Redefining Art

BRITAIN-ENTERTAINMENT-ART-AUCTION-EMINBefore modern art, critics understood that the best art is the most beautiful. This traditional idea of art has given way to a relativistic definition that grounds artwork’s value in the claim of the artist and the reception of the audience. “The first thing that makes it art is that I say that it is…” asserts modern artist Tracey Emin, referring to the rumpled, trash-strewn bed she exhibited at the Tate Gallery in 1999. She would argue that there is no objective distinction between her work and Romantic artist Eugene Delacroix’s 19th century oil painting of disheveled bed covers. Both required an idea, creative energy, and physical expression, after all. Continue reading