Lunar Adventures: exploring a little bit of everything

Blog post [Displaying post and comments]

On the definition of art

I’ve been thinking a little bit of late about art and the creation thereof.  The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines art as (irrelevant definitions omitted):

1. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.
2. a. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium. b. The study of these activities. c. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.
3. High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value.

I like the first definition.  It’s not overly dictionary-ish and makes you stop and contemplate.  I think it might be overly vague, though — “supplementing” the work of nature could mean anything.  As an example right off the top of my head, nature sends me my shoelaces untied — well, more specifically, the Nike corporation does — essentially string that is straight.  Am I supplementing the work by tying my shoelaces?  Is an act so common (but decidedly human) as tying shoelaces an art?

I decided to try to come up with my own definition of art.  Feel free to critique it:

Art is the creation of an inanimate being that begets more art.

I’m sure your immediate reaction is “You can’t define the word ‘art’ with ‘art’, you nimrod!  Weren’t you an English major? And how can a being be inanimate?  Isn’t that a contradiction?  You’re a moron.”  And you’d probably be right on all counts.

But, I was also a Computer Science major!  And we computer science majors realize the import and beauty of recursion.  We don’t have circular arguments, we have recursion.  Work with me here.

Many times that I see something that has been well crafted, be it by nature or by man, I feel an urge to try to create my own work.  Not necessarily a derivative or related work, just a desire to use my own hands and mind and create.  You could argue that this desire reflects back on the American Heritage definition, but I’d counter that the desire is one of inspiration, not imitation or augmentation.

For example, when I witness language manipulated in a brilliant way in a movie, or a play, or a book (and language is a decidedly human construction, not nature), I’m struck by a want to integrate said line into a song.  Songs are reflective of nature in their intervals and harmonies, and words can describe nature, but are words themselves the work of nature?  I’d say no.  And their imitation is grounded in the desire to be as moving, not in an attempt to “imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract.”

The recursion then works — because in theory, the art created by the inspiration of other art will inspire more works, ad infinitum.

The other half of my definition categorizes art as an “inanimate being.”  Another contradiction that makes perfect sense to me — art doesn’t breathe, isn’t cellular, etc. but still evolves, changes, and adapts as living beings do.  If you assume that art does inspire art, it even reproduces as beings do.

I’m sure if you tried hard enough, you could easily poke holes in my definition — but I rather like it.  I’d love to hear what you all think!

Thu April 20th, 2006 10:56 pm

Filed under Observations