Thinking and philosophizing: HOW TO DEFINE ART?

Thinking and philosophizing: HOW TO DEFINE ART?
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All searching for general definition of what is and what isn’t art is a theme full of riddles. At the same time, those exact riddles give the possibility to “acceptably” define it with a help of certain language phrases.

However, as much as the definition is “wisely and nicely” packed, if you think about it, you will come to the conclusion that “something is still missing”.

In that moment, it practically comes to the confirmation of what Kant phrased as “I know that I know nothing”.

None of the great artists sees things in the way they are. If it would be so, he would stop being the artist.

Aristotel


True art has the characteristic of irresistible need rooted in creative artist.

George Bernard Shaw

Really, if that would be so easy then that wouldn’t be art. That would be some craft with defined limits, quality and products.

And that is not possible when it comes to art, because art is free, infinitive, impassable, immortal, humane, absolute, undefined, opened, democratic.

And being without “force”, art is resistant to deconstruction, nationalism, racism, discrimination, lies, manipulations. As such, it is opened for positive man “inside of us”.

Art is never finished- only abandoned.

Leonardo da Vinci

Art is connected with aspiration to perfection and beauty. However, art is the representation of social-political movements, processes and evolution and development of civilization, culture, conscience, moral. Art is painting of historical events. It can be representation of bunt or protest; spiritual, religious or philosophical vision of the past, present, or future.

We usually see or listen to the art; however, that neither that is a complete attribute. Because the smell of the perfume can be also art.

Photography as art is a different story. It took long time for photography to become accepted as art. But it is hard to define what art photography is. Because art photography, as every other real work of art, is not consisted of logic of making one “product”, but illogical state of the artist who creates the artwork.

No matter how much good paint, sheet, camera, objective, light, motive you have; all of that is insufficient for something to be “recognized” as art. And vice versa: if the artist works with the cheapest and most common tools, that shouldn’t represent the obstacle to the making of a real work of art.

There is another perspective that defines what is or what is not art. Namely, for the majority of artists, process of creating is a peculiar state. And for the artist itself that “artistic” state of mind and the product that is created through that “state” is art by itself. That way, the “product” is work of art because it is not created as a part of some standard process; however, even that is not enough for it to be accepted by “the crowd” and to finally get the attribute of a recognized work of art.

To be an artist, to create works of art, to be recognized and accepted as an artist, and to get the possibility to affect “recognition” of what is or isn’t “art”, it takes a lot of hard work. Working on yourself, working on technic, working with material, experimenting, displaying.

Picasso had created over 180 000 paintings and drawings during his artistic life! He only became recognized, appreciated and rich in his late years.

Art takes sacrifice and a lot of renunciation. But the very “fourth dimension” that we mentioned, that every true artist immerses himself into, is the reward for the hard work.

Material reward is connected with factors such as “having luck”, professional marketing, start capital, persistence and all that what is necessary for every other business to succeed or not.

Most of all, the man in “ourselves”.

Hari Maslic, founder of MerisCon ARTfeature and MAGistral magazine