Maybe Art will drop by with an answer

I consider art to be anything that expresses a non-literal message.  For example, Jesus' parables are art.  Blackbelt's swastika is art.  That mokey-Jesus is art (assuming there's actually a message or feeling that the sculptor was tryin to express).  A heartfelt poem is art, whereas one that is written according to a formula for school is not.  A mundane object that is picked up and used to convey another message is, at the outside of this definition, still art.

I think that this is a functional way to think of "art".

I think in it's most interesting form, it creates what's happening over on that thread.  It's supposed to move us in some way.

It's not always a pretty picture to hang over the sofa (although it can be).

There are some works that I adore but wouldn't really want to live with, like Dali's crucifixtion.

When this statue was first installed in Toronto there was a great deal of commotion:

OK I can't seem to insert the picture.  You can see it HERE

Silent Journey

by Janet Stahle-- Fraser

I recently purchased this print.  The moment I saw this image, there was an immediate visceral response for me.  I knew I had to live with this image and it just grabbed me. 

It reminds me of a dream or a Tarot card.  I could see a lifetime of stories about my inner journey and wanted to look at it often.  I can't speak to it's technical merit, but it just doesn't matter.

To me, that's art.

Please visit the artist's web page.

http://www.tapawingostudio.on.ca/index.html

Art is not saying anything. He's in a halfway house, on rehab.

 Marzo,  I don't have an opinion about the monkey Jesus but I think your comment is a good example of how 'art'  or what makes good are really is in the eye of the beholder.  It may very well mean something coherent to some people and may very well not offend just like that woman statue didn't mean something to some people and some people found it really offensive. 

 Some are is purposely meant to offend and does or doesn't. Some art isn't meant to and does. Some aren't doesn't do much at all.  One piece can do it all at once if you have different people looking at it.

Whether something is offensive does not determine whether it is art.  As for saying "nothing coherent" - I agree, but the artist might not.  I don't think anyone is claiming it to be good art, are they? 

Well i remember a billboard a couple of years ago at Christmas. No advertising - Just a well done  picture of mary (in blue , of course) holding baby Jesus breastfeeding.

It  read underneath - If it is good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for you.

Obviously, an ad for breastfeeding but I felt that it was offensive art work.

It came down quickly and no one seemed to know where it came from in the first place.

So, yes, in the eye of the beholder.

Art is much very complex.  Many will dislike an image but it is art.

Other images, I have trouble viewing personnally as art.  I remember several years ago an exhibit in the West, forget where, and it was dead rabbits hung on trees if I remember correctly.  I have trouble viewing that as art but.....

At the Ontario art gallery in the top floor there is a large square canvas, painted a sort of blah beige colour.  That's it, just a blah beige square hung on the wall.  Art?  I guess someone thinks so.

Art just came out of the halfway house, and is sober and talking:

Art is a metaphorical expression of something we think or feel to be true.

Because absolute truth is ineffable, we express it metaphorically, and these expressions are art. Ideally, everything we do is or should be art. This is artful living. The natural world is a metaphorical creation by the creative power of the universe. It is the greatest work of art, in which we are, or can be, co-creators.

We might as well be images of the ultimate Creator, co-creating the universe, eh?

Some people think "Velvet Elvis" is art. Go figure!

Ninjafaery, I love the picture! It's interesting that she is wearing the robe of the white man while staring off into the distance.

Well said Arminius.

CHris on Northern Exposure once said:

CHRIS: What's art, Holling, huh? Is it Da Vinci art? Dada art? If you wrap up the whole Reichstag in toilet paper, is that art?

HOLLING: Well, I can't give you a complete definition but I think there'd be something that Maurice would be willing to give good money for.

CHRIS: Yeah well, you're starting to scare me, 'cause if that's art, then I gotta get a whole new gig, you know? Why, what'd he, come down and dump on your work?

HOLLING: Yeah, I only started painting 'cause I had time on my hands, what with the babysitting and all. But the more I got into it, the more I thought, well, maybe I've got a little talent.

CHRIS: Oh, and now you don't.

