1. Art is a concept that is left up to the interpretation of an individual based on their preference to aesthetically pleasing pieces of work.
Over the summer, I went to Manhattan to see the “Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era” at the Whitney Museum of American Art. There were a lot of interesting paintings and sculptures throughout the exhibit but the one painting that really struck me was a painting called “Grain of Sand”. The painting is a circle and is extremely colorful and bold. Its comprised of many different faces and miscellaneous shapes and designs. The colors of the picture and the intricate designs captivate you into examining the piece of work and spending a great deal of time with it. I got lost into the sea of colors and shapes and refused to move as my friends wanted to move on. The reason I was so taken aback by this art work was because it was so different than conventional pieces I was used to. It was not a landscape or portrait and didn’t have a specific color scheme, rather it incorporated anything and everything the artist wanted to have. The artist, I believe, wanted to try and grab hold of the audience of his painting and try to scream out to them and I believe he was very successful in this manner.

2. In Thierry de Duve’s essay “Art was a proper name”, Duve explores the definition of art as a word and as an entity. He takes you through a journey as a person unfamiliar to the Earthly concept would discover it. His thoughts and theories are extremely similar to the definition I always attributed to the concept that is art. Art is a vast … that encompasses an infinite number of meanings and a great deal of different interpretations. As Duve states in his essay “Either the ontological status of the work of art is an empty set, or it is an infinite one; either nothing is art, or everything can be.” (p.11). I completely agree with this statement. Since the definition of art is left up to the individual, it can encompass as much or as little as a person believes it to be. Art can be defined as anything from a painting, to a song, to a piece of literature, to, as we saw in class, a ready-made urinal. There is no limitations put on what someone can consider art because every person walks away from the same object with a different feeling evoked, experience undertaken, and idea developed. Whose to say that what you enjoy and believe is art, is not truly the definition of what art is. Duve also says “that humans give art an autonomous place, with magic and religion on one side, and science on the other.” (p.5). This shows that humans give great value to art by placing it by itself in a different theory from the other established notions. I, as well as Duve, believe that everyone can decide for themselves what exactly art is, if it’s anything at all.