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The definition of art is open, subjective, debatable. There is no agreement among historians, philosophers and artists. Over time there have been many definitions of art, including: “art is the right ordering of reason ‘(Thomas Aquinas),” art is what sets its own rules “(Schiller),” the Art is the style “(Max Dvo?ák),” Art is an expression of society “(John Ruskin),” art is the freedom of genius “(Adolf Loos),” art is the idea “(Marcel Duchamp); “Art is the new” (Jean Dubuffet), “action art is the life” (Joseph Beuys), “art is anything that people call art” (Dino Formaggio). The concept has changed over time: the Renaissance, art is only considered the liberal arts, architecture, sculpture and painting were “Crafts”. Art has always been one of the main means of expression of the human being, through which expresses ideas and feelings, how it relates to the world. Their function can vary from practice to the most ornamental, can have a religious content or simply aesthetic, it can be lasting or ephemeral. In the twentieth century is lost even the substrate material: Beuys said that life is an art form, highlighting the vital, action. So, everyone is capable of being an artist.

The term comes from the Latin ars art, and is the equivalent Greek term ????? (techne, from which ‘technical’). Originally applied to all production done by the man and the disciplines of expertise. Thus, both artists were the cook, gardener or builder, as the painter or poet. Over time, the Latin derivation (ars -> art) was used to designate the arts disciplines related to the aesthetic and the emotional, and Greek derivation (techne -> technical), for those disciplines that deal with intellectual productions uso.3 articles and currently is difficult to find that both terms (art and technique) are confused or used interchangeably.
[Edit] Historical evolution of the concept art

In the Greco-Roman antiquity, a major cradles of Western civilization and culture that thought first about art, art was seen as a skill of human beings in any field of production, is practically a synonym of ‘skill’: skill construct an object to command an army, to convince the public in a debate, or agronomic measurements. In short, any skill subject to rules, specific provisions that make the object of learning and development and technical upgrading. Instead, the poetry, the inspiration came from, was not classified as art. Thus, Aristotle, for example, that defined art as “permanent readiness to produce things in a rational way,” and Quintilian was established that “it is based on a method and order” (ordine et via) .4 Plato in the Protagoras, spoke of art, believing that is the ability to do things through intelligence, through a learning process. For Plato, art is a general sense, is the creative capacity of Cassiodorus humano.5 be excelled in the art the production side, according to rules, outlining three main objectives of the art teaching (doceat), touch (moveat) and please (delectet) .6
Allegory of Painting (1666), by Johannes Vermeer.

During the Renaissance began to take shape a change of mind, separating science professions and the arts, which included for the first time to poetry, considered until then a kind of philosophy or even of prophecy, which was crucial for the publication in 1549 of the Italian translation of Aristotle’s Poetics. This change significantly stepped progressive improvement in the social situation of the artist, due to interest wealthy nobles and notables Italians began to show the beauty. Artist Products acquired a new status of objects for aesthetic consumption, and thus, art became a means of social promotion, increasing the patronage of the arts and promoting coleccionismo.7 emerged in this context several theoretical treatises on art , such as Leon Battista Alberti (De Pictura, 1436-1439, De re aedificatoria, 1450, and De statua, 1460), or comments (1447) by Lorenzo Ghiberti. Alberti was influenced by Aristotle, aims to provide a scientific basis of art. He spoke of decorum, treatment of the artist to adapt the objects and subjects measured artistic sense, a perfectionist. Ghiberti was the first to accrue the history of art, distinguishing classical antiquity, medieval period and what he called “rebirth of the arts” .8

Mannerism began with modern art: things are no longer represented as they are, but as seen by the artist. Beauty is relative, you miss the unique beauty of the Renaissance, based on science, the many beauties of mannerism, derived from nature. Appeared in the art a new component of imagination, reflecting both the fantastic and grotesque, as can be seen in the work of Brueghel and Arcimboldo. Giordano Bruno was one of the first thinkers who foreshadowed modern ideas: he said that creation is infinite, there is no center and no boundaries, neither God nor man, all is movement, dynamism. For Bruno, there are so many arts as artists, introducing the idea of ??originality of the artist. Art has no rules, not learned, but comes from the inspiración.9

