ROYGBIV

Yuane Kobe Bernardo

John Raymart Cinco

Karl Angel Echano

Louis Gabriel Noble

Alphonse Rossaint Sambrano

Audrey Velasco

Long Exam 1

After having read the article “Definition of Art,” ​outline the various definitions by taking into
consideration the major concern of each key concept in relation to art, and at the same
time, examine the limitations of each defining concept. The following are your guide
questions:

1. One key concept mentioned in the article is “representation,” and/or “imitation.”

The Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, offered the concept of “mimesis” in
dealing with poetry and performance. How do these concepts- representation,
imitation and mimesis- define art? These concepts (representation, imitation and
mimesis) define art. Consider the Gustave Courbet painting “The Stonebreakers”
below; in what way that this work exemplifies mimesis or representation?

For Plato and Aristotle, imitation or what they termed as “mimesis” is what
defines art. For them, art imitates reality. In the painting, “The stonebreakers”, what the
artist is imitating are two peasants breaking stones. In Plato’s view, this work of art may
be seen as an imitation or a depiction of actual people working. It is what the artist see, so
it is what the artist paints. On the other hand, given Aristotle’s view, what this art must
imitate is something universal. Thus, this painting imitates society, particularly the life of
peasants, but this does not show that peasants are all stone breakers. What this painting
imitates is how peasants work for their living.

What about your ‘selfie”? How would you characterize it?

Selfie, or in general photography, recreates a scene from reality perfectly, in the

sense that it captures every little detail of a scene. With this, it is art as it imitates a scene
from reality and may be characterized as a work of art simply by this reason if defined by
Plato’s definition. But in contrast, Aristotle’s definition may differ because in a snap, a
picture can be taken without further thinking so it is a random imitation rather than “good
art”. Aristotle stated that a mere, straightforward copy of the material world is an
example of a “bad art”. A thoughtlessly done selfie - that is, nothing more than a snapped
digital copy of one’s physical image - cannot be considered as a great art, no matter how
 much it resembles the subject. In imitating the external world, we are not only creating a
direct copy of it, we are also creating a new way of observing and analyzing the world
around us. Therefore, for Aristotle, good art must be carefully thought out and all details
should fill up the big picture.

2. If art is defined as representation, does it take into account other art forms like
instrumental music or the so-called abstract art, like the painting below by Wassily
Kandinsky?

Art defined as representation does not take into account abstract art forms or
instrumental music. For mimesis, only those that attempt to recreate nature, society, or
human form and action are considered as art. While abstract art may play a representative
role (based on the color theory, historical/cultural appropriations, etc.), it leans more on
expressionism and appeals to the emotional response of its audience, while instrumental
music, to the formalists.

3. Art as “expression.” Among the key concepts, this is likely the well-known
dimension of art. You hear people say, “I paint (or dress) this way to express
myself.” How does ‘expression’ relate to the artistic process, in general, or the
artist, in particular? How does this compare with art as representation?

Art as expression relates the artist’s moods and emotions, and overall, self, to the
painting, their psyche. Expression is an act of materializing the vague concepts that exist
inside. To express yourself is to describe yourself. By doing so, one will express himself
through the things he can fully display his message to his audience. In a way, it is like art
as mimesis, but in reverse, as subjects from the world of senses are in their materialized
state, then liquefied into a piece of art work, while art as expression starts off as a
concept, then takes shape in the artist’s work of art. Like for example, if an artist feels
sad, his artwork may contain blue or dark shading with solid lines, compared to when he
is feeling happy or tense in which his artwork may contain warm and zigzag lines. It is a
subjective definition of art and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense. This is in
contrast with art as representation since the latter looks outward and attempts to recreate
something from the outside world, and there is only one perfect representation of that
outside world that all artworks aims to recreate.

4. If art is framed from a formalist perspective, how is it viewed or defined from this
standpoint? In the article, the art historian Clive Bell mentioned the notion of
“significant form,” what composes form, then. For example, consider the three
artworks below:

Art as formalism looks at art, not as a representation of anything, but as art itself.
Formalism focuses on the form of the art rather than its narrative content or its
relationship to the real world. From the formalist perspective, the paintings presented
were to be criticized or appreciated based only on its forms such as the line, shape and
 form, color, space, and texture. Art from a formalist’s perspective, is independent of its
artist and should stand up for its own. For Clive Bell, the notion of significant form is that
the form itself conveys emotions.

What similarities and differences do they share as to form? Is Bell’s

characterization, applicable to all art forms, like folk arts, sculpture, architecture,
and the like?

The three paintings share a similar significant form in the way that they share
similar emotions through the combinations of the lines and colors used. We can say that
the three artworks shown speak of maternal love, even without knowing about the artists
behind them. The curves of the lines used shows the love and care of the mother to their
children. The combination of the colors shows warmth and makes us feel nostalgic for
our mother’s love. They all feature a woman accompanying a child in close proximity -
the child being presumably theirs, painted in warm tones against a cold-toned
background. In terms of techniques used, the painters utilize pastel or oil paint in a
canvass as their medium with almost the same brush strokes or handling lines and shapes.
they differ in a way that these three paintings were created by using the different color
palettes or the color schemes. It is also notable how the art works do not include any
blunt edges in them. Bell’s characterization may be applied to any kind of artwork, as
long as it has a form, and it even surpasses the boundaries of visual art.

5. If art is defined within the ambit of “aesthetics,” whether as “aesthetic object,” or

“aesthetic experience,” how is art viewed from this perspective? Consider the
photograph below: ​Is it art? Or is it nature? Is aesthetic experience possible in both
art and nature? If yes, what do you look for if art if it is defined from an aesthetic
dimension? Is there an overlap with art as formalism here?

