Definitions of Art and Fine Art's Historical Origins

ture from Greece and Rome to the present. In Over the past decades, several authors, among particular, whatever happened in the eighteenth them Paul Oskar Kristeller, Larry Shiner, Pierre century, there is continuity as well as change in the Bourdieu, Terry Eagleton, and Paul Mattick, have Western traditions of all the arts mentioned above, argued that "fine art" is of recent origin—in fact, as well as in the arts of other cultures as they have that it originated (along with its name) in the traveled from antiquity through the shock of the eighteenth-century West.1 They also note that the modern and of globalization, word 'art,' as we now use it in reference to paintMore often than not throughout this history, ings, sculptures, concerts, and the like, has come various arts have also been combined in such to mean approximately the same thing as 'fine art' forms as drama or public celebrations. And in did then. So they may be taken as claiming that many if not all societies, we have reflected on and art is of recent, Western origin.2 Finally, many of categorized human skills, pleasures, and practices these same authors claim that art has an inherin ways that may initially resemble modern group ently ideological function within modern society. ings of the arts; this adds to the initial implausi Most readers of this journal are familiar with these bility of what Kristeller et al. have to say. Thus, views. I find them persuasive, but with the excepthe ancient Greeks had the Muses (though a close tion of some brief remarks about the descent of look at the variety of arts they sponsored, includ art from fine art, I do not defend them in this aring history and astronomy, quickly shows that they tide.3 Rather, I argue that if they are correct, the did not embody our category of art). Classical In project of defining art is misconceived and should dian society reflected on the nature of rasa (var be abandoned, as should arguments (at least by iously translated as "relish" and "transcendental philosophers) about what should and should not enjoyment") as produced by drama, poetry, and count as art. song.5 I begin by clarifying what I am assuming, for it The authors mentioned in my first paragraph is easy to misunderstand what these authors are are aware of these facts and accept them. What saying. On the surface, they appear to contradict can they mean, then, by saying that fine art, in some well-established facts. Human beings have deed art as we now understand it, originated in been drawing and painting, carving and decorateighteenth-century Europe? What is new, they ing, singing and dancing, telling stories and acting say, is the eighteenth-century idea that what came them out for tens of thousands of years. Likewise, to be identified as the fine arts share a unique as Ellen Dissanayake puts it, we have always been essence, in virtue of which they should be called inclined to "make things special."4 We have al"fine art" and distinguished from other activities ways valued a wide variety of skills, whether they such as craft and popular entertainment. Also new promote our survival, facilitate social interaction, is the interlocking set of fine art concepts, in or please and entertain us. Most societies have trastitutions, and practices that formed around this ditions within which standards, training, and critcore notion. Following Kristeller and Shiner, I call ical discussion regulate the practice of such skills, all of this (the arts themselves, plus the concepts,