Talk:Art

Richard Wollheim's distinctions

Richard Wollheim's distinctions of views on art as either 'realistic', 'objectivistic' or 'relativistic' may be said to be pertaining to, even symptomatic of the predominantly anglo-american school of Analytic philosophy, as opposed to the Continental philosophy; the proposed other major stream in the currents of occidental philosophy. If this is acknowledged it is problematic that the wikipedia article on art, in its current reading, frames art in this fashion. That is predominantly because of the current position in the article of Richard Wollheims distinctions . I will argue that it is at odds with the neutrality policy. In the extension of this argument, one should seek to adapt the habit of adressing the cultural position of information. This can be done in a simple and elegant way without problem; for instant. in the context of analytical philosophy, Richard Wollheim suggests three different views on arts practices...— Preceding unsigned comment added by Xact (talk • contribs) 12:16, 23 September 2009

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Community Economic and Social Development II

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 9 January 2024 and 12 April 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jaswinder kaur 005 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: SANDHU20, Ange Berenice.

— Assignment last updated by SINGH KHUSHWINDER (talk) 17:47, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Is art unique To humans

I feel it is necessary to come to a proper consensus rather than just reverting. This isn’t a clear cut issue and one of the shortcomings of the current definition is it’s necessarily biased as we are humans, so any definition will be quite Non-anthropomorphic—there is an entire article dedicated to Animal-made art so how could you say only animals make art. Legendarycool (talk) 07:19, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

The standard definition of art is that it is a human activity. It's one thing to say every bird or cricket or frog or whale is a musician, although the conventional view is that only human judgment decides what is or is not music, as suggested by Jean-Jacques Nattiez here. Wind blowing through trees may sound like music, in which case no animal of any kind needs to be involved. Your edit states that art is a range of activities "most commonly displayed in humans", but this is unsupported, and there are more ants building anthills than there are human artists, and always have been. Popular media has often drawn attention to trained elephants or monkeys who can swing a paintbrush, but can you name any notable works of art made by non-humans? Has any non-human animal ever trained another non-human animal to paint or draw or compose waltzes? It would seem that the animal performer is merely a utensil used by a human to produce a novel sensation, a saleable product, or (often) a demonstration of how little skill it takes to create art that will impress supposed experts. Just as a chimpanzee given a brush and paint can be trained to produce something that resembles abstract expressionism, a trained parrot can utter a string of words and phrases that may sound like poetry to a human ear; do you propose mentioning parrots in the lead section of Poetry? Is every spider an architect? Ewulp (talk) 01:28, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

First of all thank you for your willingness to find a solution to the current disagreement.

Your first argument stating “ The standard definition of art is that it is a human activity.” Has a few issues as that definition is only used, as far as I could see by Oxford Languages, which is an issue as most other definitions of art didn’t even mention humans/people (most did use pronouns in the example which could be inferred as talking about a human). Here are a couple of definitions that contrasts oxford language’s one: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/art (does say art is characteristic of humans but only in an example, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/art (calls it once of the humanities though that would not mean exclusively), https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/art (uses humans as examples as we most commonly talk about human made art), https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/art (same as Cambridge), https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/art (this one uses people but even then that is not universally used to refer to exclusively humans) and https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/art (only definition 3 mentions humans).

Your second argument “… the conventional view is that only human judgment decides what is or is not music, as suggested by Jean-Jacques Nattiez here.” Has a glaring issue why is the human the deciding factor because a bird choosing a mate for it’s song would play the same role and that suggestion would only apply to what is ‘human music’ or what sounds like music to a human.

The third argument you present “ Wind blowing through trees may sound like music, in which case no animal of any kind needs to be involved.” I do agree no animal is needed to make art by some definitions like Cambridge’s definition.

The forth point you present “ Your edit states that art is a range of activities "most commonly displayed in humans", but this is unsupported, and there are more ants building anthills than there are human artists, and always have been.” Is correct and the wording I had can definitely be improved upon but the article in some way need to be changed to be more accurate.

Your fifth argument “Popular media has often drawn attention to trained elephants or monkeys who can swing a paintbrush, but can you name any notable works of art made by non-humans? Has any non-human animal ever trained another non-human animal to paint or draw or compose waltzes? It would seem that the animal performer is merely a utensil used by a human to produce a novel sensation, a saleable product, or (often) a demonstration of how little skill it takes to create art that will impress supposed experts.” Is flawed and as I see it quite disingenuous as the point you made about me being able to name an artwork has nothing to do with this, your second point is quite useless as a painting or drawing or waltz isn’t something that has been universally made by humans though I appreciate your use of the phrase “…non-human animal…” . The point you make about how it’s only used to make a unique product to sell is not so strong due to the use of art as a form of stimulation in zoos as well as to sell which I do not deny. The point made about art critics is not very logical as modern art is in someway an expression of one’s self and the process of putting something done.

(On a less relevant note I would recommend doing some impressionist or abstract art as it’s just fun to do).

The final point you give is “ Just as a chimpanzee given a brush and paint can be trained to produce something that resembles abstract expressionism, a trained parrot can utter a string of words and phrases that may sound like poetry to a human ear; do you propose mentioning parrots in the lead section of Poetry? Is every spider an architect?” These point are quite interesting but the first point is covered in the last two paragraphs, only a trained parrot can mimic not make those sounds so not parrots don’t belong in Poetry anymore than if I were to sing in Sumerian for a crowd. The final point is flawed as not all spiders make webs but I get what’s your saying.

overall I feel that the current article needs to be changed in some way to accommodate this.

P.S. I apologise in advance for any errors I didn’t catch

Legendarycool (talk) 03:13, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Art is defined in terms of human activity even by the examples you cite, and more explicitly so by the better sources. Art and Philosophy: Readings in Aesthetics (1979, edited by W. E. Kennick) is a 729-page textbook of writings by thinkers from three centuries who have grappled with the question "what is art?". A foundational premise (p. 4) is that "'art' refers to a certain human activity, or group of related activities, as well as to the products of that activity, or those activities". According to the definition you seem to lean toward (as in "The third argument"), anything at all that people appreciate is art, which renders the term rather meaningless: a hen's egg is art, an attractive cloud is art, the moon is art, etc. Standard books about art and the arts do not mention non-human animals as artists at all, or objects that are not artifacts as works of art, and Wikipedia follows sources. If you think there's "a glaring issue" in the "second argument" take it up with Nattiez—we cannot know whether a bird thinks of a bird's vocalization as music or as something else (maybe an alarm or a demonstration of fitness). A trained parrot may be able to reproduce many words and phrases; every time it chooses certain words/phrases/squawks and puts them together in combinations never heard before it performs the same activity a human writer performs, so given your stated beliefs it is not clear why you reject the idea of parrot as poet. If you really want to add a line to this article about elephants trained to make paintings, place it near the bottom of the article please, because it is trivia; it does not belong in the lead section, and certainly not in the first sentence. Ewulp (talk) 04:44, 27 July 2024 (UTC)