[Phieta]

An acquaintance of mine wrote this.

He's both a flaming {expletive hax0rd by Cspace} and a troll, but I couldn't resist reposting this.

Some hold that the best artwork is the interactive kind, or the kind that's larger than life, like when those foreign people put those orange sheets in Central Park a couple years ago. Sure, some people love the Mona Lisa for some reason, even though the lady is ugly and has no eyebrows. Some go for sculpture, I suppose, especially the Greeks, and the sculptures are rather impressive, but I'm thinking of art on a far grander scale, that requires an artist who is truly dedicated to his craft. I guess art has a kind of broad definition, and it can be different things to different people. Merriam-Webster says that art is the creation of something beautiful, but that's a matter of opinion, too.

Art is only great when it relates to everyone. Because, and I'm not joking here, if you don't see yourself in it, then it doesn't matter to you. Successful (and therefore good, from a utilitarian standpoint) art is the art that can elicit an emotional response.

The most famous modern-day art was by an Austrian painter by the name of Adolph Hitler. His masterwork was called The Final Solution (or its equivalent in German) and it consisted of a series of trains and camps for the sole purpose of killing certain groups of people. It tears people from each other and forces an emotional response that the artist never recieved from any of his paintings. Entire machines and procedures were designed specifically for the most efficient way of killing people. They serve no useful purpose that is not artistic.

We see ourselves in Raskolnikov. We see ourselves in Charge of the Light Brigade. Some of us see ourselves in Harry Potter. Lawrence Ferlinghetti saw in Goya's greatest scenes the people at the exact moment when they attained the title of "suffering humanity." And we can see, in the Holocaust, echoes and whispers of ourselves.

Art, by its nature, is inherently abstract. Defining whether something is or is not "art" is, in turn, an abstract decision-making process. But is it fully abstract? Are there any concrete limits as to what can or cannot be considered "art"?

Secondly: did the above post produce an emotional response in you, and can it be considered art itself?

Discuss.

[Ratty]

Hehe. Godwin's law.

http://xkcd.com/c261.html

[Phieta]

...I walked right into that one. Dammit. >_<

[Neraphym]

Something cannot be considered art if calling it such would pose a threat to your political agenda. You all know who I'm talkin about.

[Aaron]

Good point, Alpha. I personally have a hard time recognizing abstract works as art, but I try to keep an open mind. This is especially hard as a musician. The guy may be playing eighth note roots for the entire song, but he is still a bassist. He may be playing simple power chords, but he is still a guitarist. Those types of musicians don't represent how I approach music, but I must still recognize them as musicians.

[Rohtaren]

i consider the best of art to be art that has been thought about a lot, and the final product looks good too. i personally hate the artists who just build a cube and it is sold to a national art museum for millions. and being a pencil and pen artist, i have almost no appreciation for paintings and other stuff like that. However, paintings that have been painted in such a way that they actually look like a photograph, those are just absulutely amazing.

to get to the point, i do not consider art to be an original idea or a fluke of gravity (aka-laying out a canvas and just dropping a gallon of paint on it).

sculpture and film is also pretty good to, sitting down, thinking about it, and working for long hours to create a visually appealing, or something that makes you think, object equals art for me.

or, heres an equation.

A=st+w(lh)+T

A=art
st=sit * think
w(lh)=work * long hours
T=thought

[©allum]

or, heres an equation.

A=st+w(lh)+T

A=art
st=sit * think
w(lh)=work * long hours
T=thought

I think an equation for art is, to me anyway, counter-art.

[Aaron]

or, heres an equation.

A=st+w(lh)+T

A=art
st=sit * think
w(lh)=work * long hours
T=thought

I think an equation for art is, to me anyway, counter-art.

Touché.

[Zziggywolf5]

I believe art is supposed to intentionally produce an emotion or idea without forcing it onto the viewer by allowing the viewer to make their own judgements.
...
I'll go now...

[Neraphym]

I believe no one has the right to determine what is or isn't art save the artist himself. Think about it this way: If the political party in power got to determine which speech is protected by free speech, couldn't they simply say that their primary opposition's speech isn't really speech and therefore souldn't be protected under the right to free speech? Then they pass laws making sure they aren't allowed to talk ever again. Yup, I'm sure people would love that.

*The previous paragraph contained no references to Hitler, Nazis, or Pie.

[Elvenblader]

That post did elicit a response from me. In terms of drawing out a strong emotion I would have to say no, but it did get me thinking about how The Holocaust was a crime against humanity. The systematic extermination of a people based upon the sole reason whether it be religion, race, ethnicity, heritage etc, is ignorance and prejudice of the highest order. If The Final Solution is an actual piece of artwork I would say that its intent to elicit an emotional response from people would be accomplished. What I do not like about it though is that, artwork even like this was forged through an expression of a man's hatred for a race of people. As controversial as some artwork is, I honestly do not think art itself should be created to express one's hatred or prejudice towards another person.
Sadly though, art in essence is the expression of one's self. Whether it be Van Gogh or Adolph Hitler, we each should be granted the right to express ourselves even through our works.

What defines a work as art is beyond me. A little doodle that could be considered an amateurish drawing or a grand masterpiece like the Mona Lisa. In a sense art is something that appeals to one's senses and interests, but when it comes down to it, art is varies in the eye of the beholder. What is beautiful for one person is ugly to another. Moving on though to art being inherently abstract, I have to say that in a sense that works of artistic talent and skill are created through a right brain approach, but if you look at the various pieces of architecture throughout the medieval times and the renaissance you will see that the architect had to follow a logical and well planned out design according to the blueprints to achieve a masterpiece. The approach was through an abstract process but the discipline, hard work, carefully thought out plans were done through a logical left brain process. Now a perfectly designed piece of artwork such as a Cathedral that was designed according to blueprint, even though the design was not abstract, would that not be considered a piece of artwork? An expression of one's inhibitions to create a design, follow through and actually finish the end product. But I digress, the point I am trying to make is that not all art is an complete abstract decision making process

Onto my last to sum up what I said. Art is an expression of one's ideals, views, thoughts and desires. Whether it be beautiful and controversial or ugly and politically correct. There are no concrete rules as to what is defined as art. Each creation of our expression is dependent upon one's views upon what they deem to be "art."

[Rohtaren]

i imagine photography to be very hard to be considered art... as generally, people don't take a whole lot of thought into that little click.

so, sorry you paparazzi's who might take your thousands of capturings to be priceless... they are worthless images of people that are praised to much by a large population of stupid people who can't see that just because that person was a star in a good movie or was born rich doesn't mean they are a god/godess.

a statue, however... and not a modernistic one, is... because those took a very long time to carve out and get the last details in... true art.

and i think that if you just look at a person... not a computer generated one (normally) you are looking at one of the greatest works of art, life... infact, life IS the greatest work of art.

that is all i have to say for now... except one thing. if you are an atheist, and don't believe in a creator, then tell me what is a greater work of art than life.

there, i'm done for now.

[Neraphym]

My dad is a food photographer. He spends hours on two or three shots. The sheer attention to detail, lighting, texture, etc. is astounding. Granted, anyone can pick up a camera and snap a shot of a piece of bacon and call it art, but my father goes above and beyond that. I think that makes what he does art rather than history.