The following advances were made in the eighteenth century Enlightenment, which began producing some of the artistic autonomy: the art turned away from religion and the representation of power to be a true reflection of the will of the artist, focusing more on sensible qualities of the work not in Jean-Baptiste Dubos significado.10 in Critical reflections on poetry and painting (1719), opened the way to the relativity of taste, arguing that aesthetics is not given by reason, but by feelings. Thus, for art moves Dubos, comes to mind in a more direct and immediate rational knowledge. Dubos made possible the democratization of taste, to oppose the academic regulations, and introduced the figure of the ‘genius’, as an attribute given by nature, which is beyond the rules.
The court of the Uffizi (1772-1778), Johann Zoffany.

In the romance, which began in Germany in the late eighteenth century with the movement known as Sturm und Drang, the triumph of the idea of ??an art that emerges spontaneously from the individual, developing the notion of genius, the art is the expression of the emotions of the artist, beginning to be mitificado.11 Authors like Novalis and Friedrich von Schlegel reflected on the art: Athenäum magazine, published by them, came the first manifestations of the autonomy of art, linked to nature. For them, the work of art are inside the artist and his own language natural.12

Arthur Schopenhauer devoted the third book of The World as Will and Representation to the theory of art: art is a way to escape the unhappy state of man himself. Identified knowledge with artistic creation, which is the deepest form of knowledge. Art is the reconciliation between the will and conscience, between object and subject, achieving a state of contemplation, of joy. The aesthetic consciousness is a state of disinterested contemplation, where things are more profound in its purity. The art speaks the language of intuition, not reflection, is complementary to the philosophy, ethics and religion. Influenced by Eastern philosophy, said the man must free himself of the will to live, the ‘want’, the source of dissatisfaction. Art is a way to get rid of will, to go beyond the ‘I’ .13

Richard Wagner picked up the ambivalence between the sensible and spiritual Schopenhauer in Opera and Drama (1851), Wagner raised the idea of ??”total artwork” (Gesamtkunstwerk), where there would be a synthesis of poetry, the word – masculine element to the music, the female element. He believed that the primitive language would vowel, while the consonant was a rationalizing element, as well as the introduction of music in the word would be a return to primitive innocence lenguaje.14

In the late nineteenth century came the aestheticism, which was a reaction to prevailing utilitarian and ugly times and materialism of the industrial age. Against this, there was a trend that gave the art and beauty own autonomy, embodied in the formula of Théophile Gautier “art for art’s sake” (l’art pour l’art), even to speak of “aesthetic religion “.15 This position was intended to isolate the artist in society, to independently seek their own inspiration and let themselves be misled by only one individual’s search for belleza.16 So, beauty is far from any moral component, becoming the ultimate goal of the artist, who gets to live his own life as a work of art-as shown in the figure of the dandy-17 One of the theorists of the movement was Walter Pater, who influenced the English called decadence, establishing his works that the artist must live life intensely, following as the beauty ideal. For Pater, the art is “the magic circle of existence”, an isolated world and self in the service of pleasure, creating genuine metaphysics of belleza.18
The Artist’s Studio (1855), Gustave Courbet.

