Art is one of the most general categories of aesthetics
Usually, art means a figurative understanding of reality; the process and result of the expression of the inner and outer (in relation to the creator) world. Consequently, art is a creative activity that reflects the interests not only of the author himself, but also of other people.
“The general interest in life,” wrote Nikolai Chernyshevsky, “is the content of art.” Vladimir Nabokov defined the essence of “magic called art” in a completely different way: “In the scale of world measures there is such a point where imagination and knowledge pass one into another, a point that is achieved by reducing large things and increasing small things: the point of art.”
However, in such definitions, concepts of various volumes and content levels are mixed up: art, art, reflection, imaginative thinking, creativity.
The definition and evaluation of art as a phenomenon of reality
The understanding of art has changed along with the evolution of philosophical, social, aesthetic norms and assessments. For a long time, art was considered a way of cultural activity that satisfies a person’s love for beauty. In this sense, art is called craftsmanship, the product of which gives aesthetic pleasure.
The Encyclopedia Britannica defines it as: “The use of skill or imagination to create aesthetic objects, settings or activities that can be shared with others.” However, along with the evolution of social norms, ethical and aesthetic assessments, art has the right to be called any activity aimed at creating expressive forms, not only aesthetic and artistic.
In the definitions of the Marxist aesthetics of the Soviet period, art is a special way of knowing and reflecting reality, one of the forms of aesthetic and artistic activity of individual and social consciousness, a part of the spiritual culture of both one person and all mankind. Thus, the criterion of art is the ability to evoke an emotional response in other people.
Some experts adhere to a narrower interpretation: art is called the actual artistic activity and its result – a work of art.
Art has a wide range of meanings: skill, craftsmanship, art, artistry, art.
Gradually, in the process of historical development and differentiation of the meanings of words, the term artistic appeared (in the sense of “knowledgeable, dexterous, experienced”, from the Gothic handags – dexterous, wise; handus – hand). In the Romance languages and, accordingly, in Western European art history, there is no division into “art” and “art”, which causes difficulties in translating terms from one language to another. Art, art, skill, craftsmanship, artistry, as a rule, are translated in the same way (English, French art, Italian arte, German Kunst). And this is despite the fact that there are possibilities for nuanced meanings with the help of close concepts, for example, “skill, skill, skill, dexterity”
Aristotle owns the definition of art (ancient Greek techne – art, skill, skill) as “a creative habit that follows the true mind.” The concept of handicraft has a close meaning; the same meaning implies lat. ars (with a derivative of lat. artificium), close to English. art in a broad sense, understood as “composing”, a meaningful synthesis of something. The words “artificial”, “art of war” have a similar etymology.
Relationships of concepts: art, aesthetic and artistic activity
Historically, in individual and social life, it turned out that a skilled craftsman: (lat. Homo faber – a creative person) can be a craftsman, technician, creatively thinking inventor, but not creating artistic images. Another thing (lat. Homo artifex) is an artist, a creator, according to the definition of M. S. Kagan, with the help of artistic activity, “doubling himself in a figurative model” and in the material of one or another type of art. Figurative thinking “induces to double the experienced object so that the artist himself is captured in it.” Thus, the concept of art becomes extremely broad, including artistic creativity as one of the “modes of art”. The concepts of “aesthetic” and “artistic” cannot be synonymized or regarded as artistic only as “the highest manifestation of the aesthetic”. The artistic image is always concrete, individual (subjective) and emotional. In skillful material work, a simple craft, a figurative model, as a rule, does not arise. Aesthetic activity does not produce artistic images, but only harmonizes the objects that exist in reality and their mental models. Artwork may be located.