Art - definition & meaning - what is art? The concept of art and its purpose in society

When reflecting on the importance of art, it is easy to get from the topic. Even when looking at a single painting, you can quickly become dizzy, especially if you deal with the story behind the picture and the artist excessively.

There are often a variety of details in art that push themselves into the foreground and whose meaning can be found.

If you deal with the topic for the first time, the following questions often come to mind:

• What is the concept of art?
• Is that art? Or is it kitsch?
• What kind of art is there?
• What is the meaning of art?
• What is art and what is not?

In the keyword "art", most people instinctively think of paintings and drawings that belong to the visual art. This also includes photography, sculpture, architecture and handicrafts. Theater, dance and film are again part of the representative arts. Music and literature are also part of art.

In addition to these so -called beautiful arts and their cultural -historical consideration, there are also legal and philosophical levels of view that we will get to know in the course of this article.

These questions and classification attempts are also at the center of our interest as the editorial team of Kunstplaza . In this article we get to the bottom. Our intellectual journey leads us deep into art theory and to different considerations of the concept of art .

But now from the beginning….

Definition and etymology

The definition of art . It is obvious to start "art"

an etymologically Oxford dictionary gives us the following information:

According to Wikipedia, art is above all:

“In the broadest sense, the word art refers to every developed activity that is founded on knowledge, practice, perception, presentation and intuition (healing art, art of free speech).

In the narrower sense, the results of targeted human activity are named, which are not clearly defined by functions. Art is a human cultural product, the result of a creative process.

The work of art is usually at the end of this process, but has also been the process itself since modernity. Experienced art in the narrower sense are called artists. "

DWDS also gives us an informative overview of meaning :

1. Against mirrors 's man -sized relationships of man to his environment through the creative design of things and processes of reality with the help of sensually perceptible means and the works created thereby, especially in painting, sculpture, poetry and music
2. This can, the acquired skill, skill in a certain area
3. [historically created term]
4. sth. artificial created and not naturally grown

Extended view of the concept of art in the historical context

hierarchy for centuries . the art of antiquity was regarded as the relevant art, on which all other movements and epochs had to be oriented.

Perfection was sought that ultimately remains unreachable. The highest level of idealization was expressed through paintings and sculptures.

The fine arts and their forms of expression

Since the Enlightenment (approx. 1650 to 1800), art has been understood above all the forms of expression of the fine arts .

Above all, this includes:

• Fine art with the classic genres painting and graphics, sculpture, architecture and several small forms as well as since the 19th century the border area known as the arts or applied arts
• Music with the main parts composition and interpretation in vowel and instrumental music
• Literature with the main genera epic, drama, poetry and essayistics
• Representing art with the main areas of theater, dance and film
• Opera as a connection of all the arts: music, performing art (acting), visual arts (stage design), literature (poetry)

In the course of the Enlightenment, paintings and books achieved distribution in a broader population. Theater performances as well as musical and dance performances inspire their audience in specially designed venues with technically sophisticated stages. The literature is viewed as an independent area inside and next to art and significantly shaped by important personalities such as William Shakespeare, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller.

This list of the so -called beautiful arts is considered a classic categorization and does not claim to be complete. Numerous art movements have been added in the modern age, according to photography, radio or the Internet.

Towards abstraction in modernity

In the course of the 19th century, a gradual departure from an idealized performance in fine art began. There was a dynamic development, which gradually increased to abstraction, whereby the color and line were increasingly detached from the concrete object.

During this time, the artwork increasingly developed into something independent and independent, to the L'Art pour l'Art , whereby freedom of art is considered a central principle. Movements such as impressionism , expressionism and surrealism have a formative influence on painting from 1880 to 1920.

abstract art may not be immediately understandable, but it has a permanent place and enormous importance in the contemporary art world. In the course of this time, a rethink also took place in art history. Art can no longer be arranged hierarchically. No epoch is superior to another, and no work of art or no style should be devalued because works of art arise from specific artistic intentions .

In the twenties, theater director Erwin Piscator and the playwright Bertolt Brecht tried again on a renewed functionalization of art. In this context, they invented the high -tech "epic theater".

Concepts in postmodernity

Nowadays, art is generally understood as any activity or creation that is carried out by people with a communicative or aesthetic purpose - something that expresses an idea, feeling or general a worldview.

It is part of our culture and mirrors t in its design mostly economic and social substrates. Today art is a changeable concept of worldwide importance that continues to allow new interpretations. It is so liquid that it cannot be stopped.

Our contemporary view of art reflects the current time, but also actively participates in cultural developments. By implementing emotions and ideas into visual representations and making it visible to others, it is actively involved in the design and not only passive. This creates a lively communication between the audience and art, which leads to a deeper understanding of many historical and social places.

Artists have always developed their creative approaches and new means of expression in order to point out their time mirrors or this. A remarkable example is the pop art of the 1960s. With the help of the vocabulary of the mass media and the advertising mirrors this art movement contradicts consumer culture and the rapid speed of modern society.

3D video and sound installations and electronic literature-computer poetry, mobile novels, extended e-books-ensures fresh ideas in postmodernism. These new types of art of mirrors n resist the continuous degree in the limits of artistic production and a statement about the current technological progress.

Digital art is a challenge to continuously rethink and expand our view of art and creativity. It offers an impressive perspective on the future artistic design and inspires us to explore the possibilities of modern technologies.

If you conclude from this, then art can be interpreted as a lively dialogue that conducts our understanding of the past and the reflection of the present. In this sense, she motivates us to deeper into the matter, be it by looking at art, visiting exhibitions or studying further sources of information.

