; he defines beauty as the sensuous/perceptual appearance or expression of absolute truth. The best artworks convey, by sensory/perceptual means, the deepest metaphysical truth. The deepest metaphysical truth, according to Hegel, is that the universe is the concrete realization of what is conceptual or rational. That is, what is conceptual or rational is real, and is the imminent force that animates and propels the self-consciously developing universe. The universe is the concrete realization of what is conceptual or rational, and the rational or conceptual is superior to the sensory. So, as the mind and its products alone are capable of truth, artistic beauty is metaphysically superior to natural beauty (Hegel, Lectures , [1886, 4]). A central and defining feature of beautiful works of art is that, through the medium of sensation, each one presents the most fundamental values of its civilization. [ 1 ] Art, therefore, as a cultural expression, operates in the same sphere as religion and philosophy, and expresses the same content as they. But art “reveals to consciousness the deepest interests of humanity” in a different manner than do religion and philosophy, because art alone, of the three, works by sensuous means. So, given the superiority of the conceptual to the non-conceptual, and the fact that art’s medium for expressing/presenting culture’s deepest values is the sensual or perceptual, art’s medium is limited and inferior in comparison with the medium that religion uses to express the same content, viz., mental imagery. Art and religion in turn are, in this respect, inferior to philosophy, which employs a conceptual medium to present its content. Art initially predominates, in each civilization, as the supreme mode of cultural expression, followed, successively, by religion and philosophy. Similarly, because the broadly “logical” relations between art, religion and philosophy determine the actual structure of art, religion, and philosophy, and because cultural ideas about what is intrinsically valuable develop from sensuous to non-sensuous conceptions, history is divided into periods that reflect the teleological development from the sensuous to the conceptual. Art in general, too, develops in accord with the historical growth of non-sensuous or conceptual conceptions from sensuous conceptions, and each individual art-form develops historically in the same way (Hegel, Lectures ; Wicks 1993, see also the entries on Hegel and on Hegel’s Aesthetics ).

For treatments of other influential definitions of art, inseparable from the complex philosophical systems or corpuses in which they occur, see, for example, the entries on 18th Century German Aesthetics , Arthur Schopenhauer , Friedrich Nietzsche , and Dewey’s Aesthetics .

3. Skepticism about Definitions of Art

Skeptical doubts about the possibility and value of a definition of art have figured importantly in the discussion in aesthetics since the 1950s, and though their influence has subsided somewhat, uneasiness about the definitional project persists. (See section 4, below, and also Kivy 1997, Brand 2000, and Walton 2007).

A common family of arguments, inspired by Wittgenstein’s famous remarks about games (Wittgenstein 1953), has it that the phenomena of art are, by their nature, too diverse to admit of the unification that a satisfactory definition strives for, or that a definition of art, were there to be such a thing, would exert a stifling influence on artistic creativity. One expression of this impulse is Weitz’s Open Concept Argument: any concept is open if a case can be imagined which would call for some sort of decision on our part to extend the use of the concept to cover it, or to close the concept and invent a new one to deal with the new case; all open concepts are indefinable; and there are cases calling for a decision about whether to extend or close the concept of art. Hence art is indefinable (Weitz 1956). Against this it is claimed that change does not, in general, rule out the preservation of identity over time, that decisions about concept-expansion may be principled rather than capricious, and that nothing bars a definition of art from incorporating a novelty requirement.

A second sort of argument, less common today than in the heyday of a certain form of extreme Wittgensteinianism, urges that the concepts that make up the stuff of most definitions of art (expressiveness, form) are embedded in general philosophical theories which incorporate traditional metaphysics and epistemology. But since traditional metaphysics and epistemology are prime instances of language gone on conceptually confused holiday, definitions of art share in the conceptual confusions of traditional philosophy (Tilghman 1984).

A third sort of argument, more historically inflected than the first, takes off from an influential study by the historian of philosophy Paul Kristeller, in which he argued that the modern system of the five major arts [painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and music] which underlies all modern aesthetics … is of comparatively recent origin and did not assume definite shape before the eighteenth century, although it had many ingredients which go back to classical, mediaeval, and Renaissance thought. (Kristeller, 1951) Since that list of five arts is somewhat arbitrary, and since even those five do not share a single common nature, but rather are united, at best, only by several overlapping features, and since the number of art forms has increased since the eighteenth century, Kristeller’s work may be taken to suggest that our concept of art differs from that of the eighteenth century. As a matter of historical fact, there simply is no stable definiendum for a definition of art to capture.

A fourth sort of argument suggests that a definition of art stating individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for a thing to be an artwork, is likely to be discoverable only if cognitive science makes it plausible to think that humans categorize things in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. But, the argument continues, cognitive science actually supports the view that the structure of concepts mirrors the way humans categorize things – which is with respect to their similarity to prototypes (or exemplars), and not in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. So the quest for a definition of art that states individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions is misguided and not likely to succeed (Dean 2003). Against this it has been urged that psychological theories of concepts like the prototype theory and its relatives can provide at best an account of how people in fact classify things, but not an account of correct classifications of extra-psychological phenomena, and that, even if relevant, prototype theory and other psychological theories of concepts are at present too controversial to draw substantive philosophical morals from (Rey 1983; Adajian 2005).

A fifth argument against defining art, with a normative tinge that is psychologistic rather than sociopolitical, takes the fact that there is no philosophical consensus about the definition of art as reason to hold that no unitary concept of art exists. Concepts of art, like all concepts, after all, should be used for the purpose(s) they best serve. But not all concepts of art serve all purposes equally well. So not all art concepts should be used for the same purposes. Art should be defined only if there is a unitary concept of art that serves all of art’s various purposes – historical, conventional, aesthetic, appreciative, communicative, and so on. So, since there is no purpose-independent use of the concept of art, art should not be defined (Mag Uidhir and Magnus 2011; cf. Meskin 2008). In response, it is noted that some account of what makes various concepts of art concepts of art is still required; this leaves open the possibility of some degree of unity beneath the apparent multiplicity. The fact (if it is one) that different concepts of art are used for different purposes does not itself imply that they are not connected in ordered, to-some-degree systematic ways. The relation between (say) the historical concept of art and the appreciative concept of art is not an accidental, unsystematic relation, like that between river banks and savings banks, but is something like the relation between Socrates’ healthiness and the healthiness of Socrates’ diet. That is, it is not evident that there exist a mere arbitrary heap or disjunction of art concepts, constituting an unsystematic patchwork. Perhaps there is a single concept of art with different facets that interlock in an ordered way, or else a multiplicity of concepts that constitute a unity because one is at the core, and the others depend asymmetrically on it. (The last is an instance of core-dependent homonymy; see the entry on Aristotle , section on Essentialism and Homonymy.) Multiplicity alone doesn’t entail pluralism.

A sixth, broadly Marxian sort of objection rejects the project of defining art as an unwitting (and confused) expression of a harmful ideology. On this view, the search for a definition of art presupposes, wrongly, that the concept of the aesthetic is a creditable one. But since the concept of the aesthetic necessarily involves the equally bankrupt concept of disinterestedness, its use advances the illusion that what is most real about things can and should be grasped or contemplated without attending to the social and economic conditions of their production. Definitions of art, consequently, spuriously confer ontological dignity and respectability on social phenomena that probably in fact call more properly for rigorous social criticism and change. Their real function is ideological, not philosophical (Eagleton 1990).

Seventh, the members of a complex of skeptically-flavored arguments, from feminist philosophy of art, begin with premises to the effect that art and art-related concepts and practices have been systematically skewed by sex or gender. Such premises are supported by a variety of considerations. (a) The artworks the Western artistic canon recognizes as great are dominated by male-centered perspectives and stereotypes, and almost all the artists the canon recognizes as great are men – unsurprisingly, given economic, social, and institutional impediments that prevented women from making art at all. Moreover, the concept of genius developed historically in such a way as to exclude women artists (Battersby, 1989, Korsmeyer 2004). (b) The fine arts’ focus on purely aesthetic, non-utilitarian value resulted in the marginalization as mere “crafts” of items of considerable aesthetic interest made and used by women for domestic practical purposes. Moreover, because all aesthetic judgments are situated and particular, there can be no such thing as disinterested taste. If there is no such thing as disinterested taste, then it is hard to see how there could be universal standards of aesthetic excellence. The non-existence of universal standards of aesthetic excellence undermines the idea of an artistic canon (and with it the project of defining art). Art as historically constituted, and art-related practices and concepts, then, reflect views and practices that presuppose and perpetuate the subordination of women. The data that definitions of art are supposed to explain are biased, corrupt and incomplete. As a consequence, present definitions of art, incorporating or presupposing as they do a framework that incorporates a history of systematically biased, hierarchical, fragmentary, and mistaken understandings of art and art-related phenomena and concepts, may be so androcentric as to be untenable. Some theorists have suggested that different genders have systematically unique artistic styles, methods, or modes of appreciating and valuing art. If so, then a separate canon and gynocentric definitions of art are indicated (Battersby 1989, Frueh 1991). In any case, in the face of these facts, the project of defining art in anything like the traditional way is to be regarded with suspicion (Brand, 2000).

An eighth argument sort of skeptical argument concludes that, insofar as almost all contemporary definitions foreground the nature of art works , rather than the individual arts to which (most? all?) artworks belong, they are philosophically unproductive (Lopes, 2014). [ 2 ] The grounds for this conclusion concern disagreements among standard definitions as to the artistic status of entities whose status is for theoretical reasons unclear – e.g., things like ordinary bottleracks (Duchamp’s Bottlerack ) and silence (John Cage’s 4′33″ ). If these hard cases are artworks, what makes them so, given their apparent lack of any of the traditional properties of artworks? Are, they, at best, marginal cases? On the other hand, if they are not artworks, then why have generations of experts – art historians, critics, and collectors – classified them as such? And to whom else should one look to determine the true nature of art? (There are, it is claimed, few or no empirical studies of art full stop, though empirical studies of the individual arts abound.) Such disputes inevitably end in stalemate. Stalemate results because (a) standard artwork-focused definitions of art endorse different criteria of theory choice, and (b) on the basis of their preferred criteria, appeal to incompatible intuitions about the status of such theoretically-vexed cases. In consequence, disagreements between standard definitions of art that foreground artworks are unresolvable. To avoid this stalemate, an alternative definitional strategy that foregrounds the arts rather than individual artworks, is indicated. (See section 4.5.)

Philosophers influenced by the moderate Wittgensteinian strictures discussed above have offered family resemblance accounts of art, which, as they purport to be non-definitions, may be usefully considered at this point. Two species of family resemblance views will be considered: the resemblance-to-a-paradigm version, and the cluster version.

On the resemblance-to-a-paradigm version, something is, or is identifiable as, an artwork if it resembles, in the right way, certain paradigm artworks, which possess most although not necessarily all of art’s typical features. (The “is identifiable” qualification is intended to make the family resemblance view something more epistemological than a definition, although it is unclear that this really avoids a commitment to constitutive claims about art’s nature.) Against this view: since things do not resemble each other simpliciter , but only in at least one respect or other, the account is either far too inclusive, since everything resembles everything else in some respect or other, or, if the variety of resemblance is specified, tantamount to a definition, since resemblance in that respect will be either a necessary or sufficient condition for being an artwork. The family resemblance view raises questions, moreover, about the membership and unity of the class of paradigm artworks. If the account lacks an explanation of why some items and not others go on the list of paradigm works, it seems explanatorily deficient. But if it includes a principle that governs membership on the list, or if expertise is required to constitute the list, then the principle, or whatever properties the experts’ judgments track, seem to be doing the philosophical work.

