What defines "art"?

[Gamevizier]

So is like the first impressionist painting art and the rest aren't?

impressionism is a style. when the first impressionist works were introduced they were art, and it is still considered an art if someone introduces something new and creative using impressionism or a mix impressionism and other styles. (but if i draw some impressionist work today which introduces nothing and contributes nothing new it is not art, if my picture looks alot like old works from famous people or and has little to know new things from me it is not art).

But, I have to ask this once again from my mentor. cuz i think somewhere someone in the class mentioned nowadays there's no "pure" style anymore. you can't be 100% impressionist if you want to be considered an artist, I'll ask him during the next session. I do believe that many art pieces are just random junk thrown by artist wannabes, but there are also some rather bizzare and weird stuff which are truely art. but they're kinda weird so many people view them with scorn.

[Wells]

impressionist is a style. when the first impressionist works were introduced they were art, and it is still considered an art if someone introduces something new and creative using impressionism (but if i draw some impressionist work today which introduces nothing and contributes nothing new it is not art, if my picture looks alot like old works from famous people or and has little to know new things from me it is not art). I do believe that many art pieces are just random junk thrown by artist wannabes, but there are also some rather bizzare and weird stuff which are truely art. but they're kinda weird so many people view them with scorn.

You're not even being consistent. If we used your reasoning only the first painting in a new style is art. Which is blatantly ridiculous. I've never gotten where people get this idea that something has to be good to be art. Lots of shitty music out there. Its still music.

[Gamevizier]

Lots of shitty music out there. Its still music.

if the music does not introduce anything new, it's just music. it is not artistic. you're mistaking art with beauty.

art does not have to be good or bad. not being artistic is also nothing good or bad.

a painting is a painting, it can be an exact copy of a masterpiece, it can be full of flaws, it can be a real beauty, it can be a masterpiece. but all of them are still paintings.

same with music. art comes to play the second the artist adds something of himself: his style, into his work.

[KrakHed]

You're not even being consistent. If we used your reasoning only the first painting in a new style is art. Which is blatantly ridiculous. I've never gotten where people get this idea that something has to be good to be art. Lots of shitty music out there. Its still music.

Personally, I don't give a damn if something is original or has any real quality.

I care if it actually says or shows something that I myself didn't inject into it.

I don't even care if it's pretentious as all hell.

If I'm the one giving your art meaning, than you've not really made art. Or at least you've not made good art.

A picture of a bunch of melting clocks does communicate something. At the very least it communicates something the artist thought looked cool, and we can get a look at a scene from his imagination. That's great!

Eggdropping communicates substantially less. It just tells us that the artist thought this was a good idea, and thinks it will get a reaction.

But if there is no inherent meaning or message in a work of art, then its aesthetic qualities alone are enough to qualify it as art. Beksinski said his paintings have no inherent meaning, but I would challenge anyone to say his work doesn't qualify as art.

They show us what he imagined. I tend to feel getting a look at people's imaginations is more than enough as far as meaning goes.

[NuLogic]

Hmmm I was never an artsy person so I guess something that requires creativity and effort to incite something in someone.

There is more attention on her tits and nudity than what she is trying to produce so I think it was executed poorly.

[taliey]

Like anyone could agree on a definition, let alone what constitutes art - art is not defined by the object, but by the person perceiving said object.

[nextormento]

[paraphrased: creativity is a necessity of art]

You guys have been at the music performing for a bit, but let me share my input.

When you go to a concert, after the the performance is over, the orchestra director, or the violin soloist comes to the stage and we clap. We don't clap at people doing their jobs (we simply pay them), we clap at people that engage us in a sufficiently emotional way. When we clap, we're not celebrating the creativity of the composer, but the execution of the performer. Barring performers that introduce their personal input, we generally applaud finely executed performances; the performer was not creating, but she moved us: it was she that produced art.

On the other side of the spectrum we have architecture. The creative process happens in the mind of the architect, yet she will never lay a brick. Architecture is rarely celebrated, but we certainly consider it an art. However, the architect, the artist, is not involved in the production of the piece: the building. We don't even clap when the builder finishes the building.

This is asking the question: where or what is the art. It's not the piece, as we've seen in architecture. It's not the plans, the scripture, as we've seen in music. I, of course, don't know exact the answer, but we can assert that there's a disjunction between the creative process, the performance and the piece. Art, if anything resides in the human behavior, and expression that leads to creation.

Anyway, back to the creative process:

We know Mayans and Egyptians came up with the idea to create pyramids while lacking communication between the two cultures. Leibniz and Newton came up with calculus at about the same time without knowing about the works of the other. The higgs boson was postulated by 3 teams within a month. They all were original, creative in a sense, works in their own merits. But, for some reason they happened at the same time. Why?. They could be a big coincidence, but we have plenty other examples that suggest they're not. Creation, as such, doesn't really exist: it's a process that involves all of our past references. In a way, every 'original' work is bound to happen when the time comes.

There certainly is a method to the madness, but creativity is not as straightforward as we'd like it to be. This goes to show that definition of what art is, or involves, really is a hard problem. In fact, the very day we collectively agreed on a definition, some artist would come up with some piece to break that definition.

If you want to explore more on the concept of creativity, originality, copy and adaptation, the series everything is a remix is an exceptionally well crafted source that I would advise any person starting in this world to watch:


here's a 5 min bit from the documentary:

[Strikered]

What defines "art"?

Generally most dictionaries and occasionally some encyclopaedia's

but seriously 'art' is only art when it's creator thinks it finished (and if you like that kinda BS answer take a course in philosophy)

[Frolk]

It seems that some "artists" are mistaking "being a giant attention whore" with actual skill

[Yvaelle]

That Kill Bill remix thing is pretty great

I consider myself a pretty big film buff but I didn't notice quite a few of those, even though Kill Bill ranks as one of my favourite action / martial arts movies of all time

The important point though that it makes is that the originality of the story matters less than the originality of the interpretation of the story - Kill Bill is great because it borrows some of the best scenes in the genres history - copying, transforming, and combining them (as the first video suggests) - and makes something original out of a relatively old and tested revenge plot

Another good example would be Shakespeare, who despite being adorned with constant praise for centuries - wrote nothing at all original (all his works were re-writes of prior stories) - but did so in a transformative and memorable way So, Tarintino is a bit like Shakespeare - a great storyteller and a film otaku - but not necessarily an original author: for such work almost never exists, and yet creation is abundant - because transformation and combination are themselves forms of creation.