Art is one of the most common categories of aesthetics, art history, and artistic practice. Usually, art means figurative grasping of reality, the process and outcome of expressing the inner and outer (with respect to the creator) of the world. Consequently, art is a creative activity that reflects the interests of not only the author himself, but also other people. “The general interest in life,” wrote Nikolai Chernyshevsky, “is the content of art.” Vladimir Nabokov defined the essence of “the magic called art” quite differently: “In the gamut of the world’s measures there is a point where imagination and knowledge pass one into the other, a point which is reached by the reduction of large things and the increase of small ones: the point of art.” Such definitions, however, confuse notions of different volumes and content levels: art, painting, reflection, figurative thinking, creativity.
The definition and appraisal of art as a phenomenon of reality (being and consciousness) is a subject for a long discussion. The understanding of art changed with the evolution of philosophical, social, and aesthetic norms and assessments. For a long time, art was defined as a mode of cultural activity which satisfies human love of beauty. In this sense, art was defined as a craftsmanship, the product of which gives aesthetic pleasure. The Encyclopedia Britannica gives the following definition: “The use of skill or imagination to create aesthetic objects, settings, or actions that can be shared with others.” However, along with the evolution of social norms and ethical and aesthetic evaluations, any activity aimed at creating expressive forms, not only aesthetic and artistic ones, gained the right to be called art. In the definitions of Marxist aesthetics of the Soviet period, art is a special way of knowing and reflecting reality, one of the forms of aesthetic and artistic activity of individual and social consciousness, part of the spiritual culture of both one person and all of humanity. Thus, the criterion of art is the ability to evoke an emotional response in other people. Some experts adhere to a narrower interpretation: art is referred to as artistic activity proper and its result – a work of art.