Edit: I take back what I said and agree with OP's answer.

In theory, saying it's at the peers discretion, limits art. I have thought this through now...

Art. an abréviation of artifice. Whatever is not natural.

I think you've mainly got it. You can particularize it where and when you want.

Hmm. Art: genus, (the) communication, whether inter- or intra-personal, of species, a creative/creating nature. Special features: that which awakens or re-awakens, inspires awe/wonder, arrests the ordinary in favor of the not-ordinary, even extraordinary. And so on.

Art is anything presented bu an artist to evoke a reaction in an audience. No qualities of the thing presented or the kind of reaction evoked or the causal origin of the thing matter to qualify it as art: just that it is presented as art.

How successful it is at evoking the intended reaction determines how good the art is.

I understand art as an expression of human consciousness, and art work as information about the artists consciousness — Pop

I would extend that to include the artist's subconscious as well.

What is art is decided by the artist. A group of people who are difficult to pin down.

It is amusing how commonly this topic of ‘what constitutes art and what does not’ is debated.

Presumably derived from the Latin ‘Ars’,
1. Art, skill
2. Craft, power

According to Oxford Dictionary,
1. “Creative works produced by human beings”

The recurring thought is that art proceeds an act of creation.

The following terms elaborate categories of art:
‘Fine Art, Artwork, Black arts, Language arts, Liberal arts’.

The alternate meaning for art is perhaps that of a skill or specified hobby; one attained by means of practice such as with:
‘The art of forgiveness, the art of war, the art of memory’.

Webster’s 1913 Dictionary provides an older perspective, with art being defined as:
1. “Systematic application of knowledge or skill”
2. “Production of Imagination, taste, beauty, elegance”

We are all aware how artwork takes up many forms. Art is not monolithic nor is it set in stone as to what exactly classifies art.
‘Poetry, music, dance, sculpture, body modifications, genetic alterations, landscaping, architecture, food, film, games, experiential drugs, entertainment.’

Stimulus and effect is the common theme within these mediums.
Irregardless of whether it be taste, touch, smell, vision or hearing; so long as it can be experienced.
Inform me If I am resorting to logical fallacy, although It seems that artwork is inherently dependent on human faculties/cognition. Nevertheless, considering the vastness of our universe, non-human senses would allow for existence of new art completely alien to us, the extent of which, depends on the planetoid and its inhabitants. Presently we are aware of innumerable animal species possessing extrasensory capabilities, for example:

* Birds have the ability of ‘magnetoreception’. They are able to perceive the Earth’s magnetic field and thereby navigate correspondingly.
* Electroreception: The ability to detect electric currents, demonstrated by sharks and platypi.
* Echolocation in bats and cetaceans is basically a built-in sonar system.
* The ability to view infrared thermal radiation.

What would it be like to see colours invisible to the human retina? What would it feel like to perceive sonar and to ‘hear’ radiation? If senses were to be extended, these inspirations for art creation would be inexplicable.

I would also like to examine the distinction between man-made creations and natural creations.
Could one consider a waterfall or natural phenomena such as the Aurora Borealis as art? I have never witnessed such a comparison before, perhaps artwork is only attributed to manmade creations? If a beaver builds a dam or a colony of bees build a hive, can these creations be prescribed as works of art? Perhaps in a romantic sense we may marvel at animal creations, admiring their beauty and artistic value, but much like any opinion, art is subjective.

Where do the lines blur between art and non-art?
Taxonomization is useful to understand diversity of arts, but when humans denounce certain art expressions, does this not defeat the purpose of art as a concept of free, unregimented, unstructured personal expression? Should art have no bounds, no borders?

As for a form of communication, art serves a practical purpose whilst imagery and pictures do qualify as a homonym for language.
Aesthetic value can be transmitted through art, but if something is considered vile, some may not consider it to be art.



Art does not exclusively promote positive emotions such as wonder, amazement and joy. Art may also provoke emotions of bewilderment, mortification, terror, disgust, contempt and envy.
Examples: Explicitly pornographic art may arouse divisive emotions under public scrutiny - everything from lust to repugnance.

* Violently gruesome art may be controversial but there are certainly those whom cherish a certain artistic quality to these works.
* Art that is designed to amuse or repel the viewer such as a canvas painted using bodily fluids, a toilet seat lid on exhibit, or a rotting cadaver.



Seems a respectful boundary to follow.
Is there a correct or incorrect way to interpret art or is it based on a causal origin by the artist?
Assuming one can dictate the history or purpose of someones else’s arts seems a rather ostentatious endeavour. The original creator most likely possesses the greatest quantity of empirical knowledge concerning their creation, although the concept of originality is interesting because one could purport that all art is the product of what came before it, and art is eternally in a state of transformative flux, building off the back of predecessors, but this seems to apply to much more than just art.

