I wrote this for my class on “Fine Arts and Western Civilization”, and figured it would be convenient to have my viewpoint on art written down somewhere public for reference. Perhaps at some point in the future I’ll rewrite and expand it.

“Art” is an analytical lens through which the audience of a creative work views it. There’s really no other possibile explanation given the scope and breadth of material dubbed “art”, especially as the space of artforms and traditions has expanded in recent years, but even the works of art from before the 17th century which are still relevant today display sufficient diversity to render all other conceptions useless.

The form of art cannot be its defining characteristic, as our class examined art with such a variety of forms in class that some pieces share essentially nothing — everything examined in class might have been out of a book, but the pieces themselves were not always books. In fact, arguably none of the pieces examined were books! The class used the “art books” Art that Changed the World, 30,000 Years of Art, and The Art Book as simple collections of images of visual art, as opposed to works of literary art by themselves, and any theater aficionado will be keen to tell you that theater is meant to be seen and not read. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a translation of an ancient Mesopotamian myth transcribed on tablets, long before the idea of “books” existed, and arguably The Canterbury Tales — originally composed largely in verse and possibly intended to be read aloud — also do not fit into our modern conception of a “book”: although modern books written in verse intended for reading aloud do exist (pick up a Dr. Suess book and see), they tend to be limited to children’s media.

The function of art cannot be its defining characteristic, either. While the modern view of art tends to be that it makes a statement of some sort, fitting art from before the Renaissance era into such a framework requires some contortion. The vast majority of artwork featured in Art that Changed the World from the 4th to 14th century CE is Christian in subject matter, such as “The Harrowing of Hell”[0] or the Soiscél Molaise[1]. Although the former depicts Christ leading deceased souls in Limbo to heaven while the latter is a non-representational artwork made to contain a Bible, both share the purpose of honoring God and the Church — and while it is possible to rephrase that honor as a statement, it becomes a somewhat tortured one. Renaissance art — even religious Renaissance art — is more amenable to this sort of statement-style interpretation, though. Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights”[2] makes a clear statement about sin: though it may be delightful in this life, its consequences will be agonizing in the next.

Perhaps visual art is simply a special case, which is allowed to be art without a specific point, but other sorts of art must make a statement. Unfortunately, while this works for The Canterbury Tales and Lysistrata — both of which offer among other things reflection and criticism of gender roles in medival Europe and ancient Greece, respectively — as well as Antigone, a tragedy which is unsubtle about its moral themes (“I disobeyed because the law was not / The law of Zeus nor the law ordained / By Justice”, says Antigone[3]), but it seems to break down when considering Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh has themes, to be sure, but it doesn’t make a statement. Upon reflection, this situation is unsurprising: Gilgamesh is a recording of an ancient Sumerian myth, and while myths have points so far as they convey the nature of the relationship between humanity, the gods, and the natural world, they do not make statements in the same manner as fiction.

For that matter, even if purpose was a necessary condition for a work to be considered art, it certainly wouldn’t be a sufficient condition. Queen Elizabeth I’s “Golden Speech” and Address to the Troops at Tilbury both exist to make statements: she says those statements outright! In the former, she tells the House of Commons that she monopolies under the false belief that it was would be best for her people, and in the latter, she reassures her subjects of her devotion to her kingdom and people, and promises to take up arms and fight. Yet political speech is generally not considered a form of art! So “pointfulness” is clearly out the window, at least for definitional purposes.

Since art cannot be defined by the form or function of a piece, the only remaining option is subjectivity: the audience of a work determines whether or not to consider it “art”, largely through context and general cultural osmosis, and interprets it differently depending on their decision. Machiavelli’s The Prince provides an excellent example, as the nature of its content is ambiguous: it can be interpreted, among other ways, as either legitimate advice from an exiled diplomat trying to win the favor of the new ruler of his city or as a satire on the often cruel nature of state power. When Machiavelli discusses liberality and meanness, and how “liberality exercised in a way that does not bring you the reputation for it, injures you; for if one exercises it honestly and as it should be exercised, it may not become known”[4], a reader who comes to the conclusion that The Prince is art — whether or not Machiavelli intended that conclusion to be drawn — may find a trace of dark humor in Machiavelli’s tone where the reader who evaluates it as sincere advice finds only a description of fact. The nature of Gilgamesh is also clearer when considering art to be a component of the reader’s perspective: clearly modern audiences reading Gilgamesh as an old legend or “the original Hero’s Journey” have vastly different perspectives from the ancient Sumerians for whom Gilgamesh was a religious story.

None of this is to say that all pieces can interpreted equally well as art or as non-art. An interpretation of Antigone as non-art would probably not be very interesting, as would an interpretation of Elizabeth I’s speech at Tilbury as art. Nevertheless, understanding “art” to be a subjective judgement made on the part of the audience of a work helps clarify not only the nature of art, but also the nature of any particular work, and even the act of interpretation itself.

References

[0]: Art that Changed the World, pg. 51
[1]: Art that Changed the World, pg. 61
[2]: Art that Changed the World, pg. 126
[3]: The Burial at Thebes, pg. 27
[4]: The Prince, ch. 16

Texts Consulted

  • Art that Changed the World: Transformative Art Movements and the Paintings that Inspired Them. DK Press.
  • Gilgamesh: A New English Version. Sîn-lēqi-unninni, trans. Stephen Mitchell.
  • The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles’ Antigone. Sophocles, trans. Seamus Heaney.
  • Lysistrata. Aristophanes, trans. Sarah Ruden.
  • The Canterbury Tales. Geoffrey Chaucer, trans. Peter Ackroyd.
  • The Prince, ch. 15–17. Niccolò Machiavelli, trans. William Marriott.
  • Address to the Troops at Tilbury. Elizabeth I, transcriber unknown, selected by Karl Thompson from compilation by George Rice, Jr.
  • The Golden Speech. Elizabeth I, transcriber unknown, selected by Karl Thompson from compilation by George Rice, Jr.