Art And Philosophy

Our ancestors first sought to understand themselves and their surroundings through the invention of myths and the worshipping of gods. The Greeks, for example, created gods like Athena and Aries to explain the concept of wisdom and war respectively. I would like to think, contrary to common thought, that this is not a matter of ignorance but of an answering of a basic primal need in humans that still exists today Ð'- the need for symbolism, for the human mind is weak and needs constantly to be reminded of what they value most Ð'- ideals and emotions.

That is what set the stage for art, whose purpose lies in exploring what man thought and felt. But the limitless capabilities of man, like a fast spreading disease, is so shocking that the boundless expansion of art is quickly making it necessary for man to attempt to define it in order to gain control of, and understand it. Already, the history of art in the 19th century alone has seen movements like realism and impressionism that challenges, time and again, what can be perceived as the notion of art. The underlying concern is that very soon art will not exist, because art is like a garden; though the flowers have to be allowed to bloom freely, a lack of attention and tending after would most certainly result in a tangled mess of overgrown weeds and undergrowth. Over time, you may very well get yourself a jungle! It is therefore imperative that we understand what art is.

In the meantime, though, art is still present, at every point of time, in a myriad of different forms to different people. This means not just the different categories of art and its accompanying styles, but also how each individual chooses to interpret a piece of artwork that is presented to them. For example, L.H.O.O.Q by Marcel Duchamp, the key figure of 20th century art movement, Dadaism, may be understood by one group of people as a mockery of classical beauty, of which some would commend and others disapprove, while yet another group would as likely think of it as akin to doodling on a moment of whimsy. So, in a way, the issue is really a simple and fundamental one that requires a returning to the rudimentary rules and an abandonment of all the lofty ideals that have clouded the concept of art over time.

It is with a hint of regret that the only possible definition of art has to be a general one. At present, I choose to define art as anything that, whether it is intent of the artist or not, is understood, in one way or another. I say it has to be understood because we can never perceive what we do not understand. The slant towards empiricism is clear, but makes sense provided we ignore the accompanying conundrum about the ability to perceive the unperceivable because then it would be like two parallel mirrors where the images are never ending reflections of each other.

After all, for what other acceptable reason would the Mona Lisa1 be exhibited in a bulletÐ'-proof glass case that obscures the masterpiece itself?

On that count, then, the Parisian performance artist Ben Vautier would definitely be counted as art because we know for sure that he himself understands what he is trying to tell others through his work and that there would be people who understand him and contemplate his performance. By the same reasoning, without his placard, Vautier is only art to himself, because to every other unknowing passer-by on the street in Nice, he would just and only be, literally a man sitting in the middle of the street.

However, it still remains for us to address the unease that surrounds the whole case study as well as its other similar cases. This unease arises because these cases, in questioning the definition of art, blatantly challenge the age old convention of pairing recognition with hard work. Since art is, as mentioned earlier, about the exploration of what man-kind value most, effort would naturally be seen as a requisite before anything can be acknowledged as art. In early art movements like Neo-Classicism, Romanticism and Realism, paintings were rendered with a great deal of effort in order to depict a dramatic scene in the most realist way possible. Artists like David, Inges and Courbet could spend hours sitting in front of his motif so that they would be able to express the emotions of the artwork with great accuracy. Likewise, later figures like Picasso, at the other end of the continuum, took