An Empirical Working Definition

I have attempted to show that the characteristics cited by art scholars as being either necessary or sufficient elements of art (i.e., the aesthetic emotion, symbols, creativity) are problematic for various reasons. The elements common to all examples of animal “art” may be a good guide to a working definition. The modification of a body or object by using color, line, and pattern is consistent with the characteristics implicit or explicit in definitions of art used by some of the influential thinkers in aesthetics. Plato, who gave us one of the earliest implicit definitions of art, implied that color and form were crucial to art when he wrote,

I think that you must know, for you have often seen what a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colors which music puts upon them...they are like faces which were never really beautiful, but only blooming; and now the bloom of youth has passed from them. (1977: 14)

In the 17^th century, Nicolas Poussin (ca. 1647) defined visual art as “an imitation of anything that is to be seen under the sun, done with lines and colors upon a surface” (cited in Goldwater & Treves 1945: 151). Tolstoy's 19^th century definition is similar: "To evoke in oneself a feeling one has experienced and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines and colors, sounds or forms, expressed in words, so to transmit that..." (1977/1897: 65-66).

Early in the 20^th century, Clive Bell (1958, first published in 1911: 389), a writer associated with the famous art critic, Roger Fry, defined visual art as "significant form."  He claimed that significant form, which included "combinations of lines and color," was the "one quality common to all works of visual art" (p. 18-19; see also Beardsley 1958; Langer 1957). Twelve years after Bell (1923), Boas defined visual art similarly, as significant form. Almost seventy years after Boas, Dissanayake (1992: 59) argued that art (“making special”) involves, among a vast number of other things, bright colors; appealing shapes…and Thus, the following definition is proposed 

Visual Art: the modification of an object or body through color, line, pattern and form that is done solely to attract attention to that object or body. Visual art is a mechanism to attract attention to things. As it is used in association with something, it thereby attracts attention to that something. That "something" may be a message. The art draws attention to that message.  The proximate aim of visual art is to attract attention, perhaps by provoking emotions. To the extent that visual art is an adaptation then is ultimate function is to influence behavior in ways that promote success in leaving descendants. 

Attract comes from the Latin word attractus, meaning to draw or cause to approach or adhere to. While attract and attractive are often used in the sense of attracting only favorable attention , they also may refer to the fact that visual art pulls or drawn our attention. The sine qua non of visual art is that it is noticeable. The first requirement of influence is to be noticed. 

Color, scientifically, refers to the characteristic ways object have of reflecting various wavelengths of ambient art. For species that discriminate color, what seems significant is that color makes it possible to identify subtle differences in objects. A functio of color is to aid in the categorization and comparison and in the identification and re-identification of objects (Hilbert 1987). This suggests that colors are attractive to humans because they aided our ancestors in identifying and re-identifying objects and they helped influence appropriate choices. \\

Form refers to the shape and structure of something, often considered in three dimensions  (Webster's New World Dictionary 1964). Humans seem to find some forms more attractive than others. Form aids in the identification of objects, as, for example fecund females or healthy and strong males (Low 1979; Thornhill 1998). Form also may have been important in such things as landscape classification, evaluation, and orientation for mapping.

Pattern, Bateson (1972: 131) wrote, refers to "any aggregate of events or objects [that] can be divided in any way by a slash mark, such that an observer perceiving only what is on one side of the slash mark can guess with better than random success, what is on the other side of the slash mark." We refer to aggregates as patterns when that aggregate's extension can be predicted with greater than chance success. Pattern’s importance may lie in the advantages it confers in identifying and re-identifying objects, and thus in making choices (Hilbert 1987; Coe 1992).

In sum, visual art is a behavior that involves making art; the behavior of viewing art is implied. Art objects imply the behavior of making art.  One necessary condition of visual art seems to be that humans make it. A second necessary condition is that it involves the use of color, line, pattern, and/or form. A third necessary condition is that the color, line, form and pattern have no function other than to attract attention, perhaps by provoking emotion. They were not done to add structural support to a pottery vessel, prevent dental cares (in the case of tooth staining, or act as a preservative, such as in tanning of pelts. Humans have evolved the ability to respond to color, line, pattern and/or form. I argue that artists, and those who encouraged them, exploit this tendency in order to influence social behavior

A limitation of this definition is that it refers only to that art involving color, patterns, and/or form: the visual arts. It does not refer to poetry, storytelling, dance, or music, although they clearly involve patterns of sound or of movement that attract attention. Further, some will also feel that another limitation of this definition is that it assumes, but does not focus on, the large human brain, or any cognitive processes, or on any emotions associated with making and viewing visual art. While I assume these are involved in the production and appreciation of art, I have attempted to make my concerns about emotions and mental processes clear.

The primary value of this definition is that it is not only in agreement with the usage of the term visual art by a number of artists, philosophers, and social scientists, but that it also focuses on behavior, an objective phenomenon that is potentially measurable. By avoiding creativity, this definition facilitates the cross‑cultural study of art, making a dichotomy between contemporary and traditional art, or fine art and craft, unnecessary. Further, as artifacts imply behavior, we can use the term art when we refer to objects found in prehistoric sites, ethnographic societies, or in New York galleries. Finally, this definition has the advantage of making explicit an inheritable or replicable unit, which once was a central issue in evolutionary biology.