Comedy preys in the villain.
Tragedy preys on the inner desire to be villainous - a simpering disgust of disgust.
All art preys on the inept and enlivens the bold (deluded or other-wise).

We all die.
Most, if not all, die procrastinating.
If the artistic endeavor does anything noteworthy it breaks the shackles of procrastination; albeit fleetingly.

If the artistic endeavor does anything noteworthy it breaks the shackles of procrastination; albeit fleetingly. — I like sushi

For who, artist or audience?

But that's not what art is for. — Henri

What would you say art is for, then? (You may have already said so but I can’t find it).

Isn't..."gee, I wonder how I would feel/respond if I were in that situation" the most significant imagination that takes place with works of fiction? That would be the same, whether, poetry, prose, film, plays, or any other version of story telling. — ZhouBoTong

Well, if the novel takes place in a jungle village in Columbia, I have to imagine what that looks like. I have to make the images. In a film, the film shows me. I am more passive watching a film. And I tend not to use my imagination in any active way to wonder how i would feel when watching a film. When reading a book I might pause and do this. With a film I might do it after. With films I tend to just automatically identifty. This is not a problem with film, per se. I mean, I love films. It's like comparing bicycles and oranges, both of which I am fond of. Reading a short story - perhaps a more fair comparison - one I could finish in an hour and a half say, perhaps a novella, requires more work while I am experiencing it. I cocreate more. Poetry requries even more work, if it is fairly metaphorical or ambiguous. Fiction elicits, films show. Both can have subtext and symbolism and hidden deeper stuff and these can be pulled out - after for both, during with literature. But the basic process of experiencing the film is more passive. And that includes even watching with my wife, where we both yell stuff out at home, make guess and do more actively go after subtext while watching - though not if its a great film where we'd tell the other person to shut up.

And I tend not to use my imagination in any active way to wonder how i would feel when watching a film. — Coben

It’s possible you may not be conscious of that. Film does elicit, but maybe not the films you like to watch.

Edit: I take that back having thought about it some more.

I think this could partly be why people look down on action films, they ask so little of you.

Is this all there is to the meaning of imagination?

“the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality” Merriam Webster

Anything described, as opposed to being directly shown, must be imagined, — Janus

I think this must be true, otherwise we’re not talking about imagination.

Well then you’re talking about entertainment. That’s different from art. ‘Transformers’ is entertainment. So is Shakespeare, or was. Now it’s an idea, of what art is. Once you begin viewing everything through the prism of entertainment then you have a few basic parameters to judge it by: dollars and asses. — Brett

I think it might be your conception of "entertainment", as a commercial/business/profit/money/American thing, that's making art not resemble entertainment in your eyes. Art is often entertaining, often disturbing too....

Well, if the novel takes place in a jungle village in Columbia, I have to imagine what that looks like. I have to make the images. In a film, the film shows me. I am more passive watching a film. And I tend not to use my imagination in any active way to wonder how i would feel when watching a film. When reading a book I might pause and do this. With a film I might do it after. With films I tend to just automatically identifty. This is not a problem with film, per se. I mean, I love films. It's like comparing bicycles and oranges, both of which I am fond of. Reading a short story - perhaps a more fair comparison - one I could finish in an hour and a half say, perhaps a novella, requires more work while I am experiencing it. I cocreate more. Poetry requries even more work, if it is fairly metaphorical or ambiguous. Fiction elicits, films show. Both can have subtext and symbolism and hidden deeper stuff and these can be pulled out - after for both, during with literature. But the basic process of experiencing the film is more passive. And that includes even watching with my wife, where we both yell stuff out at home, make guess and do more actively go after subtext while watching - though not if its a great film where we'd tell the other person to shut up. — Coben

That's fine that that's the case for you if it really is. The problem is that just because it's the case for you, it doesn't imply that it's the case for everyone.