Wow so many good responses. Thank you all.

It is amusing how commonly this topic of ‘what constitutes art and what does not’ is debated. — Colosseum

Exactly, that is why I brought the topic up here.

It is also frustrating for an artist because their intent and purpose is so often misconstrued. Also anybody can produce valid art, but not many can really understand it, and i think this is due to the definition of art being so vague. Almost all that Colosseum mentions is an exploration of human consciousness. Art really is a conversation about consciousness. So a definition of art should, I think, direct the focus on human consciousness.

@Punshhh and Colosseum bring up the notion that a definition of art might create a sort of intellectual totalitarianism over creativity, and I thank them as that did not occurred to me, hmmm, I think this would be mitigated by allowing art the freedom of consciousness, but it deserves further reflection.

Consciousness is everything, everything is construed into consciousness. That which is outside of consciousness is blank until it enters consciousness ( thanks @tim wood )

What is amusing about those 'what is art, what is not' discussions is that they are really consciousness vs consciousness discussions.Human consciousness seems to need to propagate itself. It needs to be validated through communication, and art is one form of this. Posting in this forum is another! When one consciousness agrees with another we call this reality.

When you create art you are giving me information about your consciousness, and subconsciousness Thanks @jgill. You tell me how you understand art by showing me what you use it for. You give me an insight into your intelligence, your intent, your sympathies, your talent,your demographic,your politics,your spiritual beliefs, etc, etc. A whole bunch of information which I have to interpret with my consciousness. The process reminds me of a conversation.

@Punshhh reminds us that historically it is artists who define art by expanding on it, but I am an artist, and like Marcel Duchamp bestowed the status of art onto a urinal, I now bestow the status of art on to this thread :)

It seems to me there is enough information to define 'what is art'. At least for myself, but I am only one consciousness. For the definition to become reality there needs to be wide consensus, and this seems a good place to start.

So far I've got: Art is an expression of human consciousness, and art work is information about the artists consciousness and subconsciousness. - thanks@jgill

A variation might be: Artifact of human consciousness - thanks @unenlightened

If you have a better way to encapsulate it, or have other things to add please do.

This could be interesting - we may define art on this thread for the rest of time.

PS: I cant see that human art would be constrained by this widest of possible definitions - human consciousness, but it would be refocused, in one way for the better, but there may be unforeseen negative consequences - is focus restraint?

To allow art to remain as is, is to maintain the cultural status quo, to change art is to challenge the cultural status quo.

If you have a better way to encapsulate it, or have other things to add please do. — Pop

This used not to be a question very much. The problem with consciousness based definitions can be seen in many art galleries - a small pile of rubble, or a banana taped to the wall is art because it is done consciously by an artist. It's depressing, and the reason is the triumph of physicalism. For physicalists, man is part of nature and art is part of nature and so the distinction between artificial and natural collapses.

One needs God, or the spiritual to maintain the distinction, a triumvirate of man, god, and nature is more stable, and allows that mere consciousness is not enough for art, it needs a spiritual dimension. So chuck out the rubble and the bananas, and insist on your art being on more than a mere physical level, and more than just an idea someone had.

(For those with an allergy to religious language, one might frame the triple as material, informational, meaningful.)

Thanks for your comprehensive post and welcome to the forum.

is there a correct or incorrect way to interpret art or is it based on a causal origin by the artist?

I think the answer to this question is complicated and is perhaps an evolution within society. The main problem I have with the way art is interpreted is the role of the critic, the critic has traditionally dictated what is good art, what is bad art and what constitutes art. This has the consequence that artists who are creative and skill based people feel they have to try to conform in some way to validate their work.

This still occurs, although modernism and post modernism has challenged this. To some extent the artist has fought back and the critics have stepped back and allowed anything to be good art and Art.

If the artist means something in it's art, then the correct way to interpret it is by that degree.

However, is it ok to interpret art incorrectly? I think so.

Unless, per se, there is a greater judge, who thinks 'no, it means this in it's best light', then the artist's meaning loses it's credibility. Perhaps, it's a matter of judgement.

I think I've gotten to the point where I don't think art can be defined or fully described philosophically.

Here's a rough and ready test for art that I am simply putting out there for discussion: if future archaeologists dug it up, would they consider it a work of art or just an artefact?

Defence: art is supposed to transcend culture - transcend the time and place in which it was created, and speak to the ages. Therefore knowledge of the culture in which it was created should not be essential to recognising it as a work of art (if it was, then it would not be speaking to the ages, and thus would not be art). As such simply digging the item up and viewing it while ignorant of the culture in which it was created should provide a fairly reliable (though not perfect) guide to whether we're dealing with a work or art, or something else.

