What Is Art?

Introduction - What Is Art?

There are numerous “arts” in the world. Most people say, “this is art”, when they watch a beautiful and perfect work of someone. However, What is art? Every time I am in touch with a product and work which is made and created by someone or something, this question is always stuck in my head. Art varies a great deal in the shape. Art includes not only a photography, painting, sculpture and building but also, music, cooking, literature, landscape and so on. Then what is definition of art? Through the class in this semester, I have learned Cross Cultural Awareness, and I would like to state my opinion about what art is, with a background like the class, quoting the readings and experiences.

My Opinion on Art after the Class

We have learned Southern Culture in the class for example, a novel of William Faulkner, a painting of Theora Hamblett, Southern Food and a song of Elvis Presley. Southern culture is so called, folk art, and is produced by peasants. Usually, many people think art is produced by talented people like famous photographer or intelligent designer, not peasant and common people. However, I do not think art is a work only created by such great people. According to Edna Lewis in her essay, “What is Southern?”, she said, “I thought cooking in Southern was creative work.” Theora Hamblett also developed her technique of drawing, that is, “red over yellow”, cited in the essay of Theora Hamblett. Southern culture is apparently primitive because it does not follow the basic rule, but actually it is a collection of creativity. Also, we have learned Southern Culture, and at the same time, we have created our own works, getting from the original works like movie and photography. We created our own works, thinking what we think and what we would like to express. That is why I think southern culture is also art - including southern food, which is said that “Southern food was endangered or enduring.” as Fred W. Sauceman stated. However, people in Southern United States have created their arts using their creativity inspired by the land, environment and history, and I think that southern culture is a part of art and that southern culture will not disappear, and last for many generations same as other art like Picasso and Haruki Murakami.

Conclusion

After I have experienced the class, Cross Cultural Awareness, I have been in touch with a lot of art, and I have found art is a product which has creativity of someone or something. The painting of Gogh, “the Sunflower” is, of course, art. My mosaic about “the Everything is Illuminated” is art. In my opinion, the Grand Canyon National Park is also art. This is because it is a kind of art created by nature's creativity. Art exists all around the place in every era, and we live together with a lot of art. It is very vague and obscure as a definition, but “creativity”, this is my answer to the question, “What is art?”

EDITORIAL

What is art?

The word “ART” is almost everywhere in our modern culture but its definition is not really simple. One of the most difficult things when discussing art is finding a line between what is art and what is not. A basic definition of art refers to it as a product of Human creativity. It can be considered as the creation of beautiful or significant things. Art can also be a process of deliberately arranging in a way to affect senses and emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, sculpture and paintings. Art is very important in our life. It starts from our every day life and artists try to focus on our human nature or on our thinking. From paintings to music passing by literature art comes from our experience and our thoughts and it represents a path to follow in the exploration of the culture and way of living of a society. However art is very subjective and personal.

Considering the basic definition of art, we can try to analyze some very well known authors like William Faulkner and his short story “A ROSE for Emily ” to try to present a piece of literature as art. In this short story Faulkner presented a small town and the way that some people behave in this area. Is it art? If we try to consider the way that the author presented the story, the characters of the story, we can agree that you need imagination and creativity to complete such extraordinary short story, however journalists who are writing news everyday also use imagination and creativity. They use it everyday in their work, so can we consider what they are doing as art? Who can decide what is art and what is not art? Is it the common sense? If it’s the common sense, is it really a fair judgment?

We usually consider music and paintings as most significant art whether as art itself because we see people who are doing these activities not very similar to us. We usually believe that everyone does not have the skills for being a painter or a musician. This consideration is true, but is it a fair way to ascribe what they are doing the name of “art”. Is it just because everyone cannot do it that makes it become art? In this case we would say that art is not for everyone. These artists would have some special skills that make them become kind of sacred characters. This argument is very important to consider because it attributes art to a small group of people. If this argument is so strong, what about students who are learning music and painting in our colleges? What can we say about projects we did in our Cross-cultural class?

I’m very pleased to mention our works that we have done in our cross-cultural class because some of them recur skills and imaginations to be able to interpret and to present what we feel through mosaics, photomontages or collages. Can we consider them as art? My answer is yes. I believe that they are art because the creativity is obvious in these works. However the problem of exclusivity of art is very important in this case and we realize it’s not really true because it’s a matter of choice. Everyone can be an artist if they want to, but you may need more than the will.

