An artwork is a human creative effort, often made by hand, intended to generate an aesthetic response from a viewer. The underlying purpose of most artistic creations is to convey ideas, as in politically, spiritually or philosophically motivated art; to create a sense of beauty (see aesthetics); to explore the nature of perception; to express emotions; to provide pleasure; or for a variety of other reasons. Creating an artwork can have positive psychological and physical benefits for the artist, such as a sense of achievement, increased self-esteem and reduced stress levels. Artwork can also be used as a means of communication and as a tool to raise awareness of a variety of social issues, such as autism, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, ocean pollution and the like.
Traditional definitions of art – the so-called institutional and resemblance views – are based on the assumption that a work of art must have certain properties or features, and thus be identifiable as such. In these views, an object can be considered an artwork if and only if it meets specific criteria established by experts. Among these criteria is a sufficient degree of resemblance to a paradigm work. The other required property is that an object must have been created by a human who is deemed to be an artist. These criteria have been criticized on both theoretical and practical grounds, including the argument that the standardization of artistic creations would lead to cultural homogenization and loss of diversity.
Other definitions rely on a more general set of characteristics, or the premise that the concept of art has no genuine unifying character. These include the view that an object is an artwork if it exhibits one or more of the following:
For a long time, it was thought that works of art had to be unique pieces of lasting value created by skilled artists. However, several artistic movements, such as Marcel Duchamp’s readymades and John Cage’s musical compositions, dispelled this idea. Moreover, a number of artworks are ephemeral and serve ritualistic or symbolic functions in some cultures.
Some philosophers have suggested that a comprehensive definition of art must be found, and that this may involve the use of new universes of discourse to make previously unseen objects artworks (McFee 2011). It is worth noting that cognitive science supports the view that humans categorize things by their relative similarity to existing exemplars, rather than according to necessary or sufficient conditions. Therefore, it is unlikely that any definition of art based on this kind of reasoning will succeed.