By its original and broadest definition, art (from the Latin ars, meaning "skill" or "craft") is the product or process of the effective application of a body of knowledge, most often using a set of skills; this meaning is preserved in such phrases as "liberal arts" and "martial arts". However, in the modern use of the word, which rose to prominence after 1750, “art” is commonly understood to be skill used to produce an aesthetic result (Hatcher, 1999). Britannica Online defines it as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others"Britannica Online. By any of these definitions of the word, artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind, from early pre-historic art to contemporary art.

Defining art

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How best to define the term “art” is a subject of much contention; many books and journal articles have been published arguing over even the basics of what we mean by the term “art” (Davies, 1991 and Carroll, 2000). Theodor Adorno claimed in 1969 “It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident any more.” (Danto, 2003). Indeed, it is not even clear anymore who has the right to define art. Artists, philosophers, anthropologists, and psychologists all use the notion of art in their respective fields, and give it operational definitions that are not very similar to each others.

Nonetheless we can make some progress towards defining art in its most everyday senses. The first broadest sense of “art” is the one that has stayed closest to the older Latin meaning, which roughly translates to "skill" or "craft", and also from an Indo-European root meaning "arrangement" or "to arrange". In this sense, art is whatever is described as having undergone a deliberate process of arrangement by an agent. A few examples where this meaning proves very broad include artifact, artificial, artifice, artillery, medical arts, and military arts. However, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology.

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NYT > Arts

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Now seen in its full glory after a major restoration and addition, the once-maligned Yale School of Art and Architecture turns out to be a masterpiece of late Modernism.
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“The New Electric Ballroom” affirms Enda Walsh’s growing reputation as a contender to take his place in the long, distinguished line of great Irish playwrights.
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Thu, 28 Aug 2008 02:53:02 -0000
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Arts & Culture

Under Suspicion
David Denby Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
Jiří Menzel’s “I Served the King of England” is a Czech national epic served up with champagne and truffles. This graceful and leisurely movie, adapted from a 1974 novel by the masterly Bohumil Hrabal, covers an enormous time span, starting in the nineteen-thirties, then passing through the . . .
Three’s Company
Hilton Als Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
In 1969, Larry Neal, a black writer, published an essay titled “Any Day Now: Black Art and Black Liberation.” In it, Neal tried to clarify the goals of the Black Arts Movement, an ideological aesthetic that was first laid out by the poet and activist Amiri Baraka, after Malcolm X’s . . .
The Theatre
Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
BOYS IN TIGHTS “Billy Elliot,” the long-awaited musical adaptation of the film about an unlikely aspiring young ballet dancer, which is a hit in London’s West End, has music by Elton John and a book and lyrics by Lee Hall. Stephen Daldry directs, at the Imperial (previews begin Oct . . .

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