The cluster version of the family resemblance view has been defended by a number of philosophers (Bond 1975, Dissanayake 1990, Dutton 2006, Gaut 2000). The view typically provides a list of properties, no one of which is a necessary condition for being a work of art, but which are jointly sufficient for being a work of art, and which is such that at least one proper subset thereof is sufficient for being a work of art. Lists offered vary, but overlap considerably. Here is one, due to Gaut: (1) possessing positive aesthetic properties; (2) being expressive of emotion; (3) being intellectually challenging; (4) being formally complex and coherent; (5) having the capacity to convey complex meanings; (6) exhibiting an individual point of view; (7) being original; (8) being an artifact or performance which is the product of a high degree of skill; (9) belonging to an established artistic form; (10) being the product of an intention to make a work of art (Gaut 2000). The cluster account has been criticized on several grounds. First, given its logical structure, it is in fact equivalent to a long, complicated, but finite, disjunction, which makes it difficult to see why it isn’t a definition (Davies 2006). Second, if the list of properties is incomplete, as some cluster theorists hold, then some justification or principle would be needed for extending it. Third, the inclusion of the ninth property on the list, belonging to an established art form , seems to regenerate (or duck), rather than answer, the definitional question. Finally, it is worth noting that, although cluster theorists stress what they take to be the motley heterogeneity of the class of artworks, they tend with surprising regularity to tacitly give the aesthetic a special, perhaps unifying, status among the properties they put forward as merely disjunctive. One cluster theorist, for example, gives a list very similar to the one discussed above (it includes representational properties, expressiveness, creativity, exhibiting a high degree of skill, belonging to an established artform), but omits aesthetic properties on the grounds that it is the combination of the other items on the list which, combined in the experience of the work of art, are precisely the aesthetic qualities of the work (Dutton 2006). Gaut, whose list is cited above, includes aesthetic properties as a separate item on the list, but construes them very narrowly; the difference between these ways of formulating the cluster view appears to be mainly nominal. And an earlier cluster theorist defines artworks as all and only those things that belong to any instantiation of an artform, offers a list of seven properties all of which together are intended to capture the core of what it is to be an artform, though none is either necessary or sufficient, and then claims that having aesthetic value (of the same sort as mountains, sunsets, mathematical theorems) is “what art is for ” (Bond 1975).

4. Contemporary Definitions

Definitions of art attempt to make sense of two different sorts of facts: art has important historically contingent cultural features, as well as trans-historical, pan-cultural characteristics that point in the direction of a relatively stable aesthetic core. (Theorists who regard art as an invention of eighteenth-century Europe will, of course, regard this way of putting the matter as tendentious, on the grounds that entities produced outside that culturally distinctive institution do not fall under the extension of “art” and hence are irrelevant to the art-defining project (Shiner 2001). Whether the concept of art is precise enough to justify this much confidence about what falls under its extension claim is unclear.) Conventionalist definitions take art’s contingent cultural features to be explanatorily fundamental, and aim to capture the phenomena – revolutionary modern art, the traditional close connection of art with the aesthetic, the possibility of autonomous art traditions, etc. – in social/historical terms. Classically-flavored or traditional definitions (also sometimes called “functionalist”) definitions reverse this explanatory order. Such classically-flavored definitions take traditional concepts like the aesthetic (or allied concepts like the formal, or the expressive) as basic, and aim to account for the phenomena by making those concepts harder – for example, by endorsing a concept of the aesthetic rich enough to include non-perceptual properties, or by attempting an integration of those concepts (e.g., Eldridge, section 4.4 below) .

Conventionalist definitions deny that art has essential connection to aesthetic properties, or to formal properties, or to expressive properties, or to any type of property taken by traditional definitions to be essential to art. Conventionalist definitions have been strongly influenced by the emergence, in the twentieth century, of artworks that seem to differ radically from all previous artworks. Avant-garde works like Marcel Duchamp’s “ready-mades” – ordinary unaltered objects like snow-shovels ( In Advance of the Broken Arm ) and bottle-racks – conceptual works like Robert Barry’s All the things I know but of which I am not at the moment thinking – 1:36 PM; June 15, 1969 , and John Cage’s 4′33″ , have seemed to many philosophers to lack or even, somehow, repudiate, the traditional properties of art: intended aesthetic interest, artifactuality, even perceivability. Conventionalist definitions have also been strongly influenced by the work of a number of historically-minded philosophers, who have documented the rise and development of modern ideas of the fine arts, the individual arts, the work of art, and the aesthetic (Kristeller, Shiner, Carroll, Goehr, Kivy).

Conventionalist definitions come in two varieties, institutional and historical. Institutionalist conventionalism, or institutionalism, a synchronic view, typically hold that to be a work of art is to be an artifact of a kind created, by an artist, to be presented to an artworld public (Dickie 1984). Historical conventionalism, a diachronic view, holds that artworks necessarily stand in an art-historical relation to some set of earlier artworks.

The groundwork for institutional definitions was laid by Arthur Danto, better known to non-philosophers as the long-time influential art critic for the Nation . Danto coined the term “artworld”, by which he meant “an atmosphere of art theory.” Danto’s definition has been glossed as follows: something is a work of art if and only if (i) it has a subject (ii) about which it projects some attitude or point of view (has a style) (iii) by means of rhetorical ellipsis (usually metaphorical) which ellipsis engages audience participation in filling in what is missing, and (iv) where the work in question and the interpretations thereof require an art historical context (Danto, Carroll). Clause (iv) is what makes the definition institutionalist. The view has been criticized for entailing that art criticism written in a highly rhetorical style is art, lacking but requiring an independent account of what makes a context art historical , and for not applying to music.

The most prominent and influential institutionalism is that of George Dickie. Dickie’s institutionalism has evolved over time. According to an early version, a work of art is an artifact upon which some person(s) acting on behalf of the artworld has conferred the status of candidate for appreciation (Dickie 1974). Dickie’s more recent version consists of an interlocking set of five definitions: (1) An artist is a person who participates with understanding in the making of a work of art. (2) A work of art is an artifact of a kind created to be presented to an artworld public. (3) A public is a set of persons the members of which are prepared in some degree to understand an object which is presented to them. (4) The artworld is the totality of all artworld systems. (5) An artworld system is a framework for the presentation of a work of art by an artist to an artworld public (Dickie 1984). Both versions have been widely criticized. Philosophers have objected that art created outside any institution seems possible, although the definition rules it out, and that the artworld, like any institution, seems capable of error. It has also been urged that the definition’s obvious circularity is vicious, and that, given the inter-definition of the key concepts (artwork, artworld system, artist, artworld public) it lacks any informative way of distinguishing art institutions systems from other, structurally similar, social institutions (D. Davies 2004, pp. 248–249, notes that both the artworld and the “commerceworld” seem to fall under that definition). Early on, Dickie claimed that anyone who sees herself as a member of the artworld is a member of the artworld: if this is true, then unless there are constraints on the kinds of things the artworld can put forward as artworks or candidate artworks, any entity can be an artwork (though not all are), which appears overly expansive. Finally, Matravers has helpfully distinguished strong and weak institutionalism. Strong institutionalism holds that there is some reason that is always the reason the art institution has for saying that something is a work of art. Weak institutionalism holds that, for every work of art, there is some reason or other that the institution has for saying that it is a work of art (Matravers 2000). Weak institutionalism, in particular, raises questions about art’s unity: if absolutely nothing unifies the reasons that the artworld gives for conferring art-hood on things, then the unity of the class of artworks is vanishingly small. Conventionalist views, with their emphasis on art’s heterogeneity, swallow this implication. From the perspective of traditional definitions, doings so underplays art’s substantial if incomplete unity, while leaving it a puzzle why art would be worth caring about.

Some recent versions of institutionalism depart from Dickie’s by accepting the burden, which Dickie rejected, of providing a substantive, non-circular account of what it is to be an art institution or an artworld. One, due to David Davies, does so by building in Nelson Goodman’s account of aesthetic symbolic functions. Another, due to Abell, combines Searle’s account of social institutions with Gaut’s characterization of art-making properties, and builds an account of artistic value on that coupling.

Davies’ neo-institutionalism holds that making an artwork requires articulating an artistic statement, which requires specifying artistic properties, which in turn requires the manipulation of an artistic vehicle. Goodman’s “symptoms of the aesthetic” are utilized to clarify the conditions under which a practice of making is a practice of artistic making: on Goodman’s view, a symbol functions aesthetically when it is syntactically dense, semantically dense, relatively replete, and characterized by multiple and complex reference (D. Davies 2004; Goodman 1968; see the entry on Goodman’s aesthetics ). Manipulating an artistic vehicle is in turn possible only if the artist consciously operates with reference to shared understandings embodied in the practices of a community of receivers. So art’s nature is institutional in the broad sense (or, perhaps better, socio-cultural). By way of criticism, Davies’ neo-institutionalism may be questioned on the grounds that, since all pictorial symbols are syntactically dense, semantically dense, relatively replete, and often exemplify the properties they represent, it seems to entail that every colored picture, including those in any catalog of industrial products, is an artwork (Abell 2012).

Abell’s institutional definition adapts Searle’s view of social kinds: what it is for some social kind, F , to be F is for it to be collectively believed to be F (Abell 2012; Searle 1995, 2010; and see the entry on social institutions ). On Abell’s view, more specifically, an institution’s type is determined by the valued function(s) that it was collectively believed at its inception to promote. The valued functions collective belief in which make an institution an art institution are those spelled out by Gaut in his cluster account (see section 3.1, above). That is, something is an art institution if and only if it is an institution whose existence is due to its being perceived to perform certain functions, which functions form a significant subset of the following: promoting positive aesthetic qualities; promoting the expression of emotion; facilitating the posing of intellectual challenges, and the rest of Gaut’s list. Plugging in Gaut’s list yields the final definition: something is an artwork if and only if it is the product of an art institution (as just defined) and it directly effects the effectiveness with which that institution performs the perceived functions to which its existence is due. One worry is whether Searle’s account of institutions is up to the task required of it. Some institutional social kinds have this trait: something can fail to be a token of that kind even if there is collective agreement that it counts as a token of that kind. Suppose someone gives a big cocktail party, to which everyone in Paris invited, and things get so out of hand that the casualty rate is greater than the Battle of Austerlitz. Even if everyone thinks the event was a cocktail party, it is possible (contrary to Searle) that they are mistaken: it may have been a war or battle. It’s not clear that art isn’t like this. If so, then the fact that an institution is collectively believed to be an art institution needn’t suffice to make it so (Khalidi 2013; see also the entry on social institutions ). [ 3 ] A second worry: if its failure to specify which subsets of the ten cluster properties suffice to make something an artwork significantly flaws Gaut’s cluster account, then failure to specify which subsets of Gaut’s ten properties suffice to make something an art institution significantly flaws Abellian institutionalism.

Historical definitions hold that what characterizes artworks is standing in some specified art-historical relation to some specified earlier artworks, and disavow any commitment to a trans-historical concept of art, or the “artish.” Historical definitions come in several varieties. All of them are, or resemble, inductive definitions: they claim that certain entities belong unconditionally to the class of artworks, while others do so because they stand in the appropriate relations thereto. According to the best known version, Levinson’s intentional-historical definition, an artwork is a thing that has been seriously intended for regard in any way preexisting or prior artworks are or were correctly regarded (Levinson 1990). A second version, historical narrativism, comes in several varieties. On one, a sufficient but not necessary condition for the identification of a candidate as a work of art is the construction of a true historical narrative according to which the candidate was created by an artist in an artistic context with a recognized and live artistic motivation, and as a result of being so created, it resembles at least one acknowledged artwork (Carroll 1993). On another, more ambitious and overtly nominalistic version of historical narrativism, something is an artwork if and only if (1) there are internal historical relations between it and already established artworks; (2) these relations are correctly identified in a narrative; and (3) that narrative is accepted by the relevant experts. The experts do not detect that certain entities are artworks; rather, the fact that the experts assert that certain properties are significant in particular cases is constitutive of art (Stock 2003).

The similarity of these views to institutionalism is obvious, and the criticisms offered parallel those urged against institutionalism. First, historical definitions appear to require, but lack, any informative characterization of art traditions (art functions, artistic contexts, etc.) and hence any way of informatively distinguishing them (and likewise art functions, or artistic predecessors) from non -art traditions (non-art functions, non-artistic predecessors). Correlatively, non-Western art, or alien, autonomous art of any kind appears to pose a problem for historical views: any autonomous art tradition or artworks – terrestrial, extra-terrestrial, or merely possible – causally isolated from our art tradition, is either ruled out by the definition, which seems to be a reductio , or included, which concedes the existence of a supra-historical concept of art. So, too, there could be entities that for adventitious reasons are not correctly identified in historical narratives, although in actual fact they stand in relations to established artworks that make them correctly describable in narratives of the appropriate sort. Historical definitions entail that such entities aren’t artworks, but it seems at least as plausible to say that they are artworks that are not identified as such. Second, historical definitions also require, but do not provide a satisfactory, informative account of the basis case – the first artworks, or ur-artworks, in the case of the intentional-historical definitions, or the first or central art-forms, in the case of historical functionalism. Third, nominalistic historical definitions seem to face a version of the Euthyphro dilemma. For either such definitions include substantive characterizations of what it is to be an expert, or they don’t. If, on one hand, they include no characterization of what it is to be an expert, and hence no explanation as to why the list of experts contains the people it does, then they imply that what makes things artworks is inexplicable. On the other hand, suppose such definitions provide a substantive account of what it is to be an expert, so that to be an expert is to possess some ability lacked by non-experts (taste, say) in virtue of the possession of which they are able to discern historical connections between established artworks and candidate artworks. Then the definition’s claim to be interestingly historical is questionable, because it makes art status a function of whatever ability it is that permits experts to discern the art-making properties.