Philosophical considerations

At this point we would like to try to understand the considerations of famous thinkers in relation to art philosophy.

1. According to Plato, art was only the manual implementation of a copy of an object, which in turn represented a copy of the idea of ​​the object itself, which was only visible to philosophers.
2. In contrast to Plato, who regarded her as a copy of an existing copy, Aristotle something new in her: "The art creates all those things whose form previously existed in the mind."
3. Benedetto Croce considered the work of art as a form of lyrical intuition that unfolds in the mind and can be clearly differentiated from its material implementation and implementation.
4. Kant , on the other hand, was firmly convinced that the art is determined on the basis of a variety of clearly recognizable and formal characteristics. These characteristics can be recognized by specific mental skills such as taste and aesthetics and thus cause joy.

Famous philosophers such as Plato and Kant each made their own assessments and formulated definitions for the concept of art and the classification of works of art. This illustrates that this term has always aroused emotions and causes great interest.

It is inextricably linked to humans because he influences his perception of reality.

What is art and what is not? A legal classification

In addition to the definition of the word , it is still interesting to know that artists and creative creations in Germany and many other western countries enjoy freedom of art In Germany, this is a fundamental right protected by the constitution (Art. 5 Para. 3 S. 1 GG) .

There are several art terms in law. The legal assessment of what is considered art depends on which definition you use and how to interpret it.

First of all, however, it should be emphasized that it is ourselves to be described personally as art, which we consider out of personal opinion as such, without this without any objective validity. The state expressly does not have the authority to define art.

There should be no state authority that decides what is considered art and what is not. The state must not presume to determine which art forms are acceptable or what quality levels they should have.

Nevertheless, it is necessary that art receives a certain definition for legal reasons in order to enable the actual implementation of freedom of art. This definition serves as the basis for your application in court proceedings and judicial matters. For this reason, various basic concepts were developed:

a) formal concept of art

According to the formal concept of art, it is defined that everything can be viewed as art if it can be assigned to a specific art direction. Examples of this are painting, sculpture and theater. Hybrid shapes should also fall into this category.

b) Material concept of art

The Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) has defined the concept of art in terms of content. Accordingly, it is considered the creative design in which impressions, experiences and experiences of the artist are immediately visualized through a specific design language.

Or to put it differently:

Art is the free and creative design, in which the artist immediately expresses his impressions, experiences and experiences through a certain formal language. ”

c) Open concept of art

According to the prevailing view, a flexible concept of art should be used. The open concept of art defines the characteristic characteristic of an artistic statement as the ability to open up further meanings due to its diverse meaningical of constant interpretation.

This creates a practically inexhaustible and multi -stage mediation of information.

d) teaching of third -party recognition

Following the art of what an expert outsidter would call such.

Artificial intelligence (AI) - Can machines create art?

Recently, developments in digital technologies and artificial intelligence significantly shape the art landscape and put the contemporary concept of art on the test.

The question of whether can create real art

The question of the creation height in creative design and the copyrights must still be clarified with regard to the production of art by machines and algorithms.

According to the Duden is an act of creative design . This does not rule out the use of algorithms, especially since Aristotle already provided a comprehensive definition of the term over 2,000 years ago:

Art completes what nature cannot achieve, or imitates it. ”

The Greek universal scholar emphasizes an important artistic activity in particular with the last part of his statement, namely copying . In doing so, he refutes millennia before the invention of AI one of the most important arguments against the artistic use of artificial intelligence: namely that AI cannot be creative, but only imitated their learned styles.

As a result, common definitions do not rule out that machines can also produce creative creations. Especially since people who consume art often do not even even not even recognize " man -made " , " machine -made "

How does generative AI see art? An experiment for visualization

An interesting experiment with the generative AI tool "Neuroflash" provided us as an interpretation of the text request (prompt) " A Visualization of the Definition of Art Itself From An Aesthetic, Formal and Philosophic Point of View, Abstract, Surrealistic, Fantasy, Open" as text-to-imag image generator:

These three visualizations of an abstract concept through an artificial intelligence provide an incredible depth of detail, which only fully opens up when viewed for a long time.

I hope I have made it easier for you to get started with the world of art with this shortage, but n clear art definition.

Source directory:

Literature:

• The Great Oxford Dictionary , Third Edition, Cornelson Verlag, ISBN-10: 0194406067
• Michael Hauskeller : What is art?: Positions of aesthetics from Plato to Danto , ISBN-10: 3406657095
• Reinold Schmücker: What is art? A foundation, Klostermann Rederei, Volume 70, ISBN-10: 3465041976
• Stefan Jordan / Jürgen Müller : Basic terms of art science (Reclams Universal Library), ISBN-10: 3150195594
• Susanna Partsch : Introduction to studying art history , ISBN-10: 3150143020
• Hildegard Kretschmer : Lexicon of the symbols and attributes in art: 800 entries , ISBN-10: 9783150195666
   

Web:

• Academy Kraatz-just understand Jura : What is art and what is not?, Https://akademie-kraatz.de/de/was-ist-kunst-kunst-und-was-nich
• DWDS - The digital dictionary of the German language, https://www.dwds.de/
• Laws on the Internet : Art 5 GG-individual standard, https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_5.html
• Wikipedia : Art

Joachim Rodriguez y Romero

Owner and managing director of Kunstplaza . Publicist, editor and passionate blogger in the field of art, design and creativity since 2011. Successful conclusion in web design as part of a university degree (2008). Further development of creativity techniques through courses in free drawing, expression painting and theatre/acting. Profound knowledge of the art market through many years of journalistic research and numerous collaborations with actors/institutions from art and culture.

www. kunstplaza .de/