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Sarah Hammaker

What is Art? Asking a person to answer the question, what is art? seems similar to asking someone to fill a bottomless pit, or for a bulldog to chase its stubby little tail until he catches it a laborious task with no means to a finish, and maybe, no purpose to a finish if life will go on whether it is achieved or not. We can still create and enjoy art without knowing exactly what it is. But knowing, or at least speculating about the essence, purpose, and effect of art leads way to genuine awareness of our true human abilities. It allows us to recognize our capabilities for creativity and grants us opportunities to leap over the boundaries we already know. Art is not a mystery to our instincts and has been necessary to our existence since the stone ages. However, our minds have trouble translating the instinct into concrete ideas and words. After some outside research and accounting of my own experiences, I believe that art is aesthetically pleasing form created by humans to serve a certain purpose in the lives of others or themselves. First of all, the word art serves against its own meaning. Art itself- the entire encompassing idea and concept of it- holds so much more significance and necessity in our lives than the word art does. In the reading, Man Creates: In His Own Image, we read that he made objects in beautiful forms, although he did not know he created art. At the beginning of human existence, the English language did not exist, and does now as a means to communicate our life experience. That does not mean that it matches up perfectly. We see this more clearly when comparing language among different cultures. For example, in English, people use the word artistic to describe a person who expresses themselves

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Sarah Hammaker

eccentrically, seems more creatively adventurous, and is outwardly a free-spirit type who expresses themselves however they feel. The Chinese language however, does not contain a word that describes this type of person. However, they use a word called shi g that describes a person who is worldly or scholarly, well-rounded, and educated, whereas English does not contain a word for this. However, this does not mean that a shi g type person does not exist, or is unimportant to people who speak the English language. Or that art is unimportant to Chinese- speakers or the Chinese culture. In fact there is very much amazing, wonderful art from China and many shi- g type people from English-speaking countries (Aronson, 83). The meaning still exists without the specific word. Therefore the concept of art is much more than the words definition. That being said, first of all, art is aesthetically pleasing form. Form is the vehicle of expression, allowing the creator to portray what they think or feel, and the viewer to experience this. In the article, What is Art? by Shelley Esaak, the ending piece called Art is form and content by Dr. G. Hampton, we see how important both form and content are in tandem with art. Without the form, the viewer cannot even begin to guess the background, or meaning of the piece, but the form needs a reason to be produced and therefore, needs content. However, form is the most direct avenue between the psyche of both the artist and the viewer, and sometimes the content is unclear, or even unknown to the artist or viewer. Therefore knowing the content is not necessary for an art piece to be perceived as art. Artists produce form by combining the elements of art which include line, shape, form, space, texture, value, and color in visual art, rhythm, pitch, volume, etc. for

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Sarah Hammaker

music, and speed, movement, rhythm, etc. for dance. The elements are the building blocks of each art piece and the way these elements are linked creates the beauty, or aesthetically pleasing (Esaak) aspect of the piece. Beauty, or aesthetic pleas(ure) is an important element of art itself and gives it its subjective quality because people find beauty in different things. For example, some people would find beauty in a painting of a horrible bloody war scene, not because the scene evokes feelings of peace or happiness that people normally associate with beauty, but instead because it portrays the emotions and horrors that occurred at that time, and the person perceives the ability itself to feel those same emotions as beautiful. In this case, the perception of beauty is related more to the content of the work. Other people may perceive only the form as beautiful if the artist uses the elements particularly harmoniously. Other people may simply find the painting horrible, in all senses and constitute it as a bad work of art, or maybe write it off as art at all! Beauty is subject to opinion. At the same time, art can be beautiful, but not all that is beautiful is art. There are the arts which encompass the many different forms of creative expression for humans, and they are all included. In the book, Beauty and the Soul, the author, Piero Ferrucci, lists examples of what many of his patients find beautiful, such as crushed soda cans that lie on the street (19), the Adriatic Sea (20), or even in watching a person take their last breath on their death bed (35). However, beauty does not indicate art.

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Sarah Hammaker

Therefore, the last important aspect of art is its relation to, and creation by humans. We could look at a tree and call it beautiful, but it would not be art because it was created through natural processes, not through the minds conceptualization of how elements fit together to fabricate a whole. We could think of it as art if we look at it as a higher beings creation, however that still grants a human element to the theory. If someone takes a picture of, paints, or draws a tree, accentuating the parts that the person finds beautiful, that is art because the person is using their intellect to connect their vision with the environment, therefore providing other people the opportunity to see their vision as well. The author of Why do Humans Create Art? expresses that Whether in music or architecture, literature, painting, or sculpture, art opens our eyes and ears and feelings to something beyond ourselves, something we cannot experience without the artists vision and genius of his craft. The artist must use his knowledge of the basics- the elements of art- to combine them in a way that is beautiful and shows their perspective. In other words, art artificially portrays authentic emotions and experiences which people can relate to. Art also interconnects all humans. According to Leo Tolstoy, author of the essay, What is Art?: Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of mans emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same

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feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity. This quote is very specific in that it maps out everything that art is not, leaving only space for what Tolstoy believes it to be. I disagree with part of this quote. The idea of art being a union among men seems very accurate but the remaining effects of art in the quote should not be demeaned to make way for this one idea. Art is pleasure to some people, and a way to express pent-up emotions. It provides a means for people to express what they think about lifes mysteries. But in this expression, we then connect with people as we communicate our ideas into a physical form. This shows how form follows function. When humans create art, they create it for the purpose of portraying their own perception. For example, The Venus of Lespugue and the Venus of Willendorf statues both show how the people who created them viewed women and wanted other people to see this idea. The people in this culture probably did not even know other cultures viewed women differently, but this was their perception and now, thousands of years later, we know how these people viewed women, and possibly how other aspects of their culture worked. We are connected to these people. On the other hand, the fanner basket is a piece of art that served a more concrete function of removing the outer shell from rice grains. This is art though because people used specialized techniques to create aesthetically pleasing baskets that worked efficiently. This art connected people in the way of providing service for the slave using the basket, and further down the line, everyone selling, buying, and eating the rice.

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Sarah Hammaker

Art serves many purposes in the world whether it be to contribute to the artists welfare, the viewers, or to millions of peoples perspectives one thousand years into the future. According to Elbert Hubbard, author of Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers, Art is not a thing it is a way, meaning that art cannot be defined as a noun, or even a verb itself, but is more like a pathway to mounds of possibilities. Art leads to things instead of remaining static and inflexible. It allows for change in a life, a mind, and the world. It offers endless creation, enchantment, and wonder to everyone; never to cease.