HOLLING: It was like a bucket of cold ice water being dumped on my head.

CHRIS: All right, you got a very basic problem, Holling. You're confusing the product with the process. Most people when they criticize, whether they like it or they hate it, they're talking about product. Now, that's not art, that's the result of art. Right? Art, to the degree of whatever we can get a handle on, I'm not sure we really can, is a process. Right? Begins in here, here, with these and these. Right? Now, Picasso said: "The pure plastic act is only secondary. What really counts is the drama of the pure plastic act. That exact moment when the universe comes out of the self and meets its own destruction."

HOLLING: Uhhh, well, I'd still like people to like my paintings.

CHRIS: Right, yeah, of course. But the thing we gotta do with you, Holling, is get your ego out of the product and put it back in the process. Unless you don't want to.

HOLLING: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah...

CHRIS: Hey, we're buds. We'll work it out.

 I think the question ought to be about the nature of an artist. I believe an artist -- a painter, sculptor, dancer, musician, writer, poet, multimedia freak, conceptual artist  -- should produce something beyond what is too easily labelled "art" in his or her own place and time: an artist MUST push the boundaries or he/she is consolidating us in our comfort zones: an artist should test us, move us, shake us, rattle us... lead US to new ways of seeing and understanding. An artist must be honest and should be at least half-prophet. 

Did someone mention Northern Exposure? :3

One of my favourite scenes from that show is this one.  Still makes me misty-eyed:

"MORE LIGHT!"

(Art involves the exploration of our inner worlds, which, because we can communicate with each other, has some form of objective existence.  The artist is a 'professional explorer' of these worlds and tries to show them to us)

Just a Self-writing poem,

Inannawhimsey

Amy Lowell said, "Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in."

So, for me, I do not expect all art to be pretty. All artists, like all people, are not beautiful in 100% of their places. Whether reading poetry or looking at a painting, I expect to see a person poured out. A person, whoever they are,  complete with wounds and warts. I expect controversy, rawness, anguish, disgust... I even expect lust and the grotesque. It is part of who the artist is and what they wish to project or wish to exorcise.

Religion seems to be something we desire greatly to personally change or accept it must change... and yet we think religion is somehow off limits. Or that it has to be kept "pure" in some way. Mary breastfeeding Jesus? Well, I would not be offended. I would think "well duh" .. there were no baby formula companies. There were no plastic or glass bottles... no microwaves to heat it at night.... Sheesh, no wonder in our past people thought Jesus could not have come down the birth canal... if thousands of years later we are still troubled about a suckling Jesus!

In fact, Mary is the most frequently depicted breast feeding mother. The oldest image of Mary is in the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome on a wall painting, and Mary is (drumroll).... breastfeeding baby Jesus.

Let each man exercise the art he knows  - Aristophanes (450 BC -388 BC)

Scott McCloud, a comics artist and author of some really great books on the art ("Understanding Comics"(UC) and "Making Comics") gives what I think is a great and somewhat mindblowing account of what art is in chapter 7 of UC.

He says "Art, as I see it, is any human activity which DOESN'T grow out of either of our species' two basic instincts: *survival* and *reproduction*!"

He goes on to make a fascinating argument for his case, which I'm not going to try to faithfully reproduce here because it is brilliantly done (as is all his work in this book and others) in comic format. It is worth checking out though, if you can.

Sorry for not giving you more, but it is kind of hard to convey. Basically he talks about art as stimulation, expression, and discovery. It's a very broad definition, but one worth looking into.

When it comes down to it... if you think it might be art, it probably is, even if you think it is ridiculous. The question is, is it 'good' art?

InannaWhimsey wrote:

Did someone mention Northern Exposure? :3

 

One of my favourite scenes from that show is this one.  Still makes me misty-eyed:

 

 

"MORE LIGHT!"

 

(Art involves the exploration of our inner worlds, which, because we can communicate with each other, has some form of objective existence.  The artist is a 'professional explorer' of these worlds and tries to show them to us)

 

Just a Self-writing poem,

Inannawhimsey

Hi Inanna:

"MORE LIGHT!"—this is what the famous German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe cried out just before he died.

