What separates art from things that isn’t art?
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It’s really an “eye of the beholder” thing. The Dadaist artist Marcel Duchamp took a urinal and wrote on it in 1917 and called it art. He titled it “[The Fountain](https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573).” Every new art movement seems to have its backlash and critics — there are people who think Andy Warhol and Pop Art don’t count as art, and people who think Jackson Pollock’s art isn’t art. The Expressionist, Cubist, and Surrealist movements all had people clamoring that they were most assuredly Not Art.
An amateur’s watercolor landscapes? If someone enjoys them and takes pleasure in them, they’re art, even if they aren’t on the level of Georgia O’Keeffe’s landscapes. Paint-By-Numbers and those flocked velvet Elvises? I wouldn’t call them art, but *someone* would.
Then there’s the stuff that’s outside of the traditional sphere of art. Couture fashion is art, but is fast fashion? Someone still has to design the pieces. The plating and exquisite blend of flavors in a Michelin-star restaurant is arguably art, but if the best meal you’ve ever had came from a mom and pop diner, is that art? Professional photographers are artists, but these days anyone with an iPhone can edit their photos to look clean, well-lit, and well-framed. r/AccidentalRenaissance is a treasure trove of artistic photos taken by amateurs. A child’s clay sculpture is an expression of creativity, and absolutely art in the eyes of their parents, but not “art” in the same way that the Pieta is.
So again, it’s really down to how the viewer experiences it. Art is a very subjective experience, and there’s no single way to define it.
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