As an artist and now retired former college Art Instructor, I received the following working definition for art, as an Honor Student at the University of Nevada, by then Professor of Anthropology, Dr. Warren L. D’ Azevedo, during my three years as a Fine Arts major.

Art- “Based on esthetics, the act of original creation, by manipulating a medium of public objects or events that serve as deliberately organized sets of conditions, having a definite beginning and end, for an experience in a qualitative mode.”

Up until five years ago, I felt that this was an excellent working definition for art in the Western World. However, I now predict that in the reasonably near future, all major university-level required textbooks, whose title/s fall in the category of “History Of Art”, will, and certainly should be titled:

The History Of Esthetic Experiences, as none of today’s art scholars or writers appear, understandably, capable of defining what presently passes for as… art.

-James L. Weaver

Originally posted at ArtsJournal.com, 2003

Revised and sent in by James