"What is art?" is one of the most bizarre questions on the planet. Historically, art has ranged from cave paintings in the Lascaux Caves to the glittering Palace of Versailles. Typically when you say "art" to the average person, a painting is what comes to mind. I personally adore paintings, both modern and classic, but I wish people would think beyond something hanging on a museum wall when they think of art. You can't put a label on art, it's all around us, it is everything.
Lascaux Cave Paintings
Let me take you back to the early 20th century, when the idea of a definition of art was thrown out the window thanks to the Dada movement. The Dada art movement was a so-called "anti-art" movement in which artists rejected logic and reasoning and set out to confuse and offend. One of the most famous pieces of Dada art is Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain," a urinal with a name and a date written on it and nothing more. To this day, people scoff at this work, but I truly believe it is a work of art. Why? Duchamp intended for it to be art, therefore it is. The world would be incredibly boring if the only acceptable art was landscapes and portraits. Not to single these styles of art out, I believe they are beautiful, but they often do not elicit a conversation the way something like "Fountain" would.
Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain"
I understand if Dada is not for you, but there is still a bigger picture to look at. People often want art to be pretty, like a Monet, but it is often dark and has been for ages. Art exists so that we as humans can express ourselves and elicit a response from an audience, an exchange of emotion and feeling. Humans rarely keep happy emotions to ourselves, so it makes perfect sense that artists pour their deepest fears and issues out into their art.
Francisco Goya's "The Sleep of Reason Produces Nightmares"
Art also exists beyond traditional paintings and drawings. Photography is grand form of art. Photography is so important to art that when it emerged in the late 19th century painters panicked, worrying photography would end the art form. We got the impressionist movement, one of the most famous and recognizable art movements, in response to the rise of the photograph. Jumping off of photography, film is one of the biggest art forms we have today, but many people neglect it as such. Filmmakers use movies to express themselves and connect to humanity in the same way painters have, just through a different media. Beyond these forms of art there are countless others: architecture, advertising, sculpture, music, dance, performance in general and more beyond these examples.
Famed photographer Diane Arbus
If the people who make all of these wonderful, profound things believe they are making art, why question it? Art is too vast and complicated to be able to pin down, so let it continue to grow and amaze us all.
