Art is:
-the measure by which a civilization's mettle is tested in time.
-legitimises an institution's idiographic frameworks.
-functional, pleases the eye and stimulates the mind all at once.
-expression (nothing to do with the Expressionist movement).
-representation 'memesis'-imitation (Plato).
-significant form, (Bell & Fry).
-frozen emotion (Tolstoy).
-pleases the divine nature of man, elevation of crude Phillistines into men of culture and refinement (Hegel)
-an organic whole and made from complex (early Weisz) disparate parts that would not have made sense if taken apart.
-too complicated to define (late Weisz).
-exercises the free play of the imagination (Kant).
-pure intuition (Croce)
-polemical in intention (Wittgenstein)
-intertextuality (Foucault)
-satisfies the imaginative need for social harmony (Parker) and 'group think' (Orwell).
What do I think art means? I think art has become a replacement or a substitute for the experience of the sublime in secular life for those embarassed by their inner need to commune with God, IMHO. I don't think it matters much to God how to get his hands on you, lol.
Personally, I think the aesthetic theories above are like segments of an orange, no less orange tasting than if you cut them up, diced up, or juice them up. It is still smells as orangey as when the rind is still attached. Then, the 'taste' depends where the orange come from, its climate, culture, hybridity, etc... If you are a purist and prefer only one of these theories- you'll only get a taste of one segment. How sad is that? In art its was said is the source of the sublime. I love that word 'Sublime', it is so elevated, a tad pretentious but bear with me.
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Sources of sublimated experience:
-An exciting soccer game or when my team lost makes me cry (oh, the pathos of it).
-seeing a beautiful sunset/landscape-storm at sea/tall cliffs/view from a skyscraper, a view of earth in space as you look through the porthole.
-a circus show with perfect performances
-any experience with a beloved during courtship
-fantastically cooked meal
-a picture of virgin mary as a tomato sauce blot on a sandwich
-lots more, almost anything non-art can be perfectly sublime if you know where, how and when to look.
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