Aesthetic definition of art is dependent on appreciation, on which to appreciate a

thing being an “artwork” is to find experiencing its being “artwork: to be valuable in
itself; how it triggers someone’s senses for them to have close attention to that artwork.
Like in the example, it is basically nature but can be considered as art if someone
appreciated it because the experience they had looking at it, made them “feel” it and it
made them satisfied. Aesthetic experience is possible in both art and nature and how it is
viewed aesthetically may vary from person to person because the experience it gives may
differ, unlike formalism which judges art as itself and not as something subjective. But
viewing art to be aesthetically pleasing may require defamiliarization, which overlaps
with the concept of formalism.

6. Following the influence of the philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, art as a concept

eludes definition because it is “open-textured.” Instead, it is classified based on
“family resemblances.” What does this mean vis-à-vis the definition of art? Hence,
how is art viewed from an anti-essentialist framework?
 To understand the anti-essentialist view of art, concepts related to this framework
must be discussed. For Wittgenstein, art has no definite property that makes it an art.
Art’s creative, rebellious and transgressive nature prevents that and allows an open
concept. They classify it as “open-textured” since there is no criteria that can be applied
in every possible situation. So in order to understand art, we do not need to define what
art is but to define art by describing artworks and relating them to one another. The
concept of family resemblances united artworks in a criss-crossing resemblances even
though one has no distinct similarity with another. In relation to the definition of art, the
concept of family resemblances tells us that a work is art if it is similar to a work of art.
With this, Anti-essentialism views art as something that we cannot define but we can
recognize.

7. The article also highlighted the philosophy of two thinkers- Arthur Danto and
George Dickie. How do the two scholars define art relative to these considerations:
the role of the art world, the significance of interpretation and the view art of as
artifact? In what way, they share similarities and differences?

Danto’s artworld is more historical and functional as to George’s artworld which

is more non-functional and institutional. For Danto, an artwork is considered to be art if
the artwork itself projects a hidden meaning which can be interpreted by other people,
and must be part of art’s historical context. On the other hand, Dickie believes that there
is a certain institution that makes up the artwork in which they themselves give a status of
appreciation for artworks to become art. The significance of interpretation is present in
both definitions of art but is more emphasized in Danto’s philosophy. Danto claims that
an artwork must have the artist's point of view as well as an interpretation of the audience
which fills in what is missing from the artist’s point of view. Dickie only used
interpretation to define who is the audience in the artworld. Art as an artifact is an idea of
Dickie’s philosophy. An artifact is an object given shape by humans and for Dickie, is a
condition needed for an artwork to be art. In contrast to that, Danto’s claims that art and
non-art cannot be distinguished from each other using exhibited property and thus, the
concept of art being an artifact is not applicable.

8. In 1917, the French artist Marcel Duchamp, known for his readymades, exhibited a
urinal entitled, “The Fountain,” which he signed as R. Mutt. See photo below: How
does this ‘art work’ contribute to the definition of art?

The fountain is regarded as a major landmark in 20th-century art. People are

curious if the artwork is indeed a work of art, many doubt Duchamp. It all started when
Duchamp submitted an artwork and offered the upside-down urinal. At first, it was
rejected, but still managed to be on the gallery. It somehow managed to contribute to the
general definition of art while disrupting the previous definitions of art.
What defines art are artists. By presenting an everyday object as an artwork,
Duchamp defied the notion that an artwork must be beautiful. By presenting a readymade
art, he defied the role of artists of making handmade objects and instead, showed their
 power of defining what may be considered to be art. The Fountain also supports Viktor
Shlovsky’s concept of defamiliarization; it was supposed to be an ordinary urinal, but
Duchamp laid it down, signed it, and presented it to the public. It then became a hot issue
for the public and, albeit not as easy as it sounds, gave rise to the new notion that
ordinary articles may be chosen by an artist to be a work of art - it challenged the
conventional and pioneered for a new definition of art.

9. Hence, after Danto, Dickie and Duchamp, can any object become an art work? Is
the board eraser you see in the classroom an art object? If we agree to say it is not,
then, does it have a ‘chance’ to become an art work? How and why?

Any object can become an artwork. That is, if an artist considers it to be. The
board eraser we see inside the classroom is not yet art. The board eraser does not have a
meaning of its own, especially when it is only viewed by its functional role. It has,
however, a set of properties that may open doors to different interpretations, and those
interpretations, according to Danto, will make that ordinary object an art work.But an
ordinary object can have a chance of becoming an artwork by the mere choice of an artist
if this “artist” has an understanding of making art and that this object was presented to the
public as a work of art.

10. ​What did the whole exercise teach you about art as a concept?

As we work on answering the exercise, we find out that we have different

perspectives on how we appreciate and criticize art but we manage to sum up all those
ideas to form a foundation to a deeper understanding of what really the definition of art.
In doing the whole exercise, it teaches us about how we should perceive and classify art
in the context of different understanding of art. It helps us to develop our deeper
understanding of what true art is by finding the sufficient conditions and necessary
conditions for the truth of the statement that an object is an artwork.

Art as a concept is very vast and abstract. Many people tried to define art, but
there is no concrete definition of it. It changes from time to time because people change
from time to time as well. There is this definition of art that we can’t seem to grasp,
letting us make different meanings and understanding of art. It would be helpful to view
these “definitions” of art as our “understanding” of what art is. At the moment, one
understanding of art cannot suffice, as it would include one, and exclude another at the
same time. Art as a concept needs intensive periods of investigation, philosophizing and
criticizing, which rejects the common idea that art is inferior to science in terms of
complexity, that art is all fun and games, and an “easy” subject.