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ART HISTORY: A PRELIMINARY HANDBOOK
by Dr. Robert J. Belton
What is Art?
Any brief definition of art would oversimplify the matter, but we can say that all the definitions offered over thecenturies include some notion of human agency, whether through manual skills (as in the art of sailing or painting or photography), intellectual manipulation (as in the art of politics), or public orpersonal expression (as in the art of conversation). Recall that the word is etymologically related to artificial -- i.e., produced by human beings. Since this embraces many types of production that are notconventionally deemed to be art, perhaps a better term for them would be visual culture. This would explain why certain preindustrial cultures produce objects which Eurocentric interests characterizeas art, even though the producing culture has no linguistic term to differentiate these objects from utilitarian artifacts. Having said that, we are still left with a class of objects, ideas andactivities that are held to be separate or special in some way. Even those things which become art even though they are not altered in any material way -- e.g., readymades -- are accorded some specialstatus in a describable way. Because of this complexity, writers have developed a variety of ways to characterize the art impulse. Ellen Dissanayake's What is Art For? lists these as follows (in noparticular order):

• the product of conscious intention,
• a self rewarding activity,
• a tendency to unite dissimilar things,
• a concern with change and variety,
• the aesthetic exploitationof familiarity vs. surprise,
• the aesthetic exploitation of tension vs. release,
• the imposition of order on disorder,
• the creation of illusions,
• an indulgence in sensuousness,
• theexhibition of skill,
• a desire to convey meanings,
• an indulgence in fantasy,
• the aggrandizement of self or others,
• illustration,
• the heightening of existence,
• revelation,
•...