The Question | Questions

20 Feb

What makes a creation a work of art? Must it be beautiful? Must the artist intend that the work be art? Must the work be recognized as art in order for it to be art? Here?s one answer from a young philosopher.

Tim

This week’s guest philosopher is Tim, an outgoing, cheerful, energetic, thoughtful, and very talkative 10 year old in Mrs. Pitzer’s 5 th grade class at Hoover Elementary School in Mount Lebanon , Pennsylvania. Tim’s favorite subjects in school are math, science, and writing.

Tim likes to play with his Thomas the Tank Engine and his Legos. He likes to play board games and he is a big Monopoly fan. His family plays the Original edition, the Pittsburgh edition, and the American edition of Monopoly, but Tim’s favorite is the Pittsburgh edition of the game. He also likes to play Rollercoaster Tycoon and Backyard Sports on his computer, and he loves his Gameboy and XBox 360. Tim is a huge fan of Mountaineer sports, and he made it very clear that he does not like Pitt! Tim and I met up in a Morgantown café after the Mountaineers beat Cincinnati . Tim was wearing proudly his blue and gold Kevin Pittsnogle jersey.

Tim also likes to make art.

On to THE QUESTION! I always begin my weekly interviews by sharing a list of juicy, philosophical questions with our young philosopher. Then I ask the child to choose one question to answer. Tim was so enthusiastic that he starting rattling off answers to each question I presented to him! When I asked him to pick one, he grinned and said, ?well?I’d have to say? my favorite is? ?What is Art??. Without much prompting from me, he had a lot of interesting ideas to share. Due to time constraints, our discussion was limited to visual art.

Tim began setting up his analysis of art by listing a few clear examples of art and a few examples of things that are not art. He listed a blank wall in the middle of nowhere, a boring piece of silverware, and my ordinary pen as objects that are not art. He pointed to a painting on the wall of the café we were sitting in as an example of art. I asked him about a blender sitting on a counter across the room. Tim immediately answered that ?it could be art and it could not be art,? depending on the situation. ?Well, I’d have to say that it could be a work of art if it was part of a very beautiful display in a collection of kitchen appliances. If it is just sitting on a counter all alone, with nothing in it, it is just a blender. If I put different colored scoops of ice cream in it, or if I blended some strawberries beneath the pile of colorful ice cream so you could see the black dots blended in the bright red mixture, it would definitely be art.? He quickly returned to his claim about the blank wall. He claimed that even that blank wall could be part of a work of art, ?if it was not in the middle of nowhere, but surrounded by interesting, colorful objects.? Tim went on to explain that any object could be turned into a work of art. I asked him about a roll of wall paper. ?Well, it depends. If it is just sitting there as a boring roll of wall paper, then no, but if it is on a wall, surrounded by other interesting patterns and colors, then it turns into a bit of art, right?? (Obviously, by now, this kid knocked my socks off!)

?What if somebody just splashed some paint on a wall, would that be art?? I asked. ?It depends. If there are a lot of colors splashing in different directions and the colors overlap in interesting ways, creating new colors, then that could look pretty wonderful. That would be art. But if you just dump a blob of brown paint on a table, well that’s not art.?

I asked Tim to consider a situation in which an elephant walked on some wet paint and then walked over a blank canvas, putting painted footprints on the canvas. ?Well that depends. If it is just one color, then I would have to say that’s not art. That’s just footprints on a canvas. But, if the elephant marched over the canvas several times, after dipping his feet into several different colors of paint, it would be art - especially if the different colored footprints overlapped. Lots of overlapping footprints in different colors would look pretty wonderful.?

I asked Tim if there could ever be an ?accidental work of art.? I was wondering, for example, if we’d get art if someone accidentally splashed some paint on a wall. ?It depends. Imagine if a person accidentally hit a can of paint and that can hit another can and that can hit another can, and so on. Imagine that all the paint cans splash on the wall and there are lots of overlapping colors. Well, I would have to say that we would have some art there even if nobody meant it to be art.?

I asked Tim to reflect upon his ideas about art and to express his theory in a definition, if possible. This is a very difficult task. Professional philosophers do this all the time, and it is often quite challenging and time consuming. With rocket speed, Tim put his theory in a nutshell.

