Art Beat: What is art?

Art has been described in countless ways with each generation changing, expanding, or discounting what psst poets, prophets, and other public thinkers have said about its definition over time.

Since the first cave paintings, art and humanity have been intertwined. Whether it’s a pastime as ancient as a song around a campfire, or a hobby as new as 3-D animation, art crosses genres of style, music and taste.

The definition of art may vary depending on who you ask, but there are commonalities across most takes on the subject

So, as we all continue finding different ways to define art, and by extension, the world around us, let’s think on these words from antiquity to today.

“We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.”

— Henry James

“Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man’s emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.”

— Leo Tolstoy

“Art is a discovery and development of elementary principles of nature into beautiful forms suitable for human use.”

Frank Lloyd Wright

Art resides in the quality of doing; process is not magic.”

Charles Eames

Art is not a thing— it is a way.”

—Elbert Hubbard

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”

— Pablo Picasso

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporter Jacob Mann at jacob.mann@frontiersman.com