What is Art?

[Mattel]

So........ I wanna see how a conversation around this goes.

What is Art?

How do you personally define Art?

 

(I will share my thoughts later if this gets enough traction but I wanna see what people have to say first)

[Treamayne]

20 minutes ago, Mattel said:

What is Art?

How do you personally define Art?

A method of self-expression in a chosen medium that may or may not be shared with an audience (self, family, friends, public, etc.).

Edited March 31, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Mattel]

4 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

A method of self-expression in a chosen medium that may or may not be shared with an audience (self, family, friends, public, etc.).

Follow up question: When I hear "self-expression" I interpret that as "trying to create a further understanding in others of myself," so like trying to make other people understand you better by "expressing" what is inside you. Is this what you mean? If I am understanding what you mean properly (and if I am not this is all void) does someone have to be expressing their inward self for a creation of theirs to be art? What is someone writes an ode, a poem/song talking about the good qualities of something concrete or abstract. Would you simply say: They are expressing their own personal gratitude about specific aspects of something. ?

[Treamayne]

29 minutes ago, Mattel said:

• 20 minutes ago, Mattel said:

When I hear "self-expression" I interpret that as "trying to create a further understanding in others of myself," so like trying to make other people understand you better by "expressing" what is inside you.

I would not agree with that definition. Sometimes you are expressing something in or of yourself for yourself. Sometimes you are the only audience. The result may be about better understanding, but it may also be about just needing an outlet for some thought/feeling/aspect that you feel the desire to express. It may be about experimentation, testing boundaries, extrapolating learned concepts to other areas to verify personal understanding. I'm sure there are other reasons for creating art that do not fit in any of those categories.

Example: If I make a lamb risotto stuffed bell pepper with sage tomato sauce, and I eat the dish - is that any less of a culinary art because I was the only "audience" and the art (dish) was simply to see if it could be done successfully without overcooking the risotto into mush?

29 minutes ago, Mattel said:

What if someone writes an ode/poem/song talking about the good qualities of something concrete or abstract?

That would be art to me.

Quote

Would you simply say: They are expressing their own personal gratitude about specific aspects of something?

That would depend on why they wrote the ode/poem/song. Only they could answer that.

Edited March 31, 2025 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Entr0pic He/him]

1 hour ago, Mattel said:

So........ I wanna see how a conversation around this goes.

What is Art?

How do you personally define Art?

 

(I will share my thoughts later if this gets enough traction but I wanna see what people have to say first)

For me, “art” is just any form of media (books, poetry, sketching, etc) that has genuine love and care put into it. 

[CoderDrag0n8 He/Him]

1 hour ago, Mattel said:

So........ I wanna see how a conversation around this goes.

What is Art?

How do you personally define Art?

 

(I will share my thoughts later if this gets enough traction but I wanna see what people have to say first)

To me, art is a thing that was created. A thing being something that can or could be observed (Like if it was a smell, or a taste, it doesn't have to be observable through eyesight)

[Lord Stormer]

Thanks for drawing me into another open question. Take notice I'm not a philosopher nor an artist. Ask Wit, he's wiser.

I regard art as an expression, but as we live in an entropic universe, it must exalt the natural order and stand out among the uniformity of chaos. Also something we can percieve and relate with. This is a traditionalistic definition, but I'll abide with that for very clear reasons. While it is impossible to compare between artworks, we can define what is deserving and not.

Great art demands hard effort. If your art plans requires much meticulous work, then you're going the right way. An artist is like a mountaineer who scales uphill against the gravity of entropy. The peak is distinct and areally limited, while the lowlands are vast and geograhically nondescript. It is the very reason why the summit is rewarding, and the hard earned sights makes it even more. No Horneater references intended.

The next few lines may be controversial.

The order of entropy is inevitable. Over the last century a modern form of art has emerged, one without style, chaotic, certainly unconventional. I have no idea why these works are valued incredibly. Investing in them is more like speculative stocks.

In the age of artificial intelligence, these forms of art would be easily replicated. Like a fraudster would just make one piece and claim it's his / her. There is no way to verify its creator, as it has no style. But AI cannot fabricate art that has a soul. Beauty, like you see in a classic painting is much more difficult to imitate, and even if it's possible, all great arts left distinct traces of the living creator. You can know it is made by hand. How the maker draw strokes, his / her subconscious preferences, even their mistakes. So, even with all criticism of AI, it helps art in one way: raising the standards, selectively pushing us in favor of the natural order. So art is somehow self-preserving.

