What is Art? Baby, don't hurt me

[Tamara-B]

In elementary school, my definition of art was pottery, crayons, paint, and color pencils with construction paper.

Dictionary.com defined art in a few ways:

1. The quality, production, or realm, according to aesthetic principles of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary value

2. The class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria

Wikipedia defined visual arts as " the cover of creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media"

Fast forward to college and my views are in many different areas on what art is.

I recently posted a blog post about the late Thomas Kinkade and Francesca Eastwood.

19-year-old Eastwood, daughter of movie mogul Clint Eastwood, came under fire last month for destroying a Birkin bag, reportedly worth $100,000. Her photographer boyfriend, Tyler Shields, took a picture of Eastwood biting, chainsawing, and setting the bag on fire. She received death threats, angry insults, and disgust from the public for, in their eyes, wasting money when people all over the world are struggling. Shields defended it as art.

54-year-old artist Thomas Kinkade sadly died of an Alcohol and Valium overdose in April. He proclaimed himself the "painter of light" and his works are known for their pastel colors. His paintings consist of gardens, homes, buildings, streets, Disney World, and churches. I've seen many of his paintings and think they're beautiful. However, not all believe so.

My blog post about Kinkade had to do with his widow and live-in girlfriend battling in court over the late artist's estate. I expressed that it was impossible for a girlfriend of only 18 months to go up against a wife of 30 years and a mother of his four daughters.

I assumed readers of my post would react to that subject, but a whole different discussion arose about the quality of Kinkade's art. Someone said "the people that loved his art were the likes of the conservative republicans who wouldn't really know art if it them on the butt!"

Kinkade has been called the "George W. Bush of art"

A blogger described Kinkade as "a painter of fluffy patriotic scenes" and his paintings as "too patriotic and sickeningly pretty"


I think art can be the strange, bizarre pictures I see in art museums, a child's birthday cake, an outfit put together by a stylist, a first grader's finger paint that he or she made in art class, a hairstyle, tattoos, a bedspread, or pictures posted on instagram.

So, dear readers, my question is simple: what is art?

[If_I_Loved_you]

In elementary school, my definition of art was pottery, crayons, paint, and color pencils with construction paper.

Dictionary.com defined art in a few ways:

1. The quality, production, or realm, according to aesthetic principles of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary value

2. The class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria

Wikipedia defined visual arts as " the cover of creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media"

Fast forward to college and my views are in many different areas on what art is.

I recently posted a blog post about the late Thomas Kinkade and Francesca Eastwood.

19-year-old Eastwood, daughter of movie mogul Clint Eastwood, came under fire last month for destroying a Birkin bag, reportedly worth $100,000. Her photographer boyfriend, Tyler Shields, took a picture of Eastwood biting, chainsawing, and setting the bag on fire. She received death threats, angry insults, and disgust from the public for, in their eyes, wasting money when people all over the world are struggling. Shields defended it as art.

54-year-old artist Thomas Kinkade sadly died of an Alcohol and Valium overdose in April. He proclaimed himself the "painter of light" and his works are known for their pastel colors. His paintings consist of gardens, homes, buildings, streets, Disney World, and churches. I've seen many of his paintings and think they're beautiful. However, not all believe so.

My blog post about Kinkade had to do with his widow and live-in girlfriend battling in court over the late artist's estate. I expressed that it was impossible for a girlfriend of only 18 months to go up against a wife of 30 years and a mother of his four daughters.

I assumed readers of my post would react to that subject, but a whole different discussion arose about the quality of Kinkade's art. Someone said "the people that loved his art were the likes of the conservative republicans who wouldn't really know art if it them on the butt!"

Kinkade has been called the "George W. Bush of art"

A blogger described Kinkade as "a painter of fluffy patriotic scenes" and his paintings as "too patriotic and sickeningly pretty"


I think art can be the strange, bizarre pictures I see in art museums, a child's birthday cake, an outfit put together by a stylist, a first grader's finger paint that he or she made in art class, a hairstyle, tattoos, a bedspread, or pictures posted on instagram.

So, dear readers, my question is simple: what is art?

We all know that Art is not truth.  Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand.  The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.  ~Pablo Picasso

[CharleyNovember]

Art is what you as an artist create. Maybe individual viewers don't get it, or understand it. Hell Maybe only the artist gets it, but it is still his creation and his expression of something in his inner self and his soul.

[Adam W]

What makes something art is the intention of the artist. It's not up to society to decide if something is or isn't art - that's down to the person who created it.

Whether or not it's any good is a separate issue.