What is Art?
I picked a heavy topic for this week: what is art? How do you define it?
I’ll never forget when I enrolled in a fine arts program freshman year of college, having not a clue what I was getting into, and found myself in a Modern Art class. Before that class, I was definitely one of those people who thought Jackson Pollack just threw paint on a canvas and basically got lucky. He’d tricked everyone in the art world into thinking he was special.
But after I truly studied Pollack, Rothko, and so many others, it started to make sense that you can’t define art as simply the the realistic portrayal of actual life (i.e. Renaissance artists). It sounds silly, but it had never even occurred to me that the invention of the camera had a radical effect on art: if all you had to do was snap a picture, what good was a really great painting of a real life event? Art had to reinvent itself and broaden its horizons.
Then you have that problem, though, of where does it end? Certainly some aspects of contemporary art go towards the extreme — everything from the completely ridiculous to the shocking to the disturbing.
So, what does art mean to you?
Well I am one of those people who went to art school and have had more Art History classes than I care to admit! Interesting yes but, they never told me want “ART” was… To me ART is any way some one expresses themselves….Be it the way they dress, paint, have their car, sing, dance or what ever..
Pretty deep for a Monday Morning…
I know, it is a little deep for Monday morning!
I guess I just started thinking about it because there are so many unique & diverse submissions to ItsKizmit! that it made me remember that class and how a big part of it was how to define art. Is it the intention behind it that makes it art, is it just anything creative, does it have to be eye pleasing? Can you just say anything is art because by saying so you’re making some sort of artistic statement? Whew, I don’t know
Wow, such a loaded question, it could be discussed for eons. To me, art is anything that causes the soul to resonate. More explicitly art is anything that causes a human emotion, whether it be joy or grossness. Art causes people to think. And thinking is good because it inspires art. Mmmm, sounds like a circle of life . . .
I never really thought about it,until the other day when I had this same conversation with my daughter.She said “Dad you could be considered artistic”.Hmmm I thought.You mean restoring old cars?Sure she said.You put your ideas and visions into recreating an old car to be what you want it to be,so yeah that’s art.I guess she knows better than me. Now I have something else to add to my resume.
I just did a blog on this exact subject. I’ve recently added photography to my services and hope to be selling prints later this year. So many people consider art to be the classical definition. You toil and labor and you get something beautiful for your efforts. And I suppose that’s true to a point. Can’t any creative process result in art though? Photography, automobile restoration / creation, writing … as far as I’m concerned creativity is so much a part of the person doing the creating that you can not deny that what ever comes out of that creative process is going to be art. Now whether it’s good art is another subject entirely.