Art is what...?

“The attempt to define ‘art’ by specifying its necessary and sufficient conditions is an old endeavor.”
-Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis (Cornell University Press, 1974)

The latter is the opening line of Professor George Dickie’s book where he begins to dive in to the world of aesthetics and art. He said art only as imitation of “something” is far less satisfying after theories of expression broke its hold on philosophical circles. As soon as the ideas of art as expression were explored and eminently expended, philosophers moved on from definitions admitting that there was, in fact, no way to define art as a condition. Dickie believes this is untrue and that there are two relational properties that are available to define art. Dickie attempts to do this by presenting a filtration of prior notions and a further clarification on what makes a “work of art” and what is aesthetics. A work of art, he says, is not to be understood as every aspect of the work but a part in which represents the embodiment of it. Separate from this is its aesthetics which are what make the work “art” through the eyes of the appreciator who’s job it is to experience this material in a new perspective that becomes artistically significant from a typical day-to-day experience with the object. An example given is that of some paintings done by a local chimpanzee. The paintings were displayed at the zoo, however, Dickie contends that these must not be described as art. Transversely, if these paintings were displayed at the local museum they then become art because the action of displaying them in an institution gives them the credibility to be recognized as a “work of art.” So Dickie is basically limiting art to the definition of how the art is treated in physical space and location.

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I have to stop here and comment because although these ideas make rational sense they totally negate the fact that art IS the process. The “work of art” is the product in physical form of that abstraction which is art. I need to freely assert my own un-argued ideas though forward of me to say but, art is all around us, a constant, it exists at every moment, it is everything.  An artist may contemplate how to represent a thought physically before he begins.  However, even if what results is a mindless product, meaning an impromptu creation or improvisation, it is still brought into the physical world as a representation something going on in the brain of the artist at that moment.  Art is not limited to what the artist he himself creates, but rather a perceptual change of the viewer--A moment of enlightenment defined as a new “viewing” of something physical or abstract. This is how something suddenly becomes art. The institutionalization of a “work” makes it art because the intuition itself is a symbol of conditioning for us on how to treat the material inside. Just like, a school is symbol of conditioning that instructs us how to treat the actions inside as the acquisition of “concrete” knowledge.  Its function is a place to learn.  Its presence in the physical world alone signals its function of what it represents according to past human experience.  We "normally" go to a school to learn (in the formal definition of learn). A school could not represent a place for “fine dining” unless a new collective human experience changed our conditioned response because the institution has changed its function; an agreement on the new function of a school.  The same goes for art with the example of a piece of driftwood.  The wood is already art before the person experiences it but it passes into human consciousness as art as soon as the spectator's perception changes.   That piece of driftwood represents something to the person. Viewing an artists’ completed work is an example of perception due to art's open-interpretation. Unless the artist tells us how to view the work we might make our own interpretations on whether it is art or not, what it represents, and how it is affecting us when we experience it.