What Is Art? — a survey
↰ texts · 967 words · Published: Feb 12, 2026Here are some varied and wildly contradictory takes on art. I treat these quotes as descriptions of art, rather than definitions 1 , a bit like the blind men able to describe only aspects of the elephant, and never its whole.
These quotes have stuck with me over the years. Having scribbled down, or typed these out in various places, I figured it’d be nicer to have them here together in one place ~
The comics writer Alan Moore, in conversation with Melinda Gebbie and Matt Green in 2012 2 :
“Art is for many things, but it may be that we need art to constantly keep commenting upon our own cultural progress, upon our own emotional or intellectual progress. We need art as a way of talking about where we are — even spiritually, if you like — where we are in terms of our world and our place in it. That is probably what keeps culture moving forwards. (..) It’s a way of revising our ideas about ourselves, and thus keeping them moving."
“Art is not a commodity. Art should be an explosive substance that changes the world.”
“I think this is true of all the arts: if they’re not engaged in, if they’re not about upsetting you in some way — and I know that sounds harsh and confrontational — but if art doesn’t surprise you, then all it is doing is reassuring you and reconfirming your prejudices. Most popular culture is, or a lot of it is saying: ‘Everything’s okay. Everything’s okay with the way that you think about things, with the way that you see the world — everything’s okay. Isn’t it nice. Look, a butterfly.’”
Comics artist Melinda Gebbie, in the same conversation
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“All the things about art is being alone in a room with that thing — that thing you’re going to start having a conversation with, and then you’re going to fall in love with it, and then you’re going to have your first spat, and then you’re going to be in tears, and you’re going to be angry, and then you’ll have a bit of a breakthrough, and then you’ll have a tender conversation again, and then it’ll go alright for a while, and then you’ll be in tears again. It’s all you in that room.”
Musician Brian Eno, in a lecture from 2012 4 :
“Art is everything you don’t have to do.
“You have to move around (if you’re a human being who isn’t fed by servants), but you don’t have to dance. You have to speak, but you don’t have to develop poetry. You have to make noises, but you don’t have to make music. So, what we see with all human groups everywhere, without exception, is this volatile combination of things you have to do to stay alive, and then all of the other stuff you do on top to elaborate it in some way — all of the stylistic behaviours that goes on top of it. What we’re talking about is what the aesthetician Morse Peckham called ’nonfunctional stylistic dynamism’.
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Media theorist Marshall McLuhan, in his 1964 book Understanding Media 6 :
“No society has ever known enough about its actions to have developed immunity to its new extensions or technologies. Today we have begun to sense that art may be able to provide such immunity.”
“If men were able to be convinced that art is precise advance knowledge of how to cope with the psychic and social consequences of the next technology, would they all become artists? Or would they begin a careful translation of new art forms into social navigation charts? I am curious to know what would happen if art were suddenly seen for what it is, namely, exact information of how to rearrange one’s psyche in order to anticipate the next blow from our own extended faculties.”
Graphic designer Elliott Earls, in a 2024 vlog 7 :
“Works of art are ideas made manifest in material.”
“Works of art must be able to endure and more importantly, reward a sustained cognitive load.”
“Ideas manifest in material = the Art Object” (The ‘Art Object’ being “any piece of design, sculpture, painting, installation, poem, photography or performance et al.”).
Filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, in an interview 8 :
“Isn’t art always, to a certain extent, therapy for the artist?”
The artist Marcel Duchamp:
“Art is a game between all people of all periods. The work of art is your work, viewer. No artist completes it without audience participation.”
The environmentalist Chico Mendes remixed, with artists Hrag Vartanian and Murat Cem Mengüç (via @freeze_magazine) 9 :
The painter and teacher Robert Henri, writing in The Art Spirit, 10 from 1923:
“… [Camille] Corot, said that art is ‘nature as seen through a temperament’.”
Art is “an extension of language to the expression of sensations too subtle for words.”
Artists David Bayles and Ted Orland, in their 1993 book Art and Fear 11 :
“Some people who make art are driven by inspiration, others by provocation, still others by desperation. Artmaking grants access to worlds that may be dangerous, sacred, forbidden, seductive, or all of the above. It grants access to worlds you may otherwise never fully engage. It may in fact be the engagement — not the art — that you seek. The difference is that making art allows, indeed guarantees, that you declare yourself. Art is contact, and your work necessarily reveals the nature of that contact. In making art you declare what is important.”
What’s your take?
Do any of these descriptions of art resonate with you — or is this just more baggage? Are there any descriptions of art that you’ve come across, that have helped you in your practice? Comments, conversation and criticism are welcome.
Notes:
roshanshakeel.com/texts/art-notes/what-is-art/