What Constitutes Art?

Can You Explain Art?

Life was a funny thing that occurred to me on the path to the tomb.

~ Quentin Crisp

Artists have been let down by commercial marketers for decades.

Depending on prevailing trends and people's interests, traditional marketers usually encourage artists to create work that people like. It is the intention of artists to begin with the client and then create art for them.

This product marketing idea makes sense from a business perspective. The customer always comes first when designing a product or service.

However, art is neither a service nor a product. The conviction that drives an artist manifests itself in their work. It is unrealistic to expect an artist to begin with the client and then develop a set of principles based on their requirements and preferences.

Artists lose their originality and creative individuality when they try to tailor their work to a certain group of people. Artists flourish and thrive when they create genuine art and present it to audiences that feel the same way.

Since the students read little before entering college and frequently lack the most basic historical knowledge about the time period in which the novel or poem was written, including what significant ideas and issues occupied thinking people at the time, teaching American literature, as I have been doing, has grown increasingly difficult in recent years.

~ Charles Simic

Interest is the most essential thing in life; pleasure is transient, but interest is ongoing.

~ Georgia O'Keeffe

The interaction between art and marketing is complicated because we have a hard time obtaining a sense of why someone may need to make it. If we view ‘need’ as just monetary, then art is reduced to a creative widget-like object that fulfills a solely cosmetic desire. That term soul is already tough to define, and creative freedom seems a little self-indulgent to our ears.

Even the artist is stuck in this predicament. We’re not aided by the way we’re taught and schooled to link our natural interests to the intrinsic cause of why we’re living. We’re definitely not encouraged to expect to earn a successful livelihood by listening to our ‘soul.’ This is how our artmaking urge becomes a pastime.

Living in a society that defines everything as transactional makes it hard to comprehend what the artist is up to. I use the term artist broadly to embrace anybody generating beauty and meaning. Writers are artists, as are dancers and designers.

Those who can make what the public desires may or may not be artists. You have to have a trained eye for the soul to realize the difference. If Soul is missing, it’s not art; it's a commodity, a commercial offering. Our contemporary brain has a hard time perceiving the difference.

Selling the notion of soul is different from embracing it. Art embodies it, but selling it is an invitation to a transaction. We’ve gotten so acclimated to the conventions of commerce we can’t distinguish the difference. This is how schlock passes as art.

We need a lot more art, and we need to be seeing it everywhere, not as anything spectacular but as daily beauty that halts us in our tracks. Living with stripped-down, graceless surroundings is a harm to our core humanity. Our constructed environment, so contemporary, so efficient, so cost-effective, so utilitarian, doesn’t fulfill the soul. We still require excellence in design, materials, and shape. We still require embellishment and beautiful proportions.

Our quick-and-easy culture aborts the birth of beauty, and the human spirit is stillborn in that environment. Only the lucky avoid such a destiny, via chance or design. It becomes the responsibility of poets and rebels to sound the alarm, but only those who are paying attention notice.

The Search for Art in Everyday Life

In a society obsessed by efficiency and speed, it's easy to forget that art isn't only something that belongs in a gallery or on a stage. Art is life itself. It's the beauty in the morning light that strikes a window, the lines of a metropolis framed against the evening sun, or the curve of a tree that remains steadfast against the winds of time. But in our busy, performance-driven world, we seldom take the time to notice or appreciate these things.

Art is not constrained by a formal framework or a specific medium. It’s not simply restricted to paint on a canvas or a sculpture cut from stone. Art exists in everything that has been crafted with care, meaning, and love. It dwells in the items that surround us, the places we occupy, and the sentiments that stir within us when we are open enough to genuinely perceive.

The contemporary world frequently drives us to perceive everything through a transactional perspective. We assess value by use and function and frequently miss the ethereal beauty that items, people, and experiences may possess. But art is not about utilitarianism—it’s about expressiveness. It's a technique of conveying what cannot be conveyed with words, a manner of presenting an idea, a tale, or a conviction that transcends the everyday.

And maybe here is where the problem rests for us as a culture. We have grown so enmeshed in a world of exchange—of buying and selling, of getting and giving—that we have lost how to relate with the world in a completely spiritual sense. The concept of making something just because it matters to us, because it speaks to a reality we hold dear, has become almost strange.

Yet art is still out there. It's in the music that fills our lives, the clothing we choose to wear, and the design of the items we use every day. Art is not only for the selected few; it’s for everyone, everywhere, at every time. And maybe the biggest problem we have as a civilization is knowing how to perceive it again—how to see beyond the commercial hustle and identify the beauty in the things that matter to our souls.

Art in the Modern Age

As we continue to navigate a society that promotes efficiency over creativity, it's crucial to remember that art doesn’t need to be commodified to be worthwhile. We are all artists in our own way, and the production of beauty—whether in language, movement, design, or nature—is a vital element of being human.

It's time to return to the essence of what art actually is—a reflection of our innermost values, a representation of our most true selves. It’s not about producing for the market; it’s about creating for the soul. And when it occurs, genuine art is formed. True art doesn’t solicit for approval, nor does it beg for attention. It exists because it must, and it finds its place in the world, whether that place be at a museum, a street corner, or in the heart of a pedestrian who is temporarily affected.

Perhaps, in the end, the most essential thing is to recognize that art isn't something that can be explained—it’s something that must be experienced. It’s a sensation, a sight, an understanding that transcends words and goes right to the center of who we are. And it is what makes art so powerful, so necessary, and so irreplaceable in our contemporary society.

To genuinely accept art, we must let go of the impulse to measure it, to reduce it to an object on a shelf. Instead, we must perceive beauty in all its forms—in every brushstroke, in every note played, in every curve and shape that evokes wonder. Art is the soul of the world, and without it, we would be lost in a sea of nothingness.