The Art in Art
An Excerpt from Making Art a Practice
by Cat Bennett
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” ~Aristotle
What is art? We ask but never find one answer. Prehistoric people drew arresting drawings of rampaging bison on cave walls. That was their world, their experience. Perhaps they were trying to master their feelings of both awe and terror. Art is about who and where we are. It’s a way to make meaning and live large.
There are so many ways to make art now. Drawing, painting, collage, printmaking, and sculpture are the foundation arts, and each has endless variation. We can name others—performance, digital, and new media of all sorts, including sound, installation (both indoor and outdoor), earth art, sky art, stained glass, architecture, even ephemeral art. There are functional arts as well—illustration and graphic arts of all sorts, books and publications, public art, surface design and wearable art, video games, animation films, and more. The ways we make art will determine the art we make.
Art goes into the world in many different ways, too—through galleries and museums, through publications and the internet, in nature, on products. We artists think about what can best express our interests and feelings. We think about where our art can go. To touch others we need to connect with something deep in ourselves, to find conviction and passion, then discover our way. As artists, we look at the world around us and we also look within. Art is where our life experience meets our inner knowing.
