because the forum needs more philosophy topics then evangalisism threads.

aristotle believed art was anything that supplemented or helped the emergence of nature. in other words it was anything created to make up for the things nature didn't provide us. for example building a house was an art because it provided us with better shelter then did nature. same thing for clothes and shoes and tools. their value was judged by how well they supplemented are state of being. of course we can see how these trades are an art per se. i guess i would aggree with this being an art sub-category, but im interested in views about what makes things beautiful or passionate. and what purpose does that beauty or passion serve.

i have my views but to get started what is it that makes something art? why is it that something is beautiful? what defines passion? and what purpose do these three things serve?

To me..art is something that one creates to stimulate the senses.
Beauty..is when something pleases an individual's senses to a point of euphoria. A beautiful song..a beautiful face...
When i beleive something to be beautiful..it pleases at least one of my senses so much that i feel i have to submerge myself in it...which brings me to passion. Intense feelings to submerge in something you find utterly desirable. Passion for music..for a person. You want to wrap yourself in it. It 's your passion.
What purpose does these three things serve?
Well..they are the reasons i go on living and enjoy life. Without these things the world would be a hideous place.

I agree, but also every person finds different things beautiful...that's the interesting part...for me may the black rose be the beautiest thing on earth, but for another person it's just an ugly black dark flower...I think that dependes from what are you going true...or have you got problems or not...and so on..Example..When You've got big problems..isn't the death so beautiful and the only friend?But when you're a disco-ass then are maybe disco-lights so beautiful and thinking about death makes you sad and you find it disgusting...

Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

art is communication. an artist is constantly communicating through his/her work to the spectator, whether it is through craftsmanship, performance, literary or fine art. however i think, just like you speculated on blueboy, there are many subcategories of art. i think that a valid argument could be based on the statement "math is art." sure math is numbers and equations, but if you look at someone like leonardo da vinci, a brilliant artist, scientist and mathematician you can easily see the relationship that art and math holds. da vinci created and engineered countless inventions that were so ahead of his time, for example a parachute to compliment his flying machine and other machines, but yet at the same period was also doing works like the last supper and the mona lisa.

i'm not sure that beauty defines art or even that art defines beauty. art can be both beautiful or hideous depending on what the artist is attempting to convey with his/her piece. beauty and art can walk hand and hand or travel separate roads, but again i don't think a piece necessarily needs to be beautiful to be an exquisite piece of art.

passion is an inherit part of art. every artist dumps a part of themselves in the creation of a piece. it's impossible not to. if there was no desire or passion for a particular subject, then the artist rendition of it wouldn't exist. he/she would have no reason to take part in that creation if it didn't pull at some heart string regardless of whether the emotion is love, anger, regret or fear. all of those in themselves are a passion of some kind.

when all of these things come together they express something to you. that is the communication level that the artist has established with you whether you are conscious of the fact or not. just as a magician may force a card on you an artist can also force a string of emotions on you and communicate a particular thought or concept. thus, art is communication.

god, vashti that was an amazing post.

i do believe beauty is a matter of perspective as you say, but im thinking every perspective is being stimulated the same way when they see something they believe to be beautiful. i guess what im trying to say is a black rose offers you something that makes you see beauty in it, and maybe this other person fails to see it. what i want to figure out is what is this thing, or colouge of things that make people view something as beautiful.

i keep trying to place my self in scenarios that make me view different things as beautiful or remeber scenarios where i felt passionate or entranced. and then trying to find a common link. i tried to find it but i couldn't quite get it right. after a while i just gave up on figuring it out. im content with leaving this undefined. the funny thing is i think it's beautiful that i don't understand something or know what it is, but i still know it's there and see it in things. i do think vashti's post was perfect. and arsiniks post was definately enlightening from an artist's perspective. anyways some scenarios i've thought of or experienced.

-living in a world where everything is colorfull, vibrant colors. a world where black and white do not exist. i've lived in this world for quite some time and one day i run into a picture of a young girl(or flower or pot or whatever). and the picture is in black and white. in this scenario the picture would be beautiful.

