What is Art?
Everyone else reckons they know, I might as well have a go.
So in one of my recent ill-advised forays into the parts of Twitter that are even stupider than the parts I normally frequent, I came across this tweet:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">1. Ever wonder what the rest of the Mona Lisa looks like?<br><br>Got <a href="
26, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
This was the beginning of an absolutely abomination of a thread in which an AI evangelist explained how great it was to get AI to “expand” classic works of art, and see what the bot thought the “rest” of the artwork looked like. The results are hideous. Not necessarily to look at - visually they are simply pointless: who the hell cares what might or might not be outside the frame of the Mona Lisa, or Starry Night? Not a single one of the paintings with an AI assist actually look better, or illuminate anything about the original work that we couldn’t see before.
But quite apart from how they look, the AI-stretched paintings are repulsive because of the very idea of them. The very idea that this is somehow good, that this is something people should want. Most of all, that this is something people should be impressed by: that, having wondered at Van Gogh’s ability to capture something indefinable and yet achingly true about the human spirit’s communion with nature, we should now wonder at the ability of a computer program to make his picture bigger by approximating the shapes and colours he used.
It’s like the human soul has been flayed from its body, turned inside out and hung on a pike, and the people who did it can’t understand why we’re not applauding.
I can only imagine that the AI fanboys who are excited about what their new toy did to these masterpieces are in that state because on some deep and un-self-confessed level, they hate art. Actual art confuses and angers them, because they don’t understand what it is, what it’s for or where it comes from.
But that got me thinking: so what is it?
What is art?
There are a million different answers: everyone has their own idea of what art is and what it isn’t. People especially like to put forward their ideas of what art is for. Why does art exist, and why should we care?
Some people say art is there to provide an escape from reality, while others say it is exists to bring us closer to it. Some say art should challenge or shock, others that it should elevate or delight.
I don’t think any of these ideas are wrong. But I have my own way of thinking about art.
I don’t think there’s any meaningful distinction between art and entertainment. I don’t think that “Art” is a superlative: I think bad art and good art are both, equally, art: they differ in quality, not in kind. When I think of what art is, as opposed to “what good art is”, I think of Adam Wayne, the titular warrior-poet of GK Chesterton’s The Napoleon of Notting Hill. Wayne is a bad poet, but a poet nonetheless: though the art he creates is dreadful, he is every bit as much an artist as those with far greater talent an accomplishments.
Art does not have to be great to be art: it simply has to spring from that place within us that feels the need to create something, to bring into the world…
What?
Well, it could be almost anything. An artist can paint a picture or write a book or make a film or carve a statue or build a cathedral. They can scribble out a poem or sketch a few lines on a napkin or tap out a tune on a piano or break into a dance or sing or act or…well, put out an online newsletter.
Art is near-impossible to confine in a simple definition or narrow sphere of human activity. The artistic impulse fractures into such a dazzling spectrum of creative endeavour that almost any definition you come up with will, on reflection, have excluded something.
Which is why the best I can do to say what art is, is to say what art does. And here is what I think.
This is a hard world to exist in. Being human is not an easy task. The happiest of us will often be sad. The most successful of us will often fail. Those of us with the smoothest path in life will still find the business of existence, from time to time, nearly unbearable. And very few of us will ever be in those fortunate groups anyway. The world is cruel. The world is unjust. Pain and sadness dogs us every day, at every turn, and everywhere we look suffering is the rule and joy the exception.
The fact is that by being born human into this world, we have been singularly unlucky. We’ve drawn a short straw - or maybe it’s just that short straws are all there ever were. Either way, it is easy to conclude, after sober consideration of the facts at hand, that to be brought into existence as a human being here on earth is a real kick in the guts.
And that’s why we have art. Because we are unlucky enough to be alive, here and now, the universe has taken pity on us and given us something to wring solace from. That something is art.
It is the fact that we can look upon a painting and feel our heart swell. It’s the fact we can read a story and feel that we understand a little more of the tangled mystery of humanity. It’s the fact we can hear a piece of music and feel tears of joy prick at our eyes. It’s the fact that we can sing along, gaze in wonder, give a standing ovation. It’s the fact that pictures, films, books, can genuinely excite us, can quicken the blood and convince us that the air crackles with the magic of potential.
And even more, it’s the fact that we can make things that do this to others. It’s the fact that we can dream things from the mundane to the fantastic that build bridges between brains and allow us to connect with other people in a way that nothing but art can possibly furnish.
It’s the fact that in doing all this, even if only for brief flashes of light between stretches of darkness, we are made to feel that being alive has its rewards. It’s the fact that the world is made tolerable because we make art, because we consume art, and because we know that art is possible.
Art is our consolation prize for being human. And as consolation prizes go, it ain’t a bad one.