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Can we define art?

Now, after making an attempt to understand the word "aesthetics", let's take a backward step, and come to the word "art". The definition of art is dealt by philosophers and art critics. These philosophers categorise art works in the following four ways
§ Mimetic art.
§ Paradigmatic art.
§ Ideogrammatic art.
§ Specific art.

The mimetic art expresses a curve by drawing a curve. Colour is used to depict local colour with its local meaning, shapes are used to denote the shape of same sort. Motion is used to denote motion as in movie. In drama, speech represents speech and gestures represent gesture. Such mimetic artwork fails to give any metaphorical or an additional meaning to the work of art whereas the paradigmatic art, is concerned with parallels and analogues, and the theme of painting or sculpture is revealed as a parallel or analogue.

The ideogrammatic art is concerned with the use of signs and symbols. The entire subject is expressed out of a synthesis of several signs used in paintings, sculpture or dance etc. Most Indian art falls into this category.

Specific art is concerned with painting, sculpture, or work of art as an object, and this object itself is the subject. Paintings done for the sake of portraits of human beings, or art which is used and employed as a poster etc comes under this category.

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