Personally, I enjoy this "definition."  Thanks, Warhol.

Is a "definition" of art ever possible?

 As Wartenberg explains it, “Weitz argues that the very nature of art as a practice makes definition impossible.” Upon reading this and from our in-class discussions, I was lead to question the very definition of the word "definition" itself. According to Merriam-Webster "definition" is, "an act of determining"

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/definition)

(along with many other varying definitions of seemingly the similar meaning)

When it comes to art, certainly it is possible to determine if something is art; but, this can become a complicated, hazy area. As stated in class for example, some may consider cooking an art, but when it comes to frying up onion rings, is it considered art if even one fry cook the world over sees this as an art form? Who and how many people must see/determine something as art before it is actually accepted as such?

Since art is so open--it can range between anything from traditional painting and sculpture to one of the more modern forms of art like graphic design or contemporary dance--it is difficult, or to be more realistic, completely impossible to come up with a single concrete definition of art--at least, that is, without breaking it down into sub genres. As Weitz states, “art, as the logic of the concept shows, has no set of necessary and sufficient properties”—sure making drawings of many kinds requires a pencil or a paint brush, but creating a dance simply requires one’s own body and maybe musical accompaniment; certain types of art have sets of similarities in common, but never will there be even a single thing common across all forms of art. 

How are we to expect to ever define something that is seemingly indefinable due to the fact that it is such a vast realm and is always being altered and added to? Will a single definition of art ever be possible?

Dumbo is an artist?!

For those who are interested, here is the link for the elephant artist I mentioned in class today:

Watch the Elephant Paint

These same Asian elephants in Thailand can paint various other works of flowers, trees, etc. Now, clearly elephants have no 'everyday use' for this nor likely have any innate instinct to create such a thing, so why would they do this?  One may argue it is simply because the elephants are taught to do this for a commercial purpose; but what if, with no audience present, the elephant, having found prior pleasure from painting--pleasure we as humans may not be able to understand because we are not on the same conscious level as elephants--were to pick up the brush and create...would this be a work of artistic aesthetic?  The "artistic" would come out on the physical piece of paper through employment of the physical objects of the brush and the paint; and the "aesthetic" would enter the picture when the elephant finds pleasure in his finished work, and later--perhaps the next morning--when the elephants' caretakers awoke to find this awe-arousing creation.

In my opinion, animals certainly have the ability to make art; it is just that, like with humans, they hold varying levels of artistic talent and create works considered to be art when they learn or are taught how to reach their full artistic potential.

In response to Brycen...

In his blog Brycen asks the question, "Is photography really art?" 

In my opinion, photography is definitely an art form. True anyone can take a photo of anything and try and pass it off as a work of art. And I'll admit that this is not necessarily art. When someone dedicates their life to photography, however, this is a different thing. Oftentimes referred to as fine art photography, this form--more so than any piece of photography, commercial photography or photojournalism--is "created in accordance with the creative vision of the photographer as artist" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_art_photography). When someone has studied how lines and colors of certain objects--significant forms?-- when put together in certain ways can be arranged to create something which creates an emotional reaction, this great art.

Brycen also asks, "if photography is to be considered art, then is real life also art? Is nature and everything around us also art?"

In regards to this, I see nature and real life as a different form of art. An artist of fine art photography sets out to take a photograph of something--whether it be everyday life or something planned--where as nature is simply there and everyday life goes on regardless of planning (if you believe in fate and destiny, then you'll likely agree on this with me; that oftentimes, despite how much we plan, things will happen as fate sees fit). Do you think that this type of distinction is what's necessary to differentiate the everyday and the natural from what makes art?

The Intellectuals and the Masses & the presumptuousness of Bell

In John Carey's The Intellectuals and the Masses Carey states, "Bell’s language figures himself and fellow aesthetes as engaged upon dangerous and energetic pursuits, when in fact they are merely looking at pictures and reading books."

I have to say, that I agree with this statement.  The biggest point in defense of this is that Bell never actually defines art and solves his own question. He simply seems to attempt to bring his readers along through his thought process whilst mentioning works of art--perhaps trying to prove that he is educated?--yet he never comes to any decisive decision. If anything, he tries to put himself on a plane above all those people less enlightened than himself, and repeatedly puts the reader on the spot by saying things like "most people who care much about art," "all sensitive people agree," and so on.  "Great art remains stable and unobscure," Bell says, "because the feelings that it awakens are independent of time and place, because its kingdom is not of this world." If great art is not of this world, yet Bell understands what great art is made of, then is he not of this world? Bell places himself as some kind of god-like, otherworldly figure who is one of the select few enlightened beings who knows all there is to know about art.

Am I wrong to think that Bell is too presumptuous in his philosophy for any of his readers to go along with his reasoning?

The origin of dreams

Freud mentions “that at night wishes of which we are ashamed also become active in us, wishes which we have to hide from ourselves, which were consequently repressed and pushed back into the unconscious.” 

But what about those dreams having no relation to the happenings in our real lives? Does everything in our dreams stand for something we desire? 

Take for instance a nightmare. Clearly, there would be nothing in such a dream that we desire. It may evoke some fear we have, but it certainly is not one of those "wishes of which we are ashamed."

Freud seems to see daydreams as exaggerations of real experience; yet I know I've never actually seen any monsters in real life that occur in dreams. Are dreams not exaggerations, but, perhaps, some form of impressionist art forms? A monster may not be real; but what appears as a monster in someone's nightmare may just be a contorted version of some real person or thing that we fear in reality. 

Looking to art, a dream could be compared to something like Edward Munich's The Scream. It's highly unlikely that there is actually someone who looks like the character in Munich's painting; yet it is a form similar to a human whose characteristics have been distorted to portray something which embodies panic and fear. Or perhaps the forms in our dreams are ourselves, our “split[ting] up [of our] ego by self-observation into many component-egos”--nightmarish forms are just our fears or worries manifested into more comprehensible dream forms. Or maybe, Freud is completely wrong and dreams are nothing more than dreams--what we dream of has no significance to our actual lives.

In response to Christine Pavao...

Christine mentions in her most recent posting, "sometimes, 'improving' a mood by not allowing a 'bad mood' to exist doesn't work.  Sometimes you just need to feel whatever it is you're feeling...People are able to feel a terrible, beautiful, wide range of emotion, so why should we try to pretend otherwise?"

Well, Christine, I'm wholly in agreement with you on this one. When I'm sad, I don't want to listen to a song or watch a movie with a bunch of happy people making jokes; I want to hear an angry song or see a sappy movie with situations I can relate to my own situation, and then cry or scream or do whatever I must in order to experience what I'm feeling, get over it, and move on. Likewise, I tend to stay away from sad art forms when I'm happy; because, it is true, art has the power to completely shift our emotions and take us from a state of utter ecstasy to outright unrest.

As Wartenberg mentions when explaining Sigmund Freud's philosophy, "Feeling a deep need to express unconscious thoughts and emotions, artists create works that...are really the fulfillment of concealed wishes." Freud points out that as humans in such a conservative society, we are always taught and pushed to hold in our thoughts and emotions, repressing those which would, in typical society, be considered humiliating or embarrassing. With art, however, with "the essential ars poetica," we are able to find a place of comfort where we can freely reveal our "innermost secrets," where we can express ourselves (or at least see others express the emotions/thoughts we ourselves are feeling/thinking) "without reproach or shame."

So, my question to all of you, is it better to repress our emotions for the sake of societal standards, or should we express ourselves freely through the medium of art?