What is Art?

The great Greek philosopher Plato saw art as imitation, as a symbol and as a reference to some object (McLean and Aspell, 162). In this definition of what constitutes art, the emphasis is placed on the belief that artistic productions are of less value and meaning than Ideals. According to Cousins, Aristotle defined the realms between the universal and particular as expressed in art, ôA poet has the advantage of expressing the universal; the specialist expresses only the particular,ö (187). From a more contemporary perspective, art can be understood as a wide range and variety of ôproductsö that seek to represent, symbolize, or refer to ideas, objects, feelings, emotions, or possibilities. Plato argued that art is æartistically rightö if it realizes three conditions û truth or an exact representation of the original, that which is good, and that which offers the viewer pleasure (McLean and Aspell, 163). I would suggest that art need not necessarily evoke pleasurable responses in

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es or ôreceiversö of art products, value is a more difficult concept to define. The artist may regard his or her creations as having worth simply because they represent an effort of imagination and of work that brings technical and intellectual talents to bear on a subject. The audience generally seeks something more in the art that it views. Audiences must be inspired, stirred, challenged, or otherwise affected by the art that they view. The demands for satisfaction that audiences place on an art object can be quite extensive. However, in ôThe Poet and the Computer,ö Cousins maintains that technology can often lead to imitation or produce functional outcomes but seldom does it help audiences, like art does, ôto come to termsö with themselves, (189). Instead, computers often obscure this need of humankind, one that traditional forms of art served to highlight. Cousins maintains the problem with humans in a computerized age is the same as it ever was as far as resolving the problem of ôhow to be more sensitive, more sensible, more proportionate, more alive,ö (188). While traditional art forms bring out the fullness of such cultivated intelligence, computers merely produce functional outcomes. Further, audiences tend to bri
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