This guy?
Sorry. Didn’t mean to end the coversation with that post. Here, you want a more formal description. I don’t know if I agree with necessarily any one of these points, but it seems like a fine starting point for this debate:
[b] In a research paper on the topic, the philosopher Berys Gaut claims that art is comprised of the following properties,
"the presence of which ordinary judgment counts toward something's being a work of art, and the absence of which counts against its being art: (1) possessing positive aesthetic properties, such as being beautiful, graceful, or elegant (properties which ground a capacity to give sensuous pleasure); (2) being expressive of emotion; (3) being intellectually challenging (i.e. questioning received views and modes of thought); (4) being formally complex and coherent; (5) having a capacity to convey complex meanings; (6) exhibiting an individual point of view; (7) being an exercise of creative imagination (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 (music, painting, film, etc.); and (10) being the product of an intention to make a work of art."
Source: Berys Gaut, “Art as a Cluster Concept,” in Theories of Art Today, ed. Noël Carroll (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000).
[/b]
Now, do you think art has to contain all of those properties? None of those? One or more?
I think point number 10 is the most important overall for something to be considered art. I think that no two people see art the same way, so we have to accept that what I or you may not deem as true “art” someone else may, but I don’t think anyone should consider something to be art that is not meant by the creator to be. Like some guy working at a steel mill, constructing an I-beam does probably not consider that I-beam to be a piece of art, and hence it is not. Does that make sense? Is that even what I think? This is a very tough topic to tackle.
I think basically ‘art’ is a lot like the word ‘fuck’. It can have many different meanings and interpretations. Pardon my ‘french’.
A guy with no arms and no legs, stapled to a wall.
That or what this guy does:
i bet that dude has smoked the finest weed
So why is something like this:
…worth millions of dollars.
…and something like this:
…sold on the side of the road for 10 bucks?
Who decides what is “good” and what is “cheap”?
I see something like this on the side of the street and think it’s brilliant. This speaks to me:
Then I’ll see something like this at the art institute and I don’t know what its doing there:
I watched a documentary the other day and it made me start thinking about this.
I don’t know,…it just seems to me that the art world is so pretentious. Kids go to school to learn how to paint only to find teachers who tell them their work is crap. Then I go look at what they tell us is good and I think that’s crap.
But then there are people like Shepard Fairey who make stickers and posters for free and can’t give them away.
But then they start to get a little media attention and their work starts costing hundreds of dollars, they get commissioned work and gallery shows and then “art critics” start talking about how great the work was.
These people wouldn’t give him the time of day before, but once they find out that kids think its “cool”, then all of a sudden they need to get in on it. It just seems strange.
I don’t understand…
Anyway,…just thinking about this lately.
Life is art and we are all artists.
you mean pictures and things?
yes you are correct goodnight
credits roll
To me, art is something that is beautiful. Simple as that. Whether it’s the Mona Lisa or a picture-esque homeless guy on the side of the street. American Beauty touched on this with the paper bag floating on the breeze. Whatever you think is beauty or represents the beauty of the world is art.
There are as many answers to this question as there are people to answer it. I took the basic art appreciation class years ago and learned a lot about line, light, color, etc, but it still just brought me back to the “beauty is in the eye (ear) of the beholder” conclusion. If it appeals to you, that’s all that really matters.
“…Some would say art is from within
You know, a spiritual thing
I don’t buy that crap,
Not for a single second
I would have to say
Art is from without
A painting is like life
Not your life, not my life
In fact, not life at all…”
Talk to Mike’s Mom… 
marjorieminkin.com/
seriously though, I know what gamecat is saying. I mean, how many paintings have you seen where they’re kind of just look like different colors of paint has been splattered and there seems to be no rhyme or reason but yet they’re worth thousands of dollars? I mean, WTF? I seen a piece of art that looked like bent pieces of metal and aluminum that were welded together and the thing looked like a giant ball of metal junk…but it wasn’t junk, it was art…looked like metal junk scraps to me.
My mom recently sent me a box with all my kiddie stuff in it from growing up. I have a bunch of pictures I drew and paintings and stuff, I am so proud of them. I even hung a bunch of 'em on my fridge and it looks like I have a 5 year old son at my house now haha.
Gamecat, maybe to start answering your question I would say that it is hard to try to divorce art from history. Historical background has a lot to do with why certain images or techniques (to name only two “properties” of a work of art) are more or less important in certain works. I agree that overall I’m pretty bored when I see the Madonna and Child over and over. It doesn’t strike me as interesting, but there is a historical reason why there are so many images of baby Jesus and Mary. Once you know more about history and the reasons why certain things were represented in art it gets easier to understand why certain works are important, and it makes them more interesting, I think.
So the Mary with child says a lot about the historical period its from, and the art movement it is a part of. Understanding both of them allows you to appreciate very subtle things in the work. Dogs Playing Poker certainly has historical background as well, but it has less power as a work of art because it’s mass produced and the subject matter seems uninteresting. Presumably, the historical content is something like, people wanted this on their wall, and people like poker, specifically, the cartoonish idea of dogs playing poker. So the difference may not in fact be legitimate, but I think the difference between the two is presumably a difference in intellectual content. There is something more meaningful about the idea of spirituality represented in art than a mass produced print of a game.
art is something people claim as a hobby so other people will think they are cool.
^ Totally. Da Vinci was just out to get laid.
^well its other stuff too but that is definitely one thing that it is.