What is Art?

What is Art? Now, that is a loaded question. I believe something is art if its primary function is to be sensory, whether visual and/or aural; whether to please the eyes/ears or shock them, that part is left up to the viewer/reader/listener. (There is, of course also commercial art, which for the sake of this discussion, we will shelve.) If it’s a painting, it doesn’t have to be pretty, if it’s a movie, it doesn’t even have to be good. If it is a sculpture, it does not have to be anatomically correct. If it is true that clichés exist for a reason and beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, then that at first may seem like a quick easy answer to the question, but one can not automatically equate art with beauty. Some art is unquestionably ugly, and that may well be what the artist was seeking. I would ultimately submit that a more apt cliché would be ‘to each his own’.

‘What is Art?’ is such a specific question and ultimately an unimportant one. Did somebody put their heart and soul into it? Was there a creative vision behind the work in question? Does it move me? These are the real questions we should ask.

‘What is Art?’ That seemingly innocuous three-word query has afforded a certain group of people a living since about the end of the 19th century. Without that one short question, there would be no need for that insidious breed of person, the art critic. In what other occupation does a seemingly normal person spend their working days (and/or nights) finding new ways to belittle an artist’s creative vision? Any artist making art for the sake of art should ostensibly not have any concerns over what a critic may or may not think, unless they are just pandering to the critics to get good reviews, in which case they’re not worried about making ‘good art’, but more interested in the adulation. Having said that, there is of course a fine line to tread; everyone needs to eat, and not everybody has a benefactor (like Vincent Van Gogh had with his brother, Theo) who will pay their way!

‘What is Art?’ There are many obvious examples which spring to mind when this question is asked – Michelangelo’s David, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows and Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker all spring readily to mind as ‘easy’ examples of pieces that one would be hard-pressed to find somebody to say that they are not art. While works like those named above are considered art by almost anybody who walks upright and they all have special places in art museums, does that mean that they are without a doubt ‘Art’? Yeah, pretty much. Fair enough, but why are those examples considered to be art any more so than little Johnny’s mess of glue and glitter on construction paper that he completed (quite possibly getting more glue on his tongue than on the paper) so diligently while sitting in kindergarten? Well, if you ask Johnny’s parents odds are you’ll hear them gushing about “(their) little Picasso” – and why not, especially if beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder?

The Art Institute of Chicago has a permanent installation of furniture from the mid-1900’s (right around the corner from the Marc Chagall stained-glass windows and on the same level as Nighthawks). Just because Eames chairs are pleasing to the eye (and brutally expensive), does that make them art? Not in this writer’s humble opinion – they are pieces of furniture, which are functional and seem a touch out of place in an art museum. Not to say that an Eames chair isn’t aesthetically pleasing, but its functionality precludes it from being art, at least first. Its primary role is that of a chair, so that’s what it is, a chair. Granted, it may have an artistic design, but that does not make it art. Could one say that it is a ‘work of art’? I suppose many people do, but I submit that they are taking liberties with their use of language.

What about items of antiquity from throughout history? The Art Institute of Chicago’s famous exhibit of medieval weaponry and armament is endlessly fascinating to each and every 12 year old boy who goes to downtown Chicago on a field trip and walks up those expansive front steps between the lions….but is it art? (That, of course, begs another question – just because it is hanging in a museum, does that make it art?) What about religious artifacts, which seem to find a place in nearly every art museum on the planet? Why is it that a gilt-laden (pun intended) Bible can be found in the vast majority of art museums in the Western world, while a handmade dreidel is better suited for the Holocaust Museum?

What is Art? Art is what each and every one of us wants it to be, it is not what the local art critic tells you it is. It is not what your Art History professor tells you it is. It is not what this writer asserts. It is not what is hanging on the walls of your local museum. It is not what you hear at the symphony. It might be, but it doesn’t have to be. If it is art to you, then so be it. To each, his own.