What makes Art Art?

An analysis of some key aspects that exist in a work of art

I have provided my answer to the question “What is Art” in this short article. In this article, I would like to go through some aspects that make up a work of art. Art is a man-made creation. Good art can have profound emotional and psychological effects on man. Art deals with abstract ideas by reducing them to the immediate perceptual level. Many different forms of art achieve this. Sculpture, for example, makes use of materials like bronze or marble and through the moulding of these materials into characters, a sculptor can concretise a virtue, or perhaps only a certain feeling - There is a very broad spectrum in this regard, but so long as the sculpture archives its function - bringing abstract ideas into the concrete perceptual level it is art.

Concretisation of ideas

(Michelangelo, David, 1504)

Michelangelo’s David, for example, concretises what an ideal man, in his view, looks like. It is a very powerful image that will affect anyone who looks at it. It requires no explanation, no introduction. Even a child will immediately understand what this statue is about. This is one crucial thing about art: It is perceptual, It’s immediate.

Human cognition needs visualisation as a key step of the understanding process. When I say 100 elephants, you won’t really grasp it until you actually see 100 elephants. Then and only then the meaning of 100 elephants will be fully realised [1]. Art brings down complicated abstract concepts to the immediate perceptual level. 

This tie to human cognition is the link between Epistemology and Art. It explains why man needs art to prosper intellectually and achieve the best possible understanding of abstract philosophical ideas. Art is not exclusively about beauty and enjoyment. Art is an essential means of intellectual development.

Beauty

The beauty aspects of art are also of a profound psychological need. Beauty is a broader concept that exists in many things like clothes, decoration, furniture, food, nature, etc. Beauty can invoke many great feelings in man. Beauty could be found and incorporated into almost every area of life as it is not exclusive to art. Art doesn’t necessarily have to be beautiful to be considered art. Nonetheless, there is a deep link between the two, but I would like to stress that a work can have some elements of art like beauty and still not be a whole work of art. Perhaps a “work of beauty” is a good term to differentiate between the two. 

A lovely vase can be a work of beauty. But, and this is crucial to understand, you cannot get metaphysical values from this vase. The vase doesn’t bring abstract ideas to the perceptual level. Some stunning works of beauty could invoke strong feelings in specific individuals, I do not mean to diminish the importance these creations can have, but for a work to be considered art, it has to have this intellectual element. It needs to concretise values, ideas, and feelings. 

Selectivity

(Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatti, 1784) 

Another essential aspect of art is selectivity. In a work of art, the artist has to recreate reality selectively - In paintings, for example, the artist has to pick what he is painting and what he is not painting. He has to decide where to place each object, the composition, and what kind of materials will he use in the painting. There are all different kinds of colours to pick from, all sorts of brushes. In music, there are many different instruments. An architect has to choose which building materials should he use: bricks or concrete blocks, etc. In short, the artist selects everything about a work of art in order for it to serve the specific purpose the artist deems fit for his work.  

Nothing is random in a good work of art, the composer has to meticulously select the chords and notes he is using, and the sculptor has to carefully mould every portion to achieve his exact vision. In “The Oath of the Horatti”, for example, the composition is split into three equal parts, and there is an excellent reason for that. It helps Jacques-Louis David to tell the story very brightly. It makes the scene very obvious and dramatic. In his artist style, Jacques-Louis David chooses to show an idyllic version of his subjects - He selects specific attributes about his subjects, idealises them, and he is ignoring all other non-idyllic features. 

Selectivity means that the artist deems some things inside his work as more important, some are less important, and some are utterly unimportant. This selectivity can teach us a lot about the value hierarchy of the artist. What is the most important thing to the artist? For Jacques-Louis David, the most important thing is to portray a dramatic, idealistic version of the subjects. There might be a different value hierarchy for another artist from a different era. For a 19th Century romantic painter, the issue of showing emotions or the sublime would be more important than delivering a perfectly realistic scenery. For a 20th Century hyperrealist, the essential issue would be that exact thing, and he will not be interested in anything regarding the sublime. 

Different levels of art

The more a work of art incorporates all of these different aspects of art like Beauty, Concretisation and Selectivity, the higher possible effect it can have. I want to stress that this is a highly personal issue, and it very much depends on one’s value hierarchy and if one is value-oriented, and to which particular degree. I want to look at it as a matter of potentiality; A work of art that is incredibly beautiful has the potential to invoke a significant emotional response in an individual who deems beauty as a high value. But if an individual has somehow managed to orient himself around ugliness, he might even react with disgust to that same work of art.

What cannot be considered art?

Any purely decorative work, like the vase mentioned above, or works that are mainly functional but also process artistic qualities like beautiful clothes, furniture, food, and others, cannot be considered art because they are not concretisations of values. One has to get a sense of value from a work of art, one can get an emotional response from a lovely vase, but it is only beauty. It does not relate to values, doesn’t say anything about the world, and has no philosophical meaning other than beauty for beauty’s sake. 

Like many examples of modern art, works that are pure selectivity cannot be considered art in the complete sense of the word. Nothing about this banana is beautiful, and it doesn’t concretise any values. The mere fact that the so-called “artist” selected to put this banana on the wall doesn’t mean anything. There are no values concretised to the perceptual level. It is only a banana. Remember, it has to be perceptual, not conceptual. If a work of art requires a guide to understand it, it cannot be art. 

Art is a complete integrated creation. Like a human body, it cannot exist without its brain. It could live without legs, hands, and an appendix. This is precisely what some modern art is. Still, a painting deprived of a subject, deprived of an object, deprived of beauty, an image that is essentially an empty canvas, cannot be considered art because to say that it’s art is to pollute and destroy the concept of art. What it stands for, and what it can do for humankind. A body without a brain, heart and other organs cannot survive. Therefore, it cannot be considered “alive”. The question of what is the exact moment in which a body can no longer be considered alive can be challenging indeed, but it doesn’t mean that we have to give up trying to figure that out.

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[1] - For a more comprehensive explanation of the link between art and epistemology, I highly recommend the essay “The Psycho-Epistemology of Art” by Ayn Rand.