What is art?

Art to me is something that cannot be defined. Art as a construct is limitless. But what truly can be called art? Can the wall in your house be called art? Can the painting you made as a child be called art? Can the $1,000,000 painting you buy be called art? I think there is a boundary to where art starts and begins as well. One cannot define art, but there are definitions. If you know what I mean.

I will pitch some examples. Is art nature? I do not think art is nature. Art is a construct of the human mind. The human mind which gives identity to objects found in nature. For example, a flower would not be perceived as art if humans did not exist. Nor would the breaking of its pigments to create dyes to then further create a beautiful tapestry. Humans are the catalyst to what art inherently is. So no, nature is not art to me. It is beautiful, but nature is not art.  Anything that a human does, one can judge. Whereas things such as nature are possible without humans. 

Something that plays on the line of art, but also not art are things that are necessities. For example, clothing, shoes, or water, or food. These things are all made by humans, so there has to be art involved in it somehow. With every motion a human makes it could be considered art. It could be considered beautiful, or elegant, or playful, or shitty, or misguided. Necessities on the other hand can not be regarded as art. Let’s say that you go out and you are hungry. You need to find food, and find food quickly. So you go out and collect some supplies. Some premade pasta, some tomato sauce, and some frozen meatballs. You get home, and you cook the meal that you so desperately need. The dish you made is not art. It is a necessity. It is not frivolous in nature, which is also what art is. The frivolity behind something is what creates art. This leads me into my next reason and guardrails for what I define art as.

Art is frivolous. Art is essentially a frivolous task. Humans do not need art to live. We do not need to create dishes that require years of gastronomy knowledge, sculpt lifesize beings from marble, or paint landscapes that reach into one’s heart and claim their being for a split second. The things humans do that do not need to be done are artful. A contingency of this could be a job though. A job is not required to live. One does not need money to live a life, but one might also need a job to live life. This unnecessary task could be brought up as something that would go against my argument, but also I believe that a job is necessary for a human to live, so therefore it is not frivolous. If I go deeper I mean jobs that are the minimum to live, but I could argue with someone about this as even a job has art, as humans can create art with whatever they do. A person who works at Burger King can master the art of the frying machine, just as a painter can master the art of color theory. It is interchangeable. A job is not frivolous, because it is needed, but the amount of effort you put into your job, and learning a task to perfection is art.

Everything is relative in this discussion as there are also no essential boundaries to art as my first claim was. Humans make art because it is a concept made by humans. There would not be art without humans. So concepts that could have never been conceived can not be called art. A painting cannot be painted without a painter, a computer cannot be built without a builder et cetera. Even now though computers can build other computers, so does that make a computer human? Does that make a computer an artist? If they have perfected the knowledge that goes into something so technical as to building a computer which some humans can not even do does that make them an artist? It is a question to debate and think about.

With all of this being said, art is something that is frivolous, purposeful, design, and is conducted by a human. Art can be made by a kid, it can be made by a dying man, but it cannot be made without a human, as art is a concept. Art can also be found in any facet of life, but it must be man-made. 

Maybe I will do think a piece about how art is also in human nature too to contradict myself in this think piece. We shall see.

By Abraxas