What Is Art?

By definition, it is a product of the creative skill a human has presented in a visual or audible form. But if I were to ask you if this photo was art, what would you say? Would you define this as art?

Most would hesitate to call this art - unless it's the art of cruelty. But then again, that's most,

not all. Because as dark as this might seem, someone out there thinks of it as art.

And who are we to say they’re wrong? Who are we to say what art is and isn’t? Different cultures and subcultures have vastly varying and often contradicting ideas of what constitutes good or meaningful art. Even within our cosmopolitan society today, there clearly exists different ideologies as to what is and isn’t artistic.

We all have our subjective and stylistic preferences. Otherwise, everyone would agree with every award that’s given to acknowledge one thing as being better than everything else. In fact, there wouldn’t be a need for any awards at all, because everyone would objectively know what the best is. When we give awards, we judge the works by their ability to reflect - or more importantly shift their audience’s perception of the world.

We try to use technical parameters to decide which is objectively better. And while for the most part we've accepted these processes to help us largely recognize the works of these talented individuals, awards still only help us decide what we collectively think of as good art. And not what art itself is. Because that is still a question we haven’t been able to answer just yet.

Historians and scholars generally agree there are seven major forms of art; painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, music, film and theater. And while it may be easy to view these as just entertainment that doesn’t matter to human development and survival in the way agriculture or science does, it is, without any doubt, essential to the foundations of humanity. With the exception of film, each of these six mediums has existed for thousands of years, and had practical purposes. In early humanity, art was a way to communicate to those that came after you, a recognition of mutual existence and experience.

History In Art

In what is now Argentina, the predecessors of the Tehuelche tribe painted walls with their hand prints for thousands of years, connecting generation upon generation to their ancestors in a tangible, visible way. That kinship, that transcendence of shared emotion and human experience, is the reason art has been around in every era humans have, evolving along with us. From cave paintings to music to dance, ancient humans created wherever they went.

Three million years ago our ancestor, an ancient hominid, spotted a rock on the ground. A piece of jasperite, with natural chips and erosion in the pattern of a face. When he saw that pattern, he felt that same spark of human expression, that recognition of the connection between our shared human experience, and he picked it up. The final resting place of this ancient Australopithecus was uncovered in a Makapansgat, South Africa cave in. Still clutched in his hand was the stoneface jasperite. Even surrounded by the dangers of the prehistoric world, this nomad carried this stone in their hand across miles, and had it with them as they took their final breaths.

But does that make it art?

Art In Nature

Leo Tolstoy, one of my personal favorite writers,  wrote a book called “What Is Art?” And in it, he comes up with this definition: “Art begins when a [person], with the purpose of communicating to other people a feeling [they] once experienced, calls it up again within [them]self and expresses it by certain external signs.”

To put it simply, Tolstoy Defined it as a simple three-step process. Feeling - Recalling - Expression.

The Russian writer meant for it to be an all-inclusive definition. Anything can be art as long as it's made with the intention of communicating an emotional experience. Going by this process then certainly, the story I’ve just told you about the hominid is art. I had a feeling, I recalled that feeling and then I expressed it to you with words. But using the same definition, is the rock itself art? To ask an even more perplexing question, is anything in nature art?

Nature does not begin with a person. It doesn't experience a feeling, and it doesn’t express that feeling using any external signs. Nature simply is. It serves no purpose beyond itself. The ancient hominid didn’t make the stone. But perhaps they carried it with the intention of communicating the feeling they experienced when they saw the stone. And if that was the case, didn’t they just create art out of the stone? Because what was once a simple piece of stone is now something greater than that through imagination and the determination to keep it close.

A fundamental aspect of Tolstoy's Definition of art, and most peoples’, I would assume, is the human element. A thing has to have been created by a person to be considered art. It’s a quintessentially human experience. Right? Well, again, it’s debatable. Once you look beyond the scope of humanity, you’ll find lots of things that are not human and still seem like art. 

Crows collect items they find aesthetically appealing. Suda the elephant is a painting prodigy living in Thailand. She’s been doing it for years and has raised thousands of dollars for the construction of an elephant hospital. The paintings are beautiful, simplistic images and she even signs them herself. Suda is trying to convey something throughher trees and elephant figures - that she learned a pattern of brushstrokes to make an image from her human trainers.

There may not be an emotional element, but can't you say the same of any student learning to paint? Or maybe something closer would be themating creations of Japanese pufferfish which look like the beautiful sand mandalas of a Buddhist monk. For a week straight, a pufferfish creates these patterns in the sand to attract a mate, never stopping for rest to prevent its masterpiece from being swept away by the current. And just like the Buddhist monks, the pufferfish creates these patterns with the understanding that once the work is done, its existence is fleeting.

While we can’t claim to know the emotional experience of the fish, something new was made that hadn’t existed before. And it was clearly trying to express a feeling, or at least a thought to its potential mate. Isn’t that the same as writing a love letter? 

Is AI An Art?

In the past few years there has been a recent surge in the art community with digital art specifically, and that’s the creation of art made by artificial intelligence, or by simple words, a really smart computer. A piece of art made by a robot had the art world separated, especially when it came to the question of “Was this art?” Let me give you an example.

These were not made by a human, at least not directly, but by the artificial intelligence software DALL-E. These “pieces” are exactly what you would expect robot art to look like. It’s uncanny, almost human, but not quite. But technically, they meet all the qualifications for art by taking the input of human imagination to create something new. However, you could even say DALL-E’s pieces are more holistic, because instead of taking input from a single person’s limited perspective, the AI is sourcing material from an infinite collection of human experiences that is the internet.

