Just gonna leave this here to get the ball rolling.

"Art (noun): the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power."

That's should provide a decent jumping off point.

I'm going to answer your question with another question Lol: Is graffiti art?

This position grew out of my annoyance at people denying the validity of works or acts of art. And yet, it occurs that a person could use their creative talent and imagination to do or make something, and then deny that the result was art. In this case, an audience may assert that said act or work is indeed art, irrespective of any claim to the contrary made by its creator.

Agreed.

Art is in the eye of the beholder. Those ugly abstract hunks of metal I see on the city sidewalk are beautiful to someone, just not me. I prefer Monet, Renoir, Rembrandt. I agree with your assessment art is basically self expression in whatever form it takes.

I believe beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Art, like love, is a sufficiently complex concept that it is neither fair nor reasonable to shoehorn all its various facets into any single word.

You'd think a language with half a million words and a passion for adding new ones would break complex concepts into distinct terms, but nooooo...a typical english speaker has a vocabulary of 20,000 words, many of which have like 10 different meanings. 🤬

Oh well, it isn't like English is the dominant language in most of the world. Wait, wha? Well fxck me sideways, how does anyone learn this Frankenstein monster as a second language? Most native english speakers barely speak it! 😱🤯

Oh don't even get me started on everything wrong with English. I taught middle school language arts for a short time, also ESL to polish and Spanish speaking students. English makes no sense compared to the other Romance languages like Italian and Spanish.

"other"? English isn't exactly a Romance language, rather it can best be described as German, French, and Latin wearing a vaguely Germanic trenchcoat

Ah, a nibble.

My answer (read: my opinion) is that art is defined by human intent. If something is intended as art, it is art. If it is not intended as art, it is not art.

Interesting points this brings up:

1) If a dog paints a picture, that is not art unless someone trained that dog with the intent that it paint stuff, in which case the fact that the dog can paint is itself a work of art.

2) A sunset is not art. A picture of a sunset taken with artistic intent, is art.

3) A blank canvas presented with artistic intent is art.

4) A beautiful scribbling done without artistic intent is not art, until it is presented as such.

5) A man shooting himself in the shoulder with a shotgun can be performance art, if it is intended as such. (This actually happened.)

Just because something is beautiful does not mean it is art. Just because something is ugly or stupid doesn't mean it's not art. There's an important distinction between valid art and meaningful art. Just because something is art doesn't mean it's worth a damn.

And yes, grafitti is most definitely art.

All good points. I guess what I meant by graffiti is, someone could be vandalizing a public space and call it art. where do we draw the line?

That said, crime is crime. The law takes into consideration intent, but I don't think it'll offer much latitude when it comes to artistic intent.

Perhaps creating art in an illicit fashion is part of the statement being made. In that case, the whole expression is predicated on breaking some law. It won't give them a pass, but it'll offer a rationale.

Reminds me of a comic I read a while ago...I'll see if I can dig it up.

boom

Guerrilla art is totally a thing. Some people assert that the main purpose of art is to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed (although that becomes circular when you think about it). If it isn't pushing boundaries somewhere, it's probably schlock.

Yes, I'd say graffiti is a form of art

Art is what is decide it is. If I decide something is not art then it is not art.

Quaint, but illogical. You could substitute the word art for almost anything else and see the incoherence of your statement. As a seed, I suggest "reality".

I refuse to acknowledge you argument as valid; therefore, by definition, it is not. How embarrassing for you 🤪

Whatever works. You're the only one responsible for the goings-on in your own head.

You're also the only one to whom they hold relevance.

I guess I don’t subscribe to the concept of a universal definition of art. Art means different things to different people and that is ok.

No argument here. It would be the height of hypocrisy for me to tell other people that they have to think a certain way. And though it vexes me, I have to accept that plenty of people view nature itself as art. I myself regard that as a subversion of language, but rules were made to be broken.