A personally define art as anything that has the potential to engage another person. If a photograph, painting or sculpture has the ability to encourage feeling in people, then I consider it worthy of being called art. I have seen graffiti on buildings and overpasses and thought, “Wow! How did someone paint that simply with spray paint?” The questions about who, what and where fill my head. Example. This image makes me wonder, what is the artist trying to say? Has the man in the image been stagnant so long that he is becoming the forest or does he love the forest so much that he wants to be a part of it? How did the artist successfully incorporate the trees in the background? This graffiti represents a piece of art to me. It causes me to think and ask questions.

The definition of art is subjective and for each individual to define for themselves. Each person’s feeling for a piece of art is determined by their life experiences and their state of mind during their first encounter of the art. For the sake of Art class, the definition of art has some guidelines. The piece of work should speak to people and should be created with a purpose. Art should take an everyday event and interpret it in a different way. The artist should spend time trying to convey a point to the viewer and express their individualism. Art should not be a random design although some pieces of art may seem random until further investigation. I agree with these expectations of what art is, even though I didn’t think about the definition as thoroughly until viewing these assignments. The point that stuck out to me the most was Leon Botstein’s point that artists create things that have no words.

I do not believe that art has to be what I perceive as beautiful. I may view a piece of art that depicts a painful sorrowful emotion and not see the beauty of it. Others may see the raw emotion and determine that there are attractive qualities to the suffering that they can identify with.