Kelly McKeown

Aesthetics
Marjorie Hall
16 December 2013
Term Paper Final Draft
Art is the most beautiful and complex things in the entire world. It can be beautiful, ugly,
happy, sad, purposeful, decorative, colorful, dark, and the list goes on. But Richard Eldridge
wrote a book called An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art in the hopes that readers may
become more articulate about the nature of art and its distinctive roles in human life. After
reading this quote for the first time, I thought it was near impossible. The philosophies of art are
so widespread and confusing and have so many different ideas going on that I just wasnt sure
that any progress would be made in me, at least. But now, I have a different view on this
statement. I have been changed by this Aesthetics course and I am now much more articulate
about this subject than I have been in the past. To challenge myself, I have chosen a topic that
Im not so sure Ill have all of the answers to, but this is in the hopes that one day I will know all
there is to know about how I feel and how others feel on this topic of aesthetics. I wish to
explore the question of what categories of things do I think qualify as art and what characteristics
are most important for me in identifying works of art. Using the class texts in addition to
extensive outside research, and writing about what I do not see as art, I have come up with some
answers to these questions.
Throughout history, people have debated back and forth over what should and should not
be qualified as art. Personally I think that this question of what qualifies as art is a difficult one
and I cant quite put my finger on the best way to go about figuring out what qualifies as art to

me. That being said, there are characteristics of art that I think need to be present in order for me
to qualify the piece as art. The most important thing to me is that the art stimulates a reaction in
its audience. I believe that in some way, everything has to evoke some emotion in the person
viewing it. Whether the emotion is happy, sad, angry, or any other emotion, for me, art just has
to be sure to evoke emotion. Without this, I do not believe it can be art. For me, the Hallelujah
Chorus, a part of Messiah composed in 1741 by George Friedrich Handel (See Reference Link
1), is something that invokes many emotions in me as a listener. I feel happy, excited, and
pumped up and I think about something really happy that is in my life at the time or even in the
past. This piece connects to me on an emotional level and I know that music just has that effect
on people. The chords and notes and lyrics bring together something magical that just brings out
those goosebumps in me. To me, the works of art that evoke emotion can for sure defined as art.
In addition, I also believe is that it has to be a piece that is created fully, creatively and
physically, by the artist to be considered art. Although this is hard to convey, I think that the
artist needs to be fully creating whatever the piece is. I dont think that its art when people take
something manufactured for some other function and put it on a pedestal and call it art. I think
that the artist has to at least put his or her own ideas and effort into a piece of art to make it
qualify as art. For example, Marcel Duchamps piece he called Fountain in 1917 (See Reference
Photo 2). This to me is not art at all because the artist has done nothing to take it and make it
his own. Just because something is in society doesnt mean that it can be used as an art piece.
That being said, I have recently found another example of something that I do not consider art.
When at the Museum of Fine Arts the other day, we came across a piece that was an exact replica
of a cheese grater, but it was much larger and open, not like the box that we usually see it as (See
Reference Photo 3). Although the artist might have taken time to think about it, this is not

something that the artist came up with on his or her own and I just see it as a piece that is
supposed to be functional in society, not on display at a museum. I just do not think that an exact
copy of some functional item still posed as a functional item should be considered art. That
being said, the cheese grater piece is different from Duchamps urinal because of the work that
went into it. Clearly the cheese grater piece at least had to be formed and constructed, while the
urinal piece was literally just a pre-made urinal sitting on a pedestal. There is a huge difference
between the two being that the urinal was not re-created and the cheese grater piece was. All in
all, I still stick to my thinking that exact copies of items, even with just a size difference, should
not be considered art.
Another thing I believe has to go into art work is thought. This may sound simple, but I
do not think that any piece of art can be formed without thinking in depth about it first. This fact
might change my opinions for a lot of pieces that I might not normally consider art. But if it is
shown that a lot of work went into the process and idea behind making it, it would be considered
art in my eyes. As an example, there is a piece of art at the MFA that I saw last week, and at first
glance I just thought it was a decoration. Even after hearing that it was art, my vote was that it
was not art because it is just red beads that are hanging from the ceiling (See Reference Photo 4).
To me it looked like the beads I had hanging in my room as a child which, in my opinion, should
not be hanging in a huge, well-known art museum. But, after reading the description, I was
almost in tears and immediately decided that this was art, and very thought-provoking art at that.
The description said that after the artists partner died from AIDS, he started stringing these
beads together to remind us of the treatment of the illness and the preciousness of healthy blood
(See Reference Photo 5). I was completely and utterly moved by this work of art that I once