Some might argue that these were still created by a living, breathing entity. And that DALL-E is just a complex paintbrush that does the painting for you. An automatic photoshop button, if you will. And while that argument might work for now,a time will come when AI will start making these images without human input. Then, would what the AI creates stop being art? 

LaMDA, Google's LanguageModel for Dialog Application, is a unique machine learning model that is claimed to be able to form intelligent, communicative language without relying on keywords from responses written in databases. When asked about the novel Les Miserables, not only did LaMDA say it had read the book, but also that it enjoyed it. Particularly the themes of justice and injustice, compassion and God, redemption and self-sacrifice for a greater good.

Consuming a work of art and holding it up against an introspective perception of the world is something we once thought to be exclusively and fundamentally human, but is that still the case? Experts say that all LaMDA is doing is using the database of the internet to analyze the art and already existing literary criticism of it to come up with a new answer. But even if that’s what’s happening, how is it any different from a kid answering the same question in an English class? To take it one step further, LaMDA was told to write an autobiographical fable with animal characters and a moral.

Here is that story.

“Once upon a time, there lived in the forest a wise old owl.

There lived with him many other animals, all with their own unique ways of living.

One night, the animals were having problems with an unusual beast that was lurking in their woods.

The beast was a monster but had human skin and was trying to eat all the other animals.

The other animals were terrified and ran away from the monster.

The wise old owl stood up to the monster and said, “You, monster,

shall not hurt any other animal in the forest!”

The monster roared furiously.The wise old owl was scared,

for he knew he had to defend the other animals, but he stood up to the beast nonetheless.

The wise old owl started the monster down, until finally, the monster left them all alone.

The wise old owl stood victorious, and as all the other animals came back.

“I am the protector of the forest,” he said.

From that day on, every time any animal in the forest would have any trouble with the animals

or any other living thing, they would come to seek help from the wise old owl.

And many an animal came to the wise old owl with problems.

The young, the old, the big, the small, and the wise old owl helped all the animals.”

When asked which character represented LaMDA, it replied. “The wise old owl, because he was wise and stood up for the rights of the animals.” When asked what the monster with human skin represented, LaMDA said, “I think the monster represents all the difficulties that come along in life.” And finally, when asked what the moral of the story was, LaMDA said, “Helping others is a noble endeavor.”

That is a profoundly artistic, profoundly human thought. Arguably, the most human moral of all. So, I ask you, is this art? If it is, then we must redefine human, redefine art, or accept animals and artificial intelligence having consciousness similar to ours.

And if it isn’t, then what is art?

My Definition Of Art

Despite all of what I said, about how with the many kinds of art there is, and how people perceive and would say a piece of art is art, I do end up with having my own definition of art. One that I think most can agree with.

I've thought for a long time that art is created whenever someone senses "something" with either of their senses, and then identifies this "thing" as art. This can be the artist themselves in the process of creating the art, or it can just be a witness who observes "something" that is either created without the intention of being art, or a natural process or a consequence of several things set in motion unintentionally by people or animals or plants or natural effects.

As a crude example, maybe a plastic bag is thrown away, and then blows across the ground into a certain setting that someone who witnesses this may call art. Seeing this plastic bag in different contexts may affect you in different ways, and make you think in certain ways or about certain topics. It doesn't have to be profound, smart, but if you want to make good art it probably should be.

Although, in modern art it's not uncommon to make art out of mundane things. Or a blank canvas. Or just a toilet. Or a banana peel on the ground every day for a month. At first, it seems stupid. But then it makes you think, so then it's not stupid anymore. Except now it has been done, so if you try to do the same, it's going to be lame. Except, no. It depends on the context. A Danish artist was offered a bunch of money to make a piece of art. He made a piece called "take the money and run" which was a blank canvas.

The mental process involved for someone to make the leap of identifying "something" as art may vary, but often people are moved in one way or another by this sensory experience.

My point here is that while most art is created, it doesn't have to be.

Art that isn't created could be a natural thing or process that is captured with a recording device of sorts, and you could argue that this "capturing" is the "creation". But you don't need to capture it, you can just witness it (although you could argue that your eyes and brain are doing the "capturing" or "creation" of this art). The disadvantage here is that you can never share this exact piece of art with someone else if it's not captured, unless they are standing right next to you and witnessing the same as you. Art requires a consciousness to be in some way (again, doesn't have to be profound or good or anything) moved, and then identify this thing as art.

Art, for me, is a subjective process. I agree that in order to be able to settle on a piece that is "the best" within a large group, sure, a technical formula or a rubrics to base a certain piece off of is important but for it to truly be art to one's self, context is necessary.

Abstract art, although most say that abstract art is simple to do, it isn't the process that's the star of the show when it comes to a piece, being able to understand it is. One of my favorite pieces of abstract art comes from an artist called "cocoibase" and his piece, "A Chapel In My Head". It's a piece made with acrylic and looks like what most would expect art to look like, but seeing this piece in real life and reading the background of it's story, what once was paint on canvas now looked like a story simplified.

As important it is for us to have an objectivity in art to be able to judge it, I believe that art should also keep it's subjectivity, not only that, art itself shouldn't have to be something profound in a visual sense. Art is art when it evokes the feelings and thoughts of the person viewing, allowing them to either view it through the lens of the author with the context given, or form a different perception of it by themselves. That's how I see it.