What is art?
We are all individuals with a particular set of tastes, a particular view of the world, particular sensibilities. Everyone, though it is likely more prominent for some, has a highly idiosyncratic aesthetic, because of the context in which they are brought up, being influenced by their society, their family, and whichever values and aesthetic canons they are taught (often unconsciously) to hold in the highest regard.
An example: having been a big fan of The White Stripes when I was young and listening to Jack White’s interviews, I developed a certain appeal for a musical and visual aesthetic which was raw, authentic, minimalist, grungy, and even for a certain set of values which he follows (and which are conveyed in his music to a certain extent): making things harder for yourself is the best way to grow creatively and emotionally. This exposure to The White Stripes shaped me, just as my parents have shaped me by exposing me to art and architecture, etc.
Literature, paintings, sculpture, theater, music, cinema, video games. What do they have in common? They are all modes of communication and expression. What do they communicate? First and foremost, these particular sensibilities which I described above. How do they communicate? By taking the base structures which we all use to exchange information: language, visual representations, and music (ultimately: sight, hearing, speech). Some works may even use the sense of touch and of smell. Language and sight are the most natural ways of communicating. I think that “art,” differentiates itself from factual information and communication when the artist uses these basic structures and exploits them, deforms them, manipulates them, and pushes the limits of how these structures function. He does this in such a way that information communicated is not only factual but also sensory: the medium adheres to our senses and instills an emotional reaction.
For literature, an example of this distortion of basic structures is the use of “literary devices”. Language is pushed beyond its basic function (1), or rather is used in such a way as to convey sensibilities, aesthetic taste, through alliterations, pacing of sentences, or imagery; these are ways of distorting and manipulating the structures of language to express as varied an aesthetic “palette” as possible. The aesthetic of Hemingway through his short, minimalist prose which relies on simple words and repetition of these words, carries us to an entirely different world, through a different sensory experience, than Thomas Hardy’s deliberately long and complex prose. Both of these styles are revealing of the particular aesthetic sensibilities of post-WWI positivism and of the Victorian era, respectively.
Emotion can also be created not only in the arrangements of words and sounds, how the information is conveyed, but also in the information itself, what is conveyed, the overarching structure by which it is arranged. The communication of sensibility does not only lie in pleasing rhythmic patterns and metaphors, but also in the subject matter (i.e., the death of a certain character which we had gotten attached to) and how it is structured in the work (in Act III, as a climactic scene, after multiple peripeteia, or after a cliffhanger). Maybe these are what we call “narrative devices” (relating to the narrative as a whole) rather than “literary devices” (relating to how the words of the text themselves convey emotion).
The same principles apply to painting, drawing, etchings, and all the two-dimensional visual arts (a third dimension, I imagine, brings even more ways of communicating). A portrayal of reality with little or no emotion and meaning imbued would fall into the category of illustration (though one could argue even illustration will always carry the aesthetic sensibility of the artist, the point is that the communication of this sensibility is not its main function). A painting uses a certain element, such as shading, more than for a descriptive purpose (the cave portrayed is dark) it uses it to convey emotion (the cave is positioned and shaded in such a way that it instills fear, mystery, etc). And with art it is easy to go without any functional descriptive purpose, when you consider abstract art, or art that is much more about the image and the way it is portrayed rather than about the situation being portrayed. For example Josef Albers’ minimalist Homage to the Square uses color, yet another means of getting across a certain emotion, to create an image which is pure and harmonious, inline with the Bauhaus aesthetic; Rothko also uses color, but to put the viewer in a trance-like space and convey a certain primitive energy or “breath of life.”
Music is quite different but works in the same way, only that there is no purely functional use in music, it is a medium which directly appeals to the emotions and senses (excluding the role of the texts used). Whereas aesthetic may come after description in prose for example (it is first through a description of the ocean that an author may make a metaphor) description is carried by the aesthetic when it comes to music (it is through a melody, a theme, that a composer can make an allusion to a certain character in classical music, or it is a melody which carries corresponding lyrics). Music then may be, first and foremost, aesthetic. However just like the other mediums, music still has fundamental structures (music theory, the various ways of structuring a piece in classical music, the various instruments, with each their own way of being used, and each their timbres or textures, etc.) which are sometimes quite constrained, but which musicians manipulate to convey very specific aesthetics and emotions. A good deal of music in the 20th century has relied on very basic and simple arrangements: Vocals, guitar, bass, drum set. Even if we just take guitar and vocals: This set of basic structures has been manipulated, experimented with, and literally distorted by musicians in order to convey astoundingly different sensibilities, tastes, ways of experiencing and viewing their life. The limits to the guitar’s capacities has been pushed in varying directions, and at times to the extreme: Sonic Youth preparing their guitars with screwdrivers to alter the timbre, for example, and thus convey the hardcore punk ethos and DIY philosophy by which they lived. Musicians (probably unconsciously, for the most part) find the right combinations, manipulating these structures which are available to them, to produce the sound which bests fits with their aesthetic and convey it to an audience.