-living in a world where everything is black and white and finding a house with a floor that is painted in bright yellows and reds and greens. again if i was in a world like this i can picture myself crying myself to sleep on the floor.(anyone remember pleasantville?)

- watching a midnight thunderstorm from a distance. in the mist of a light sprinkle.

- losing a relationship with a beautiful girl and having that loss of hunger and continuous ache in my chest

- cutting myself and watching me bleed after being upset

- looking at tracers while shrooming

- a dead flower bed

- listening to my friends grandfather talk about d-day and watching him cry

- experiencing virgin feelings or seeing them in other people, mainly children.

- fear, mainly irrational fear.

- death

-darkness. ever travel out to the middle of no where on a cloudy midnight then turn off your car lights and see absolutely nothing and know there is nature expanding for miles in every direction. i don't know why but that drives me crazy.

- bodies of water, especially the sound of rivers or water sifting through dams. if it's at night and i don't see them, but i hear them, i get really weird.

anyways whatever, i was thinking of finding a link in scenarios like this, and even though i could find commonalities, they were just commonalities that were a result of me viewing something as beautiful and not really explaining the beauty. kind of like vashti's post. but anyways, anyone else wanna share the things they think are beautiful.

-I think huge raging storms are beautiful ..and the tight excited nervousness that enters my tummy when lightning and thunder get very close and loud.

-When my son laughs and throws his little arms around my neck.

- the middle of nowhere..very dark..lots of stars

- tiger lilies

- i also have this thing for water and ice...fountains..rivers... waterfalls..rain...snow.. icicles...very lovely

- someone crying and someone consoling them...one is in pain and the other cares enough to try and soothe them.

-cemeteries(not in that ooh im goth way) Back in Ohio there is a beautiful cemetery..very green and overgrown with ancient tombstones..huge statues etc...etc.. id go because it was so peaceful and cry even though no one i had know was buried there. But these people had once been alive..once had been loved..had fears..had been a part of the past ..tha ancestors of the living. There may be nothing left of them but old bones and a rotting tombstone ..but they were beautiful.

- making love...(not just trying to get off) people trying to bring pleasure to one another...coming together and having their bodies mesh together..being in love..in lust ..exploring another human being ..being intimate

Being mesmerized or considering something fascinating and unique is what makes beauty, passion, and art. At least that's what I believe.

one more thing i find to be beautiful....

- that longing you get when you cant have something (or someone) that ache that drives you crazy...the beauty of that unatainable crush.

Being uncultured, uncouth, and practically neanderthalic in my attempts to learn what beauty is, it's no surprise to me at all that my thoughts on the matter are parallel to those of Oscar Wilde (not because he was uncultured, uncouth and neanderthalic, but because I lack originality). Oddly and ironically enough, Wilde probably shares some of Aristotle's views, but just says it in his own witty fashion.

The New Aesthetics (abridged):
"Art never expresses anything but itself. It has an independent life, just as Thought has, and develops purely on its own lines.

The second doctrine is this. All bad art comes from returning to Life and Nature, and elevating them into ideals. Life and Nature may sometimes be used as part of Art's rough material, but before they are of any real service to art they must be translated into artistic conventions. The moment Art surrenders its imaginative medium it surrenders everything.

The third doctrine is that Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life. This results not merely from Life's imitative instinct, but from the fact that the selfconscious aim of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain beautiful forms through which it may realize that energy.

It follows, as a corollary from this, that external Nature also imitates Art. The only effects that she can show us are effects that we have already seen through poetry, or in paintings. This is the secret of Nature's charm, as well as the explanation of Nature's weakness.

The final revelation is that Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art."

-taken from "The Decay of Lying" by Oscar Wilde

god your insightful!

I'm not sure if that's sarcasm... but thank you. I am insightful the way a five year old can point to a picture and say "That's my favoritie color!" when asked what he/she's opinion on color is.