How do you Define Art, anyway?

So for class, as always, we begin the semester with a great debate. What is art? Its not an easy answer, especially in a room filled with elitists. Here's my response to the question. What i would like to know is how you feel? Do you agree, disagree? Can anyone make real art? What constitutes high art to non-art?

Slippery Slopes…

are the roads I travel most, so hopefully this rambling will not completely contradict itself and be somewhat helpful to understanding the questions that arise with the readings.

Let me start this post by saying that I have not yet been able to purchase my copy of the text book (Barnes and nobles does not have it for me to read for free, and I am still waiting for my school check to buy my books) so I don’t even know if I will receive credit for this post. Instead of using this as an excuse I dusted off a good friend of mine, John Gardner’s “The Art of Fiction” and began reading his first chapter entitled “ Aesthetic Law and Artistic Mystery”. A fine read, despite being a completely different book from the rest of the class.

= (

My bad.

From what I can gather from previous posts, it seems to follow in suit with the same argument: what is art, how can one define art, who decides what is art, how do aesthetics come into play, what are they, are there set rules, techniques, guidelines, yadda yadda blah blah blah. All of which are easily defined as great interesting stuff that should for all intended purposes leave you with more questions than answers. Let the question simmer a bit, let it probe the inner artist that is screaming to come out of you (if it hasn’t already). Let it be a reflection of what it is we all should be striving to become, artists.

I enjoy these debates, even though -from my experiences- they often times turn into very tense and even heated arguments. I can’t help but to chuckle silently a little bit every time the gloves come off. At first I fought the notion of this “art/aesthetics” question off. In previous classes I always felt it was nothing more then a medium for elitist to pick apart and ridicule (in some cases) the non-elitist interpretations of what they think/feel about art and aesthetics. Of course this was a defense mechanism I used to cement my argument of not knowing how to answer the question and to justify putting the assigned reading aside with a giant question mark stamped on it after its initial reading.

Its silly when I think about it now, because the whole point (or rather what I get from it) is to realize once you really sit down and try to define such a meaning, it forces you to think outside of the box, to view art in a different lens, to think of all that you know of art, through your socialization, through your education, through your own artistic talents and pieces, then coincide that of what you think you know with these thick texts of theories that should stimulate your understanding and prod you to think deeper about art and what it is you will be trying to accomplish in this class.

Gardner says: “The search for aesthetic absolutes is a misapplication of the writer’s energy. When one begins to be persuaded that certain things must never be done, one has entered the first stage of aesthetic arthritis.” (3)

Of course he does argue that there is in fact universal trustworthy “doe’s and don’ts” that artists should always keep close to their mind when creating. However, he does say that they are highly abstractive and offer little guidance. Later he quotes that “Suspending recognizable aesthetic laws of course means taking risks” (6).

I don’t think anyone is completely wrong when they go about answering this “art” question, but I do think that once you cement your definition and are unwilling to adapt and mold it to whatever outside influence may change or reshape your understanding, that, that’s when you become wrong and stagnant. Art is like an inner child that grows with you as you age, mature, and experience all that life has to offer. I would argue it is even your sixth sense. Nurture it, raise it, and never settle for less when it comes to its growth and maturity.

Art is so abstract and inherits such a wide spectrum of mediums and expressions that I think a universal understanding and definition is nothing more then an inside joke to make us quiver at the thought of trying to define it, and ever scarier to try and defend your position on the matter. The whole artist versus the viewer/society is very interesting and complicated to the point where in my mind it doesn’t really matter, because I don’t really think you can have one without the other. That may be a very slippery slope…. And I honestly don’t care to go too much into that. I write for money and for admiration, therefore for me my “intended” art is written purposely with the viewer in mind, without them my art doesn’t exists, literally because I would not write it.

I will end with one last quote from Gardner that I think is important to this question posed and this class in general. “There are, in short, a great many things every serious writer needs to think about; but there are no rules. Name one, and instantly some literary artist will offer us some new work that breaks the rule yet persuades us. Invention after all, is art’s main business…” (8)

I hope this actually reflects the reading, I did my best of transferring Gardner into what I read out of the two posts that the texts aimed for. Hopefully it followed suit.