Obviously Rembrandts would pass this test. And Van Goghs, and Picassos. But Damien Hirst's shark in a tank? No, probably not - they'd just think it was a shark in a tank.

The test is not perfect, because the archaeologists will themselves be members of a culture and that culture may have affected their judgements about what is and is not art. But they will be aware that they are members of a culture to which the dug-up item's manufacturer did not belong, and so this should - in the main - operate to prevent them from applying their cultural aesthetic norms to the product they've uncovered.

Thus what I shall call the 'archaeologist test' provides, I think, a fairly reliable test of whether we're dealing with art or something else. And we can apply it as a thought experiment - we can ask of a work we are looking at "if an archaeologist dug this up, would they classify it as 'art'?" And if necessary, of course, we could actually run the test by simply burying the said work in a field and then asking some contemporary archaeologists to investigate the field and see what they subsequently classify it as.

Art = The suitably technical, creative, and intentional embodiment of aesthetically engaging thought or emotion in any publicly accessible medium.

There are five necessary and jointly sufficient conditions:

1. The activity is intentional
2. The activity is suitably technically demanding
3. The activity is suitably creative
4. The product exists in a publicly accessible medium
5. The product primarily embodies aesthetically engaging thought or emotion (or some combination of the two).

The archaeological test seems to exclude any kind of ephemeral or performance art that has not been captured by some durable medium.

Yes, it applies to that which can be buried. However, 'performance art' could be captured on film and the film could be dug up. Would they think it was art or someone having a breakdown?

To expand the discussion a bit, I have written many math programs over the years in connection with my interest in infinite compositions of complex functions in the complex plane. In another forum (now deceased) there was minor controversy over whether imagery produced from this mathematics - and virtually unpredictable - was a kind of art, like fractals. One prof of anthropology insisted the imagery was indeed art, a product of my subconscious, and thus influenced my mathematical discoveries or creations below my levels of awareness.

Form your own judgments. What do you think? :

https://www.coloradomesa.edu/math-stat/documents/CoupledContourSystems.pdf

https://www.coloradomesa.edu/math-stat/documents/AWeakEmergenceNote%20.pdf

@Bartricks yes the artifact would provide information about the creator and the culture -we cant predict specifically what information it would provide except to say it would give us clues to the 'consciousness' of the creator. We then would use our 'consiousness' to to build an imperfect picture of the culture they lived in.

@Bartricks @Punshhh You both seem to have a beef about who gets to decide what is art. Can you see how if you had a definition of what is art would empower you? Can you see how lack of a definition of what is art dis-empowers you ?

There are five necessary and jointly sufficient conditions:

1. The activity is intentional
2. The activity is suitably technically demanding
3. The activity is suitably creative
4. The product exists in a publicly accessible medium
5. The product primarily embodies aesthetically engaging thought or emotion (or some combination of the two). — Artemis

The problem with giving necessary and sufficient conditions for something that answers to a concept that has not been created by stipulation is that it is only a matter of time before counterexamples emerge (or the definition turns out to be circular - defining art as 'that which is art').

For example, take 'intentional'. What if my intention is just to make money? Does that mean that what I produce no longer qualifies as art? Or do we have to refine the intention so that it is an intention to produce, well, a work of art? (In which case we have circularity).

Or take technically demanding - what about a van Gogh? They're not particularly technically demanding, yet they're works of art. And what about those for whom drawing and painting accurately is not demanding - such as, say, John Singer Sargent (he could just sit down and bang out a breathtakingly accurate and spirited charcoal portrait in just a few minutes - it was his party trick)?

What about a work of art that is not creative, but brilliant nevertheless? Again, like a John Singer Sargent portrait?

As for 'publicly accessible medium' - well, what about a Rembrandt that has been painted on a material that disintegrates if anyone looks at it? Surely it is still a work of art, even though no-one can access it.

As a hypothetical I think there might be some worth to such a test, but I might stipulate that the hypothetical archeologist needs to be of a certain mindset and cultural background. An archeologist who comes, say, from a culture in which art does not exist or only exists in certain forms may not be able to appreciate other culture's art without that being a demerit on the found art per se.

But it also poses an epistemological dilemma: how can we ascertain what such an archeologist would say of our art? It seems that then we get back to square one, in which we have to forumalte some objective criteria for distinguishing art.

yes the artifact would provide information about the creator and the culture -we cant predict specifically what information it would provide except to say it would give us clues to the 'consciousness' of the creator. We then would use our 'consiousness' to to build an imperfect picture of the culture they lived in. — Pop

I don't follow your point. Why would it not be a good test?