And these, to me, are his most memorable lines from "Faust":

Although I am smarter than all of these,

Doctors, writer, magisters, and priests,

I'm not yet wise, and this is why

I sold to magic my immortal I.

I also remember, from his Tale of the Green Snake:

"Where do you come from?" the wanderer asked the Green Snake.

"I come from the mountains of gold," replied the snake.

"What is more precious than gold?" the wanderer kept probing.

"The conversation."

Are we, here on the Café, having these conversations that are more precious than gold?

Art was Paul Simon's singing partner.

Hey Inanna! I love that scene too... How amazing you found it on youtube! Think I'm gonna have ta watch some Northern Exposure tonight! Ahhhhh.

I'm planning on getting season 5 if I get xmas money this year. It was such a wonderful show. You know I went to Roslyn Wa. where it is filmed three times!

Hi joejack:

The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls—this is Art, with a capital A, eh?

That's part of the mystery, isn't it?  It raises the kind of question I'm interested in.  Is she fleeing or returning?  Is she Metis?

Glad you like it.

"O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore ART thou, Romeo"!  (sorry, it's just what kept coming to my mind when I read the "What is Art" question!

"so, yes, in the eye of the beholder."

Like many things it is yes and no.  The dualism of our age splits that which is not to be split.  Yes art does cause a reaction in the viewer but there is something in the art that does that.  In one sense art is the process of doing not that which hangs on the wall, but hanging on the wall begins another art process - the interaction with the object and the viewer.  There are many meanings, the viewer, the viewers, the object itself, the intention of the artist.  It is the mix that is artful - but one point there is beauty that hides behind and lures every piece fo art.  Thus some art can be judged as not art for it is ugly and creates feelings of uglyness.

Now beauty can challenge - and that is the beauty of art - a moving piece touches us and confronts us- we may not like the message but its beauty caught us.  If were ugly then no message.

Ah the sound of Silence~~~

And of cource, the answer my friend, is blowin' in the wind~~~

What is art?

a man hanging on a wall with no arms and legs?

For me, art is everything that we have created and does not imitate the nature

AND

the pure nature without any influence of man.

E.g. The car is pure art because there is nothing in nature that is similar. Or have you seen an animal or plant with wheels? In addition to that, it is one of the most efficient things we have ever invented. Imagine, we can drive more than 30 ft with approximately one drop of gas.

E.g. the galaxy is pure art because it follows the laws that God has set for our universe. Therefore it is a manifestation of God's omniscience and sense for beauty. I mean, he could have easily made a universe with no galaxies and we would still be okay.

I just finished a contemporary art class, but I will keep my definition.

And yet, Ninja, this was my introduction to Jesus.  My dad was a minister and this was his altar.  I did like the little boat at the bottom though.  I have always loved water and boats.  We had an old row boat at the lake that we called "IF" because it scratched those letters into it's side by rubbing against the dock.  The little boat reminded me of "If" and it is fitting, though I didn't know it as a small child that this would be the name of the boat at  the feet of Dali's, " Jesus".  But, you know the 2 ideas have always stuck together in my mind.  IF and Jesus. 

Elanorgold,

Thanks for the verbatum dialogue.  How did you get hold of that or do you just have a photographic memory.

If I had ever met Dali, and he would have handled my interest for a few minutes, at least, I might have done something weird like asked to kiss the veins on the top of his hand or the tip of his forehead or something like that.  REally, I don't think I'd be able to say much, being from such a different culture, but the man was so well expressed and writers and readers can't help but be awed by a painter who knows how to speak in sentences and make sense of what he/she is saying.

jlin, That's just so neet about If and Jesus. One of those big co-inkydinks in life that makes you go, Whoa!

It's amazing, you can find just about anytning on line. I type in the line I remember clearly, and up pops the whole episode's dialogue, sometimes with pictures too. Fantastic!

I think if you had met Dali, you should have told him about If. That would have stuck with him I bet.

I love this paintning by Dali:

Eleanorgold,

I have never seen that one before, thank-you.