There are a number of angles regarding why it may not be the case for everyone. A couple examples: one, someone could read a novel set in a jungle village in Columbia and not bother thinking about what it looks like. They could just read the words at face value and not think much about it beyond that. You might say something like "they're not reading right" if that's all they're doing, but that brings us to a second example:

It's a standard in filmmaking theory that you don't show anything, from any perspective, without there being a good reason for it. The reasons can vary, including things that are integral to plot, including foreshadowing, or they could be related to characterization, or background info, or symbolism, etc. This means that even the briefest of shots in the most "innocuous" montages are usually executed with this in mind (the standard has it that the shot should be removed otherwise), and ideally every element of every shot, including production design elements (sets, props, costumes, etc.), and including cinematography (the way the shot is framed, the angle, the lighting, the color processing, etc.), as well as just how shots are linked, the timing, etc. (editing), as well as sound (both ambient/environmental sound and music), etc. is just as it is for a reason. The reasons for these elements are not made explicit. We could be talking about something as simple as a three-second shot of an unoccupied office lobby with an automatic door opening cutting to a two-second shot of a streetlamp, say. And most directors follow this standard most of the time, even when we're talking about films that people typically call "popcorn" movies.

Viewers need to think about these things. They need to actively think, "Why am I being shown an empty office lobby with an opening automatic door and then a streetlamp?" They need to think about the style of the lobby, the lighting, the angle, the sound, the timing, etc., and the same for the streetlamp, as all of these things can factor into it. Some viewers do not do this, and for example, this is one reason that some people have trouble watching silent films. Many would say that the viewers who just passively let seemingly innocuous montage shots go by--and this stuff is still a factor even in dialogue and "action" shots-- are "not watching right."

Isn't this a sociological view on how schools institutionalize inequality by dividing individuals with choice and socialization processes

Viewers need to think about these things. They need to actively think, "Why am I being shown an empty office lobby with an opening automatic door and then a streetlamp?" — Terrapin Station

No, they don't. We are more than capable of simply absorbing this sort of thing unconsciously, and we do it all the time. In layman's terms, I might just say we get the (right) idea by feel.

What would you say art is for, then? — Brett

Art is for impressing on you a (human) experience through an agent. An agent is a piece of art in its raw, or direct, state - a story you read about or see on a screen or stage, notes you hear, a scene you see on a painting...

They need to do that if they want to get out of the film what the filmmakers are putting into it.

Here are three paintings with three levels of abstraction.

First is hyperrealism. It looks exactly like a photo, especially when viewed on screen. Last is full abstraction.

The limitation with last is rather evident, I think. There is a place for full-abstracted paintings, but they can take you only so far. It's too much separated from meaning, which makes it hard for us to create a connection and work with it. We can still get something from it, but the ceiling is not so high.

The first one has a problem with being seen as a document, and as such, not an art. I am not talking only about this one, but about hyperrealism in general. It would be better, of course, to see the painting live to get it's full impact. But that is especially true for the second portrait, so... Anyway, what works for the first painting is a juxtaposition, a contrast, between the quality of a simulated studio environment, including lighting placed on a subject, as if for some distinguished portrait, and the subject who is presented as ailing and poor (by looking at the shirt). That's unexpected, and I would say, if we are to simplify it, it is the main mechanism which creates art in what looks like a document. (That also makes it somewhat gimmicky.)

The difference in impact between first and second painting might not be super obvious at first glance, but it seems to me that first painting gets old relatively fast, and as it does it looses some of it's initially perceived depth. It sort of flattens.

But this is not primarily to judge these three paintings. This is just a little example of how level of abstraction sets different fields for artists, and for us as recipients. One can say, "They are different, and that's it." But I don't think that's correct approach. We could say that having a loving parental relationship with a child and having a hair cut are just two different experiences, who can say which one is better. But we don't say such things. While each good art is valuable and has it's place, it is not "just different" from other pieces of art.

You can imagine character traits in terms of kinds of thought, feeling and behavior. Of course that would require imagination. Or you could just choose character traits from a list. I haven't anywhere said that it doesn't require imagination to write a novel. If it requires imagination to read a novel, how much more would it require to write it? As usual you are putting words in my mouth; all the wrong ones that is!

