Keats said beauty is truth and truth beauty, so doesn't that make science and art synonymous?
You might look up at the sky at night, in a place with no light pollution, and think it to be very beautiful. Does that make it art? No, no it does not. Now, a person might take a photograph of that same night sky. That photograph is indeed a work of art.
Art refers to works of man which have an emotional purpose. For example, a painting is a work of art. Someone made it, and even though it has no practical function, it has power to elicit emotion in a person who views it.
Quite often you can create a work that has both functional and emotional functionality. Clothing serves to protect people from the elements, but also to affect people emotionally. This doesn't mean that science is art, it just means that both science and art can be used together. It's much in the same way that writing and drawing can be used together to create a comic book. Just because writing and drawing are used in combination doesn't mean they are one and the same.
The one problem is the issue of accidental art. What if a person creates something, and has no intention of it being art, but someone else views it as such? Is it art or not?
I will tell you that I think there is no such thing as accidental art. I look around this world, at man-made things. Every single thing that people make has some artistic intent. Someone chose a specific color for my desk. My train ticket has a logo on it. Even the thumb tacks have colors and shapes that were designed with some artistic intent. Even a blank white piece of paper is of a certain size for an artistic reason.
Even an arrowhead made by a primitive human had artistic intent. When the caveman was scraping that stone to make it pointy, you can not tell me that he did not modify his scraping in some way due to the visual aesthetic of the stone.
The ability to examine sentiment and the ability to be touched by it are not mutually exclusive.
@ Scott: There is a difference in the mind of many between an artist and an artisan. Design and colors are but elements of art, not art itself. Art is subjective, but science should never be.
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Art refers to works of man which have an emotional purpose. For example, a painting is a work of art. Someone made it, and even though it has no practical function, it has power to elicit emotion in a person who views it.
Quite often you can create a work that has both functional and emotional functionality. Clothing serves to protect people from the elements, but also to affect people emotionally. This doesn't mean that science is art, it just means that both science and art can be used together. It's much in the same way that writing and drawing can be used together to create a comic book. Just because writing and drawing are used in combination doesn't mean they are one and the same.
The one problem is the issue of accidental art. What if a person creates something, and has no intention of it being art, but someone else views it as such? Is it art or not?
I will tell you that I think there is no such thing as accidental art. I look around this world, at man-made things. Every single thing that people make has some artistic intent. Someone chose a specific color for my desk. My train ticket has a logo on it. Even the thumb tacks have colors and shapes that were designed with some artistic intent. Even a blank white piece of paper is of a certain size for an artistic reason.
Even an arrowhead made by a primitive human had artistic intent. When the caveman was scraping that stone to make it pointy, you can not tell me that he did not modify his scraping in some way due to the visual aesthetic of the stone.
@ Scott: There is a difference in the mind of many between an artist and an artisan. Design and colors are but elements of art, not art itself. Art is subjective, but science should never be.