Defining Art

           Art isn't like baseball or video games. OK, well bad examples but my point is that art isn't easily defined. While we have set characteristics of what a video game is and why swimming can't be considered baseball, how do we say what is or isn't art? Some people consider poetry or music to be art while others believe that only paintings and drawings can be considered art.  And even when we look at different paintings and drawings there is still confusion as to what is art. Do we consider abstract paintings to be art or a mess of paint on a canvas? If we consider music to be a form of art is rap music art or simply people talking fast?
       I believe art is an expression of ones self or of anything really,that takes skill and imagination. Therefore, art can be dance, song, poetry, stories, sculptures, paintings, pictures and more. My reasoning is that it takes skill to dance, sing, write stories or poems, to paint, draw, make a sculpture and capture a scene just right so that it expresses what you want it to. While doing all these things you are also putting yourself out and expressing yourself or what you are going through. This is why art is often something that historians look at to see what history was like.  Stories like the Grapes of Wrath capture the hard times that people faced during the Dust Bowl in the 1930's and the sense of desperation that they felt. Maybe I'm going too far but my point is, if you look at art you can get a sense of history through what people were feeling during that time.
   
One of my favorite works of art is called Relativity by M.C. Escher. http://www.scottmcd.net/artanalysis/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Escher.jpg

My first reaction when I encountered this lithograph in one of my art classes was a sense of uneasiness. I wasn't sure if I liked it or not because I didn't understand it. Why were there so many staircases and which way was up? Was there even an up, down, left or right? After I got over my initial confusion I realized that I liked the painting because it was so provocative and open to interpretation. It wasn't like the usual paintings of fruit or people, instead it was unique and mysterious. I believe the title Relativity is appropriate because you decide which way is up or down relative to where you are standing. Though  impossible, it depicts a world in which the normal laws of gravity don't exist and this impossibility displayed in art is interesting to me because art is one of the places where artists can make the impossible seem possible. I would definitely classify Relativity as art because it is an expression of life that took skill and a great amount of imagination to make the impossible seem possible.