They need to do that if they want to get out of the film what the filmmakers are putting into it. — Terrapin Station

How could they ever do that if, as you often claim, there are no shared meanings?

So first, we need to clarify that on my view there are no shared meanings in the sense of there being a numerically identical meaning--in other words, just one single unit--that's somehow instantiated in multiple people.

People can have similar meanings in mind--as similar as, say, two copies of a book.

So for you the semantic content in a book is not identical from one copy to the next?

That question aside for the moment, if the viewer can get out of a film what the filmmaker put into it then there is shared meaning, full stop. Quibbles along the lines that the meaning in the viewer's head is not "numerically identical" to the meaning in the film, which is not numerically identical to the meaning in the filmmaker's head on account of their different spatiotemporal locations would seem to be quite irrelevant.

If the viewer cannot get out of a film what the filmmaker put into it, then your objection,

They need to do that if they want to get out of the film what the filmmakers are putting into it. — Terrapin Station

is moot. You can't have it both ways.

I think it might be your conception of "entertainment", as a commercial/business/profit/money/American thing, that's making art not resemble entertainment in your eyes. Art is often entertaining, often disturbing too.... — Pattern-chaser

Art may often be entertaining but that doesn’t mean its intent was to be entertaining. The artist is producing the work first for themselves. The intent is not to entertain people. If someone then comes along and looks on the work as entertaining then that’s nothing to do with the artist.

I think you’re being a bit slippery there by saying art can be disturbing, which can be true, and using that to legitimise the word ‘entertaining’ that comes before it.

What your saying is that I’m being merely subjective in separating entertainment from art. But there is a difference, at least from the point of view of the artist. Was Van Gogh seeking to entertain, was Gauguin seeking to entertain by moving to the Pacific, was Cezanne seeking to entertain by returning again and again to Montaigne Sainte-Victoria to paint?

I agree with you, art sends a message.

Art is for impressing on you a (human) experience through an agent. An agent is a piece of art in its raw, or direct, state - a story you read about or see on a screen or stage, notes you hear, a scene you see on a painting... — Henri

I’ll go along with that.

Of course Zhoubotong will argue that ‘Transformers’ does exactly that. Or have you cunningly included ‘raw’.

Am I imagining it or are we starting to see a bit of agreement happening?

It depends, I like the definition inclusive of 'agent,' however I also agree it should be undefined and that it doesn't only apply to humans.

How so?

the label is used to signify what is and what isn't srt. It's a complement to a agent. Let's say I think the Mona Lisa is art ( expression through an agent), but i don't think my drawing is art. Here's an analogy, martial art is art when the moves are done correctly, if all moves miss, it's not art.

Make the distinction between normal creativity and art.

The primary difference (I believe) between the first and second painting is that the first is primarily about the subject and the second is about the artist (self portrait aside). In the first painting the artist is absent, in the second the artist has put himself between the subject and the viewer. The second painting is about Van Gogh

Here's an analogy, martial art is art when the moves are done correctly, if all moves miss, it's not art. — Schzophr

That could be regarded as taking martial arts to the level of art. But the idea of art, it’s definition, comes before, its dipping into art to help describe the attainment.

Whoever suggested 'agent', bravo, you have a nice eye. I think explaining art, defining things in general, is an art. So I express myself, through some agent, at a high enough quality, and it is considered art. Or could I force my art with quantity? either way, Quality or reality of art is a important aspect of all art, if it's bad quality, generally it's a 'ah' , without the 'rut'. Quality seems to be important, are you even qualified enough to judge what's art and what's not?

Art and objective morality.

Does the human objective effect what is art?

Art may often be entertaining but that doesn’t mean its intent was to be entertaining. — Brett

No, it doesn't. But it's the audience that judges art, not the artist.

If someone then comes along and looks on the work as entertaining then that’s nothing to do with the artist. — Brett

Agreed, but the same observation applies: It's the audience that judges art, not the artist.

I think you’re being a bit slippery there by saying art can be disturbing, which can be true, and using that to legitimise the word ‘entertaining’ that comes before it. — Brett

I only wanted to avoid saying that art is only entertainment.