What is Art?

I have the answer! I know there are thousands of people, academic and otherwise, debating this same question but I HAVE IT FIGURED OUT! It’s simple. Art is something that moves you emotionally. Like an awesome painting or song that invokes some kind of emotional response. But, wait, that’s kind of vague, isn’t it? I mean, humans can be moved by just about anything. A baby smiling, the sun shining, finding that elegant solution to a nagging problem. I mean, I could reasonable argue that just about anything will impact an emotional response on somebody. Okay, so maybe it is all about context! A toilet doesn’t (typically) invoke an emotional response, until it does.  And photography is the process of capturing reality from a particular point-of-view (context) and photography is considered art. Cool, emotions and context define art.

So, wait, does that mean that anything can be art? Even that pile of trash next to that dumpster of there?  That just seems wrong.

After all, a Jackson Pollock painting is indistinguishable from the mess at the bottom of a paint shop floor, so surely Pollock is not an artist?

Okay, this is hard. I know, I will  just will defer to the definition presented by an engineer turned terrible (by his own admission) artist. Scott Adams stated that:

“Creativity Is Allowing Yourself to Make Mistakes. Art Is Knowing Which Ones to Keep”

I like this one. It means that the artist is responsible for identifying art in a sea of not-really-art. A good artist will filter out those items that others (by and large) will agree were the right ones to keep. Seems vague, but it at least  attempts to explain why defining “art” can be so difficult and what makes great artists stand out from the rest.

Good thing we solved that one. No more debate needed! That will free up time to go make a mess.