art is

Art is expression. Of the self, one's thoughts and feelings and beliefs. It's not just painting a tree, it's conveying what the tree means to you. Art evokes, it suggests, it interprets, it expresses. It doesn't simply take dictation. It makes something that didn't exist before, that couldn't exist any other way. The artist who painstakingly reproduces the world in rigorous and accurate detail and no more, simply because they have the skills to do so, is really no different from a camera. The one who cynically cranks out yet another song or story or painting nearly identical to all their others, in their sleep, simply because they know they can sell it and for no other reason, is not creating art.

Art is in the intention of the creator.

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Art is an experience. The painter creates an experience for the eye, the musician for the ear, the writer for the mind, the chef for the tongue. Some will find the experience engaging, or delightful, or moving [good]; others may find it indifferent or unpleasant [bad]. But, good or bad, it's still art regardless. The pop musician may be up on stage playing their hit for the zillionth time on autopilot, bored out of their skull... but people in the audience are ecstatic because that piece connects with them powerfully, here and now. Norman Rockwell cranks out a painting in less than a week because a magazine hired him to make their cover, and some people dismiss him as a hack commercial illustrator... but next week, and for decades afterward, other people are moved to laughter or tears by the story they see evoked in his facial expressions.

Art is in the response of the audience.