Abstract
"Art always has been and always will be important to humans", says Cynthia Freeland, professor of philosophy at the Houston University. This sentence, announced as a universal truth, shows that art remains strongly essential for human beings. It is also assured that everybody knows the importance of art for mankind. For ages, it has been developed, even before written languages. Ancient cave-wall paintings illustrate the importance of creativity or simply of art for human beings. These primitive creations evolved through times, and nowadays, art takes so many forms giving rise to a countless number of questions about art. In considering its evolution and the diversity of ways in which art appears today, the value of art is at the heart of many current debates.
All know that art is vital for mankind, but conceptions, theories, considerations, appreciations, valuations, or simply, the definition alighted on art are strongly different from one person to another. Thus, according to the diversity of artworks existing today and in the face of Progress, we can try to answer the following question : What is art today? Past theories of art are nowadays revisited in the context of Contemporary Art, which has radically transformed art codes. According to William Rubin, director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, "there is no single definition of art" and the historian, Thomas McEvilley argues that today, "more or less anything can be designated as art". In this way, can anybody today be an artist? Does each work presented as art can be really considered as such? What is an artwork? It seems that focusing on past theories is currently impossible because of the radical evolution of art through times.
Finding a definition for art has always been a crucial problem, as Paul Gauguin tried with his very last essay, "What is Art?". In this book, the artist explains that art refers to something skilfully created by artists. However, artists also require to be defined to understand the value dedicated to art. Nevertheless, these attempts of definitions are limited to a plurality of conceptions, challenging the general public perceptions and philosophers, psychologists and critics' theories.
