Is Art Made Artier by More Artiness?

     Going to a Liberal Arts college, one must inevitably tackle the question.  The Question.  What Is Art?
     It's something I've been tumbling around in my mind for a while (as all Liberal Arts students are destined to do.  We do not question our Fate.)  Every time I've encountered The Question, my mouth has tried to respond somehow, although all the help my brain was giving was: "It's a word."  And I think "It's a word?"  Thanks, brain.  What the heck does that mean? "It's a word."  What a stupid response.  Meanwhile, my brain refused to tell me what it was on about. It does that a lot.
    Then, at like midnight (of course) it suddenly occurred to me: Art is a word.

     A phrase I've been hearing tossed around a lot claims, "If everything is art, then nothing is."  I've chaffed a little at that.  I am a post-modern girl, as most of my fellows in this generation are.  I have deep doubts when someone comes in and tries to tell me that something isn't art.  I question the underlying thought there, too.  Why does art need to be exclusive?  Art is a good thing, and there are plenty of good things that aren't exclusive.  Hence my title.  I think, "If everyone's happy, then no one is?"  It's the same concept, but it doesn't seem quite right.  I think, if everyone's happy, then everyone is happy.  Happiness increases when people around you are happy too.  So if happiness is made happier by more happiness, is art made artier by more artiness?
     I have an issue with anyone who clings too firmly to "canon."  Canon is determined almost purely politically.  As a result, a lot of what is canon is art by white dudes.  Lately, they've been tossing some white ladies in there too, which is great, since 50% of the population is hardly a minority.  And in recent years, there have been works by non-Western contemporary artists as well.  Yet, it seems nothing gets in unless it's been properly colonialized, or tells a specific type of story.  I can't really even touch this argument, there's way too much (though you should check out this TED talk by Chimamanda Adichie, which is AMAZING), but my point is: the canon, and the criteria, are flawed.
     There are so many things to consider on this topic.  Is it necessary, for example, that art be aesthetically pleasing?  I think that art can be ugly, if its ugliness is necessary for us to see the message behind it (more on that later).  And that begs the question: Does anything aesthetically pleasing count as art?  Alright Thomas Kincaid, you win.  You're a great artist.
     Should art be universal, that is, should it be able to speak somehow to people of all backgrounds?  That seems great, but couldn't that mean that art could only be a very narrow slice of what is common to us all?  Wouldn't that erase the individual?  Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?
     I thought, for a bit, that art should be what engages the mind.  But that could be anything.  Really, pretty much anything could engage the mind, that's way too broad.
     So, should art be Sublime?  That's a tough one.  I think art should reach toward the sublime.  I tend to recognize art by that funny feeling in my chest/belly that is my response to what people term "the Sublime."  Of course, heaven is the ultimate Sublime.  Does that mean that only religious art is art?  Well, I've seen some downright crappy religious art (so much).  I think that the Sublime is something that people often reach to without realizing that there is something more.  It is very human of us to try to experience heaven while on earth and without God.  So art is reaching for a higher thing, the Sublime, which is ultimately fulfilled by God (as are most things, I guess), but I would think that even not explicitly religious art counts as art.  Of course, if art is a reaching for something higher, then art is the result of sin, right?  Not that it is a sin itself, of course, but we wouldn't need art if we had the appropriate relationship with God.  In that way, in that case, art would be like marriage: a thing that is good on earth, but doesn't exist in heaven because it has reached its ultimate fulfillment in our union with God.  But that's not right - there's singing in heaven: glorifying God with art.  So...I think saying that art must have the Sublime is not quite right either.
     If the ultimate Sublime is God, but I also want  to include non-religious art, I could say that art is something that has a claim on Ultimate Truth.  One of the problems with that is, well, all that stuff about the Sublime I have written above.  God is Truth.  Ok.  The other problem is that when artists try to claim that they have ultimate truth (as, in fact, many artists do), they begin to disdain the public, which seems the wrong sort of attitude for art.  Beyond that, we will then end up with many competing truths and many competing messiahs who wish to change us into the sort of person their art thinks we should be.  Art starts to become incredibly masturbatory.
     Which is the problem with defining art as the creative vision of the artist, where the artist shows us the world through his or her own different lens and lets us look.  I like that definition.  If, for example, you were to accidentally drop some sticks on the ground, it would not be art, but if you took a picture of it, then it could be art.  So art ought, also, to be intentional.  But such art can become terribly disconnected from humanity, more about the egotistical artist than anything else.  It can, again, set the artist up as a messiah, the only one who sees so truly.   Though I think that that is partly attitude.  If an artist is to share his or her personal vision with us, I think it should be with an attitude of enthusiasm - look how cool this is!  But not all art is enthusiastic.  And who am I to say it should be?  I don't know.
     I would like to say that art must teach us something about our fellow humans or bring us to a better understanding of ourselves and others.  Which is true, I think, for literature.  But what about visual art or music?  I'll admit that my area is literature, and I judge visual art and music on a purely uneducated aesthetic level.  I don't know if instrumental music or visual art can teach us about ourselves or others, but they most certainly can be art.  Furthermore, if this is my definition, where does this leave psychology textbooks or reality tv?  I suppose reality tv calls back to my idea that art must be intentional, and PSY texts call back both to that and to aesthetics.
     Should art be easy?  I think art should take lots of work, but some things that take lots of work are still not art.  You can be an artist and work really really hard and still suck.  Sadly.  Even skill can exist without producing art - soulless perfection.
     If art can't rely on the message, then, is art just an artifact?  That is, is art art apart from its effect, what it does?  Stanley Fish (who's an important guy), makes the very good point that describing what art is without talking about what it does confuses the essential qualities of art.  Art is made to be looked at, listened to, read, experienced.  It doesn't exist in a vacuum and is intended to have effects on us.
   
     So back to our beginning: what is art?  Art is a word.  Art is a word with many competing definitions, and so, a word with no definition.  What is a word with no definition?  Nothing.  If everything is art, then nothing is art.  But art is nothing.
     Why do we try to define art?  Why does the word even exist?  As far as I can tell, it exists to tell us what to put in museums, or else it exists to serve as a measure for ourselves (against other people).  People like stuff.  Some people like stuff and get to call it "art."  Then those people get to take their art and hold it over everyone else's head, "This!  This is what you should aspire to, and if you don't you're beneath us!"  I don't like that.
     I will define my own art.  I will use my own internal definitions.  If you haven't experienced my art, I will share it with you.  I won't share it to educate you, to show you the way because I pity you.  I will share it with you because it is cool, it is meaningful to me, and I think you would like it.  If you don't like it, it's not that you're low-brow, uneducated, or a hopeless cretin, it's because we're different folk, with different experiences and different brains that do different things.
    Fuck The Man, man.