Lastly, I fully believe art should be idealistic that it may be timeless. While I find it acceptable to point out (some of) humanity's flaws through art, recently art has become too entwined with ideologies. It is an awful contradiction when the highest form of expression mingles with the worst. When art that does not adhere to what makes it worthy, value will be depreciated, and it will be overrun somehow, like what I've said previously. While I do have faith that we will cast out the worst of our qualities just like what we have done in the last few centuries, but still. Art can only survive when it sticks to universal goodness.

We can percieve art as we like and have freedom to be creative, but the truth remains. Art holds a fundamental essence. True worth favors order and distinction.

Edited April 1, 2025 by Lord Stormer

[Through the Living Shadow he/him]

I see Art as any Effort.

[Wittles he/him]

I love this topic, it's really fun to ponder about because art is so subjective that it can barely be quantified beyond the most basic premise of: the expression of an artist

Really anything can be considered art. (since music is my main form of artistic expression, I'm gonna use music as a basis for the rambling) A really good example is John Cage's composition 4'33" which is a piece that is played differently every time. It can feature any number of performers and they are instructed to not play their instruments. The idea behind it is that all sound is music in a way. It really depends on a matter of perspective. I don't entirely agree with his view, but I think it's a really interesting take on the world around us; rather than the performance informing the experience, the experience is in itself a performance. The act of hearing a member of the audience cough or the rustle of clothing as someone shifts in their seat, that is the art. The world around us is, in its own way a work of art (Of course, this could be taken to have theological meaning, the world being a work of art created by a higher power, but that's a little different), would you say a bird is not capable of singing simply because its song doesn't conform to human musical norms? Or is it a form of art because it is interpreted as art? The question if this sort of art is "good" or not is another thing, but I've lost most of my original train of thought, so Imma stop rambling now

Art is very cool

Edited April 4, 2025 by Wittles

[Ookla she/her]

I think art is any thing that has been created with love, thought, and care, by a person who wants to bring beauty and goodness into the world. But I also think art is a process, not just a product--it's as much, if not more, about how we develop as we create our art as it is about what we are actually creating. It's about the change it brings about within us as we experience it, both in the creation and the appreciation of it.

And the beauty of it, in my opinion, is that because every person's experience of art is subjective, there can be a piece of art out there that speaks to every person--especially if we all engage in its creation. Personally, I think that if every person focused on bringing that beauty and goodness into the world rather than trying to "win" or "get ahead", the vast majority of the conflicts and contentions on this earth would disappear.

So... I guess the shortest way to put it is that art is anything that makes the world a better place by bringing more light and beauty and goodness to it.

[Mags she/they]

What is art? Anything created by a human. Art can be very ugly, and shallow, and stupid, and pretentious, and meaningless, and spiteful, and so many other very human things we'd rather not say it is. That doodle a 5 year old lovingly scribbled is just as much art as the terrible TV show you watched that was clearly just made to make money.

What is good art? Now that is an entirely different discussion, and one that will ultimately come down to subjective reasons, because we will all see 'good' as different things.

[AquaRegia he/him]

I am not sure I'm qualified to propose a full definition of the concept of "art"... but I do feel strongly that any definition must include EMOTIONAL RESPONSE.  Art is something people do to produce an emotional response.  Said response may be in an audience, or it may only occur in the creator; it may be pleasant or unpleasant; it may be intentional or accidental.  I'd argue any activity which a) entails no emotional investment and b) provokes no emotional response should not be classified as art.

[Through the Living Shadow he/him]

2 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

I am not sure I'm qualified to propose a full definition of the concept of "art"... but I do feel strongly that any definition must include EMOTIONAL RESPONSE.  Art is something people do to produce an emotional response.  Said response may be in an audience, or it may only occur in the creator; it may be pleasant or unpleasant; it may be intentional or accidental.  I'd argue any activity which a) entails no emotional investment and b) provokes no emotional response should not be classified as art.

But what about historical art? (Like, this art is from looong ago)

Stuff that doesn’t necessarily evoke emotion, but is still useful and respected?

[AquaRegia he/him]

On 4/20/2025 at 7:02 PM, SpiritOfWrath said:

But what about historical art? (Like, this art is from looong ago)

I think perhaps you have already answered your own question lol

[Ookla she/her]

On 4/20/2025 at 5:02 PM, SpiritOfWrath said:

But what about historical art? (Like, this art is from looong ago)

Stuff that doesn’t necessarily evoke emotion, but is still useful and respected?

 

5 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

I think perhaps you have already answered your own question lol

I agree with @AquaRegia here--I believe a lot of historical art was intended to invoke emotion, as a lot of it has religious iconography and that was important and moving to a lot of people back then. Even though modern tastes are different, the intent to evoke emotion was still there at the time of its creation (to my knowledge) and it still had an impact on the people it was created for. And speaking of, Aqua, I really like your definition!

[Mattel]

So I personally believe that everything created is art.

But.

I believe that some art is better than others.