# What is considered art? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** arts-crafts\ **Created:** [April 23, 2025, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412 "2025-04-23T18:17:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![melaniethewitch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/melaniethewitch/32/18930_2.png) [@melaniethewitch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melaniethewitch)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/1 "2025-04-23T18:17:19Z")
What would be considered art and what wouldn’t? because [there’s the opinion of everything should be considered art?](https://chscommunicator.com/23336/opinion/2011/12/anything-created-by-man-should-be-considered-art/) and then [There’s also the opinion of any some categories should be considered art…](https://artrkl.com/blogs/trending-in-all-categories/what-is-considered-art#:~:text=There%20are%20certain%20mediums%20that,design%2C%20music%2C%20and%20architecture.) And finally is [a mix?](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/art-definition/#:~:text=Any%20definition%20of%20art%20has,) ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/2 "2025-04-23T18:21:26Z")
A mass-produced ball-bearing may be an artefact, but are you sure it would be considered art? ---
**Author:** ![melaniethewitch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/melaniethewitch/32/18930_2.png) [@melaniethewitch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melaniethewitch)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/3 "2025-04-23T18:39:48Z")
that’s the question would it be art or not..? its hard to figure out and it depends on a persons interpretation ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/4 "2025-04-23T18:43:36Z")
Marcel Duchamp’s “readymades” are art, if that is the sort of thing you are asking. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/5 "2025-04-23T18:43:58Z")
Are you familiar with the Pullitzer Prize winning comic book Maus? I consider the man who created that to be Art. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/6 "2025-04-23T18:44:11Z")
“Art is making something out of nothing and then selling it.” (said Frank Zappa, who apparently believed that _any_ sound he taped was worthy of being put on a record). ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/7 "2025-04-23T18:45:30Z")
From Tom Stoppard’s _Travesties_: CARR: Don‘t you see, my dear Tristan, you are simply asking me to accept that the word Art means whatever you wish it to mean; but I do not accept it. TZARA: Why not? You do exactly the same thing with words like patriotism, duty, love, freedom… ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/8 "2025-04-23T18:47:22Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Are you familiar with the Pullitzer Prize winning comic book Maus? I consider the man who created that to be Art. But _Lil’ Abner_ was Al-generated. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/9 "2025-04-23T18:53:48Z")
You can’t really answer that question. It’s like Data on Star Trek asking “What does love feel like?” ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/10 "2025-04-23T18:59:27Z")
It is certainly a good question, but if you are running an art gallery the question is more, “is it crap?” (and will it sell) than “is it art?” ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/11 "2025-04-23T19:05:16Z")
Is it the intent of the person making a work that makes something art? Or, is it the impression of the person experiencing something that makes it art? ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/12 "2025-04-23T19:05:40Z")
Here’s the real question.^^ ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/13 "2025-04-23T19:08:13Z")
I have a friend who does photography. He was a quick study and achieved a very high level of technical skills very quickly. But what impresses me the most about his work is some of the things he captures that would have never caught my eye. He humbly explains that away by saying he takes thousands of photos and usually discovers those prize shots while editing. I see a lot of true art in his work. The best photo I ever took was purely by accident. I was photographing a bird in the air and was not even aware of the background until after the shot. It was an old plywood mill with a bunch of machinery and old barrels strewn around. I took the shot from across the river and it became my lifetime favorite but not art because it was by accident. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/14 "2025-04-23T19:34:19Z")
“Art” is whatever the self proclaimed artistic elite claims to be art. Or if you don’t care about their opinion, it’s whatever _you_ think is art. But I don’t think there’s an objective answer since art is something human made and human defined; you aren’t ever going to find an “art particle” to positively and objectively identify something as art, obviously. > [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I have a friend who does photography. He was a quick study and achieved a very high level of technical skills very quickly. But what impresses me the most about his work is some of the things he captures that would have never caught my eye. He humbly explains that away by saying he takes thousands of photos and usually discovers those prize shots while editing. I see a lot of true art in his work. I agree; although I’ve see self-proclaimed artists claim that _isn’t_ art. Especially the ones who are mad about generative AI, they can get _really_ angry about the idea that anything not directly and completely made by a human is art and extend that to photography. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/15 "2025-04-23T20:17:47Z")
I always go back to Aboriginal peoples blowing pigment from their mouths over their hand to make a hand print on a cave wall. Or the petrogylphs and drawings on stone faces. It’s a message. Art for the artist is a message they’re sending. If you pick up a sensation that an artwork speaks to you, on some level, the artist has succeeded. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/16 "2025-04-23T20:20:18Z")
Yep. I feel like it’s about the intent of the artist more than the consumer. I mean, someone who’s a terrible painter is still creating bad art, and someone who creates something beautiful inadvertently isn’t an artist either. Subjective quality is basically a different axis- bad art is still art, and beautiful functional stuff isn’t necessarily art unless it was intended to be so. I feel like AI generated art is art, as long as it was intended to be so. Quality is that other axis. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/17 "2025-04-23T20:34:42Z")
I think the question is too vague to allow for a concensus answer? “I know it when I see (or hear) it” may be the only response, which is of course entirely subjective. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-considered-art/1017412/18 "2025-04-23T20:44:51Z")
I guess to me, art is a form of expression and entertainment. If the creator feels they are expressing themselves, it is art. But also if the purpose is to provide entertainment to people, it is also art. Movies, TV shows, video games, etc are all art. But that assumes art and entertainment are the same thing.