How would you define art?

Art: the transfer of visions from the imagination to physical, preservable reality. Art is the process by which one takes what is lurking in one’s mind and puts it down for all to see. Art is the enticing exposure of oneself. Art is the pressing release of wonderful (often complicated) inside things to the world.

Art is excitement in the most fascinating form.

Then there is all the complicated qualities that differ from one person to the next.

@Spinel how about sculptures, or music, or literature, or etc…

I consider art to be creating something (music, a picture, a poem, a sculpture, a book) so that it may appeal to the senses. So that it may come off as beautiful, pleasing, emotional, deep, etc.

However, just because it’s “art” doesn’t mean it’s “good”. I’ve seen plenty of bad art out there. Likewise, I don’t automatically say that art I don’t like “isn’t art”. It’s still art; that doesn’t mean it has to be good.

@dr34m3r Edited and covered. :)

I have a pet method of defining words. I look them up in the dictionary. If you make up your own definition, and I have mine, and Joe Blow over there has his, pretty soon nobody has any idea what others are talking about when they speak or read.

art /’ɑːʳt/
Synonyms: noun: craft, skill, science, workmanship, knack

arts plural

1—Art consists of paintings, sculpture, and other pictures or objects which are created for people to look at and admire or think deeply about. N-UNCOUNT
...the first exhibition of such art in the West.
...contemporary and modern American art.
...Whitechapel Art Gallery.

2—Art is the activity or educational subject that consists of creating paintings, sculptures, and other pictures or objects for people to look at and admire or think deeply about. N-UNCOUNT
...a painter, content to be left alone with her all-absorbing art.
...Farnham College of Art and Design.
...art lessons.

3—The arts are activities such as music, painting, literature, cinema, and dance, which people can take part in for enjoyment, or to create works which express serious meanings or ideas of beauty. N-VAR usu ‘the’ N in pl
Catherine the Great was a patron of the arts and sciences.
...the Arts Council of Great Britain.
...the Wexner Centre for the Visual Arts.
...the art of cinema. + ‘of’

4—At a university or college, arts are subjects such as history, literature, or languages in contrast to scientific subjects. N-PLURAL oft N n
Antonym sciences
...arts and social science graduates.
...the Faculty of Arts.

5—Arts or art is used in the names of theatres or cinemas which show plays or films that are intended to make the audience think deeply about the content, and not simply to entertain them. ADJ ADJ n
...the Cambridge Arts Cinema.

6—If you describe an activity as an art, you mean that it requires skill and that people learn to do it by instinct or experience, rather than by learning facts or rules. N-COUNT
Fishing is an art.
...the unscientific arts of seduction and romance.

7—Art is an old-fashioned form of the second person singular of the present tense of the verb be.
Father, I know thou art aware of me at all times.

See also Bachelor of Arts; fine art; martial art; Master of Arts; state-of-the-art; work of art

I’m really liking these answers! Very open minded. I hate when people say “I don’t know, but this isn’t art.” Just want to chime in with Andy Warhol’s perspective:

“Art is what you can get away with.”

@ETpro : the question is what do YOU think of art, not what does the dictionary think of art.

Anything you see as something of beauty.

@Holden_Caulfield said what I was going to say. Something you see as beautiful.

Anything that brings joy into my life, even for a second, that is made with passion by a person.

All I know is if you want to get a NEA (National Endowment of the Arts) Grant, it has to include depictions of human naughty bits. Or so it seems.

He’s about yeah high, sports a long beard, and is prone to mumbling. His wife likes him because she says he’s cute. Go figure.

This is a tough one. I say whatever you call art is art.

@princessbuttercup Let’s say we both see an old grocery receipt blowing along in the wind. I declare that ole’ piece of pollution to be “art.” Is the receipt art, then? :)

@ETpro I think your intention not to create a definition might have done just that: ”...I have mone, and Joe Blow over there has his, pretty soon nobody has any idea what others are talking about when they speak or read.” That sounds like lots of people’s experience of art. ;)

@liminal Ha! Good point!

I think something must produce an emotional response to be art.
Otherwise, it is just paint, or stone, or whatever.

Art is anything which transcends the medium in which it is created.

When you look at a painting, you aren’t looking at the canvas, or at the paint, or at the specific colors of the paint. It is a pattern that is greater than its parts; we react to it on a new level.

When you read a book, the “book” disappears. You internalize the meanings of the words and sentences. When you watch a movie, the glass and plastic of your TV disappear.

@Qingu I love that answer.

Art can be something different to everyone. It is something created. Beyond that it is very broad. Someone can live artfully. or speak artfully. I think creation is art.

Art becomes art when the artist says it’s art.

Anything that requires creativity in some form or another to make it.

Art: Emotion in a form able to be physically sensed.

@Qingu – I like that answer too, but I have some problems with it.

The Abstract Expressionists (Pollock, for example) were all about pointing out that a painting is in fact, just what it appears to be – paint on canvas. In fact, nearly every medium has pieces and techniques that call attention to the medium itself – “breaking the fourth wall” in theater, for example.

@Spinel – While I think there’s always something of the artist in a work, I’m uncomfortable with the notion that art is about the “exposure of oneself”. A lot of artists describe their work rather as an attempt to grapple with something they don’t understand, or as an exploration of an obsessive form or concept, or simply as them doing what they do, rather than “expressing themselves”.

@Holden_Caulfield – What if I make art out of shit? Or rotten meat? Is beauty the aim of art? Conversely, a flower may be beautiful, but most wouldn’t call it art.

No answers from me, just prodding questions =]

anthing created in a unique way to inspire others.

@Hobbes, that’s when art becomes… I don’t know, meta-art.

Is meta-art still art?

@Hobbes Self expression wasn’t my intended meaning with that phrase. Self expression that would be a shallow definition. Any art is revealing of what is going on in the artist’s head. What goes on the paper is usually [I can’t think of one exception] something that has been visualized in the mind or thought about. Art gives a window into the artist’s mind…whether they intend it or not.

Hmmm… alright. I’ll agree that is a function of art, but I’m not convinced that it provides an adequate definition, since I don’t think that is the only thing art does.

@Hobbles The Q: “How would you define art?” The above is my definition, with all its “glory” an incompleteness.

Wouldn’t my “Then there is all the complicated qualities that differ from one person to the next” clause cover that?

Well, it’s an impossible question, isn’t it? People have been trying since art started being made, and we’re not much closer. I was questioning you, but I hope you don’t take my criticisms as claiming that you are inadequate in you attempt – I don’t think the question can be answered.

@Hobbes Not at all. Having people challenge my posts makes me think. I’m perfectly fine with your “questioning,” as it is a benefit (feel free to in the future). :)

And yes, the question has many possible paths and doors, a concise definition is an impossibility.

art is a very special thing all of us have art in our mind, in our hart,evry man has his ideas of art, when you feels something special seen beautiful morning that’s art, a song that moves you that is art, evrything is art, you are a special work of art, because you are unique in the universe, like a master work of art, even things horrorus is art, a destruction a volcano is art, all that moves the world is art, I can say a classical definition of art, and maybe you don’t feels nothing but if I say things that make you feel something you’ll realize what is art, because I am a profesor of art and artist with 26 years painting work of art, art is a sentimento no a definition.

@bruno10 Is that tree outside your window art?