Art - What Is Considered

Art - What is Considered Beautiful? People's evaluation of art can never be anything other than subjective. When someone praises a work, or even simply declares that they find it beautiful, their criteria are rarely based on the intrinsic merit of the work, but rather on how it makes them feel-or because they know that the artist is famous." It can be said that this statement is generally true.

Art is both perceptual and psychological, thus the "power of aesthetic perception is the interaction between the object and the beholder" (Chang Pp). Art creates emotion and so creates response. "The experimental aesthetic value of even the most successful art pieces is relative with changes in time and conditions of the society in which it resides" (Chang Pp). Because art is psychological, it involves both the conscious and unconscious processes of the beholder (Chang pp).

This awareness and receptivity of a piece of art is referred to as the sensitivity of the beholder (Chang Pp). Art represents the past realities, as well as functioning as a predictor of societal evolution (Chang Pp). Nathan Kogan writes that Paleolithic art forms, paintings and sculptures, were associated with ritual and ceremonies, thus, promoting the solidarity and prosperity of the group as a whole (Kogan Pp).

Art is emotional and this arousal "implies distinctive central and autonomic nervous system activity, which represents the primary connection between art and biology" (Kogan Pp). Therefore, humans have an underlying sensitivity to the arts, and from the days the Paleolithic era, art appears to be embedded within the human genes (Kogan Pp). The definition of art to most people today differs greatly from that of past societies (Art Pp).

Today, critics include in their definition of art what is called 'visual culture,' such as comic books, advertising, television, and motion pictures (Art Pp). "Perhaps the major difficulty in defining art lies in the fact that art implies value-monetary, social, and intellectual. Large amounts of money may be involved when an object is regarded as art" (Art Pp). For example, "a sculpture of beer cans by American artist Jasper Johns is worth millions of dollars, while beer cans themselves are worth almost nothing" (Art Pp).

Most critics believe that John's work qualifies as art "because the artist intended it to be seen as art' (Art Pp). However, there is much in the world that is considered art, yet the "artists" had no such intention when they created it, such as "blankets woven by Navajo women whose identities are unknown" (Art Pp). Art is ever changing, "not only in its general definition but also in its subdivisions. People not only make art, but also choose which objects should be called art" (Art Pp).

Art critics refer to the work of Bulgarian-born Christo and American Robert Smithson as land art and earthworks (Art Pp). In February 2005, Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, fulfilled a twenty-six-year-old dream art project when 7,500 saffron colored drapes hanging from 16-foot-high steel frames were unfurled as they wound their way through twenty-three miles of footpaths through Central Park (Sanders Pp). During a recent visit to New York City, reporter Bob Ray Sanders made a special stop to the park to witness "The Gates" for himself (Sanders Pp).

His describes the contrast of the bright orange colors with the "grayness of stark barren trees and shrubbery did give the appearance of what the artists called a 'visual golden river' with many tributaries meandering through the park' (Sanders Pp). Sanders said that the bursts of color and the sheer size of the project left him awed, however, his Pakistani taxi driver merely uttered, "What is that," to which Sanders replied, "that's art" (Sanders Pp).

The taxi driver gasped and said, "And that's art." when Sanders told him that the project cost $21 million (Sanders Pp). "That's not art," said the taxi driver, "That's crazy...$21 million for this...." (Sanders Pp). The taxi driver clearly did not appreciate "The Gates" as art or anything else and believed that the $21 million could have been given to people who need it, like the tsunami victims (Sanders Pp). When Sanders told him that people from all of the world.