On the other hand, Charles Baudelaire was one of the first authors who analyzed the relationship between art and newly emerging industrial era, prefiguring the notion of “modern beauty”: there is eternal and absolute beauty, but every concept of beauty has something eternal and something transitory, something absolute, something special. Beauty comes from passion and, as each individual’s particular passion, it also has its own concept of beauty. In its relationship with art, beauty on the one hand express an idea “eternally subsisting”, which would be the “soul of art” and the other a component and circumstantial, that is the “body art”. Thus, the duality of art is an expression of the duality of man, his desire for perfect happiness faced with the passions that move him toward her. Facing the eternal half, anchored in the ancient classical art, Baudelaire saw in half on modern art, whose logos are transitory, the fleeting, ephemeral and changing fashion-synthesized. Baudelaire had a Neoplatonic concept of beauty is human aspiration toward a higher ideal, accessible through art. The artist is the “hero of modernity” whose main feature is the melancholy that is the longing for beauty ideal.19

In contrast to aestheticism, Hippolyte Adolphe Taine developed a sociological theory of art in his Philosophy of Art (1865-1869) determinism applied to art based on race, context and time (race, milieu, moment). For Taine, aesthetics, the “science of art”, it operates like any other scientific discipline based on rational and empirical parameters. Similarly, Jean Marie Guyau, the problems of contemporary aesthetics (1884) and art from the sociological point of view (1888), proposed an evolutionary view of art, that art is life, and as it evolves and, like the human life is socially organized, art should be reflective of the sociedad.20

Sociological aesthetics had a great relationship with the visual realism and leftist political movements, especially the utopian socialism: authors such as Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier and Pierre Joseph Proudhon advocated the social function of art, which contributes to the development of society, combining beauty and utility in a harmonious whole. On the other hand, in the UK, the work of theorists such as John Ruskin and William Morris made a functionalist view of art in The Stones of Venice (1851-1856) Ruskin denounced the destruction of beauty and the popularization of art carried out by industrial society, as well as the degradation of the working class, defending the social function of art. In The Art of the People (1879) called for radical changes in the economy and society, claiming an art “made by the people and for the people.” For his part, Morris, founder of the Arts & Crafts, Art advocated a functional, practical, satisfying not only material needs and spiritual. In aesthetic writings (1882-1884) and the purposes of art (1887) proposed a utilitarian concept of art but far too much production systems technified, next to a concept of socialism medieval.21 close to corporatism
Representation of The Nutcracker, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

On the other hand, the function of art was challenged by the Russian writer Lev Tolstoy in What is Art? (1898) raised the social justification of art, arguing that art being a form of communication can only be valid if it conveys emotions can be shared by all men. For Tolstoy, the only justification is the contribution of art to the brotherhood of man: a work of art can have social value when transmitting values ??of brotherhood, that is, emotions that encourage the unification of the pueblos.22

At that time it started to approach the study of art from the field of psychology, Sigmund Freud psychoanalysis applied to art in a childhood memory of Leonardo da Vinci (1910), arguing that art would be one way to represent a desire a repressed impulse, so sublimated. He believed that the artist is a narcissistic figure, close to the child in art reflecting their wishes, saying that artistic works can be studied as dreams and mental illness with psychoanalysis. His method was semiotic study of symbols, and felt that a work of art is a symbol. But as the symbol represents a certain concept symbolized, study the work of art to get to the creative source obra.23 Similarly, Carl Gustav Jung’s psychology and related disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, religion, mythology , literature and art. In Contributions to analytical psychology (1928) suggested that the symbolic elements present in the art are “primordial images” or “archetypes” that are innately present in the “collective unconscious” of being humano.24

Wilhelm Dilthey, from cultural aesthetics, formulated a theory about the unity between art and life. Foreshadowing the avant-garde, Dilthey and loomed in the late nineteenth century as the art away from academic rules, and how it was becoming increasingly important public function, which has the power to ignore or praise the work of a particular artist . Found in all this an “anarchy of taste,” which blamed a change of interpretation of social reality, but he perceived as transitory, being necessary to find “a healthy relationship between aesthetic thought and art.” Thus, as the salvation of art offered the “human sciences”, especially the psychology of artistic creation should be analyzed through the prism of the psychological interpretation of fantasy. In Life and Poetry (1905) presented the poetry as an expression of life, as ‘experience’ (Erlebnis) that reflects the external reality of life. The artwork is as reinforce our vision as a function of the outside world, presenting it as a coherent and full of sentido.