?(Visual) Art is something that looks interesting, it is not boring and simple, and it has several colors that overlap.? I asked Tim if this were suitable to use as a dictionary definition. He immediately said, ?I doubt it.? ?We’d have to do a survey and see what everyone else thinks. Everyone has their own idea about what makes something art. I really like overlapping colors, but others might not care a lot about overlapping colors. That is just my idea. I think a good definition would be a lot longer, and it would include other ideas too. We would have to see what everyone else thinks. Probably, there will never be one, simple answer.? According to Tim, theories of art would be best expressed subjectively. What I mean by that is that Tim thinks his theory is not so much an answer to ?what is art?? but an answer to ?what is art to me (Tim)??. As I understand Tim’s view, he thinks this is the best we could ever hope for, since there is not one correct answer to the question, ?what is art??.

Discussing this question with Tim was a total blast! This kid’s a natural philosopher, and one of the most refreshing, logical, interesting, and enthusiastic people I have ever met. Next time you find yourself being dragged down by a cranky comment about the youth of America , remind yourself of Tim Bone!

Art is something that doesn’t answer questions that we don’t want answered.

I relate to Tim’s definition of art and especially the process used to create it. Straightforward. Sincere.

My answer is…art is what ever you want it to be. It is difficult to define the term “art”. Who’s to say what is considered to be art and what is not? Is it a world reknown painter? Or is it a 5-year-old who’s imagination is endless? I believe art is in the eye of the observer.

My reason is…It can mean one thing to one person and mean something COMPLETELY different to another. Some may think that an elaborate fresco is a true work of art while others may think a poem written by student in a high school English class a wonderful piece of art. It’s all about what the spectator feels at the moment of exposure to the piece of “art”.

My answer is…Art is whatevewr you want it to be. It is undefinable. Who’s to say what is considered a piece of art? Is a world famous artist or a 5-year-old? It is in the eye of the observer.

My reason is…Art can mean one thing to one person and something completely different to the next person. Someone may see an elaborate painting as a work of art while another person thinks that a stick figure picture painted by a child as a beautiful piece of art. I believe that it all depends on what the spectator feels at the moment of exposure to the work.

Art does not exist because art is everything, therefore it has no boundaries. If it has no limits then you have nothing to contrast it to. Thus art is nothing because it is everything.

I feel that everything has the potential to be a work of art. Duchamp showed this in 1917 when he displayed a urinal in a gallery that he had signed R. Mutt. Thus my personal viewpoint is that any object or action needs only to be given the label “art” by anyone to enter into the world of art. In other words if someone kicks a rock down the sidewalk, the action is immediately in a potential state of being art. As soon as someone labels it such, it becomes so. Furthermore, I would include in this scenerio the immaterial. Why should ideas not be considered potential art as well? (By the way, everything I just wrote is art.)

Art is a form of expressing oneself, it’s meant to be experienced. Only one person needs to believe it is art in order for it to be consider such. There is an emotional attachment to it for someone whether it be the artist themself or someone who is touched by viewing the piece. There also must be meaning behind the piece. If there isn’t, there’s really no point to it. Some people might say that certain people have to consider something art for it to be such, but there just has to be some cultural value, someone has to find it pleasing, it doesn’t matter who they are.

I believe art, like most poeple in their answers above, is heavily up to the individual and how they think of art. Much like Tim concluded after discussing the blender on the kitchen bench, if something is just sitting there, and no-one has meant for it to be thought about in an analyzing way, then it is not art like that in an art gallery, it is merely an object. I believe that when someone has purposefully made, manipulate or placed something, then it is art as the creater wanted people to notice it. There has to be a meaning behind the ‘work of art’. Lets take the example of an empty room with a light in one corner in an art gallery. Many people would not think of this as art. But I believe that the person who created this had some reason to do so. They had some meaning they wanted to represent and this was the way they chose to show it. Similarly, if a veiwer of any object or marking believes that what they are seeing is art, then I believe it has a right to be called art.

Art is any man-made creation that YOU find beautiful. I think that what one person considers to be art can be considered by someone else to be a horrible creation. Art (like beauty) is in the eye of the beholder. Someone may say to this argument, “well, what if the person is insane and thinks that murder is beautiful. Does that make murder art?” Well, in response to this, I would have to say that if this insane person thinks murder is beautiful, then TO THAT PERSON murder is art. DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT ART IS MURDER!! JUST AN EXAMPLE!!!

I believe that art is anything and everything created by a person that sparks an interest, is something that can be put to use, or really anything we look at. The word “art” seems to have found itself a new definition of being “good art.” This is not the case. Art is the use of skill and imagination. Skill is opinionated as well. A piece of paper alone is art, in my opinion. It took an idea and imagination and skill to make it therefore it is art.

Art is the expression of creativity.

Andy Warhol said it best; “Art is whatever you can get away with.” By this he means that it’s entirely based upon the community or the individual who perceives it to determine if it’s art or not.