Art thoughts and thoughts about art
Art thoughts are an important part of the process of art. Both viewer and artist should have art thoughts. The artist should have art thoughts because art thoughts help in the creation process. When viewer thinks about what is being presented, he may understand what the artist meant. Or, create his own narrative. Art thoughts are abundant. Throughout history, many famous philosophers and so-called theoreticians, as well as artists themselves, have attempted to define art.
“Baumgarten appropriated the word aesthetics, which had always meant “sensation”, to mean taste or “sense” of beauty. In so doing, he gave the word a different significance, thereby inventing its modern usage. The word had been used differently since the time of the ancient Greeks to mean the ability to receive stimulation from one or more of the five bodily senses. In his Metaphysic, § 451, Baumgarten defined taste, in its wider meaning, as the ability to judge according to the senses, instead of according to the intellect. Such a judgment of taste he saw as based on feelings of pleasure or displeasure. A science of aesthetics would be, for Baumgarten, a deduction of the rules or principles of artistic or natural beauty from individual “taste”…” – Wikipedia
The meaning of art “what is art” (Leo Tolstoy).
They have expressed their thoughts in important works of philosophy and aesthetics. This article shall serve as an open book where information quotes, and further research study will be added in time, and revisions provided:
Early thoughts
“The man who arrives at the doors of artistic creation with none of the madness of the Muses would be convinced that technical ability alone was enough to make an artist… what that man creates by means of reason will pale before the art of inspired beings”….”Art has no end but its own perfection” – Plato (428BC– 348BC)
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” Aristotle (384BC-322BC)
A picture is a poem without words – Horace (65 BC–8 BC)
Later thoughts
Art is never finished only abandoned – Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)
“Painting is the grandchild of nature. It is related to God.” – Rembrandt(1606-1669)
“…In spite the mountains of books written about art, no precise definition of art has been constructed. And the reason for this is that the conception of art has been based on the conception of beauty…”
“…Art is an activity by means of which one man has experienced a feeling intentionally transmits it to others…”…..”Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them…” – Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
“I invent nothing, I rediscover.” – Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
More modern thoughts
“Art is a discovery and development of elementary principles of nature into beautiful forms suitable for human use” – Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959)
“Art is whatever an artist says it is” – Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)
“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” – Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.” – Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)
“The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity.”
Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966)
My thought
Art has no credible definition.
Suggested reading
“Art of” artgreeT post
“Several thoughts about art” – Tom Bubul in “Pleasure Editions”
“Art of” artgreeT Blog
“Art Social Media” artgreeT Blog
“Is art expensive” artgreeT Blog
“Digital art” artgreeT Blog
