I am an art and art education major so the discussion of what is and is not art is a very important to me. On http://www.philosophybites.libsyn.com/ there is a discussion titled “Derek Matravers on the Definition of Art.”

            In this discussion, they went through the different theories about what art really is and how it could be gauged. One of the first ideas is that beautiful objects cause a state that is more complex but similar to pleasure. The patterns of shapes and lines are the definition of this beauty that causes this complex pleasure feeling. The idea of the beauty is something that is not a personal matter.  In other words, one can say: “I like this,” because it is stating a personal preference to the piece of work. One cannot say or should not say: “This is beautiful,” because this statement forces others to either agree or disagree with what you are saying. The problem with this theory is that we are the best judge of what gives us the most pleasure and then, in turn, what is most beautiful. The creator of this theory then tries to exclude anything personal (i.e. things like color, texture and size) and makes beauty only about form, shape and line, which he thinks are a universal standard that everyone could say is or is not beautiful.

I do agree with the first part of the statement that the idea of beauty gives a person a form of complex pleasure and is the very essence of what makes us different and in no way can this feeling of beauty be standardized or made universal. I believe that something being beautiful and giving us that “complex pleasure” is a form of art, but that in itself fatally contradicts the rest of the aforementioned theory. I do not believe that there is anyway that beauty can be gauged on a universal scale, that is to say, I do not believe that there can be a universal standard of beauty. Throughout the discussion, they say that some art is and some art is not beautiful, which is my point. The beauty of a piece of art is too subjective and too dependent on the viewers’ perspective and experience for one person to assert that this piece of art is beautiful and this piece of art is not. This is some what pretentious. But, if there were 55 percent of the art world that thought it was beautiful and 45 percent thought that it was not beautiful, would it then be democratically considered art? This question really is two questions in one. One question being: what is the definition of the “art world” and the other being: how do things come to be part of the so called “art world?”

 Some philosophers say that things become part of the art world because of social links to the art world, in other words, things are art once they become associated with the art world. With this definition, a few problems come to me. One problem is, if a work that could be considered art is made and the person that created it has no idea that this “art world” exist and that person does not show the painting to anybody, is it still art simply because of the fact that it is has the potential to be art or because of some unspoken definition of what art really is? Another problem is the act of becoming associated with the “art world.” How does an object become part of the art world? Who decides? Do other people have a say in it? My answer to these questions is, that like the art itself, I believe the “art world” to be a very personal thing. My view of the “art world” is probably somewhat narrower in scope then a lot of other people’s perception of the “art world.” This includes one of the men brought up in the discussion; he thought that in order to be in the “art world” one only has to believe yourself part of the “art world.” This definition, to me, has too wide of a scope, but like I said, I think that the “art world” is as subjective as the art within it. This will help me in explaining my answer to the other question: how do things become part of the art world? Because my definition of the “art world” could be different from another person’s “art world,” the best definition I can come up with is art becomes part of someone’s personal “art world” when a person or people within their “art world” whom they trust claim it to be art.