I resist defining art because…

    All I know about art is that it consists of different categories, painting, sculpture, music, performing, acting, dancing, drawing, singing, etc… Many philosophers have spent years trying to find a definition of what art is. Plato has defined art as a goal of imitating the everyday reality. But then there is John Dewey, who believes that art is everything, and David Hume, who believes that art is based on one’s opinion and taste and that only qualified people can judge what art is. Art is undefinable. No matter what, there is an exception for something to be considered a piece of art, therefore, is the reason why the definition changes every time. Not only that, everyone has a different definition for art. For example, Arthur Danto believes that art can only be distinguished by people who are dedicated to art and are a part of the art world.

Art Philosophers Summaries:

Throughout the semester, I've had trouble trying to differentiate between all of the Philosophers we have studied. To help me, I pretty much made a list and summarized some of the art philosophers as best as possible.


Plato- He believed that the goal of art is to imitate the everyday reality.


Aristotle- Art is a way of representing. (He referred most of his ideas to poetry) "emphasis on the possible"


David Hume- Art is based on one's taste. Only qualified people can judge what art is.


Tolstoy- "Through the use of such devices as color, sound and movement, art communicates to its audience a feeling or emotion that the artist has previously experienced." He raises the question of "What is Art?" and in his definition, he says that art is communication, pleasure, statement and activity.


Freud- Art is expressing feelings, thoughts, emotions and dreams that aren't acceptable to society, yet making it pleasurable for viewers to see.


Collingwood- He believes that it is good to express your feelings and that you have to use your imagination in order to create art.


John Dewey- "art should not be conceived as a radically distinct aspect of human life."
"art results when the desire to create an object whose perceptible properties will yield immediate satisfaction controls the process of its production."


Martin Heidegger- Defines art as truth




John Dewey- People tend to ignore nature and not consider it as art (aesthetic emotion/satisfaction). The whole point of science is art.

Defining an Artist; A Partial Response to Sean's blog:

As a little kid, everyone knew me for my talent of drawing. They called me an artist. But the thing is, I never really thought I was one. I thought you had to be very good in whatever media you are good at and have a lot of money. Apparently, this is a bad assumption to make. Anyone can be an artist according to what George Dickie says. But is that true?


As of today, I don't consider myself an artist, though I accept the title as the artist of my pieces of work. The thing is that I can create art and make beautiful pieces of work but I feel I have to be very dedicated and put a lot of effort into it. I just make art and sometimes hardly put any effort into it at all.
Compare this to Leonardo Da Vinci and his art work. He actually put his all into his art work, making experiments and creating beautiful artwork that no one can ever duplicate using the exact tools he used in his paintings.


If a little kid can qualify as an artist, wouldn't that be degrading to the art world? After all, a little kid can't become a doctor until he/she gets a PhD. Isn't there some sort of level a child must reach to be considered an artist? If there is, how would the people know?

Response to Kurt's Blog:

Do you believe video games deserve the title of "Art"?


I believe that video games are considered art. The designer of the video game has to create designs for the characters, setting, theme, background, etc. The fact that this form of art is animated and that you can make these characters or things move and make them achieve goals (such as collecting coins in the old game, Mario). These extra things pretty much means that these artists went overboard to the point that people can control it and can change the whole story-line of the piece of art.


Try comparing a painting of car like this:

And compare it to a video game that has a bunch of cars like these that you can race and move around, seeing it from all different angles, such as the one video game that is found in almost every arcade:
Fast and Furious.


Video games include computer graphic art, so therefore, it is.

Art Museum VS Concert

The other day, we had a class discussion about fetishism and satisfaction. We also compared how pleasing a concert performance is to an art museum. One argument was that going to a concert is more pleasing because it is more like a once in a life time thing and it would be something you can savior in your memories. Another argument was that you can lose interest after a while of going to the same art museum over and over again, after all, the museum will have the same exhibits and art work. Here's what I think:


It all depends on your preference and what you like better. For instance, I'm an art major but I don't like looking at other people's art work over and over again, everyday, unless it's something I like a lot, like garbage art. But I also like going to concerts. The problem with comparing these two ideas is that concerts cant really be performed every single day in the same spot and each performance would be different each time.

What is Beauty?

What I think is beautiful will be different from what you think is beautiful.
Here's what I think is beautiful:

• the colors of the clouds and the sky as the sun comes up into view to signify that it is morning as the birds just start to chirp and the air is starting to become warm from the sun's rays
• the ocean waves crashing and lapping over the softest grains of sand at the beach
• the fresh looking customized nike shoes I had just found online
• the sound of Whitney Houston's voice as she sings
• the ripe rasberries still dangling from the rasberry bushes
• the picture of my parents' wedding day where my mom wore a beautiful white wedding gown, smiling into the eyes of my dad in his black tuxedo.
• the velvety red petals folded and curled together, forming a rose with sharp thorns pricking out of the stem.
• the 5 star restaurant food I see on T.V. were they decorate the food to extreme elegance, too perfect to eat.

Based on only a few of the things I described of what I think is art, you can tell that I mostly describe beauty in nature. It is, in a way, kind of tough to describe something as "beautiful" when there are there words you can use, especially now-a-days where all we use are slang terms. It could be just me but I think the purity and simplicities of nature are pleasing to look at. I've been raised on the country side so many of the things I have seen would be viewed differently from what an urban city dweller would see it as.

Question: Depending on how we describe beauty, does it matter how we were raised that answers why we have differences on the definition of beauty?

Response to Kim's blog:

"Do you think Tolstoy and Goodman have compatible theories about art?"
    No I don't think so. Tolstoy is an art philosopher who believes that a good piece of art would have to express an emotion. This is so that people can have a connection they can both share with art. The connection they have with emotion is something everyone can experience. He explains his theory that "through the use of such devices as color, sound, and movement, art communicates to its audience a feeling or emotion that the artist has previously experienced."

    What Tolstoy believes the best art is what makes one feel tainted by whatever feeling or emotion the work of art is trying to convey to art viewers. Art that effects its people who take in the view of the piece of art and receive the most emotion from it is what Tolstoy considers true art. Where as for Goodman, he uses the question, "when is art?" rather than the usual "what is art?". So far, the two philosophers may seem to have the same ideas, but Goodman believes that the meaning of the art doesn't matter, but only how the art was made. According to Tolstoy, every piece of art has emotion, which means that every piece of art has meaning. So that brings out the differences between Tolstoy and Goodman.

Question: Since there are the questions, "What is art?""When is art?" is there another question you can use in art philosophy?