What is Art?

The answer to this age old question is elusive, and may best be answered in the same vein as the Supreme Court once answered the question of how to define pornography, namely that they knew it when they saw it. Never mind the image of old men sitting around in robes viewing pornography, but the definition of art is much the same, it's something that you know when you see it, or listen to it, or simply experience it and take it in. It is subjective, beauty and appreciation being in the eye and ear of the beholder. One man's trash is another's treasure. So with the caveat that any attempt to define art is subjective and at the whims and value judgements of the person making the attempt, here goes such an attempt.

Often it helps when trying to define something nebulous to compare it to something that is easier to recognize and label, so I will look at entertainment. Entertainment occupies our minds and our time, it is a pleasurable way to pass the time, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that. As one who admittedly partakes in reality TV from time to time, not to mention more hours watching sports than I can count, I am certainly not high brow nor opposed to entertainment for the sake of pleasure. In addition to the aforementioned examples, I would count pop music, most but not all TV, and reading the newspaper and magazines, as well as much popular fiction and non-fiction as entertainment. I spend most of my non-working time taking in entertainment, and not nearly enough taking in true art, as I would imagine most people, or at least those that admit truthfully to such things do. Entertainment is healthy, it is a relaxing and pleasant way to pass the time. Often after a long day out in the world it is nice to simply come home and plop down in your Archie Bunker chair and read the evening paper, put on a ballgame, or catch up with the latest episode of American Idol or Survivor.

Art is entertainment plus so much more. While it certainly occupies the mind and passes the time, it also makes you think and feel. Art, whether it be music, movies, plays, literature, poetry, TV (yes there is art on TV, as any fan of Six Feet Under or the early years of the Sopranos can attest), or paintings and sculpture, makes you consider the world and your place in it, your relationship to different aspects of it. Art makes you feel alive, makes you keenly aware of your being human, and of your humanity. Art speaks to us in ways which we don't always understand, and that mysteriousness and inability to define is part of its beauty, and the beauty of life. Art doesn't usually offer answers or solutions as much as it poses questions and issues to ponder. It has been said that art imitates life, but maybe it's really the other way around. I can't define it with any real clarity, I don't always know it when I see it or hear it, but I do know that I love it, and when I get some I want more. I want to soak it in, consider it, and become a part of it. In that sense, it is just like life.