Defenders of historical definitions have replies. First, as regards autonomous art traditions, it can be held that anything we would recognize as an art tradition or an artistic practice would display aesthetic concerns, because aesthetic concerns have been central from the start, and persisted centrally for thousands of years, in the Western art tradition. Hence it is an historical, not a conceptual truth that anything we recognize as an art practice will centrally involve the aesthetic; it is just that aesthetic concerns that have always dominated our art tradition (Levinson 2002). The idea here is that if the reason that anything we’d take to be a Φ-tradition would have Ψ-concerns is that our Φ-tradition has focused on Ψ-concerns since its inception, then it is not essential to Φ-traditions that they have Ψ-concerns, and Φ is a purely historical concept . But this principle entails, implausibly, that every concept is purely historical. Suppose that we discovered a new civilization whose inhabitants could predict how the physical world works with great precision, on the basis of a substantial body of empirically acquired knowledge that they had accumulated over centuries. The reason we would credit them with having a scientific tradition might well be that our own scientific tradition has since its inception focused on explaining things. It does not seem to follow that science is a purely historical concept with no essential connection to explanatory aims. (Other theorists hold that it is historically necessary that art begins with the aesthetic, but deny that art’s nature is to be defined in terms of its historical unfolding (Davies 1997).) Second, as to the first artworks, or the central art-forms or functions, some theorists hold that an account of them can only take the form of an enumeration. Stecker takes this approach: he says that the account of what makes something a central art form at a given time is, at its core, institutional, and that the central artforms can only be listed (Stecker 1997 and 2005). Whether relocating the list at a different, albeit deeper, level in the definition renders the definition sufficiently informative is an open question. Third, as to the Euthyphro -style dilemma, it might be held that the categorial distinction between artworks and “mere real things” (Danto 1981) explains the distinction between experts and non-experts. Experts are able, it is said, to create new categories of art. When created, new categories bring with them new universes of discourse. New universes of discourse in turn make reasons available that otherwise would not be available. Hence, on this view, it is both the case that the experts’ say-so alone suffices to make mere real things into artworks, and also true that experts’ conferrals of art-status have reasons (McFee 2011).

4.4 Traditional (mainly aesthetic) definitions

Traditional definitions take some function(s) or intended function(s) to be definitive of artworks. Here only aesthetic definitions, which connect art essentially with the aesthetic – aesthetic judgments, experience, or properties – will be considered. Different aesthetic definitions incorporate different views of aesthetic properties and judgments. See the entry on aesthetic judgment .

As noted above, some philosophers lean heavily on a distinction between aesthetic properties and artistic properties, taking the former to be perceptually striking qualities that can be directly perceived in works, without knowledge of their origin and purpose, and the latter to be relational properties that works possess in virtue of their relations to art history, art genres, etc. It is also, of course, possible to hold a less restrictive view of aesthetic properties, on which aesthetic properties need not be perceptual; on this broader view, it is unnecessary to deny what it seems pointless to deny, that abstracta like mathematical entities and scientific laws possess aesthetic properties.)

Monroe Beardsley’s definition holds that an artwork: “either an arrangement of conditions intended to be capable of affording an experience with marked aesthetic character or (incidentally) an arrangement belonging to a class or type of arrangements that is typically intended to have this capacity” (Beardsley 1982, 299). (For more on Beardsley, see the entry on Beardsley’s aesthetics .) Beardsley’s conception of aesthetic experience is Deweyan: aesthetic experiences are experiences that are complete, unified, intense experiences of the way things appear to us, and are, moreover, experiences which are controlled by the things experienced (see the entry on Dewey’s aesthetics ). Zangwill’s aesthetic definition of art says that something is a work of art if and only if someone had an insight that certain aesthetic properties would be determined by certain nonaesthetic properties, and for this reason the thing was intentionally endowed with the aesthetic properties in virtue of the nonaesthetic properties as envisaged in the insight (Zangwill 1995a,b). Aesthetic properties for Zangwill are those judgments that are the subject of “verdictive aesthetic judgments” (judgements of beauty and ugliness) and “substantive aesthetic judgements” (e.g., of daintiness, elegance, delicacy, etc.). The latter are ways of being beautiful or ugly; aesthetic in virtue of a special close relation to verdictive judgments, which are subjectively universal. Other aesthetic definitions build in different accounts of the aesthetic. Eldridge’s aesthetic definition holds that the satisfying appropriateness to one another of a thing’s form and content is the aesthetic quality possession of which is necessary and sufficient for a thing’s being art (Eldridge 1985). Or one might define aesthetic properties as those having an evaluative component, whose perception involves the perception of certain formal base properties, such as shape and color (De Clercq 2002), and construct an aesthetic definition incorporating that view.

Views which combine features of institutional and aesthetic definitions also exist. Iseminger, for example, builds a definition on an account of appreciation, on which to appreciate a thing’s being F is to find experiencing its being F to be valuable in itself, and an account of aesthetic communication (which it is the function of the artworld to promote) (Iseminger 2004).

Aesthetic definitions have been criticized for being both too narrow and too broad. They are held to be too narrow because they are unable to cover influential modern works like Duchamp’s ready-mades and conceptual works like Robert Barry’s All the things I know but of which I am not at the moment thinking – 1:36 PM; June 15, 1969 , which appear to lack aesthetic properties. (Duchamp famously asserted that his urinal, Fountain , was selected for its lack of aesthetic features.) Aesthetic definitions are held to be too broad because beautifully designed automobiles, neatly manicured lawns, and products of commercial design are often created with the intention of being objects of aesthetic appreciation, but are not artworks. Moreover, aesthetic views have been held to have trouble making sense of bad art (see Dickie 2001; Davies 2006, p. 37). Finally, more radical doubts about aesthetic definitions center on the intelligibility and usefulness of the aesthetic. Beardsley’s view, for example, has been criticized by Dickie, who has also offered influential criticisms of the idea of an aesthetic attitude (Dickie 1965, Cohen 1973, Kivy 1975).

To these criticisms several responses have been offered. First, the less restrictive conception of aesthetic properties mentioned above, on which they may be based on non-perceptual formal properties, can be deployed. On this view, conceptual works would have aesthetic features, much the same way that mathematical entities are often claimed to (Shelley 2003, Carroll 2004). Second, a distinction may be drawn between time-sensitive properties, whose standard observation conditions include an essential reference to the temporal location of the observer, and non-time-sensitive properties, which do not. Higher-order aesthetic properties like drama, humor, and irony, which account for a significant part of the appeal of Duchamp’s and Cage’s works, on this view, would derive from time-sensitive properties (Zemach 1997). Third, it might be held that it is the creative act of presenting something that is in the relevant sense unfamiliar, into a new context, the artworld, which has aesthetic properties. Or, fourth, it might be held that (Zangwill’s “second-order” strategy) works like ready-mades lack aesthetic functions, but are parasitic upon, because meant to be considered in the context of, works that do have aesthetic functions, and therefore constitute marginal borderline cases of art that do not merit the theoretical primacy they are often given. Finally, it can be flatly denied that the ready-mades were works of art (Beardsley 1982).

As to the over-inclusiveness of aesthetic definitions, a distinction might be drawn between primary and secondary functions. Or it may be maintained that some cars, lawns, and products of industrial design are on the art/non-art borderline, and so don’t constitute clear and decisive counter-examples. Or, if the claim that aesthetic theories fail to account for bad art depends on holding that some works have absolutely no aesthetic value whatsoever, as opposed to some non-zero amount, however infinitesimal, it may be wondered what justifies that assumption.

Hybrid definitions characteristically disjoin at least one institutional component with at least one aesthetic component, aiming thereby to accommodate both more traditional art and avant-garde art that appears to lack any significant aesthetic dimension. (Such definitions could also be classified as institutional, on the grounds that they make provenance sufficient for being a work of art.) Hence they inherit a feature of conventionalist definitions: in appealing to art institutions, artworlds, arts, art functions, and so on, they either include substantive accounts of what it is to be an art institution/world/genre/-form/function, or are uninformatively circular.

One such disjunctive definition, Longworth and Scarantino’s, adapts Gaut’s list of ten clustering properties, where that list (see 3.5 above) includes institutional properties (e.g., belonging to an established art form) and traditional ones (e.g., possessing positive aesthetic properties); see also Longworth and Scarantino 2010. The core idea is that art is defined by a disjunction of minimally sufficient and disjunctively necessary conditions; to say that a disjunct is a minimally sufficient constitutive condition for art-hood, is to say that every proper subset of it is insufficient for art-hood. An account of what it is for a concept to have disjunctive defining conditions is also supplied. The definition of art itself is as follows: ∃ Z ∃ Y (Art iff ( Z ∨ Y )), where (a) Z and Y , formed from properties on Gaut’s cluster list, are either non-empty conjunctions or non-empty disjunctions of conjunctions or individual properties; (b) there is some indeterminacy over exactly which disjuncts are sufficient; (c) Z does not entail Y and Y does not entail Z ; (d) Z does not entail Art and Y does not entail Art. Instantiation of either Z or Y suffices for art-hood; something can be art only if at least one of Z , Y is instantiated; and the third condition is included to prevent the definition from collapsing into a classical one. The account of what it is for concept C to have disjunctive defining conditions is as follows: C iff ( Z ∨ Y ), where (i) Z and Y are non-empty conjunctions or non-empty disjunctions of conjunctions or individual properties; (ii) Z does not entail Y and Y does not entail Z ; (iii) Z does not entail C and Y does not entail C. A worry concerns condition (iii): as written, it seems to render the account of disjunctive defining conditions self-contradictory. For if Z and Y are each minimally sufficient for C , it is impossible that Z does not entail C and that Y does not entail C . If so, then nothing can satisfy the conditions said to be necessary and sufficient for a concept to have disjunctive defining conditions.

A second disjunctive hybrid definition, with an historical cast, Robert Stecker’s historical functionalism, holds that an item is an artwork at time t , where t is not earlier than the time at which the item is made, if and only if it is in one of the central art forms at t and is made with the intention of fulfilling a function art has at t or it is an artifact that achieves excellence in achieving such a function (Stecker 2005). A question for Stecker’s view is whether or not it provides an adequate account of what it is for a function to be an art function, and whether, consequently, it can accommodate anti-aesthetic or non-aesthetic art. The grounds given for thinking that it can are that, while art’s original functions were aesthetic, those functions, and the intentions with which art is made, can change in unforeseeable ways. Moreover, aesthetic properties are not always preeminent in art’s predecessor concepts (Stecker 2000). A worry is that if the operative assumption is that if x belongs to a predecessor tradition of T then x belongs to T , the possibility is not ruled out that if, for example, the tradition of magic is a predecessor tradition of the scientific tradition, then entities that belong to the magic tradition but lacking any of the standard hallmarks of science are scientific entities.

A third hybrid definition, also disjunctive, is the cladistic definition defended by Stephen Davies. who holds that something is art (a) if it shows excellence of skill and achievement in realizing significant aesthetic goals, and either doing so is its primary, identifying function or doing so makes a vital contribution to the realization of its primary, identifying function, or (b) if it falls under an art genre or art form established and publicly recognized within an art tradition, or (c) if it is intended by its maker/presenter to be art and its maker/presenter does what is necessary and appropriate to realizing that intention (Davies, 2015). (In biology, a clade is a segment in the tree of life: a group of organisms and the common ancestor they share.) Artworlds are to be characterized in terms of their origins: they begin with prehistoric art ancestors, and grow into artworlds. Hence all artworks occupy a line of descent from their prehistoric art ancestors; that line of descent comprises an art tradition that grows into an artworld. So the definition is bottom-up and resolutely anthropocentric. A worry: the view seems to entail that art traditions can undergo any changes whatsoever and remain art traditions, since, no matter how distant, every occupant of the right line of descent is part of the art tradition. This seems to amount to saying that as long as they remain traditions at all, art traditions cannot die. Whether art is immortal in this sense seems open to question. A second worry is that the requirement that every art tradition and artworld stand in some line of descent from prehistoric humanoids makes it in principle impossible for any nonhuman species to make art, as long as that species fails to occupy the right location in the tree of life. While the epistemological challenges that identifying artworks made by nonhumans might pose could be very considerable, this consequence of the cladistic definition’s emphasis on lineage rather than traits raises a concern about excessively insularity.

