just...don't.

For it to be art, does it have to be pretty? Does it have to do something? What is the criteria that defines art?

it's personal preference, that's the entire point. to me, art has to either showcase a particular talent, or make one think. it has to have some sort of profound meaning if it is going to be the latter. but that isn't how it has to be for others.

yes, there is a dictionary definition for art. but art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

and the artist. if you consider yourself an artist because you paint a picture, so be it. do others have to consider it art? no.

am i particularly talented artist when it comes to brush strokes and lighting and shade with paint? hell no. but i still consider SOME of my paintings "art".

it's all in who looks at it, and who gets what from it.

like i said, it's like beauty. do i think i'm beautiful? no.

but i'm willing to bet there are people on the planet who will disagree with me. and those who will agree with me.

it's all personal preference.

Well, that's the wildcard reply at every game of "let's define stuff better". In particular, it can be asked over and over ad noseum. But if you realize that the repeated asking eventualy has to stop at a sufficient common shared experience, will I play along.

In case you ask where the tower of definitions over definition starts : it start at the good old finger pointing, as in 'this my kid, is a rock' (and then baby attempts to repeat and churn out : 'sock?' :) )

So, back to the definition game : 'beauty' ~ 'pretty', pleasant to look at, and 'crafty', is both beautiful and difficult (by general consensus).

Pretty much every single definition has a certain level of fuzzyness. It turns out its realy fun to look for grey zone and see how the most black&white categories gradualy break. Where does my tummy stops and my leg starts? When does something turns from innanimate to alive? When does flurting turns into cheating? When does a group of people can be considered as having a gouvernment? What about Afganistan in December, what about Argentina today?

Interestingly enough, you often discover novelties by poundering at the grey zone. For instance, dissecting the moment of transition between water and ice, we discovered super-cooled fluids.

dham - uncalled for


This is the thing. While what art is is subjective to the viewer, it is representaiton of an idea that is key, that is modern art.

Ahh but this was my point. With words like art we cannot whittle a definition down to a single common shared experience, it is impossible, always there will be somebody who our definition does not fit. And for this reason the best we can do is define art as being - things (pictures, sculptures, code - even just thought is good) an artist produces. And we can define the artist recursively as a person who produces art, thus defining anybody who creates anything as an artist, and everything produced as art - at least to somebody.

Tidy.

Very simple, really. If I like it, it's art. If I don't like it, it isn't. And that goes for everyone. I think "art" is too personal to be defined.

Now, I must go and enjoy this excellent (and highly artistic) cup of tea.

Now, I'm late to this discussion but of course feel I must weigh in...I'm glad that gmarceau actually saw this- that give us a better understanding of the images.

What seems to be a current through most of the definitions of art presented is the Western European based cultural tradition of art and aesthetics. This field of inquiry and practice has resulted in the works of Giotto, Michaelangelo, Goya, Van Gogh, O'Keeffe, Duchamp, and our friend with the glowing bunny- Gac.

What about Balinese masks? What about that Taiwanese ghost lantern? What about the caves of Lascaux? It that art? I see it in art museums and text books. The makers dont' use that word or concept. It is or was part of life. part of dynamic culture. And we've done our best to mold and understand these phenomema through the label- art. Its made for some messy, disrespectful and just plain wrong presentation, in museum or gallery settings. There needs to be the recognition of context. In this case its the context of medical understanding- in the western clinical sense and all of the ethical considerations surrounding that.

Art in the home
 

My new puppy has been leaving his art all over my rugs.

He is the world's first intestinal sculptor canine.

Expect to see his creations on sale on Ebay soon!

Brian "I'll be rich"

By that reckoning, I made some art last night. Unfortunately, it was lost down the toilet... :)

"intestinal sculptor" - that cracked me up :)

This topic just gets bigger and bigger. Maybe it's that art is one of those undefinable words, like love, that is undefinable because we all come to it through different perspectives. Because the words contain so many intangibles that it's hard to understand what it is.

For what it's worth I know I participated in this with the room image, and surely there are a lot more such images we'll come across, and I love them all and the debate that they bring about. But I feel like we have to have a pretty broad definition.

I would love to look at these bodies from an artists' perspective. Good art can give us a fresh or different perspective, and I can't imagine looking at these and NOT getting a fresh perspective - above and beyond just the anatomy lesson involved.

On the other hand, you get a similarly fresh perspective looking at porn, or car accident photos, or pictures of bread with mice baked into it, so I'll just shut up and let y'all return to the discussion at hand.

It all just goes to show how difficult the definition is...

not all that is beautiful is art
and not all that is art, is beautiful

Yes, I am an art geek.
I'm fascinated by the human urge to create, represent and understand which results in making and or organizing things in the world. The desire to make something...special. I'm reading this book by Ellen Dissanayake (1992) called "Homo Aestheticus" (insert bawdy remarks here) - she argues that art making is central to human evolutionary adaptation - "art helps people grasp and reinforce what is important to their cognitive world"- often pretty, sometimes not. What reinforces some may not others.

Or is it anatomical education?
 

A controversial exhibition of human corpses and body parts is "hugely educational" and "utterly fascinating", according to a European Parliament member who has seen it.

Body Worlds, which features 175 body parts and 25 corpses, has been described as "shameful" and "ghoulish" by two Conservative MPs at Westminster.

Art is whatever you can get away with.

I really like this definition...it still recognizes some
of the traditional things that have seperated art
from non-art while also being flexible.