[Bups-dis] Defining art

[David Mitchell]

  I agree that most people don’t really question they mean by ‘art’, but rather in practice employ the term as a vague reference point to a particular set of, socially designated and established, cultural objects [Shakespeare plays, Byron poetry etc.]. Of course any effective definition must go beyond this, simply pointing to a collection of objects and saying ‘that is art’, and must instead explain why it is that we call these things ‘art’ in the first place. 
   
  Of the possible ‘definitions’ of art it should be evident that: ‘something accepted/endorsed by the art world’ is inadequate, since logically speaking the ‘art world’ could anoint virtually anything as art. However the idea of art as ‘something chosen, selected or thought of by the artist’ is equally insufficient. Setting aside the obvious objection that ‘artists’ don’t necessarily always produce ‘art’; we are left with the problem of how to go about defining an ‘artist’. Isn’t such a person merely someone who produces, or has produced, ‘works of art’? If so, this means to identify ‘artists’ we must be able to say what constitutes a ‘work of art’, [otherwise how would we know if a person has produced one, and qualifies as an artist] but then we’re simply back where we started. As such unless we accept the idea that ‘anything can be art’ [in which case why bother calling it ‘art’, since there would be nothing to distinguish ‘art’ from anything else] neither of these
 definitions gets us very far.
   
  My suggestion then would be that, instead of focusing on the intentions of the artist or some process of ‘legitimisation’ by the art world, we should look towards art itself, our relationship with it , and the role it plays in human life and culture in general. One useful, though by no means necessary, starting point along these lines would be to ask what separates a piece of art from the typical products of mass culture. For example why do we want to say that an episode of East-enders or Celebrity big brother is not art, whereas a Euripides or Dario Fo play might be? Further we might ask why human beings seek to experience, or produce, art at all, especially given that it can be difficult and disturbing [a point connected to the earlier discussion about ‘negative emotions’]. And why is it that some value ‘art’ so highly, to the extent that it often regarded as mans greatest achievement and his most noble pursuit? In short, to understand art, and move towards an idea of
 how we go about defining it, [which is a movement towards the same thing] we must place art back within its proper evaluative context in human life and experience. Hopefully by doing this we can cast light on the nature of art, as well as the role that suffering and ‘negative emotions’ play within it.
   
  David
   

 		
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