A fourth hybrid definition is the “buck-passing” view of Lopes, which attempts an escape from the stalemate between artwork-focused definitions over avant-garde anti-aesthetic cases by adopting a strategy that shifts the focus of the definition of art away from artworks. The strategy is to recenter philosophical efforts on different problems, which require attention anyway: (a) the problem of giving an account of each individual art, and (b) the problem of defining what it is to be an art, the latter by giving an account of the larger class of normative/appreciative kinds to which the arts (and some non-arts) belong. For, given definitions of the individual arts, and a definition of what it is to be an art, if every artwork belongs to at least one art (if it belongs to no existing art, then it pioneers a new art), then a definition of artwork falls out: x is a work of art if and only if x is a work of K, where K is an art (Lopes 2014). When fully spelled out, the definition is disjunctive: x is a work of art if and only if x is a work belonging to art 1 or x is a work belonging to art 2 or x is a work belonging to art 3 …. Most of the explanatory work is done by the theories of the individual arts, since, given the assumption that every artwork belongs to at least one art, possession of theories of the individual arts would be necessary and sufficient for settling the artistic or non-artistic status of any hard case, once it is determined what art a given work belongs to. As to what makes a practice an art, Lopes’ preferred answer seems to be institutionalism of a Dickiean variety: an art is an institution in which artists (persons who participate with understanding in the making of artworks) make artworks to be presented to an artworld public. (Lopes 2014, Dickie 1984) Thus, on this view, it is arbitrary which activities are artworld systems: there is no deeper answer to the question of what makes music an art than that it has the right institutional structure. [ 4 ] So it is arbitrary which activities are arts. Two worries. First, the key claim that every work of art belonging to no extant art pioneers a new art may be defended on the grounds that any reason to say that a work belonging to no extant artform is an artwork is a reason to say that it pioneers a new artform. In response, it is noted that the question of whether or not a thing belongs to an art arises only when, and because, there is a prior reason for thinking that the thing is an artwork. So it seems that what it is to be an artwork is prior, in some sense, to what it is to be an art. Second, on the buck-passing theory’s institutional theory of the arts, which activities are arts is arbitrary. This raises a version of the question that was raised about the cladistic definition’s ability to account for the existence of art outside our (Hominin) tradition. Suppose the connection between a practice’s traits and its status as an art are wholly contingent. Then the fact that a practice in another culture that although not part of our tradition had most of the traits of one of our own arts would be no reason to think that practice was an art, and no reason to think that the objects belonging to it were artworks. It is not clear that we are really so in the dark when it comes to determining whether practices in alien cultures or traditions are arts.

Conventionalist definitions account well for modern art, but have difficulty accounting for art’s universality – especially the fact that there can be art disconnected from “our” (Western) institutions and traditions, and our species. They also struggle to account for the fact that the same aesthetic terms are routinely applied to artworks, natural objects, humans, and abstracta. Aesthetic definitions do better accounting for art’s traditional, universal features, but less well, at least according to their critics, with revolutionary modern art; their further defense requires an account of the aesthetic which can be extended in a principled way to conceptual and other radical art. (An aesthetic definition and a conventionalist one could simply be conjoined. But that would merely raise, without answering, the fundamental question of the unity or disunity of the class of artworks.) Which defect is the more serious one depends on which explananda are the more important. Arguments at this level are hard to come by, because positions are hard to motivate in ways that do not depend on prior conventionalist and functionalist sympathies. If list-like definitions are flawed because uninformative, then so are conventionalist definitions, whether institutional or historical. Of course, if the class of artworks, or of the arts, is a mere chaotic heap, lacking any genuine unity, then enumerative definitions cannot be faulted for being uninformative: they do all the explaining that it is possible to do, because they capture all the unity that there is to capture. In that case the worry articulated by one prominent aesthetician, who wrote earlier of the “bloated, unwieldy” concept of art which institutional definitions aim to capture, needs to be taken seriously, even if it turns out to be ungrounded: “It is not at all clear that these words – ‘What is art?’ – express anything like a single question, to which competing answers are given, or whether philosophers proposing answers are even engaged in the same debate…. The sheer variety of proposed definitions should give us pause. One cannot help wondering whether there is any sense in which they are attempts to … clarify the same cultural practices, or address the same issue” (Walton 2007).

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• Shiner, Larry, 2001, The Invention of Art , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• –––, 2003, “Western and Non-Western Concepts of Art: Universality and Authenticity” in S. Davies and A. Sukla (eds.) 2003, pp. 143–157.
• Stecker, Robert, 1997, Artworks: Definition, Meaning, Value , University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
• Stecker, Robert, 2000, “Is It Reasonable to Attempt to Define Art” in N. Carroll (ed.) 2000, pp. 45–64.
• –––, 2005, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art , Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
• Stock, Kathleen, and Thomson-Jones, Katherine, 2008, New Waves in Aesthetics , London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Tilghman, Benjamin, 1984, But Is It Art? , Oxford: Blackwell.
• Walton, Kendall, 1997, “Review of Art and the Aesthetic ,” Philosophical Review , 86: 97–101.
• –––, 2007, “Aesthetics – What?, Why?, and Wherefore?” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , 65(2): 147–162.
• Wicks, R., 1993, “ Hegel’s Aesthetics,” in F. Beiser (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Hegel , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 348–377.
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1953, Philosophical Investigations , G.E.M. Anscombe and R. Rhees (eds.), G.E.M. Anscombe (trans.), Oxford: Blackwell.
• –––, 1968, Philosophical Investigations , Oxford: Blackwell.
• Weitz, Morris, 1956, “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , 15: 27–35.
• Zangwill, Nick, 1995a, “Groundrules in the Philosophy of Art,” Philosophy , 70: 533–544.
• –––, 1995b, “The Creative Theory of Art,” American Philosophical Quarterly , 32: 315–332
• –––, 2001, The Metaphysics of Beauty , Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• Zemach, Eddy, 1997, Real Beauty , University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

[Please contact the author with suggestions.]

aesthetics: aesthetic judgment | aesthetics: German, in the 18th century | Aristotle, General Topics: aesthetics | Dewey, John: aesthetics | Kant, Immanuel: aesthetics and teleology | Nietzsche, Friedrich | Plato: rhetoric and poetry | Schopenhauer, Arthur

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Essay on Art

500 words essay on art.

Each morning we see the sunshine outside and relax while some draw it to feel relaxed. Thus, you see that art is everywhere and anywhere if we look closely. In other words, everything in life is artwork. The essay on art will help us go through the importance of art and its meaning for a better understanding.

What is Art?

For as long as humanity has existed, art has been part of our lives. For many years, people have been creating and enjoying art.  It expresses emotions or expression of life. It is one such creation that enables interpretation of any kind.

It is a skill that applies to music, painting, poetry, dance and more. Moreover, nature is no less than art. For instance, if nature creates something unique, it is also art. Artists use their artwork for passing along their feelings.

Thus, art and artists bring value to society and have been doing so throughout history. Art gives us an innovative way to view the world or society around us. Most important thing is that it lets us interpret it on our own individual experiences and associations.

Art is similar to live which has many definitions and examples. What is constant is that art is not perfect or does not revolve around perfection. It is something that continues growing and developing to express emotions, thoughts and human capacities.

Importance of Art

Art comes in many different forms which include audios, visuals and more. Audios comprise songs, music, poems and more whereas visuals include painting, photography, movies and more.

You will notice that we consume a lot of audio art in the form of music, songs and more. It is because they help us to relax our mind. Moreover, it also has the ability to change our mood and brighten it up.

After that, it also motivates us and strengthens our emotions. Poetries are audio arts that help the author express their feelings in writings. We also have music that requires musical instruments to create a piece of art.

Other than that, visual arts help artists communicate with the viewer. It also allows the viewer to interpret the art in their own way. Thus, it invokes a variety of emotions among us. Thus, you see how essential art is for humankind.

Without art, the world would be a dull place. Take the recent pandemic, for example, it was not the sports or news which kept us entertained but the artists. Their work of arts in the form of shows, songs, music and more added meaning to our boring lives.

Therefore, art adds happiness and colours to our lives and save us from the boring monotony of daily life.

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Conclusion of the Essay on Art

All in all, art is universal and can be found everywhere. It is not only for people who exercise work art but for those who consume it. If there were no art, we wouldn’t have been able to see the beauty in things. In other words, art helps us feel relaxed and forget about our problems.

FAQ of Essay on Art

Question 1: How can art help us?

Answer 1: Art can help us in a lot of ways. It can stimulate the release of dopamine in your bodies. This will in turn lower the feelings of depression and increase the feeling of confidence. Moreover, it makes us feel better about ourselves.

Question 2: What is the importance of art?

Answer 2: Art is essential as it covers all the developmental domains in child development. Moreover, it helps in physical development and enhancing gross and motor skills. For example, playing with dough can fine-tune your muscle control in your fingers.

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Ways of Defining Art

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There is no one universal definition of visual art though there is a general consensus that art is the conscious creation of something beautiful or meaningful using skill and imagination. The definition and perceived value of works of art have changed throughout history and in different cultures. The Jean Basquiat painting that sold for $110.5 million at Sotheby’s auction in May 2017 would, no doubt, have had trouble finding an audience in Renaissance Italy , for example.   

The term “art” is related to the Latin word “ars” meaning, art, skill, or craft. The first known use of the word comes from 13th-century manuscripts. However, the word  art and its many variants ( artem , eart , etc.) have probably existed since the founding of Rome.

Philosophy of Art

The definition of art has been debated for centuries among philosophers.”What is art?” is the most basic question in the philosophy of aesthetics, which really means, “How do we determine what is defined as art?” This implies two subtexts: the essential nature of art, and its social importance (or lack of it). The definition of art has generally fallen into three categories : representation, expression, and form.

• Art as Representation or Mimesis.  Plato  first developed the idea of art as “mimesis,” which, in Greek, means copying or imitation. For this reason, the primary meaning of art was, for centuries, defined as the representation or replication of something that is beautiful or meaningful. Until roughly the end of the eighteenth century, a work of art was valued on the basis of how faithfully it replicated its subject. This definition of "good art" has had a profound impact on modern and contemporary artists; as Gordon Graham writes, “It leads people to place a high value on very lifelike portraits such as those by the great masters— Michelangelo , Rubens, Velásquez, and so on—and to raise questions about the value of ‘modern’ art—the cubist distortions of Picasso , the surrealist figures of Jan Miro, the abstracts of Kandinsky  or the ‘action’ paintings of Jackson Pollock.” While representational art still exists today, it is no longer the only measure of value.
• Art as Expression of Emotional Content.  Expression became important during the Romantic movement with artwork expressing a definite feeling, as in the sublime or dramatic. Audience response was important, for the artwork was intended to evoke an emotional response. This definition holds true today, as artists look to connect with and evoke responses from their viewers.
• Art as Form .    Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was one of the most influential of the early theorists toward the end of the 18th century. He believed that art should not have a concept but should be judged only on its formal qualities because the content of a work of art is not of aesthetic interest. Formal qualities became particularly important when art became more abstract in the 20th century, and the principles of art and design (balance, rhythm, harmony, unity) were used to define and assess art.

Today, all three modes of definition come into play in determining what is art, and its value, depending on the artwork being assessed.

History of How Art Is Defined

According to H.W Janson, author of the classic art textbook, The History of Art , “...we cannot escape viewing works of art in the context of time and circumstance, whether past or present. How indeed could it be otherwise, so long as art is still being created all around us, opening our eyes almost daily to new experiences and thus forcing us to adjust our sights?”

Throughout the centuries in Western culture from the 11th century on through the end of the 17th century, the definition of art was anything done with skill as the result of knowledge and practice. This meant that artists honed their craft, learning to replicate their subjects skillfully. The epitome of this occurred during the Dutch Golden Age when artists were free to paint in all sorts of different genres and made a living off their art in the robust economic and cultural climate of 17th century Netherlands.

During the Romantic period of the 18th century, as a reaction to the Enlightenment and its emphasis on science, empirical evidence, and rational thought, art began to be described as not just being something done with skill, but something that was also created in the pursuit of beauty and to express the artist’s emotions. Nature was glorified, and spirituality and free expression were celebrated. Artists, themselves, achieved a level of notoriety and were often guests of the aristocracy.

The Avant-garde art movement began in the 1850s with the realism of Gustave Courbet. It was followed by other modern art movements such as cubism , futurism, and surrealism , in which the artist pushed the boundaries of ideas and creativity. These represented innovative approaches to art-making and the definition of what is art expanded to include the idea of the originality of vision.

