What is Art?

Jackson Pollock, Convergence (1952)

Norman Rockwell, Abstract & Concrete (1962)

People try to explain visual art and it comes down to the proverbial, “I may not be able to explain it, but I know it when I see it.”  And I think that’s true for any visual work whether one likes it or not.

Nonetheless, either way it may help to figure out what makes something "Art."

E.g., I remember in my fourth grade, the school art teacher Gary Vanderbrook chose my artwork to represent my elementary school class in a children’s show at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.  After notification that they had the children’s exhibit on display, off we went to visit the A-K.  My mother drove myself, one of her friends, and one of my neighborhood friends to see the exhibit.  As we walked up the stairs to the second floor, there looming before us was a Jackson Pollock painting, Convergence.   It’s a large painting, to be sure, nearly 8’ high and more than 10’ wide.

My mother and her friend exclaimed disbelief that such a painting was on display, my friend said that his little sister could finger-paint something more interesting.

I didn’t know what to say.  While I wasn’t necessarily a quiet boy—in my early elementary school days the other students would tease me as “Chatty Kathy” (get it?  “Chatty” and “Chadwick”?)—I wasn’t given to impulsive expressions, even for a child.

I did think one thing: here was someone who thought about Art differently from me.

Besides that this was the first and likely the only time that I have had my artwork at the Albright-Knox, over the years the experience prodded me on to consider just what is Art.

One simple definition is: Art re-presents either another vision of reality or a vision of another reality.  

That’s not bad but visual art, in order to be Art, needs to do more, I think.  Otherwise, cereal box graphics are Art. 

In the case of the Pollock painting, even if one does not think it is Art, it does cause one to consider it as such.  There is a dialogue between the audience and the artwork.  It may be tragic or comic or something in-between.

I would say that the Pollock painting meets both of these points as a vision and as creating dialogue.

Lastly, the visual artwork needs to be visually attractive or at least interesting—otherwise, what’s the point of the “visual” aspect?  And this is the point where disagreement arises.  There are those who like it, they enjoy the spontaneity of expression, and there are many people who simply don’t like it and would say that it is not expressive of anything in particular.   

Regardless of what one thinks of Convergence, it has helped me put together some measure as to what is Art.  For a comparison-and-contrast, which helps one get at essential points, I posted Norman Rockwell’s Abstract & Concrete (also known as The Connoisseur) next to the Pollock.  I chose Rockwell because so many art critics dislike him as artist.  Also, bear in mind that Rockwell liked modern painting—on his studio wall hung a Picasso print--and did not think he was good at it himself but that he was better at storytelling.   https://www.crisismagazine.com/2015/rockwell-modernism-case-art-critic