What makes something art?

[intrestedintrovert]

Hoping to start a debate here,
What makes something art? Does anyone have a favourite artist?

[Selphie_Trabia]

Personally, I like Monet. There's something kinda lovely about the way he uses those colours and that sort of wavering perspective thingy with the slightly unfocused paintings that makes me feel comfy and homey. Yeah, I'm not an art critic.

I think that art is something that captures a moment in time and an emotion from the artist in the picture, music or writing. Something that has a lot of meaning is nice too, but it should also look somewhat pretty or striking or something. Some artists can get way full of themselves and stuff sometimes, I suppose. There are a few paintings here in Australia that are pleasing to look at, but because of one or two details, make them just a total waste of time and money because the artist wanted to make some sort of satirical point in a stupid and literal way.

[MorrisCat]

Personally, I like Monet. There's something kinda lovely about the way he uses those colours and that sort of wavering perspective thingy with the slightly unfocused paintings that makes me feel comfy and homey. Yeah, I'm not an art critic.

I think that art is something that captures a moment in time and an emotion from the artist in the picture, music or writing. Something that has a lot of meaning is nice too, but it should also look somewhat pretty or striking or something. Some artists can get way full of themselves and stuff sometimes, I suppose. There are a few paintings here in Australia that are pleasing to look at, but because of one or two details, make them just a total waste of time and money because the artist wanted to make some sort of satirical point in a stupid and literal way.

As far as classic fine artists go I am partial to Van Gogh.

However Humor, fantasy, comics and animation all can be art in my mind. I understand that some people can only see something as art if it comes from an honest place - like intense personal pain - anything else means you are not being true to your art. I think that is a bunch of shit (or malarkey as J. Biden put it).

"When You Go Out With Artists" by Crash Test Dummies

When I go out with artists
They talk about language and the cubists and the dadaists
And I try to catch their meanings
And keep up with all the martinis
I don't know which should be my favorite paintings

If I could see, if I could see, if I could
See all the symbols, unlock what they mean
Maybe I could, maybe I could, maybe I
Could meet the artists, and get to know them personally

If I were David Byrne
I'd go to galleries and not be too concerned
Well I would have a cup of coffee
And I'd find my surroundings quite amusing and
People would ask me which were my favorite paintings

What if the artists ran the TV?
All the ads would be for fine scotch whiskey:
Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, the whole single malt family

The artists of the future
Will make up new things and different nomenclatures
And they'll stand amongst their pictures
And they'll sing and laugh and quote from scriptures and
When they go home they'll dream of brilliant paintings

So yeah, I am not expert. However, from my point of view: Art (of any sort) needs to evoke or spark a reaction of some sort. I think if it generates no controversy (I.E. conflicting opinions and reactions) some of the more snobby sorts may look down on it. What I like in art is something to engage my imagination or I am not really interested. As an example something like this:

A nice example of French Romanticism, this painting that tells a bit of a story, but leaves a lot for the viewer to interpret or imagine.

EDIT: Okay, I just stumbled across this article... THIS is what I do NOT get as art - I mean yes, it is a pleasant shade of blue but... $44 MILLION? Really? REALLY?!

[Selphie_Trabia]

Good heavens, that is an awful waste of money. That sort of thing was what I meant by being too full of themselves.

I like that painting of a woman.

I'm not sure I class comics as art, but it is at the same time. I guess I class it more as entertainment. But then again, someone has to be an artist to draw it.

Then again, when someone asks me about art, I often just think of paintings. Or Chinese calligraphed landscapes with the willow trees. Or Japanese woodblocks. I know that music and comics are art too, but it doesn't REGISTER like that for me for some reason. I consider them entertainment, but not necessarily art, while still knowing that academically, they are art as well.

Does that sound weird.

It sounds weird.

My brain is weirdly conditions.

[clif]

Hoping to start a debate here,
What makes something art? Does anyone have a favourite artist?

There are several independent meanings of the word art and we tend to blur them together. An art as a skill. Art as artifice (and so unnatural) for example. But in the sense I think you mean, what makes something art is whether someone appreciates it as art. It's in the act of beholding. If you view something as art, even if it was produced by a horse wielding a brush or a mathematical algorithm or a comic artist on too much caffeine at 3AM -- if it speaks to you as art, then it is art.

[HiFranc]

For art, I have simple (and broad) definitions:

Art: Anything that communicates an idea (including objects) and/or emotion.

Fine Art: Any example of communication that still passes on its message(s) after being taken out of its original context.

{edit} As to your second question: I don't have one. What I like depends on what I'm feeling and what I'm interested in at the time.

[tinyapple]

I was at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles a couple years ago or so and they had a photography exhibit. There was one of the sky, which could be cool, but this one had no clouds or anything. It was a blue rectangle. I mean, it was a nice shade of blue, but it was something I could have taken and I'm not really an expert photographer with lighting and composition and such. The ones of fireworks and other things were so much more interesting. If something looks like a giant paint chip sample, it just doesn't seem like art to me.

[Genooo]

To me ''ART'' is the prefference of visualisation of each individual...