The idea of originality in art persists, leading to ever more genres and manifestations of art, such as digital art, performance art, conceptual art, environmental art, electronic art, etc.

There are as many ways to define art as there are people in the universe, and each definition is influenced by the unique perspective of that person, as well as by their own personality and character. For example: 

Rene Magritte

Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Art is a discovery and development of elementary principles of nature into beautiful forms suitable for human use.

Thomas Merton

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

Pablo Picasso

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca​

All art is but imitation of nature.

Edgar Degas

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.

Jean Sibelius

Art is the signature of civilizations.

Leo Tolstoy

Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands-on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are infected by these feelings and also experience them.

Today we consider the earliest symbolic scribblings of mankind to be art. As Chip Walter, of National Geographic , writes about these ancient paintings, “Their beauty whipsaws your sense of time. One moment you are anchored in the present, observing coolly. The next you are seeing the paintings as if all other art—all civilization—has yet to exist...creating a simple shape that stands for something else—a symbol, made by one mind, that can be shared with others—is obvious only after the fact. Even more than the cave art, these first concrete expressions of consciousness represent a leap from our animal past toward what we are today—a species awash in symbols, from the signs that guide your progress down the highway to the wedding ring on your finger and the icons on your iPhone.”

Archaeologist Nicholas Conard posited that the people who created these images “possessed minds as fully modern as ours and, like us, sought in ritual and myth answers to life’s mysteries, especially in the face of an uncertain world. Who governs the migration of the herds, grows the trees, shapes the moon, turns on the stars? Why must we die, and where do we go afterward? They wanted answers but they didn’t have any science-based explanations for the world around them.”

Art can be thought of as a symbol of what it means to be human, manifested in physical form for others to see and interpret. It can serve as a symbol for something that is tangible, or for a thought, an emotion, a feeling, or a concept. Through peaceful means, it can convey the full spectrum of the human experience. Perhaps that is why it is so important.

• Graham, Gordon, Philosophy of the Arts, An Introduction to Aesthetics, Third Edition,Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, New York. 
• Janson, H. W., History of Art, Harry Abrams, Inc. New York, 1974.
• Walter, Chip, First artists, National Geographic . January 2015.

Dwyer, Colin. " At $110.5 Million, Basquiat Painting Becomes Priciest Work Ever Sold by a U.S. Artist ." National Public Radio , 19 May 2017.

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1.2: What is Visual Art?

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• Pamela Sachant, Peggy Blood, Jeffery LeMieux, & Rita Tekippe
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To explore a subject, we need first to define it. Defining art, however, proves elusive. You may have heard it said (or even said it yourself) that “it might be art, but it’s not Art,” which means, “I might not know how to define it, but I know it when I see it.”

Everywhere we look, we see images designed to command our attention, including images of desire, images of power, religious images, images meant to recall memories, and images intended to manipulate our appetites. But are they art?

Some languages do not have a separate word for art. In those cultures, objects tend to be utilitarian in purpose but often include in their design the intent to delight, portray a special status, or commemorate an important event or ritual. Thus, while the objects are not considered art, they do have artistic functions.

1.2.1 Historic Development of the Idea of Art

The idea of art has developmentally progressed from human prehistory to the present day. Changes to the definition of art over time can be seen as attempts to resolve problems with earlier definitions. The ancient Greeks saw the goal of visual art as copying, or mimesis. Nineteenth-century art theorists promoted the idea that art is communication: it produces feelings in the viewer. In the early twentieth century, the idea of significant form, the quality shared by aesthetically pleasing objects, was proposed as a definition of art. Today, many artists and thinkers agree with the institutional theory of art, which shifts focus from the work of art itself to who has the power to decide what is and is not art. While this progression of definitions of art is not exhaustive, it is instructive.

1.2.1.1 Mimesis

The ancient Greek definition of art as mimesis , or imitation of the real world, appears in the myth of Zeuxis and Parhassios, rival painters from ancient Greece in the late fifth century BCE who competed for the title of greatest artist. (Figure 1.2) Zeuxis painted a bowl of grapes that was so lifelike that birds came down to peck at the image of fruit. Parhassios was unimpressed with this achievement. When viewing Parhassios’s work, Zeuxis, on his part, asked that the curtain over the painting be drawn back so he could see his rival’s work more clearly. Parhassios declared himself the victor because the curtain was the painting, and while Zeuxis fooled the birds with his work, Parhassios fooled a thinking human being—a much more difficult feat.

Figure 1.2 Zeuxis conceding defeat: "I have deceived the birds, but Parhassios has deceived Zeuxis." Artist: Joachim von Sandrart; engraving by Johann Jakob von Sandrart Author: (Public Domain; “Fae”).

The ancient Greeks felt that the visual artist’s goal was to copy visual experience. This approach appears in the realism of ancient Greek sculpture and pottery. We must sadly note that, due to the action of time and weather, no paintings from ancient Greek artists exist today. We can only surmise their quality based on tales such as that of Zeuxis and Parhassios, the obvious skill in ancient Greek sculpture, and in drawings that survive on ancient Greek pottery.

This definition of art as copying reality has a problem, though. Jackson Pollock (1912-1956, USA), a leader in the New York School of the 1950’s, intentionally did not copy existing objects in his art. (Figure 1.3) While painting these works, Pollock and his fellow artists would consciously avoid making marks or passages that resembled recognizable objects. They succeeded at making artwork that did not copy anything, thus demonstrating that the ancient Greek view of art as mimesis—simple copying—does not sufficiently define art.

Figure 1.3 Left: The She-Wolf; Right: Gothic, Artist: Jackson Pollock, Author: (CC BY-SA 4.0; "Group de Besanez")

1.2.1.2 Communication

A later attempt at defining art comes from the nineteenth-century Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy wrote on many subjects, and is the author of the great novel War and Peace (1869). He was also an art theorist. He proposed that art is the communication of feeling , stating, “Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are infected by these feelings and also experience them.”1

This definition does not succeed because it is impossible to confirm that the feelings of the artist have been successfully conveyed to another person. Further, suppose an artist created a work of art that no one else ever saw. Since no feeling had been communicated through it, would it still be a work of art? The work did not “hand on to others” anything at all because it was never seen. Therefore, it would fail as art according to Tolstoy’s definition.

1 Leo Tolstoy, What is Art? And Essays on Art, trans. Aylmer Maude (London: Oxford University Press, 1932), 123.

1.2.1.3 Significant Form

To address these limitations of existing definitions of art, in 1913 English art critic Clive Bell proposed that art is significant form , or the “quality that brings us aesthetic pleasure.” Bell stated, “to appreciate a work of art we need bring with us nothing but a sense of form and colour.”2 In Bell’s view, the term “form” simply means line, shape, mass, as well as color. Significant form is the collection of those elements that rises to the level of your awareness and gives you noticeable pleasure in its beauty. Unfortunately, aesthetics , pleasure in the beauty and appreciation of art, are impossible to measure or reliably define. What brings aesthetic pleasure to one person may not affect another. Aesthetic pleasure exists only in the viewer, not in the object. Thus significant form is purely subjective. While Clive Bell did advance the debate about art by moving it away from requiring strict representation, his definition gets us no closer to understanding what does or does not qualify as an art object.

1.2.1.4 Art world

One definition of art widely held today was first promoted in the 1960s by American philosophers George Dickie and Arthur Danto, and is called the institutional theory of art, or the “Artworld” theory. In the simplest version of this theory, art is an object or set of conditions that has been designated as art by a “person or persons acting on behalf of the artworld,” and the artworld is a “complex field of forces” that determine what is and is not art.3 Unfortunately, this definition gets us no further along because it is not about art at all! Instead, it is about who has the power to define art, which is a political issue, not an aesthetic one.

2 Clive Bell, “Art and Significant Form,” in Art (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1913), 2

3 George Dickie, Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974), 464.

1.2.2 Definition of Art

We each perceive the world from our own position or perspective and from that perception we make a mental image of the world. Science is the process of turning perceptions into a coherent mental picture of the universe through testing and observation. (Figure 1.4) Science moves concepts from the world into the mind. Science is vitally important because it allows us to understand how the world works and to use that understanding to make good predictions. Art is the other side of our experience with the world. Art moves ideas from the mind into the world .

Figure 1.4 Perception: Art and Science, Author: Jeffrey LeMieux, (CC BY-SA 4.0)

We need both art and science to exist in the world. From our earliest age, we both observe the world and do things to change it. We are all both scientists and artists. Every human activity has both a science (observation) and an art (expression) to it. Anyone who has participated in the discipline of Yoga, for example, can see that even something as simple as breathing has both an art and a science to it.

This definition of art covers the wide variety of objects that we see in museums, on social media, or even in our daily walk to work. But this definition of art is not enough. The bigger question is: what art is worthy of our attention, and how do we know when we have found it? Ultimately, each of us must answer that question for ourselves.

But we do have help if we want it. People who have made a disciplined study of art can offer ideas about what art is important and why. In the course of this text, we will examine some of those ideas about art. Due to the importance of respecting the individual, the decision about what art is best must belong to the individual. We ask only that the student understand the ideas as presented.

When challenged with a question or problem about what is best, we first ask, “What do I personally know about it?” When we realize our personal resources are limited, we might ask friends, neighbors, and relatives what they know. In addition to these important resources, the educated person can refer to a larger body of possible solutions drawn from a study of the history of literature, philosophy, and art: What did the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley say about truth in his essay Defense of Poetry (1840)? (Figure 1.5) What did the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau claim about human nature in his treatise Emile or On Education (1762)? (Figure 1.6) What did Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675, Netherlands) show us about the quiet dignity of the domestic space in his painting Woman Holding a Balance? (Figure 1.7) Through experiencing these works of art and literature, our ideas about such things can be tested and validated or found wanting.

Figure 1.5 Portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Artist: Alfred Clint, Author: (Public Domain; "Dcoetzee"). Figure 1.6 Portrait of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Artist: Maurice Quentin de la Tour, Author: (Public Domain; "Maarten van Vilet"). Figure 1.7 Woman Holding a Balance, Artist: Johannes Vermeer, Author: (Public Domain; " DcoetzeeBot")

We will examine works of visual art from a diverse range of cultures and periods. The challenge for you as the reader is to increase your ability to interpret works of art through the use of context, visual dynamics, and introspection, and to integrate them into a coherent worldview. The best outcome of an encounter with art is an awakening of the mind and spirit to a new point of view. A mind stretched beyond itself never returns to its original dimension.

1.2.3 The Distinction of Fine Art

From our definition of art proposed above, it would seem that craft and fine art are indistinguishable as both come from the mind into the world. But the distinction between craft and art is real and important. This distinction is most commonly understood as one based on the use or end purpose of an object, or as an effect of the material used. Clay, textiles, glass, and jewelry were long considered the province of craft, not art. If an object’s intended use was a part of daily living, then it was generally thought to be the product of craft, not fine art. But many objects originally intended to be functional, such as quilts, are now thought to qualify as fine art. (Figure 1.8)

Figure 1.8 Quilt, Artist: Lucy Mingo, Author: (CC BY-SA 4.0, " Billvolckening")

So what could be the difference between art and craft? Anyone who has been exposed to training in a craft such as carpentry or plumbing recognizes that craft follows a formula, that is, a set of rules that govern not only how the work is to be conducted but also what the outcome of that work must be. The level of craft is judged by how closely the end product matches the pre-determined outcome. We want our houses to stand and water to flow when we turn on our faucets. Fine art, on the other hand, results from a free and open-ended exploration that does not depend on a pre-determined formula for its outcome or validity. Its outcome is surprising and original. Almost all fine art objects are a combination of some level both of craft and art. Art stands on craft, but goes beyond it.

1.2.4 Why Art Matters

American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer is considered a “father of the atomic bomb” for the role he played in developing nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II (1939-1945). (Figure 1.9) Upon completion of the project, quoting from the Hindu epic tale Bhagavad Gita, he stated, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Clearly, Oppenheimer had read more than physics texts in his education, which fit him well for his important role during World War II.

Figure 1.9 J. Robert Oppenheimer, Author: Los Alamos National Laboratory, (Public Domain)

When we train in mathematics and the sciences, for example, we become very powerful. Power can be used well or badly. Where in our schools is the coursework on how to use power wisely? Today a liberal arts college education requires students to survey the arts and history of human cultures in order to examine a wide range of ideas about wisdom and to humanize the powerful. With that in mind, in every course taken in the university, it is hoped that you will recognize the need to couple your increasing intellectual power with a study of what is thought to be wisdom, and to view each educational experience in the humanities as part of the search for what is better in ourselves and our communities.

