Why Is Art?

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This last week I got a chance to go deep into a very interesting subject of Aesthetics, a very convoluted and complex subject that deals with very tough questions that may not necessarily have a fixed or conclusive answers.It deals with pretty open ended questions like 'what is art?','what is art work? and 'what makes a good art work attractive to the human mind or its goodness?'
These questions are tough because they cannot really be defined, at-least not in a more traditional way because the way 'art' is conceived is completely different from person to person.What may seem like a work of art to some people may just be a hot pile of garbage for another person.We could say aesthetics is more of an experience that people derive from art and since it is dealing with human sentiments and emotions, it is a very difficult subject to study because human sentiments cannot be measured and the possibilities of human thoughts are completely endless.Opinions change and feelings change too and that adds another layer of complexity over an already difficult subject.It makes sense since Aesthetics is part of Philosophy after all which it self is a study of very general and basic things and questions like existence,thoughts,reasons,knowledge,morals,values,critical discussions,questions,moral arguments,constructive criticism,etc.But lets not delve into deeper philosophy and lets stick to aesthetics and its study of beauty,taste and the philosophy of art.I think a the way it subjectively examines the emotional values and deals with the judgement of sentiments and taste is very believable and yet complex enough to have some form second thoughts.But a subject dealing with the sentiments behind art needs to deal with even another convoluted and complex question about the source of art experience and the sentiments that are hidden behind a judgement and it has divided this subject into two very distinct sources of aesthetic experience, the natural source and the artificial source(Yes I know it sounds very simple and easy but it is goes as deep as a Christopher Nolan film minus the the mind-bendology{yes I created this word from my own dictionary of intellectualism}).The problem is that it is not clear what the artificial source and the natural source really means as the subject as much as I have researched never really digs deep into any of it and it is kind of left to us to decide.Maybe natural sources of aesthetic experience means the nature and the universe itself and maybe the artificial experience is the experience we gain from Man-Made art but I do not really know. Sometimes philosophy of art and aesthetics are often separated as some researchers consider them to be dealing with different things.It is sometimes considered that aesthetics is only the study of beauty while philosophy of art is the study of work of art.However, recently, it has become more common to associate aesthetics with both beauty and art.Aesthetics is also limited when it comes to deeper classification of its usage since from a theoretical point, it deals with only aesthetic objects, aesthetic experience, aesthetic sentiments and aesthetic judgments,etc(basically only art related thing).However, it is really incredible that its usage in a practical and real world is so much different than what is told in its theory,well at least from the point of view of the common people.For the common people who are not professional artists(like us), aesthetics is just the appreciation of any object that we like and it does not have to be an art object.And we treat Art work as a completely different subject and art objects as completely different from normal objects,in most cases and that is the point of this subject because it is just not fixed and is varying from person to person.It is important to note that objects within the same category may or may not be considered art and it is all completely subjective.This whole practical usage automatically falls into the theoretical side of the subject and we do not ever really realise it because most people do not even know what is aesthetics in the first place.It is just beautiful and complex and I love it.From an example point lets consider Video Games.We will take 2 games, Grand Theft Auto and Limbo.Now do I love Grand Theft Auto?Yes I really love it but that does not mean I considered it as any form of work of art.Now lets come to my favorite Indie game LIMBO which I wrote about and you can read about it by clicking here.Do I love it?Yes! I absolutely love and I absolutely consider it a work of art because it is just different.It has a unique style and feel to it and a unique and grim atmosphere and a soundtrack that it self is a work of art.It was not a game for me but rather an experience that I will always have a special place for.In this context,I may say that I had an Aesthetic experience with LIMBO.But it varies heavily from person to person.My judgments towards the game may hold some sentimental bias and for others it may not be like that(everyone believes that Limbo is a masterpiece though).It is all about perceiving.This subject does not only speak about art but it has a very difficult responsibility to define art.It has to define why art exists or why people like an art object or why people hate an art object or what influences a person to have some form of attraction to an object.It also has to deal with the concept of moral constructive criticism that some people may provide.

