Webster’s College Dictionary gave many definitions of art. The first definition listed is the human ability to make things; creativity of man as distinguished from the world of nature. Another definition listed is creative work or its principles; a making or doing of things that display form, beauty, and unusual perception; art includes painting, sculpture, architecture, music, literature, drama, the dance, etc.
Alexander and Becker both state that art is socially defined. In other words, art is an abstract term whose definition may change from culture to culture, society to society, etc. Further, Becker states that art is defined by groups of people organized into art worlds.
There are both advantages and disadvantages to using these definitions. The advantages of the definitions presented by Webster’s College Dictionary are somewhat simple. It’s basically taking the term and giving it more of a literal meaning. The two definitions are very broad and general and can be applied to almost anything that someone may create. For instance, if someone decides to paint a flower on a rock; they have created something therefore it can be distinguished as art according to the first definition given in the Webster’s dictionary. The advantage of the second definition is that it opens up the generalization by naming actual categories of what art may be. It gives more specific examples of who creates art and what may be considered art by the use of the medium. The second definition given is still very broad. Just as it is an advantage in the definitions, the broadness and generalization of the definitions can be seen as disadvantages as well. Howard Becker believes that the context is the most important aspect to the definition of art. He goes on to state that like other complex concepts, [the concept of art] disguises a generalization about the nature of reality. When we try to define it, we may find many anomalous cases, cases which meet some, but not...