This text is not intended to determine what is or is not good art and why it matters. Rather, the point of this text is to equip you with intellectual tools that will enable you to analyze, decipher, and interpret works of art as bearers of meaning, to make your own decisions about the merit of those works, and then usefully to integrate those decisions into your daily lives.

Definition of Art Definition Essay

The practice of creating artistic works is something that is as old as the human species. Historically, different societies had their own ways of defining art, because of the significance that societies placed on artistic works. Although such traditional definitions are still appreciated in some contemporary societies, the birth of modernism has revolutionized most historical definitions, to include institutional and relational properties of art.

One common thing with traditional and conventional definitions of arts is that, these definitions share some common concepts of human agency, which are in form of manual handiness, intellectual manipulation, and expression of ideas, aimed at communicating certain concepts of the human culture. As a result of the failure to blend all this aspects of art, most individuals have a tendency of confusing visual culture, craft, and art.

Although anything constructed skillfully with a symbolic significance and which can have some effect on people’s emotions and mental power can be termed as art, such a definition of art will be lacking, as it will not have appreciated the relevance of the artistic skill itself. Therefore, art is a symbolic expression of an individual’s ideas using certain elements of art to create objects or images that are meant to arouse people’s emotions and express ideas, for purposes of communicating certain messages.

For a piece of work to be called an art, it has to be an outcome of a conscious intention or self-rewarding activity, which unites things that are not similar to convey certain messages or evoke specific feelings in people. Art goes beyond reasoning, because it is a magnificent expression of certain ideas in a form that goes beyond the realm of such ideas. In addition, to a large extent art tends to appreciate the formal elements of an individual’s emotions.

Therefore, for individuals to be able to create some pieces of art, they have to have such ideas in their mind in form of mental images; hence, visible works of art are just a depiction of the mental images and ideas held by individuals. Secondly, for a piece of work to be called an art, it has to have form and content.

Form primarily includes all elements of art and principles of design. Primary elements of art include texture, line, shape, form, space, color, and value. In any artistic work, these elements have to be blended properly by using certain set principles of design. Such blending of these elements is important in artistic works, because it provides a way of interpreting and understanding different works of art.

It is important for individuals to note that, art is susceptible to diverse interpretations, because of the fact that art tends to encourage visceral rather than rational understanding. This like a scenario arises due to the fact that, one does not require some special interpreting powers to be able to understand any piece of art, but rather the ability to interpret art depends on the emotional connection that an individual from with a piece of art.

Any artistic work must also create a certain emotional and philosophical link between its creator and audience. For any piece of work to achieve this it must embrace two main concepts genuineness and clearness, as these are two of the primary properties that qualify any piece of work as an art.

Clearness and genuineness also make art to have the power of connecting people, as it helps to communicate certain emotions or ideas. Further, to be able to act as a communication tool, art has to be able to use creative skill to formulate works which have symbolic meaning. The interpretation of this meaning will depend on the products of such creative works, them being the primary determinant of the nature of emotions a work of art will excite in its viewers.

One of the artistic works that fits in this definition of art is Francisco De Goya’s “The shooting of May Third, 1808. Goya has blended different elements of art, which include color, value, line, and space to excite different feelings in the viewers of the picture. In addition, Goya has also used different principles of design, which include balance, contrast, and proportion, features which are important in helping the viewers of the picture to visualize how the shooting scenario was.

In addition to this, because the shooting was a real historical event, through looking at the picture, viewers are able to form a connection with what happened, because of the painful, resentment, and grief feelings that the picture excites in its viewers.

On the other hand, this picture is also a representation of the creativity of Goya, because through visualizing how the shootings took place, he was able to paint a pictorial representation of this historical occurrence; hence, proving the fact that, art is a product of visual images and representations in an artist’s mind.

In conclusion, art is primarily the outcome of the human drive to express mental images and representations meant to create an expressive exchange between artists and audiences. To achieve this, artists must use different elements and designs to represent mental images and expressions. As a result of the symbolism represented in artistic works, art is a mental stimulator, as it excites different emotions that are the basis of any form of interpretation given to any artistic work.

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Definition of Art." November 2, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/definition-of-art/.

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“Without Art Mankind Could Not Exist”: Leo Tolstoy’s Essay What is Art

In his essay “What is Art?” Leo Tolstoy, the author of War and Peace, defines art as a way to communicate emotion with the ultimate goal of uniting humanity.

How can we define art? What is authentic art and what is good art? Leo Tolstoy answered these questions in “What is Art?” (1897), his most comprehensive essay on the theory of art. Tolstoy’s theory has a lot of charming aspects. He believes that art is a means of communicating emotion, with the aim of promoting mutual understanding. By gaining awareness of each other’s feelings we can successfully practice empathy and ultimately unite to further mankind’s collective well-being. 

Furthermore, Tolstoy firmly denies that pleasure is art’s sole purpose. Instead, he supports a moral-based art able to appeal to everyone and not just the privileged few. Although he takes a clear stance in favor of Christianity as a valid foundation for morality, his definition of religious perception is flexible. As a result, it is possible to easily replace it with all sorts of different ideological schemes.

Personally, I do not approach Tolstoy’s theory as a set of laws for understanding art. More than anything, “What is art?” is a piece of art itself. A work about the meaning of art and a fertile foundation on which truly beautiful ideas can flourish.

Most of the paintings used for this article were drawn by realist painter Ilya Repin. The Russian painter created a series of portraits of Tolstoy, which were exhibited together at the 2019 exhibition “Repin: The Myth of Tolstoy” at the State Museum L.N. Tolstoy. More information regarding the relationship between Tolstoy and Repin can be found in this article . 

Who was Tolstoy?

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Leo Tolstoy ( Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy) was born in 1828 in his family estate of Yasnaya Polyana, some 200km from Moscow. His family belonged in the Russian aristocracy and thus Leo inherited the title of count. In 1851 he joined the tsarist army to pay off his accumulated debt but quickly regretted this decision. Eventually, he left the army right after the end of the Crimean War in 1856. 

After traveling Europe and witnessing the suffering and cruelty of the world, Tolstoy was transformed. From a privileged aristocrat, he became a Christian anarchist arguing against the State and propagating non-violence. This was the doctrine that inspired Gandhi and was expressed as non-resistance to evil. This means that evil cannot be fought with evil means and one should neither accept nor resist it.  

Tolstoy’s writing made him famous around the world and he is justly considered among the four giants of Russian Literature next to Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Turgenev. His most famous novels are War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). However, he also wrote multiple philosophical and theological texts as well as theatrical plays and short stories. Upon completing his masterpiece Anna Karenina , Tolstoy fell into a state of insufferable existential despair.

Charmed by the faith of the common people, he turned to Christianity. Eventually, he dismissed the Russian Church and every other Church as corrupted and looked for his own answers. His theological explorations led to the formulation of his own version of Christianity, which deeply influenced his social vision.  He died in 1910 at the age of 82 after suffering from pneumonia.

Art Based On Beauty And Taste 

Tolstoy wrote “What is art?” in 1897. There, he laid down his opinions on several art-related issues. Throughout this essay , he remains confident that he is the first to provide an exact definition for art:

“…however strange it may seem to say so, in spite of the mountains of books written about art, no exact definition of art has been constructed. And the reason of this is that the conception of art has been based on the conception of beauty.”  

So, what is art for Tolstoy? Before answering the question, the Russian novelist seeks a proper basis for his definition. Examining works of other philosophers and artists, he notices that they usually assume that beauty is art’s foundation. For them beauty is either that which provides a certain kind of pleasure or that which is perfect according to objective, universal laws.

Tolstoy thinks that both cases lead to subjective definitions of beauty and in turn to subjective definitions of art. Those who realize the impossibility of objectively defining beauty, turn to a study of taste asking why a thing pleases. Again, Tolstoy sees no point in this, as taste is also subjective. There is no way of explaining why one thing pleases someone but displeases someone else, he concludes. 

Theories that Justify the Canon

Theories of art based on beauty or taste inescapably include only that type of art that appeals to certain people:

“First acknowledging a certain set of productions to be art (because they please us) and then framing such a theory of art that all those productions which please a certain circle of people should fit into it.”

These theories are made to justify the existing art canon which covers anything from Greek art to Shakespeare and Beethoven. In reality, the canon is nothing more than the artworks appreciated by the upper classes. To justify new productions that please the elites, new theories that expand and reaffirm the canon are constantly created: 

“No matter what insanities appear in art, when once they find acceptance among the upper classes of our society, a theory is quickly invented to explain and sanction them; just as if there had never been periods in history when certain special circles of people recognized and approved false, deformed, and insensate art which subsequently left no trace and has been utterly forgotten.”  

The true definition of art, according to Tolstoy, should be based on moral principles. Before anything, we need to question if a work of art is moral. If it is moral, then it is good art. If it is not moral, it is bad. This rationale leads Tolstoy to a very bizarre idea. At one point in his essay, he states that Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliette, Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, and his own War and Peace are immoral and therefore bad art. But what does Tolstoy exactly mean when he says that something is good or bad art? And what is the nature of the morality he uses for his artistic judgments?

What is Art?

Art is a means of communicating feelings the same way words transmit thoughts. In art, someone transmits a feeling and “infects” others with what he/she feels. Tolstoy encapsulates his definition of art in the following passages:

“To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling – this is the activity of art. Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hand on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them.”

In its essence, art is a means of union among men brought together by commonly experienced feelings. It facilitates access to the psychology of others fostering empathy and understanding by tearing down the walls of the Subject. This function of art is not only useful but also necessary for the progress and wellbeing of humanity.

The innumerable feelings experienced by humans both in past and present are available to us only through art. The loss of such a unique ability would be a catastrophe. “Men would be like beasts”, says Tolstoy, and even goes as far as to claim that without art, mankind could not exist. This is a bold declaration, which recalls the Nietzschean aphorism that human existence is justified only as an aesthetic phenomenon.

Art in the Extended and Limited Sense of the Word

Tolstoy’s definition expands to almost every aspect of human activity way beyond the fine arts. Even a boy telling the story of how he met a wolf can be art. That is, however, only if the boy succeeds in making the listeners feel the fear and anguish of the encounter. Works of art are everywhere, according to this view. Cradlesong, jest, mimicry, house ornamentation, dress and utensils, even triumphal processions are all works of art. 

This is, in my view, the strongest point of Tolstoy’s theory. Namely, that it considers almost the totality of human activity as art. However, there is a distinction between this expanded art, and art in the limited sense of the word. The latter corresponds to the fine arts and is the area that Tolstoy investigates further in his essay.  A weak point of the theory is that it never examines the act of creation and art that is not shared with others. 

Real and Counterfeit Art

The distinction between real and counterfeit, good and bad art is Tolstoy’s contribution to the field of art criticism. Despite its many weaknesses, this system offers an interesting alternative to judging and appreciating art.

Tolstoy names real art (i.e. authentic, true to itself) the one resulting from an honest, internal need for expression. The product of this internal urge becomes a real work of art, if it successfully evokes feelings to other people. In this process, the receiver of the artistic impression becomes so united with the artist’s experience, that he/she feels like the artwork is his/her own. Therefore, real art removes the barrier between Subject and Object, and between receiver and sender of an artistic impression. In addition, it removes the barrier between the receivers who experience unity through a common feeling.

“In this freeing of our personality from its separation and isolation, in this uniting of it with others, lies the chief characteristic and the great attractive force of art.” Furthermore, a work that does not evoke feelings and spiritual union with others is counterfeit art. No matter how poetical, realistic, effectful, or interesting it is, it must meet these conditions to succeed. Otherwise it is just a counterfeit posing as real art.  

Emotional Infectiousness

Emotional infectiousness is a necessary quality of a work of art. The degree of infectiousness is not always the same but varies according to three conditions:

• The individuality of the feeling transmitted: the more specific to a person the feeling, the more successful the artwork.
• The clearness of the feeling transmitted: the clearness of expression assists the transition of feelings and increases the pleasure derived from art.
• The sincerity of the artist: the force with which the artist feels the emotion he/she transmits through his/her art. 

Out of all three, sincerity is the most important. Without it, the other two conditions cannot exist. Worth noting is that Tolstoy finds sincerity almost always present in “peasant art” but almost always absent in “upper-class art”. If a work lacks even one of the three qualities, it is counterfeit art. In contrast, it is real if it possesses all three. In that case, it only remains to judge whether this real artwork is good or bad, more or less successful. The success of an artwork is based firstly on the degree of its infectiousness. The more infectious the artwork, the better.  

