What is art?

(By the nice man at Pictures for Sad Children!)

I remember on a school trip to a museum, a friendly schoolmate asked me to define art in one word. I had overheard him asking that same query of several students around, all of which had responded with things like “expression” or “self-expression,” or “expressing yourself” (he had cheerfully punched that girl on the shoulder and chided at her that it was only one word).

I answered, “beauty.” Personally, a large piece of metal displayed as “abstract art” is something I just don’t agree with. A scribble or splatter is not art just because the creator claims to be expressing himself.

Communication is probably the greatest asset of humanity. To effectively get a message across, in any medium, is a great triumph for sure. But for it to also be an art, it must be beautiful!

But then who’s not to say that piece of metal is actually gorgeous? I’m sure the Baroque masters and today’s Minimalists would love to, if they were both alive in the same room, punch each other in the gut. Aesthetic ideals vary, and every person has their own way to interpret a piece much like they have their own way to look at the world. If X means a lot to a person, that person is inevitably going to think of any given piece in terms of X. Can you sniff out social justice in Dalí’s paintings? Someone out there does, and maybe they’re even writing academic papers about it!

Later on I asked my best friend that same question— to define art in one word— and she answered with “ego.” I think she’s hit the bull’s eye! An artist simply creates a piece from his personal ideals of beauty and meaning. If his goal is to impart a message, the message is based on his own convictions, too. And on top of that, the audience imposes their own values and ego on a piece when they observe it. (To quote Emerson, “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,—that is genius.”) In the end, every artist is an idealist. And pretention is just idealism when it needs a hug. (:

Ego, beauty, and expression. I think we can wrap everything up by throwing all three of them harmoniously together in a cool definition:

Though, since many of the the great geniuses of art were sadly unrecognized until two hundred and fifty years after their deaths, you could probably swap out effectively for ultimately. ):

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