Wednesday, May 9, 2007

what makes it art

how do you define art? i usually say it's not art unless it challenges me in some way.
what do think?
is it art?

1 comment:

cheryl said...

Joni Burnell
Well I can just tell you here for now and will still follow your blog in the future... I suspect that most of us immediately think of beauty when we think of art but it's not entirely accurate to do that - because we know that sometimes things that we think of as being ugly can also be associated with art - like a war movie (aestetically done) for example. War is one of the ugliest things known to mankind so it doesn't make sense how a movie about it could be viewed as artistic. I think that what I would say about this is that the reason a war movie can be considered artistic is because the ugliness gives us a deeper sense that life is not meant to be that way. On the contrary - life is meant to be beautiful, and ugliness seems to clarify this for us in a profound way. If art leads us to suspect that life is meant to be beautiful, then it's important to try to understand why beauty matters. Aristotle noted that truth and beauty are inescapably linked and if one studies his writings they will discover his arguments for this hold a lot of merit. He is not the only philosopher through the ages who has argued this point. If art is meant to convince us, through our senses and emotions that life is meant to be beautiful, and if beauty is connected to truth - I'm under the impression that art is that which ultimately points us to The Truth. God. Art leads us, in small ways and in big ways - to God Himself. That's what I think. :)