What is art?

[mezzoduomo]

Simplicity is often the key to something impressive, much as a bloody nose also delivers an unmistakable, if simple, stark message.

"Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art." – Frederic Chopin

[Peter Stacey]

No, it was most definitely not a compliment. It was (I don't know why I have so say this over and over) an expression of my opinion that sharpness and technique are A MEANS TO AN END and not THE END ITSELF. If you don't understand this, there's really nothing more I can say.

I do understand it. Perfectly. I just don't agree that's it's a problem on LuLa, which is where it was directed.

This forum has one of the strongest focus on artistic meaning or value in an image of any photography forum on the internet. There is also a lot of technical discussion here, but not to the point of technique being superior to meaning.

That in my view is why this thread started wrong.

It criticised a fantom group that exists elsewhere, but not here on LuLa. Nothing wrong with the message of the magnet, though it's somewhat narrow and limited.

[melchiorpavone]

Pink Floyd

[phlipper]

I, a new member, would like to give my solicited opinion without the benefit of reading other's. I will unabashedly state, at the risk of being accused of copping out, that "everything is art". I'm sure that most would agree that 'art', like 'beauty', is "in the eye of the beholder". It also depends on one's perspective, literal and otherwise. A photo of a weed by itself, poorly framed, may catch no one's attention. Yet, a close up of that weed in minute detail, properly placed, focused, and with a companion flower, might not only get attention but appear, to some, to make a (oh lord - here goes) a "statement". OK - I stepped in it but I'm not going there, other than to say "I do not believe that that illusive thing we call "art" need to make a statement nor have a message. Obviously, there are camps that believe art is worthless unless it contains a social "message". In the end, a pretty picture is just that. Art can, but needn't contain, a statement. Try figuring out the statement/message in Monet's Water Lilies (forget it, there isn't one). So, once again, I have agreed with myself that "I'm not going there" (where I just was).
 Where was I? Oh yeah, everything is art. From there I will ask "Yeah, ok, it's art but is it good art"? Art is often judged by a panel of experts but who judges the experts? Historically, new art styles have not always been accepted by the art critics, much less, the public at large. It was only through the passage of time that many of the styles and artists were thought of as brilliant and ahead of their time. So, is it art? Is it good art? Time will tell -- or not.    

[Gulag]

[Isaac]

I will unabashedly state … that "everything is art".

In what ways has that "definition" been useful to you as a photographer?

[Ray]

If you want to find out the meaning of a word, then check it out in a good dictionary.

In my dictionary, the word 'art' is generally synonymous with the word 'skill'.

Here are some variations of the meaning of the word 'art', as described in the Oxford English Dictionary.

1. Skill; its display or application.

2. Skill in doing anything as the result of knowledge and practice.

3. Human skill as an agent; human workmanship as opposed to Nature.

4. Skill in applying the principles of a special science; technical or professional skill.

5. The application of skill to subjects of taste, such as poetry, music, dancing, drama, oratory, literary composition, and so on.

6. The application of skill to the practice of imitation and design, painting, engraving, sculpture, architecture; the cultivation of these in its principles, practice and results; the skilful production in its visible forms.

7. Anything wherein skill may be attained or displayed.

8. A practical application of any science; a body or system of rules serving to facilitate the carrying out of certain principles.

9. A pursuit or occupation in which skill is directed towards the gratification of taste or production of what is beautiful.

10. An acquired faculty of any kind; a power of doing anything wherein skill is attainable by study and practice.

11. An artifice, contrivance, stratagem,wile, trick, cunning device.

I would say definitions # 5, # 6 and # 9 are particularly relevant to photography. In general, I would say this post is a work of art. 

[Gulag]

[Diego Pigozzo]

Not to mention Avida Dollars.