Art to me is Art. Yet there is much art which I do not consider to be Art. By Art I mean some creation which stirs up a lot of emotion and which really makes me think. Some people get a high from running, and others get a high by just looking at or listening to something: art appreciation.
The bard has associated Art with truth and beauty and there is something to this, but art, whether as communication, entertainment, expression of talent or sheer exuberance, or any of it's many other forms and purposes is really only in the eye of the beholder. Subjective stuff, art. Back to Mr. Simon: one man's ceiling is another man's floor.
In pondering this, I checked out Wikipedia (that much-maligned yet reasonable resource) and came across the following: it appears that one Arthur Danto came up with the idea that "the status of an artifact as work of art results from the ideas a culture applies to it, rather than it's inherent physical or perceptible qualities. Cultural interpretation (an art theory of some kind) is therefore constitutive of an object's arthood"
Thus Art and art, to me anyway. To me Machel is art but Rudder is Art. The Beatles performing their songs was Art. Other people playing Beatles songs is art. Once a man told me that he could tune up an engine to perfection. He described it as an art but I thought it was more like a skill. Still, I suppose that it gave him great pleasure to perfect it and to him it could very well be Art. To him.
I know some people who are so naturally talented that they could with time and patience produce some Art, but for reasons of their own choose not to pursue it. By the same token I know those with minimal talent who have such a passion for Art they pursue it to their detriment. Thus, Art drives people, yet art is seen every day in the media.
No getting away from it that the old adage applies: beauty is in the eye of the beholder and in the ear of the listener and in the brain of the perceptive appreciator.
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