The Religious Perception of Art

Tolstoy believes that art is a means of progress towards perfection. With time, art evolves rendering accessible the experience of humanity for humanity’s sake. This is a process of moral realization and results in society becoming kinder and more compassionate. A genuinely good artwork ought to make accessible these good feelings that move humanity closer to its moral completion. Within this framework, a good work of art must also be moral. 

But how can we judge what feelings are morally good? Tolstoy’s answer lies in what he calls “the religious perception of the age”. This is defined as the understanding of the meaning of life as conceived by a group of people. This understanding is the moral compass of a society and always points towards certain values. For Tolstoy, the religious perception of his time is found in Christianity. As a result, all good art must carry the foundational message of this religion understood as brotherhood among all people. This union of man aiming at his collective well-being, argues Tolstoy, must be revered as the highest value of all. 

Although it relates to religion, religious perception is not the same with religious cult. In fact, the definition of religious perception is so wide, that it describes ideology in general. To this interpretation leads Tolstoy’s view that, even if a society recognizes no religion, it always has a religious morality. This can be compared with the direction of a flowing river:

If the river flows at all, it must have a direction. If a society lives, there must be a religious perception indicating the direction in which, more or less consciously, all its members tend.

It is safe to say that more than a century after Tolstoy’s death, “What is Art?” retains its appeal. We should not easily dismiss the idea that (good) art communicates feelings and promotes unity through universal understanding. This is especially the case in our time where many question art’s importance and see it as a source of confusion and division. 

• Tolstoy, L.N. 1902. What is Art? In the Novels and Other Works of Lyof N. Tolstoy . translated by Aline Delano. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. pp. 328-527. Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43409
• Jahn, G.R. 1975. ‘The Aesthetic Theory of Leo Tolstoy’s What Is Art?’. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , Vol. 34, No. 1. pp. 59-65. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/428645
• Morson, G.S. 2019. ‘Leo Tolstoy’. Encyclopædia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leo-Tolstoy

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By Antonis Chaliakopoulos MSc Museum Studies, BA History & Archaeology Antonis is an archaeologist with a passion for museums and heritage and a keen interest in aesthetics and the reception of classical art. He holds an MSc in Museum Studies from the University of Glasgow and a BA in History and Archaeology from the University of Athens (NKUA) where he is currently working on his PhD.

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The Value of Art Why should we care about art?

One of the first questions raised when talking about art is simple—why should we care? Art in the contemporary era is easy to dismiss as a selfish pastime for people who have too much time on their hands. Creating art doesn't cure disease, build roads, or feed the poor. So to understand the value of art, let’s look at how art has been valued through history and consider how it is valuable today.

The value of creating

At its most basic level, the act of creating is rewarding in itself. Children draw for the joy of it before they can speak, and creating pictures, sculptures and writing is both a valuable means of communicating ideas and simply fun. Creating is instinctive in humans, for the pleasure of exercising creativity. While applied creativity is valueable in a work context, free-form creativity leads to new ideas.

Material value

Through the ages, art has often been created from valuable materials. Gold , ivory and gemstones adorn medieval crowns , and even the paints used by renaissance artists were made from rare materials like lapis lazuli , ground into pigment. These objects have creative value for their beauty and craftsmanship, but they are also intrinsically valuable because of the materials they contain.

Historical value

Artwork is a record of cultural history. Many ancient cultures are entirely lost to time except for the artworks they created, a legacy that helps us understand our human past. Even recent work can help us understand the lives and times of its creators, like the artwork of African-American artists during the Harlem Renaissance . Artwork is inextricably tied to the time and cultural context it was created in, a relationship called zeitgeist , making art a window into history.

Religious value

For religions around the world, artwork is often used to illustrate their beliefs. Depicting gods and goddesses, from Shiva to the Madonna , make the concepts of faith real to the faithful. Artwork has been believed to contain the spirits of gods or ancestors, or may be used to imbue architecture with an aura of awe and worship like the Badshahi Mosque .

Patriotic value

Art has long been a source of national pride, both as an example of the skill and dedication of a country’s artisans and as expressions of national accomplishments and history, like the Arc de Triomphe , a heroic monument honoring the soldiers who died in the Napoleonic Wars. The patriotic value of art slides into propaganda as well, used to sway the populace towards a political agenda.

Symbolic value

Art is uniquely suited to communicating ideas. Whether it’s writing or painting or sculpture, artwork can distill complex concepts into symbols that can be understood, even sometimes across language barriers and cultures. When art achieves symbolic value it can become a rallying point for a movement, like J. Howard Miller’s 1942 illustration of Rosie the Riveter, which has become an icon of feminism and women’s economic impact across the western world.

Societal value

And here’s where the rubber meets the road: when we look at our world today, we see a seemingly insurmountable wave of fear, bigotry, and hatred expressed by groups of people against anyone who is different from them. While issues of racial and gender bias, homophobia and religious intolerance run deep, and have many complex sources, much of the problem lies with a lack of empathy. When you look at another person and don't see them as human, that’s the beginning of fear, violence and war. Art is communication. And in the contemporary world, it’s often a deeply personal communication. When you create art, you share your worldview, your history, your culture and yourself with the world. Art is a window, however small, into the human struggles and stories of all people. So go see art, find art from other cultures, other religions, other orientations and perspectives. If we learn about each other, maybe we can finally see that we're all in this together. Art is a uniquely human expression of creativity. It helps us understand our past, people who are different from us, and ultimately, ourselves.

Reed Enger, "The Value of Art, Why should we care about art?," in Obelisk Art History , Published June 24, 2017; last modified November 08, 2022, http://www.arthistoryproject.com/essays/the-value-of-art/.

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What Is Art? Favorite Famous Definitions, from Antiquity to Today

By maria popova.

Henry James in his short story The Middle Years :

We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.

Leo Tolstoy , in his essay “What Is Art?” :

Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man’s emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.

Frank Lloyd Wright , writing in 1957, as cited in Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture, Nature, and the Human Spirit: A Collection of Quotations :

Art is a discovery and development of elementary principles of nature into beautiful forms suitable for human use.

Steven Pressfield in The War of Art , one of 5 essential books on fear and the creative process :

To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution.

Charles Eames , cited in the fantastic 100 Quotes by Charles Eames :

Art resides in the quality of doing; process is not magic.

Elbert Hubbard in a 1908 volume of Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers :

Art is not a thing — it is a way.

Oscar Wilde in The Soul of Man Under Socialism :

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.

Thomas Merton in No Man Is An Island :

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

Francis Ford Coppola in a recent interview :

An essential element of any art is risk. If you don’t take a risk then how are you going to make something really beautiful, that hasn’t been seen before? I always like to say that cinema without risk is like having no sex and expecting to have a baby. You have to take a risk.

André Gide in Poétique :

Art begins with resistance — at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor.

Friedrich Nietzsche , made famous all over again by Ray Bradbury in Zen in the Art of Writing :

We have our Arts so we won’t die of Truth.

Michelangelo Pistoletto in Art’s Responsibility :

Above all, artists must not be only in art galleries or museums — they must be present in all possible activities. The artist must be the sponsor of thought in whatever endeavor people take on, at every level.

Federico Fellini in a December 1965 piece in The Atlantic , not currently online:

All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.

Hugh MacLeod in Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity :

Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it.

The Greek philosopher Aristophanes , writing in the 4th century B.C.:

Let each man exercise the art he knows.

And, lastly, my own take in a recent piece I wrote for the National Endowment for the Arts:

This is the power of art: The power to transcend our own self-interest, our solipsistic zoom-lens on life, and relate to the world and each other with more integrity, more curiosity, more wholeheartedness.

— Published June 22, 2012 — https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/06/22/what-is-art/ —

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What is Art? Why is Art Important?

What is art? – The dictionary definition of art says that it is “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination , especially in the production of aesthetic objects” (Merriam-Webster). Art is essential to society as it stimulates creativity , reflects culture, fosters empathy, provokes thought, and offers a medium for expression. It enhances society’s intellectual and emotional understanding of the world.

But the thing about art is that it’s so diverse that there are as many ways to understand it as there are people.

That’s why there are scholars who give their special definition of the word, such as the one penned by this famous Russian novelist, which goes:

“Art is the activity by which a person, having experienced an emotion, intentionally transmits it to others” – Leo Tolstoy

During his life, Tolstoy was known to write based on his life experiences, such as his most famous work, “War and Peace,” which used much of his experience during the Crimean War.

Whether or not his definition of art is the best, the point is that people look at art based on how they have experienced it.

What is Art?

There are many common definitions of art as per many books by famous artists and authors . Few to quote:

• any creative work of a human being
• a form of expressing oneself
• resides in the quality of doing; the process is not magic
• an act of making something visually entertaining
• an activity that manifests beauty ( What is Beauty in Art? )
• the mastery, an ideal way of doing things
• not a thing — it is a way (Elbert Hubbard)
• the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known
• discovery and development of elementary principles of nature into beautiful forms suitable for human use (Frank Lloyd Wright)

Why is Art Important?

Probably, the most prominent theory which best explains – Why is art important – is from Van Jones, which subtly provides a great response to What is art?

Van Jones presented a graph that accurately represents the interaction between the four aspects of society and its different members.

Consequently, Vones depicts why art is important to our society.

The graph (below) represents our society.

Society is driven by the powerful elites, the dependent masses, the government, cultural producers, and artists

On the left, you have action, and on the right, ideas; elites are at the top, and the masses are below. There’s an inside act and an outside act.

On the inside, there’s big money: elites are spending millions of dollars to influence politicians and policymakers. The inside act has the power to influence policy creators.

On the outside, we at the grassroots set our expectations and needs so that the elected candidates pass laws that give us power. Masses reflect what society wants (heart)

The left side, “action,” often means quantifiable policy changes. The right side, “ideas,” can be harder to see. We are not necessarily talking about concrete things here, but rather, a “headspace.”

Academic institutions and think tanks, which are not always involved in the immediate policy wins, are significant in creating a culture of thought

While the left side, “action,” continues to produce quantifiable policy changes and new laws, the right side, “ïdeas,” can be hard to quantify its outcome. Although “head” talks about theories and academics, it fails to contribute significantly to policymakers.

Artists come into the play here at this moment

Artists are represented here on the side of ideas, in the “heart space.”

Art is uniquely positioned to move people—inspiring us, inciting new questions, and provoking curiosity, excitement, and outrage.

Artists can strengthen the will and push people to act. They do not think like policymakers or academics people.

Artists think from their heart – big, revolutionary, and visionary ideas.

This is why artists are able to move people to action, thus creates a significant cultural and political contributions.

This is what makes art powerful.

Impact of Art on Politics, Culture, and People

Art is essential in society because it is an essential ingredient in empowering people’s hearts.

When activists show images of children suffering from poverty or oppression in their campaigns, this is the art of pulling the heartstrings of society’s elite and powerful to make changes.

Similarly, when photographers publish photos of war-torn areas, it catches the attention of the masses whose hearts reach out to those who need help.

When an artist creates great music and movies, it entertains people worldwide. This is art, making a difference in society.

A very modern example of art in action is street art. When the famous Italian street artist Blu created the mural in Kreuzberg , it sparked a lot of solid and different reactions rooted deeply in the differences between East and West Berlin.

Who would have thought that a wall painting depicting two masked figures trying to unmask each other could elicit such strong reactions?

Now, the issue behind this mural is a different matter to discuss. But whether or not the effect of the mural was good, it cannot be denied how a well-crafted piece of art can have a significant impact on society.

Art is also a remarkable mode of depicting culture from all over the world

When you see a Zen garden in Sydney or San Francisco, you know that it’s a practice that originated from China.

Likewise, when you see paper swans swarming a beautiful wedding ceremony, you know that this is origami, an art from Japan.

When you see films featuring Bollywood music and dancing, you know that it’s a movie from India. Art can take cultural practices from their origins and transport and integrate them into different parts of the world without losing their identity.

There, these art forms can entertain, create awareness, and even inspire foreigners to accept these cultures, no matter how strange or alien they may seem.

And that’s precisely what John Dewey implies in Art as an Experience:

“Barriers are dissolved; limiting prejudices melt away when we enter into the spirit of Negro or Polynesian Art. This insensible melting is far more efficacious than the change effected by reasoning, because it enters directly into attitude.”

This is especially important in our highly globalized world.

Art has played an essential role in helping fight against intolerance of different cultures, racism, and other forms of unjust societal segregation.

With immigration becoming a trend, the world’s countries are expected to be more tolerant and accepting of those who enter their borders.

Art helps make that happen by making sure that identities and their cultures are given due recognition around the world.

Art stimulates creativity and innovation.

