What makes art "art"?

Theories abound in all fields of art. Some are simple and some more complex. We have a variety of criteria, mostly exclusionary; we have no positive defining characteristics. Even the intent of the artist has little to do with whether his/her output is perceived as "artistic"; many works of art now widely considered to be masterpieces were simply commercial ventures, things created to please the purchaser. From "Mona Lisa" to Mozart, the intent of the artist was simply to earn a living. Battles have raged among differing groups, yet no group has found a standard that cannot be contravened.

It has occurred to me after thinking about this topic most of my adult life that the failure in the attempted definitions of art arises from thinking of art as a property belonging to the artistic creation. All definitions of which I am aware focus attention on the work of art itself, attempting to ascribe its value as an artistic work to the shape, form, color, sound or skill involved.

I propose that the definition of art be focused instead on the relationship between perceiver and creation. When the creation has the power to evoke strong feeling in the perceiver, even negative feeling, the artistic creation has done something of importance. Unfortunately, such a standard is transitory; things that were highly evocative at one time may lose their power to stimulate response. What moves us and touches us varies from century to century, place to place, person to person. Many if not most people in the world are totally oblivous to the possibility of being emotionally moved by a series of sounds or shapes on paper or the written word.

And some insist that only certain feelings may be evoked. However, this is a weak argument and many instances can be found to be exceptions. Do we consider being moved to anger or disgust to be an artistic experience? How about impatience or contempt or amusement? Another problem with this definition is that it is very culturally specific. A Frenchman may be moved to tears by the sounds of the "Marseillaise", while a Chinese may not even find the sounds particularly interesting. People of all cultures tend to favor certain emotional states over others: sadness, longing, loneliness, love, tenderness, excitement and the like are universal favorites. Other feelings may not even have names, yet their effect is real and understandable. Some art is majestic, overwhelming, even glorious or tragic, but what do we call the feeling that rises up in us when we encounter it?

Still, we should consider that we bring ourselves, our personalities and unique histories, to the artistic creation, with all our prejudices and biases, and in spite of that, we find some creations to have the power to move us quite irrespective of where or when we live in relationship to it. I think an interactive definition is as close as we can come.