Definition of Art and beauty according to Plato - Plato who was an Athenian Philosopher defined Art as imitation of the objects and events in the real life.It means that art is the copy of the copy of an original form.He also states that it is more of an illusion than an ordinary experience and according to this theory, art works best as a form of entertainment and is very dangerous if it becomes a delusion.
Plato has talked about Beauty in his work Symposium and his theory states that beautiful is an objective quality which is more or less intensified in or exemplified by beautiful or less beautiful object receptively.Exemplified means illustration.It means that humans have a habit of comparison and then they chose the object or form accordingly.In the Symposium, Priestess Diotima(ancient Greek prophetess and philosopher) describes how beauty moves out from a core singular appreciation of the body to the outer appreciations via loved ones,  to the world in its state of culture and society(What?I do not get it).Well the context is that Ditoma is giving Socorates(Athenian Philosopher who was credited as one of the founders of western philosophy) an explanation of how love should begin with erotic attachment and end with the transcending of the physical to the appreciation of the beauty as a thing itself(Ok lets move on).The context behind this theory is that a person should first find beauty in his/her own body personally and then should find beauty in another person(eeww gross) which will help him/her to find the beauty in his/her own soul and mind and then enable a proper beauty sense of the modern society,ultimately giving the person the ability to perceive beauty in institution,law,objects,activities,knowledge,science,etc.
Sir Roger Vernon Scruton states that Plato's theory of beauty is completely based on the feelings of desire and is very seductive in nature.

Defination Of Art and Beauty according to Aristotle - Aristotle was the Greek philosopher and polymath during the classical period in Ancient Greece and he was a disciple of Plato. He attributes art more to the minds amazing ability to recognize pattern and than imitate them.Humans clearly take pleasure in likeliness and Aristotle focuses on this aspect of Art by telling us that most of the human compulsive need to create art come from this pleasure.But imitation is the not the main purpose of art but the main purpose of art is to imitate what we see and change or make it even better by removing all if its imperfections. So according to Aristotle, art is an attempt to grab universal truth in individual happenings.He also took interest in showing Tragedy through Art,which he again described as imitation through action.It creates a relief treatment for the more unbearable passions we hold in our mind.He called this phenomenon as Catharsis.
Aristotle's understanding of beauty is actually pretty different and cool since he decided to tie it with a very special mathematical formula which is known as the Golden Ratio and also with science.He said that the chief forms of beauty are order, symmetry and definiteness and that science proved this wherever we looked.He found great beauty in the Golden Ratio which is the mathematical formula all over nature.

Defination of Art and Beauty according to Rabindranath Tagore - This really amazing and popular polymath,poet,musician and artist from the Indian subcontinent has a much 'normal' thought process when it come art.Although he is not an official part of the subject, to me he is still very important and adding him into the mix is pretty interesting.According to him, art belongs to the realm of freedom where the needs of life are relegated to the minimum significance, and the ideals elevating the inner being are delineated as the basic truth of existence.He also says the art in one word is the expression of the universal through an individual.
Tagore has also just worshipped the ideal of beauty and perceived it in his heart as a devoted disciple.He also does not believe in external beauty because he focuses solely on the emotional beauty and he showed this in his works as an ideal human characteristic.

It is actually very mind opening to see that how much Tagore;s thoughts on beauty and art are much different and more grounded in reality and more relatable than the Greek philosophers.And even the two Greek philosophers I have mentioned have a little different theories from each other.This idea of imbalance and imperfections and no proper common grounds for holding a fixed information is what makes Aesthetics such an amazing topic to dig into and I have only scratched the surface.There are tons of philosophers with even more bonkers theories and I did not even dig deeper into the category of critical judgement which is even more convoluted!So to the person who made it this far and read almost 1800 words, why did you even stick through?