Defining Art

Today is a "seriously get down to work" day. I'm all dressed in comfy clothes that let me move freely, I have the baby down for a nap, and the toddler is watching Dora. I'm going to get a lot done today.

Just as soon as I stop procrastinating.

I had a funny conversation with the teen last night. Some ad came on tv talking about art. I wasn't paying attention, so when the teen snorted in disgust I had to ask him what he was annoyed about.

"That!" he said, gesturing toward the tv. "That's not art."

"Huh? What isn't, and why isn't it?" I knew he wasn't talking about the television. The teen and the husband are both like this. They'll comment on something they've just seen or heard, and get annoyed if you don't immediately understand them. They claim I'm scattered-brained. I think I have better things to do that give the tv the rapt attention it claims from them.

"On the ad. They were showing something they said was art, and it isn't."

"And why wasn't it art?" I asked.

He rolled his eyes. "It doesn't mean anything."

Up to this point I hadn't been paying much attention, but now I put down my newspaper. "Art has to mean something? Then what about Boy Blue by Gainesborough?"

Now it was his turn to say, "Huh?"

"It's a portrait," I explained. "A boy dressed in blue. No meaning, just a picture."

"Well," he conceded in a gesture of generosity to those poor benighted previous generations, "they didn't have cameras back then."

After further debate I finally managed to convince him that art wasn't so cut and dried as he thought. It was a pretty funny conversation, though.

I finally came up with what I think is a pretty definition of art. "Something created for the joy of creating it."