Defining Art

What is art anyway? Garry Willis delivers in his column a number of possible definitions for art and their weaknesses. The concept of defining art stretches back through history, touching on Aristotle's desire to categorize tragedy and Kant's claims that the purpose of art is purposelessness. It seems that many have a desire to classify art, label it neatly, put it in a neatly numbered box and set up a sliding scale of criteria to determine its value. Plato spoke of counting and quantifying being the saviors of rational thought, and who would argue against thought?

A part of the problem is that many who are critical of a work of art often try to claim that as it is not "insert your objection of choice here" then it is not art. How many times has this pattern appeared? Artists, writers, or muscians would push forward with a "new" sort of art. It would break the traditions of what was considered art is that year and would not be "art". Time would pass and the public would grow accustomed to it, it become part of the culture. Who today wants to talk about how they despise Impressionist artists? But how frequently were they criticized and considered not excepted parts of the artistic community? Is art just what the public believes to be art? Is what is considered great art just what has lasted long enough to become ingrained in culture?

That leads to the question of whether art can be defined as art by its quality is only good art "art"? Would you consider the scribbles a two year old makes with a sharpie more or less artistic than similar scribbles made with black oil paint by an adult? Why? Is it the shape of the lines, or the ideas that provoked them? Is this two year old's creation art? There must be a measure. Early Christian writers used morals as a measuring stick for good or bad art. Plato measured the value of art in terms of its didactic uses. If one claims that purposelessness is a requirement for art, as Kant did, then I suddenly have a handcrafted Cherokee basket in desperate need of a classification. Where on this list of classifications does one place graffiti, it has no practical purpose and most claim it is a form of expression, but it is also often random and illegal, so is it art or not? Or is it art but simply unusual art or some would say bad art?

The question becomes even more muddled when one adds the question of truth, the relationship between art and accuracy. Does this art truly show reality as it is? Do we want it to? Must a painter who likes to paint bees also raise them and show them as they are? Or is it better for him to paint the bees plodding along in a city in order to show his belief about human cities?

My measuring stick for whether art is good or bad or even truly art was made for an American born in 1992. I will define art, good and bad, as an American born in 1992. So is it art or not? Check your measure, and look at its year.