This possibility for everyone to be able to become an artist is sends us to another kind of art named folk art. Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring trades people. This kind of art is utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic. Folk art is very important. Folk art is very popular. It is the expression of our every day life with all of its objects.

ERIC ROLEX JOSEPH

what is art by ELEA ORTEGA

ART ART ART WHAT IS ART?

A good definition of the arts is given by the Free Dictionary as "imaginative, creative, and nonscientific branches of knowledge considered collectively, especially as studied academically."

On the other hand we have the singular term art “Art is created when an artist creates a beautiful object, or produces a stimulating experience that is considered by his audience to have artistic merit.”

For instance we have Marie Hall and Andrew Bucci, their art was to provoke a sense or thoughts on people. So people could interpret their masterpieces, as they wanted. As I did with one of Marie Hall’s painting, Bright Fields, which on me provoke, happiness, love, and faith, because of the bright colors and the combination of intensity.

So, one could conclude that art is the process that leads to a product (the artwork or piece of art), which is then examined and analyzed by experts in the field of the arts or simply enjoyed by those who appreciate the arts.

Art is for everybody; sometimes it requires discipline for those who really want to penetrate into the beauty of art.

To me at some point, to create art you have to put your heart and soul, in order to create something meaningful. Leonardo da Vinci said, “Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is not art”.

For example, the entire projects that we have done, I consider them art, because they are made from the bottom of my heart.

Some examples of Arts are: Fine Arts, Liberal Arts, Visual Arts, Decorative Arts, Applied Arts, Design, Crafts, Performing Arts, and so on.

There is some other arts too, for instance folk art which is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic. It is also a way to express one's feelings and emotions in a material way it involves hard work and effort and it's able to motivate sentiments in its appreciators. Theora Hamblett is a perfect example, she was an artist from Oxford, Mississippi, she did not go to a professional school of arts and none professional artist taught her either. It was innate in her. She did not follow any rules; she had her own techniques, techniques that we then follow on class in order to create our own art.

My favorite arts and the ones that I can say I practice is the photography, which is the art of creating still or moving pictures. The other one is dance, which is human movement to express feelings and emotions and is an example of performing arts.

Now with all of this and with the case of our own creations I can come to the conclusion that Art is a way to express our feelings and thoughts, sometimes emotions that the heart download in some way. They are so many ways to express it for example we have sculptures, photography, music, painting drawings, dance. In addition art involves effort and a lot work. These ideas mixed together bring what it is art.With a clear statement or the intention to make the appreciator create her or his own meaning, art goes beyond that a form of expression becoming an instance of developing and creation of something new and original.

Art Is... (By Nelson Salgado)

Shorter than the most of the acronyms, the three-letter word “art” has been the reason of debates among scholars who have tried to give it a definition. In this respect, it is not a simple task to reach an agreement considering that everyone has her or his own point of view influenced and determined by his or her own experiences.

From my personal point of view there are three inherent aspects that belong to anything considered as “art”: First, the necessity of expressing one’s own emotions feelings, beliefs, fears, hopes, etc. Artists in a wide variety of artistic disciplines have been inspired by their first love, their hate toward an enemy, their political ideologies or their anxiety of facing a war, to cite some examples. Even though the motivations of the piece were merely utilitarian at the beginning, as it happens with folk art, the elaboration process itself involves choosing a source of inspiration, no matter how small and trivial it could seem. The following aspects also suits with the idea that folk art deserves to be considered as art.

Another aspect that I consider as an important element for making this definition is the fact that art involves the act of an arduous creation. This means that the work behind a painting, a sculpture or a song was very thoughtful, involving a stage of thinking and was followed by a laborious completion stage. In this regard, one might think about famous and popular singers declaring on cameras that their albums were the results of a “crazy night” only, what is certain is that the final result involved a lot of work and preparation.

