What is art?

My gut thought is something like this...

Art is the surprising truth that emerges from human creation, but is separate from any human.

In other words, art is when we see or hear something that was expressed, and it reveals to us a life and a truth of its own, which often creates a sense of beauty. The most effective way to reveal a surprising truth is through visuals, sounds, words, or a combination of the three.

The surprising truth might be explicit - a message, a theme. Or it could be wordless, impossible to explain, only felt by witnessing the piece of art itself. The truth can be small, or it can be huge.

The reason something can be “art” to someone and “not art” to someone else, comes down to whether a surprising truth was revealed to that individual. Critics are the measurers of which pieces reveal the maximum surprising truth.

We need the surprise and the truth.

If we have a truth that isn’t surprising, we have the mundane. Cliché.

If we have a surprise that isn’t true, we have novelty, entertainment.

This is why a piece of entertainment can also be art, if it reveals truth. It is why a particular painting might simply be a novelty. It is why a child’s scribble and an artist’s scribble can be two different things.

Art can also be ugly. Dark slashes across a canvas, unsettling distorted faces. A urinal, an unmade bed. A doodle on a notepad, a piece of graffiti on a wall, becomes a piece of art, however small, once it reveals a surprising truth.

Some things, like a masterfully crafted perfume or a culinary dish could be art - their truth usually arises in the form of memory - but it’s a much more nebulous truth, so it is a much more nebulous art.

And we need the “emerges from human creation”.

If we have a surprising truth that doesn’t emerge from human creation - a truth that exists despite the human - what we have is nature. Facts, science, observation. A tree might be beautiful, but it isn’t art. Quantum physics might be profound, but it isn’t art. Even artificially generated content is nature - it is mathematics unleashed. This isn’t art, in the same way that prime numbers aren’t art.

If we have human creation without the surprising truth, we have an invention, or a craft. When we talk about the “art of cooking” or the “art of carpentry”, we’re usually talking about a skill, rather than “Art” with a capital A.

Finally, we need the “but is separate from any human”. Art is something created, something born, something cast out into the ether of the world, existing on its own. Without this, it’s just an idea.

It doesn’t need to be consumed by anyone to be art, but the only way to know if it’s art is to consume it.

I might change my mind on all this. But these are my current thoughts.

Here’s a diagram to try and explain it all…