Artworks are a class of cultural objects whose purpose is generally considered to be the expression or communication of ideas. They may be politically, spiritually or philosophically motivated; they can also serve as a source of aesthetic pleasure or enjoyment. Artworks are typically created by professional artists and are exhibited in art galleries or museums. They are often analyzed and critiqued by art critics and historians.
Some artworks have no apparent purpose and are instead purely aesthetic, intended solely to provide a viewer with an enjoyable experience or to provoke strong emotions. Others, such as sculptures, are designed to capture physical form in three dimensions. Others, like digital or multimedia art, use technology to produce innovative, interactive experiences. Some art focuses on social issues, such as racism or misogyny, while others aim to challenge the nature of beauty or our perception of it.
While these functions are common, there is a lot of debate about the precise purpose or purposes of art. One of the main reasons that this debate exists is that different cultures have different ideas about what constitutes an artwork. For example, some cultures view paintings as works of art while others do not. Some people believe that art serves a function at the level of the individual artist while others believe that it serves a function at the level of the cultural institution.
Classical definitions of art posit that an artwork is characterized by its possession of certain properties. These include representational or mimetic properties, expressive or emotive properties and formal properties. However, these definitions are not without their faults. For instance, some philosophers argue that the notion of an artwork is a logically flawed and self-referential concept that cannot be defined (Danto, 1981).
More recently, art theorists have suggested alternative methods of defining what makes something an artwork. These new approaches are often described as cluster theories, and they attempt to define an artform by listing a series of properties that all artworks have in common. These properties include:
Another approach, known as historical narrativism, is based on the idea that an artwork is characterized by its standing in some specified art-historical relation to other artworks. The advantage of this type of approach is that it avoids the reliance on inductive definitions.
A third approach is based on the idea that an artwork must be able to be interpreted by an expert. The problem with this is that, as Searle noted in his Euthyphro-style dilemma, it is possible that experts might disagree about whether an object belongs to a particular artform.
Finally, some theorists suggest that art is a culturally determined and gendered phenomenon. This means that the definitions we currently have in place are systematically biased, hierarchical and fragmentary. Consequently, some theorists argue that a separate canon and gynocentric definitions of art should be established.