It is also essential that the work must be representative of its creator. Although artists are influenced by trends or movements, a piece of art should always be able to be linked with its creator or at least with the trend that form part of. For instance, the Mississippian writer and novelist William Faulkner is internationally recognized by the distinct stream of consciousness that characterizes the narrative style in his novels and short stories. Little details or an entire hallmark, the purpose is that this new creation be as much representative of its creator as possible. As Marie Hull declared in an interview with Virginia McGehee Elias, “… Most artists are essentially students trying to arrive at some creative form of art that expresses their own individuality.” (qtd. in Batton Beth, Curator of the Collection and Public Programs, Mississippi Museum of Art).

Considering these three different aspects, it is clearer to identify what is art and what is not. Throughout the semester, my classmates and I made some handicrafts such as mosaics based on movie clips. Although we tried to add our own personal touch, as we were restricted to several guidelines, in my opinion, it made that those works lacked of the first assert: necessity of expression. For me, it avoids breaking the barrier between a handicraft and a piece of art. Totally different is what happened with the paintings based on Theora Hamblett’s style. In this case, even though we were trying to use Ms. Hamblett’s technique, we could still use our own source of inspiration in order to express ourselves through this work, which completely suits with the essence of art.

In summary, that meaningful and and full-of-effort expression involving the creation of something that is representative of its author in any discipline is the real essence of art.

What is Art?

What is Art?

“Art is the result of techniques and abilities made by an artist to create an appreciable product”, Here is a definition gave by Diallo Djibril , an English language intensive researcher in Victoria, Canada. Using this definition as a starting point, I am going to, through this editorial express, discuss it and also give my own definition of Art.

“...a result of techniques and abilities ...”

This part of the statement make us reflect on the exactness of the words chosen. First of all for the meaning. “Abilities” and technique fit in the two contexts of art:On one side, concerning something that have been worked in a institution with some established rules. The technique worked in a school for example, and the abilities of using established techniques such as perspective or the rule of third.

On the over side, concerning a gift (something innate) or something that has been worked without the application of established rules: Folk art. Folk art first defined the art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants. Nowadays, It is mainly refered to a oeuvre made by someone who don't really have the knowledge to do it. Theora Hamblett, a famous painter from Oxford, Mississippi, is a perfect example for a Folk art painter. Hamblett painted without any consistent background (neither proportional nor perspective were present in her work).That didn't affect the fact that her art was and is still appreciated. That brings diversity, originality and became because of it , ”appreciable”.

“...made by an Artist...”

This part of the sentences, unlike the previous, can be controversial because, some of the objects that we now consider as art have not always been considered as it. For example, Greek pottery were used in a practical way more than for decoration (these pottery were used for food, drinks and so on) or a Turkey-quilt exposed in the museum of the university of Mississippi in Oxford:this Turkey-quilt was made out of pieces of old clothes and were used for domestic necessities .

So the people who created this art (The pottery or the turkey-quilt) were not really considered artists even if they made things that can, nowadays, be qualified as art.

“...create an appreciable product...”

This part of the sentence shows the aim of art. The term “product” defines both material (Paintings, pottery, sculptures...) or immaterial things (music, theater, cinema...).The aim of the art in general is to be appreciate. Even for pottery or other material that were not made to become oeuvre-d'arts, They are considered as art starting from the moment that they are not used anymore for their basic functions but exposed to be appreciated by a public.

For me, Art is a relative notion. As a man made creation (for entertainment or for religious purpose), the notion of art depends of every individual person. Only the willing make art. I can see something as art because I decided that it is art (Consciously or subconsciously). For instance people who go to the museum, expect to see art, so, even if toilets are exposed there, they will see it as art. Art is a personal and individual, but not only. Art also depends on society and influences .For instance, if an artist decided to represent G*D in a painting it will be for most people, not art at all because the divinities are not supposed to be represented. The Jocund of Leonardo Da Vinci is an other example of the influence of society. It is considered as art everywhere even by people who never saw it because it has a cultural impact.

All throughout, we have been working on projects that contains paintings, photography, writings and so on.

In on side we are not painters or professional photographers, so we may not have the skills required to do these oeuvres but, in the over side, we had to follow some rules established (by the professors) such as the rule of third or the respect of color and brightness balance in photography. Our art is situated between awkwardness represented by Folk art and the opposite which is called fine art.

Referring to the definition above, I decided to consider it as Art but for someone exterior to the project, it will not be Art and will be surely “naive” and awkward. But if it was exposed in a museum, I don't think that those same people would consider it naive or awkward anymore.

ISSABRE Hamadoun