But it also poses an epistemological dilemma: how can we ascertain what such an archeologist would say of our art? It seems that then we get back to square one, in which we have to forumalte some objective criteria for distinguishing art. — Artemis

We just use contemporary archaeologists and either see, or imagine, how they might classify what we're looking at if they dug it up. That way we see what the reason of an impartial - or maximally impartial - investigator says about the product.

It can be applied to modern pieces of art. We just imagine that an archaeologist digs it up and that it gives every sign of belonging to an earlier age, and then we see how they classify it.

So, Tracey Emin's bed probably wouldn't pass this test, whereas a contemporary landscape painting would.

Intentional refers only to the objective that it was my intention to create art. Other intentions are not excluded and it is very possible that one can misidentify art, as has happened in the past when people have thought the fire extinguisher in an art gallery was part of the exhibit.

Suitably technically demanding is a pretty low bar. You can get stricter about it when distinguishing good from bad art, but as long as shapes and colors are employed in some manner through which we can ascertain some kind of communication, that's all that is necessary.

And the audience of an art piece can be an audience of one: the artist. It can be more, but not less than that.

We just use contemporary archaeologists and either see, or imagine, how they might classify what we're looking at if they dug it up. — Bartricks

But again, on what basis do they decide this?

what about a van Gogh? They're not particularly technically demanding, yet they're works of art — Bartricks

Oh, and Van Gogh was one of those who "learned the rules to break them" types. I think that some of his work looks a little childish, but apparently his technique was educated and sophisticated.

Intentional refers only to the objective that it was my intention to create art. — Artemis

So it is circular - you've referred to the concept under analysis. The word 'art' needs to be removed, otherwise the definition is circular.

Suitably technically demanding is a pretty low bar. — Artemis

My point, however, is that either 'suitably' means just 'so-as to qualify as art' (in which case it is circular) or we'll have counterexamples. Much art doesn't require much technical ability at all to create.

Take a van Gogh, such as night sky over the Rhone. It is unquestionably a work of art (and a very great one). But it is not very technically demanding. And compositionally, it is a copy of a Japanese print. Yet it is a work of art.

And the audience of an art piece can be an audience of one: the artist. It can be more, but not less than that. — Artemis

What if Rembrandt just imagines a work of art, but doesn't paint it on anything? Is the imaginary painting a work of art? Surely not.

Oh, and Van Gogh was one of those who "learned the rules to break them" types. I think that some of his work looks a little childish, but apparently his technique was educated and sophisticated. — Artemis

No, not really. First, one does not need to know anything about Van Gogh the man in order to be able to recognise his works as artworks (indeed, very great ones).

Also, he was almost entirely self-taught and was never a great draughtsperson. His technique is not educated or sophisticated - it is very original and distinctive, but it is not very sophisticated and not the product of a formal education.

@jgill You are an artist. I bet by varying the formula you could learn to control the patterns / colours produced.

Ive never seen anything like that before. Its very impressive. You have a mathematical consciousness and my consciousness could not normally relate to mathematics, but translated into images I can start to understand it:)

I think ' art as an expression of human consciousness ' would still contain it.

If art had a definition you would have certainty about what your work was.

So it is circular - you've referred to the concept under analysis. The word 'art' needs to be removed, otherwise the definition is circular — Bartricks

No, I don't think that makes it circular. It's not like saying a dog is a dog. I've added the stipulation that it has to be intended.

Much art doesn't require much technical ability at all to create. — Bartricks

No it doesn't. Just needs to use shape and color in a manner to communicate some thought or feeling. Again, you can get more strict about good vs bad art.

What if Rembrandt just imagines a work of art, but doesn't paint it on anything? Is the imaginary painting a work of art? Surely not. — Bartricks

I guess there would be an assumption that it must be manifest in the world somehow at some point, no matter how briefly.

Also, he was almost entirely self-taught and was never a great draughtsperson. His technique is not educated or sophisticated - it is very original and distinctive, but it is not very sophisticated and not the product of a formal education. — Bartricks

Self-educated =/= uneducated. But the point is that apparently he did use techniques of color application and perspective that were sophisticated and sometimes innovative (though the latter is not a condition of art).

But again, on what basis do they decide this? — Artemis

They see if it seems to them to answer to the concept of art.

We already have the concept of art. It doesn't come from definitions, rather we try and capture it using definitions - but the concept itself transcends those definitions.

We recognise art without definitions, then. It is therefore the height of silliness to allow a definition - which should always be provisional and open to revision in the light of real cases - to dictate matters.

Any age we live in will have its own ideas about what does and doesn't qualify as art. To overcome those and get closer to the pure concept, we can look to produces of ages whose ideas we are unfamiliar with. If something from that age seems to us to qualify as art then there's a decent chance that it is art.