The Philosophical Concept of Art

Art is a product of human activity, made with the intention of stimulating the human senses as well as the human mind and/or spirit; thus art is an action, an object, or a collection of actions and objects created with the intention of transmitting emotions and/or ideas. Beyond this description, there is no general agreed-upon definition of art, since defining the boundaries of "art" is subjective, but the impetus for art is often called human creativity.

An artwork is normally assessed in quality by the amount of stimulation it brings about. The impact it has on people, the number of people that can relate to it, the degree of their appreciation, and the effect or influence it has or has had in the past, all accumulate to the "degree of art." Most artworks that are widely considered to be "masterpieces" possess these attributes.

Something is not generally considered "art" when it stimulates only the senses, or only the mind, or when it has a different primary purpose than doing so. However, some contemporary art challenges this idea.

As such, something can be deemed art in totality, or as an element of some object. For example, a painting may be a pure art, while a chair, though designed to be sat in, may include artistic elements. Art that has less functional value or intention may be referred to as fine art, while objects of artistic merit which serve a functional purpose may be referred to as craft. Paradoxically, an object may be characterized by the intentions (or lack thereof) of its creator, regardless of its apparent purpose; a cup (which ostensibly can be used as a container) may be considered art if intended solely as an ornament, while a painting may be deemed craft if mass-produced.

In the 1800s, art was primarily concerned with ideas of "Truth" and "Beauty." There was a radical break in the thinking about art in the early 1900s with the arrival of Modernism, and then in the late 1900s with the advent of Postmodernism. Clement Greenberg's 1960 article "Modernist Painting" defined Modern Art as "the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself."

Greenberg originally applied this idea to the Abstract Expressionist movement and used it as a way to understand and justify flat (non-illusionistic) abstract painting. "Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using art to conceal art; Modernism used art to call attention to art. The limitations that constitute the medium of painting — the flat surface, the shape of the support, the properties of the pigment — were treated by the Old Masters as negative factors that could be acknowledged only implicitly or indirectly. Under Modernism these same limitations came to be regarded as positive factors, and were acknowledged openly."

Though only originally intended as a way of understanding a specific set of artists, this definition of Modern Art underlies most of the ideas of art within the various art movements of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century. The art of Marcel Duchamp becomes clear when seen within this context; when submitting a urinal, titled fountain, to the Society of Independent Artists exhibit in 1917 he was critiquing the art exhibition using its own methods.

Andy Warhol became an important artist through critiquing popular culture, as well as the art world, through the language of that popular culture. The later postmodern artists of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s took these ideas further by expanding this technique of self-criticism beyond "high art" to all cultural image-making, including fashion images, comics, billboards and pornography.