Often some of the devices used to communicate beyond the medium are shared: both paintings and works of literature use symbols, which are another device to convey meaning. Apollinaire or E. E. Cummings both tried giving a visual dimension to their poetry. Zola tried to use the techniques of impressionists to describe images, movement, color, in his own novels.
Many mediums, such as theater, cinema, video games, are also (but not only, as some possess their own specificities: capturing movement in film, interaction in video games) combinations of these different structures and means of communication, which work together to give new possibilities of communicating with an audience. Music’s use of text is an even simpler example.
Artworks are therefore a condensation, into a specific and constrained format, of the particular sensibilities of the artist with the aim of sharing his aesthetic values, and with this, his view of the world. The format used is one which society has considered to be the best medium of communication to an audience: the book, the album, the play, the painting.
Communication is the key word, and therefore “art” becomes a generous and all-encompassing term, not constrained, as it is often used today, to denote specific creative works which belong to an elite and exclusive world, the world of the art gallery, or of the prestigious museums. Such a way of defining art makes it all the more personal, and less prone to society’s influence, which puts certain works on pedestals simply because authoritative figures have declared that these are the ones which deserve the most prestige, the most attention. The fame and prestige bestowed upon them by society, by critics, or certain intellectual authorities, are only hints, guides, which I can choose to trust to some extent, and which I use to seek out the paintings and novels which will bring me the greatest emotional impact. However if I cannot feel anything, if the painting does not communicate with me in any particular way, then for that moment in time (it is possible that, later on, I learn more about the artist, or somehow grow to like the painting) the painting has no meaning to me. Often it is the case, especially in literature, that the works with most renown and fame are the most moving and the most enjoyable. Nevertheless, only you have the authority to decide which works of art you personally hold in high regard.
Despite what authorities may say, a good piece of art, to me, communicates with me and makes me feel the most, or in the most interesting ways. Maybe, at the very most, a good piece of art allows me best to understand, empathize with, and enter the world of the artist. For, in essence, the point of art is, in part, that it is one of the best ways for us to consider what it would be like to be in the mind of another, to understand, as much as one can, someone else’s state of being, of consciousness. For it is a way to grasp not only the aesthetic sensibilities, but alongside this, the references, values, moral codes, mode of thought, of another person. (2) It is only when a work can truly give me this insight into the alterity, the otherness of a person, through the various ways that art communicates, that such a work is a good one, to me.
Does that mean Game of Thrones is the best piece of art there is, because it is the most moving and gripping to me? While it’s true that series such as Game of Thrones are usually the most moving and emotional to me, it does not mean that they are the ones which make me understand an experience a worldview most different from my own sensibilities, and which open me up, through the lens of the creative workers behind the show, to entirely different approaches to life. It also does not mean Game of Thrones masters all the various ways in which cinema can express emotion. It is not so difficult to create fear, suspense, thrills, through the use of action and special effects. It is more difficult to write dialogue in such a way that has us deeply empathize with certain characters, understand their personal complexities (if they are complex). While the set designs transport me to another world, and Jon Snow’s dialogue and portrayal by Kit Harrington certainly makes me feel much admiration, and a sense of adventure and grandeur, it certainly does not make me understand his psychology and his emotions as well as Proust. I do not feel like I am part of the world of Westeros as I feel that I am part of Combray. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, on the other hand, has transported me to another world, another aesthetic, and has made me intensely empathize with the characters and understand their well-portrayed, intricate psychologies; for me, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a good work of art. Game of Thrones a bit less (but it is still entertaining, and entertainment is something else).
Of course works of art do not communicate only this “essence,” specific to the creator, the aesthetic sensibility of the artist, they can also have a political message for example, or messages of all sorts which are functional and not only aesthetic. It is another question whether or not works of propaganda, or any visual work, can be purely and solely functional. Even a political propaganda pamphlet will use varying fonts, visual arrangements, and certain functions of language (imperatives, exclamation marks) to convey emotion more than anything else. Is it art? Or is it not art, because the purpose of the pamphlet, its priority, is not an aesthetic one? Where do you draw the line?
(1) Though here we are supposing that the “basic function” of language is to convey information and emotion? Is that necessarily true? Yelling, screaming, crying, are the most primal ways of communicating with sound, and it is not information that they communicate, but emotion.
(2) There are other means of communication that strive to allow this, such as simple speech (which can go a long way sometimes), and maybe physical means: facial gestures, and sex, which at its best is a profound intimacy which gets you very close to another’s state of being.
