What is Art?

In my opinion, creating a definition for the word "art" is inappropriate. Simply defining what can or can not be art would be an injustice to the entire world of past, present or future art. One of the many things that makes art so great is that there are no boundaries as to what art can or can not be. Whose to be the judge of whether or not something is art? Just because one person feels that something is not art, that doesn't mean that somebody else thinks it to be a masterpiece. My personal feelings for what the definition of art is agree with the statements that Thierry de Duve proposes in "Art Was a Proper Name". De Duve states that as human beings we still have not truly created a good understanding of the limts for the definition of art. He even argues that it is impossible to come to an accurate conclusion of what art is when he states on page 11 of "Art Was a Proper Name", "In other words, you will have to identity the properties that are common to all the things called painting, music, literature, and so on, then isolate the properties common to all the arts taken together, and finally eliminate those properties which are also present in things not called art at all. Arduous, interminable, it is a task that is also probably in vain. For even if you reached the conclusion, for example, that the presence of pigment on a support is the criterion identifying the members of the class of the painted things, this would not separate paintings as works of art, from all the painted things that have no claim to the name of art. Thus, you must discover the criterion that all subclasses composing the class of art-things have in common and that simultaneously discriminates art in general from non-art." This passage of de Duve's emphasizes that he believes there to be no true definition for the word "art". This statement of his also perfectly sets up his conclusion of what art is when he states on page 12, "art is everything that is called art...".


My most memorable experience with art took place in December of 2005. For the past year in my fine arts classes in high school I had learned about the properties of surrealism. During our unit on surrealism, we were asked to research an artist and then present to the class his styles, methods, works of art, and anything else interesting about the painter. I researched the famous surrealstic painter Salvador Dali. Through researching the artist's works of art I fell in love with many of his paintings, especially "The Hallucinogenic Toreador". I enjoyed how Dali was able to put together such random areas of painting and was still able to create a flawless composition of vibrant color that stayed true to his nature as a human. Later that school year, our art class took a field trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art because they had the largest exhibit on Dali anywhere in the world on display at the time. The show had pieces of his work from the begining, middle, and end of his career that had been gathered from different galleries all over the world. I loved the display of his artwork so much that I ended up going back to the exhibit a second and a third time. It was truly amazing, but each time I left the exhibit i still felt empty inside because my favorite painting, "The Hallucinogenic Toreador" had not been on display. Then finally in December of that year I was on vacation in Tampa, Florida with my family. While in Tampa, I made it a priority that we visit the Salvador Dali Art Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida because I knew that the painting would be on display there. Upon seeing the 13 foot by 10 foot masterpiece my face lit up. It was even better seeing it in person than I could have possibly imagine. I was in complete shock that I was finally able see my favorite painting in person that I stood in front of the painting staring at it for 10 minutes while narrating all the facts that I had learned about Dali to my less than thrilled parents.