Everyone seems to have a different definition of art depending on his or her own experiences, knowledge base, ideas, and personal aesthetics. There is also a strong inclination to want to judge art. Is the art good or bad? What makes the artwork good or bad?
The Oxford dictionary states that art is "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power."
Philosophers Plato and Aristotle, respective teacher and student, had very contrasting differences in their metaphysical philosophies and these variances naturally extended into their philosophies on art and aesthetics.
Plato’s ideas on metaphysics were central to his Theory of Forms. Plato had developed an idea of truth and goodness that was separate from an individual’s perceptions of truth and goodness. He believed that there is a fundamental reality that can only be known through reason, and this reality does not change. He saw the changing physical world as a poor, decaying copy of a perfect, rational, and eternal original. He suggested that the beauty of a sunset, or a piece of music, is an imperfect copy of Beauty itself. In his Allegory of the Cave, Plato depicted this divided line between the physical world and the world of Forms.
Plato thought that for us to have a perception of beauty we must have a Form for beauty, and he believed art was solely an imitation of that Form. Since art imitates physical things, which in turn imitate the Forms, art is always a copy of a copy of the original and leads us further from truth and toward illusion. Because of this, and its power to stir the emotions, Plato thought art to be extremely dangerous.
Aristotle rejected Plato’s Theory of Forms. He believed in Forms, but that the form had no separate existence. He argued that universal concepts of truth, beauty and justice derive from their particular instances in this world; and that the universal quality of beauty has no existence beyond the conception that we build from those particular instances. He believed that complete knowledge of a thing exists beyond its classification and description and requires an explanation of why it is. His idea of ‘being qua being’, or being understood as being, was something that his teacher Plato never truly investigated.
Like Plato, Aristotle believed art to be imitation, but unlike his teacher, imitation to him was a natural and useful way of learning. He also asked the question ‘what’ is art imitating. Aristotle accepted and sought meanings beyond the absolute reality. He said that “the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” Aristotle thought beauty was not a constant reality like Plato, but based on its relevance and desirability. “The beautiful is that which is desirable in itself.” He focused much of his theory of aesthetics on the study of art rather than a vague concept of beauty. Aristotle also advocated the positive and beneficial catharsis that is produced from the making and viewing of art.
Both philosophers believed in the Forms, art as imitation, and a true concept of justice and beauty. However, Plato had distrusting and negative ideas on art, while Aristotle was far more open to exploring the internal experience, the human expression of life, and ideas beyond reason...
E.H. Gombrich believed all art is abstraction. We have different brains, cultures, experiences, and influences that give us our expectations, and personalities. “All art originates in the human mind, in our reactions to the world rather than the visual world itself...” Artistic representations are all conceptual to some degree. “There is no such thing as an objective likeness.”
Gombrich used the example of art students in Rome, all attempting to render the same subject objectively. Although all the students were engulfed in capturing a complete likeness and keen detail of the motif, each student’s resulting pieces were all surprisingly different in color, mood, and execution.
Gombrich related art to learning and language. He believed that “language does not give names to pre-existing things or concepts so much as it articulates the world of our experience,” and expresses that art does the same.
Leo Tolstoy, like Plato, was cautious of art and beleived art is capable of making people better or worse. He suggested that the social and ethical consequences of art must be considered in making judgments about art. Tolstoy denied that a work of art can be great but corrupting, artistically good but morally evil. He also said: "Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored‐up energy; it is not the expression of manʹs emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well‐being of individuals and of humanity."
Nietzsche took the view that irrational forces are the foundation of all creativity and reality itself. He identifies the strongly instinctual Dionysian energy within pre-Socratic Greek culture as an essentially creative and healthy force. Nietzsche laments over how this Dionysian, creative energy had been submerged and weakened as it became overshadowed by the Apollonian forces of logical order, stiff sobriety, and orthodox religion. He concluded that European culture, since the time of Socrates, remained one-sidedly Apollonian, bottled-up, and relatively unhealthy. “But of course such poor wretches no idea how corpse-like and ghostly their ‘healthy mindedness’ looks when the glowing life of the Dionysian revelers roars past them.” As a means towards a liberating, cultural rebirth, he advocated the revival and release of Dionysian artistic energies. Those which he associates with frenzy, intuitive creativity, joy in existence, and ultimate truth.
Nietzsche's advocacy of healthy beginnings and creative artistry stood forth. He had tendency to seek explanations for commonly-accepted values and outlooks and expressed the importance of the understanding and acceptance of human nature. He believed that art is the highest dignity and expression of the human spirit. Existence and the world become meaningful not as objects of knowledge but as artistic experiences. He saw pain and suffering, something he thought the church and society promoted to comfort and diminish, as creative and worth embracing.
To Nietzsche, art does not find a place in the context of life, but rather, life takes on meaning and significance only as it is expressed in art. We lose the deepest aspects of human nature if we reject the Dionysian forces. He believes that harmony is found in one’s own chaotic experience and a healthy, balanced society needs art more than it needs the church.
John Dewey's theory, is an attempt to shift the understandings of what is important and characteristic about the art process from its physical manifestations in the ‘expressive object’, to the process in its entirety; a process whose fundamental element is no longer the material ‘work of art’ but rather the development of an ‘experience’.
As the world has evolved over the centuries, so has art respectively, and the purpose for creating it. With each new movement has come different innovations, approaches, intentions, and diverse reasons for creating the artwork.
Gauguin’s definition of art is “either plagiarism or revolution.” Andy Warhol’s view, “Art is what you can get away with.”
There is no real consensus on the definition of art. I think art can be thought of as a symbol of what it means to be human, often manifested in some type of physical form (sometimes for others to see and interpret) It can serve as a symbol or representation of something that is tangible, or for a thought, an emotion, a feeling, a moment, an experience, or a concept.
Why is the definition of art and its quality important? Through peaceful yet powerful means, art can convey the full spectrum of the human experience. It can provide strong catharsis and encourage deep thinking, individuality, diversity, and acceptance. Art can transform the world. Perhaps that is why it is so important.
What is your definition of art?