Art inspires creativity and innovation beyond boundaries, encouraging imagination, lateral thinking, and risk-taking. The process of creating art involves experimentation and novel ideas, which can influence progress in various industries.

Art also challenges perceptions and assumptions, encouraging critical thinking and open-mindedness, which are essential for innovation. By presenting alternative realities or questioning the status quo, art inspires individuals to think differently and to approach problems from unique angles.

Furthermore, the aesthetic experience of art can lead to epiphanies and insights.

The beauty or emotional impact of a piece of art can trigger ideas and spark the imagination in ways that logical reasoning alone may not. This can lead to breakthroughs in creative and scientific endeavors, as individuals draw inspiration from the emotions evoked by art.

Art plays a subtle yet significant role in our daily lives.

For instance, when a child takes part in a school art project, they are given a variety of materials to create a collage. As they construct a 3D model of an imaginary winged vehicle with multiple wheels, the textures and shapes inspire them. This hands-on exploration of materials and forms sparks the child’s interest in engineering and design, planting the seeds for future innovation.

The above example illustrates how art can engage young minds, encouraging them to think creatively and envision innovative solutions beyond conventional boundaries.

In essence, art fuels the creative fire, providing the sparks that can ignite the next wave of innovation in society.

Great Art elicits powerful sentiments and tells meaningful stories

Art can take the form of film, music, theatre, and pop culture , all of which aim to entertain and make people happy. But when films, songs, or plays are made for a specific audience or purpose, the art begins to diversify.

Films, for example, can be made to spread awareness or cultural appreciation. Songs can also be composed in a way that brings out certain emotions, give inspiration, or boost the morale of people.

During the Victorian period in England, women started to make a name for themselves with classic artworks such as Elizabeth Sirani’s “ Portia Wounding Her Thigh ”, a painting that signifies the message that a woman is now willing to distance herself from gender biasedness.

The painting’s subject depicts an act of a woman possessing the same strength as that of a man. “Portia” represents surrender because she isn’t the same type of woman known in society as weak and prone to gossip.

One of the revolutionary works in history that ultimately opened the doors of art to women in general showed the power of women in art

There are also works of art that illicit intellectual solid discourse – the kind that can question norms and change the behavior of society.

Sometimes, still, art is there to reach out to a person who shares the same thoughts, feelings, and experiences as the artist.

The truth is that art is more than just a practice – it is a way of life. Art is more than just a skill – it is a passion. Art is more than just an image – each one tells a story.

The fact that art is quite connected to human experience makes it unsurprising that we have always made it part of our ways of living.

This is why ancient and present-day indigenous groups from all over the world have a knack for mixing art and their traditional artifacts or rituals without them knowing, which in fact one of the fundamental reasons why art is essential.

Why is Art so Powerful?  Why is art important to human society?

Perhaps the most straightforward answer to this question is that art touches us emotionally.

Art is influential because it can potentially influence our culture, politics, and even the economy. When we see a powerful work of art, we feel it touching deep within our core, giving us the power to make real-life changes.

In the words of Leo Tolstoy:

“The activity of art is based on the capacity of people to infect others with their own emotions and to be infected by the emotions of others. Strong emotions, weak emotions, important emotions or irrelevant emotions, good emotions or bad emotions – if they contaminate the reader, the spectator, or the listener – it attains the function of art.”

In sum, art can be considered powerful because of the following reasons, among others:

• It has the power to educate people about almost anything. It can create awareness and present information in a way that could be absorbed by many quickly. In a world where some don’t even have access to good education, art makes education an even greater equalizer of society.
• It promotes cultural appreciation among a generation that’s currently preoccupied with their technology. It can be said that if it weren’t for art, our history, culture, and traditions would be in more danger of being forgotten than they already are.
• It breaks cultural, social, and economic barriers . While art can’t solve poverty or promote social justice alone, it can be a leveled playing field for discourse and expression. The reason why everyone can relate to art is that everyone has emotions and personal experiences. Therefore, anyone can learn to appreciate art regardless of social background, economic standing, or political affiliation.
• It accesses higher orders of thinking . Art doesn’t just make you absorb information. Instead, it makes you think about current ideas and inspire you to make your own. This is why creativity is a form of intelligence – it is a unique ability that unlocks the potential of the human mind. Studies have shown that exposure to art can improve you in other fields of knowledge.

The truth is that people have recognized how influential art can be.

Many times in history, I have heard of people being criticized, threatened, censored, and even killed because of their artwork.

Those responsible for these reactions, whether a belligerent government or a dissident group, take these measures against artists, knowing how much their works can affect the politics in a given area.

In the hands of good people, however, art can be used to give back hope or instill courage in a society that’s undergoing a lot of hardships.

Art is a powerful form of therapy .

Some say art is boring . But the fact remains that art has the power to take cultural practices from where they are from and then transport and integrate them into different parts of the world without losing their identity.

Art helps make that happen by making sure that identities and their cultures are given due recognition around the world. Thus, it is essential to reflect upon – Why art is critical – which, in fact, provides you the answer to – What is art?

This is why we at The Artist believe that art is a form of creative human expression, a way of enriching the human experience.

NFTs: The Future of Art

Now, the world of art is shifting towards a digital and alternative world. And NFT is becoming a game-changing variable in the future of art .

What is NFT artwork?

An NFT , which stands for “non-fungible token” can be defined as a digital file that can be simply and easily transferred across a blockchain network.

Many people around the world are seeking out these digital assets to sell and trade in their everyday market trading, since these items are able to be traced, have value and oftentimes also have considerable rarity for collectors.

While artistic works are certainly a part of the NFT market, a variety of different players are getting involved through gaming systems, avatars, and even entire virtual worlds.

Such tokens have a wide variety of usage and while for many these are out of reach, for serious investors NFTs can prove to be a profitable source of income.

Art plays a significant role in society by acting as an educational equalizer, fostering cultural appreciation, bridging cultural and social divides, and stimulating higher orders of thinking and creativity.

Art and its definition will always be controversial.

There will always be debates about what art is and what is not.

But no matter what the definition may be, it has been around us for as long as humans have existed (i.e. cave paintings, hieroglyphics).

Whether or not we are aware of it, we allow art to affect our lives one way or another, and the reasons why we make art are many!

We use the arts for our entertainment, cultural appreciation, aesthetics, personal improvement, and even social change. We use the arts to thrive in this world.

So, share your thoughts – What does art mean to you? Art plays a subtle yet significant role in our daily lives. For instance, when a child takes part in a school art project, they are given a variety of materials to create a collage. As they construct a 3D model of an imaginary winged vehicle with multiple wheels, the textures and shapes inspire them. This hands-on exploration of materials and forms sparks the child’s interest in engineering and design, planting the seeds for future innovation. This example illustrates how art can engage young minds, encouraging them to think creatively and envision innovative solutions beyond conventional boundaries.

Passionate experimenter with a heart for art, design, and tech. A relentless explorer of the culture, creative and innovative realms.

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Agreed with the summation, that art is a tricky thing to define. Shall we leave it at that and let the artist get on with it?

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Defining Art and its Future

• Zachary Isrow Global Center for Advanced Studies/Alma Mater Europaea

Art is a creative phenomenon which changes constantly, not just insofar as it is being created continually, but also in the very meaning of ‘art.’ Finding a suitable definition of art is no easy task and it has been the subject of much inquiry throughout artistic expression. This paper suggests a crucial distinction between ‘art forms’ and ‘forms of art’ is necessary in order to better understand art. The latter of these corresponds to that which we would typically call art such as painting, singing, etc. The former corresponds to the form out of which these take shape, movement, speech, etc. With this distinction set out, it becomes clearer that art and the aesthetic is rooted in the properties of the ‘thing’ such as the color, shape, and the texture, rather than the product of creation itself. Thus, the future of art will bring a new aesthetic in which these properties become recognized as art and as such there will be an aesthetic of everyday life.

Author Biography

• Zachary Isrow, Global Center for Advanced Studies/Alma Mater Europaea Zachary Alan Isrow is a PhD Candidate with the Global Center for Advanced Studies in Partnership with Alma Mater Europaea

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Benjamin, W. (1935). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Retrieved April 16, 2017, from http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/frankfurt/benjamin/benjamin.pdf .

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Burloch, B. H. (1990). Conceptual Art 1962-1969: From the Aesthetic of Administration to the Critique of Institutions. October,55, 105-143.

Dickie, G. (1974). Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.

Gracyk, T. (2012). The Philosophy of Art: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity.

Hegel, G. W., Bosanquet, B., & Inwood, M. (1993). Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics. London: Penguin Books.

Kant, I., & Pluhar, W. S. (2010). Critique of Judgment. Indianapolis, Ind: Hackett.

Knabb, K. (2007). Situationist Anternational Anthology. Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets.

Marcuse, Herbert. (1969). An Essay on Liberation. London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press.

Osborne, Peter. (2002).Conceptual Art. London: Phaidon,.

Osborne, P. (2013). Anywhere or not at all: philosophy of contemporary art. London: Verso Books.

Plato, & Bloom, A. (1968). The Republic of Plato. New York: Basic Books.

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What is art essay (521 words).

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Art is the product of creative human activity in which materials are shaped or selected to convey an idea, emotion, or visually interesting form. The word art can refer to the visual arts, including painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, decorative arts, crafts, and other visual works that combine materials or forms. Art is the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects that can be shared with others. It involves the arranging of elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions and acts as a means of communication with the viewer as it represents the thoughts of the artist.

While art is an action, the person who performs the action is known as an artist. The word artist is a descriptive term applied to a person who performs activities that are said to be art. Artists use their art as a mean of communication. Jamaican artists have been known to portray strong feeling through their works of art. These works of art either appear in two dimensional or three dimensional forms and each form in its own way portrays some feelings, emotions or ideas. Their works of art have been known to tell stories or depict ideas and can either be a realistic piece or an abstract. For most people, the main enjoyment in art is that pieces of art seem to stir the emotions and feelings of the viewer.

Osmond Watson is considered one of Jamaica’s most prominent artists having compiled some of Jamaica’s most collectible pieces of artwork. He has excelled in both 3d and 2d art as he is both a painter and a sculptor. Osmond Watson once stated “my philosophy on art is simple- my aim is to glorify Black people through my work with the hope that it will uplift the masses of the region giving dignity and self respect where it is needed and to make people more aware of their own beauty”. This is exactly what his pieces seem to do. The combination of simplified forms, dark outlines, bold and acidic colours easily distinguish his painting. It is sometimes combined with frames that are hand-crafted and ornate, his choice of subject matter, and his wit and his idiosyncratic style confirm that Osmond Watson is a unique and significant Caribbean artist.

“Peace and Love” is a famous painting done by Watson. He uses the elements and principles to deliver this message. The most obvious and dominant element he uses is colour. He uses the colour blue to represent peace and this is the first notion that one gets when one first looks at this piece. A small amount of red is used throughout the piece and this supports the aspects of love, strength and power among blacks. Brown in this is also used to represent a feeling of comfort and home. In the background Watson uses blue with a hint of zigzag lines that coupled with the subject’s hair adds non-tactile texture and depth to the piece. Watson uses a Rastafarian as the subject of his piece due to the fact that Rastafarians are usually associated with meditation and peace.

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The Definition of Art and Visual Art

I do not consider a beautifully made tool a work of art because the intention for its creation is dissimilar from producing an art object. In my view, art serves the purpose of communicating the author’s thoughts through the objects that he or she creates. I do not think that an artisan who encases a diamond into a hammer’s handle wants to say something or relay some knowledge to its use other than underline the beauty and place a high price on his creation. According to Hall, Evans, and Nixon (2013), an art object has to signify something. Tools that are meant to be used every day do not need to sign anything because an average user will only recognize and appreciate its proper functioning. However, a tool can be created with the purpose of serving as a work of art but then it cannot be utilized otherwise. It will be set for display in order for the viewers could grasp the meaning or the idea the creator put into it. A work of art requires an audience and if only one person uses it, then the item has no artistic meaning.

Art does not have to be visual. It may also be audial. Songs, in my opinion, can also be considered art if they convey particular wisdom to the listeners. Social or historical context does not seem to be necessary for an item to be considered art. For example, natural landscapes are timeless and depict seas, forests or plains in their variety. They more often than not convey the artist’s emotions when he or she painted it. Historical context could be identified retrospectively. Some techniques and styles were named after their inventors or followers are long deceased. For example, expressionists such as Edvard Munch never identified themselves with that term. Gordon (1991) claims that Czech historian Antonin Matějček coined it later in 1910.

Gordon, D. E. (1991). Expressionism: Art and idea . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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