Like a Thomas Hirschhorn installation I can find thought-provoking, but not beautiful

or emotionally powerful, really.

To me, saying how you’re supposed to respond confines the experience.

But is it impossible to define art?

Or worthwhile to try?
For a while now, I’ve been gathering quotes about art from a range of writers and artists

throughout history.
I’m going to share some of these with you in the hope that we might gain some understanding

of this nebulous idea called art, or that you might find a definition that resonates

for you.

I tend to be a fan of the ones that are intentionally enigmatic, like James Baldwin’s

“The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been concealed by the answers.”

I like that it leaves the boundaries really wide.

Like for me the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers confine art too much, like Seneca who said

“All art is but imitation of nature.”

Which he could maybe get away with saying about the art of his time, but just doesn’t

hold up for me now, when I see, let’s say, this wonderful work by Nam June Paik, Magnet

TV.

Aristotle set his terms a little more broadly, when he said

“Art completes what nature cannot bring to a finish.

The artist gives us knowledge of nature’s unrealized ends.”

Which I like for its proposal that art does something nature alone does not.

That art works from nature and extends it outward.

Because, let’s face it, if there’s a competition between the power of art and nature...

I’m sorry, art, it’s just not really a contest.