thought I would not consider art. Through research of the art, though, I found that I considered
this a beautiful, moving, well-thought-out work of art.
Through this semester we have looked at numerous philosophers and their views on
everything to do with art and aesthetics. One of the ones that stood out to me the most was Leo
Tolstoy. He and his writing of What is Art has helped me think really in depth about a lot more
than I would have before this class. Tolstoys argument that resonated with me the most is that
notion that he believes art needs to stem from a real feeling from the artist and that the artist will
want to connect with his or her audience on an emotional level. I happen to agree with both of
these statements, as shown above. I, like Leo Tolstoy, believe that you need these things in ones
art for it to be considered art. Tolstoy said, To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once
experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colours,
sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the
same feelingthis is the activity of art. (What Is Art, 40). I love this quote from Tolstoy
because he really is speaking to the way that artists use art for the purpose of transmitting
emotions. It is here where I really grasped that Tolstoy fully believed that artists would want to
connect with his or her audience on an emotional level. And that is exactly what I think needs to
be present for me to consider something art. An artist needs to connect with his or her audience
with some kind of emotion; thats when I think that I know the artist was genuine in his creation
of the piece. For example, take Vincent Van Goghs Old Man in Sorrow (On the Threshold of
Eternity). (See Reference Photo 6). This picture says so many things and emotion, specifically
sadness, is the first thing I think of when I see this piece. You can see that the artist has put in so
much thought and effort into not only the act of painting, but the emotion behind it. One can see
clearly that the artist has experienced some kind of heart-wrenching pain that has forced him to

have a moment similar to the one he has painted here. It actually hurts my heart looking at this
piece because I can see how torn up the figure is without even seeing his face. You can tell that
Van Gogh has experienced some pain that sparked him to create this piece because the body
language is so spot-on to someone feeling real hurt.Tolstoy also said, Art is a human activity,
consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to
others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings, and also
experience them. (What is Art, 40). This quote, too goes hand in hand with Van Goghs
painting and my thoughts that emotion is necessary in a work of art to actually be considered art
in my eyes.
Another man who wrote many great and interesting things on the subject of what should
and should not be considered art is Arthur Danto. With his work, The Artworld, he conveyed
his ideas of the things he identified as art. He also believed that art as embodied meaning is an
important characteristic of artworks. This is one thing that I agree with him on. I strongly feel
that his theory of aboutness is something that is needed when considering things as art or not
art.
To summarize, I think a lot of things go into deciding if something that someone is
calling art is, in fact, actually art. There are many theorists that have different views, like Leo
Tolstoy and Arthur Danto, and there are also many views of average art viewers, like I, who have
many things to say about what I consider to be art and what I dont consider to be art. Through
this paper I have researched and thought about the topic of what characteristics works of art need
to be present to be thought of as art for me and have come to many conclusions that I hadnt
previously made.

Works Cited
Danto, Arthur. The Artworld. 1964. CITE ARTHUR DANTOS BOOK HERE.
Graham, Gordon. Philosophy of The Arts An Introduction to Aesthetics Third Edition. Milton
Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2005. Print.
Korsmeyer, Carolyn. Aesthetics: The Big Questions. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell
Publishing Ltd, 1998. Print.
LaPrade, Marjorie. Defining art: What qualifies as art? Boston Art. Clarity Digital Group LLC.
n.d. Online. November 18, 2013.
Tolstoy, Leo. What is Art? 1898. CITE LEO TOLSTOYS BOOK HERE

Works of Art in Order of Mention

1. YouTube Link to George Friedrich Handels Messiah The Hallelujah Chorus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usfiAsWR4qU

2.

Marcel Duchamp Fountain 1917

3.

4.

5.

6.

Old Man in Sorrow (On the Threshold of Eternity)

Vincent Can Gogh