Talk:Art

Richard Wollheim's distinctions

Richard Wollheim's distinctions of views on art as either 'realistic', 'objectivistic' or 'relativistic' may be said to be pertaining to, even symptomatic of the predominantly anglo-american school of Analytic philosophy, as opposed to the Continental philosophy; the proposed other major stream in the currents of occidental philosophy. If this is acknowledged it is problematic that the wikipedia article on art, in its current reading, frames art in this fashion. That is predominantly because of the current position in the article of Richard Wollheims distinctions . I will argue that it is at odds with the neutrality policy. In the extension of this argument, one should seek to adapt the habit of adressing the cultural position of information. This can be done in a simple and elegant way without problem; for instant. in the context of analytical philosophy, Richard Wollheim suggests three different views on arts practices...— Preceding unsigned comment added by Xact (talk • contribs) 12:16, 23 September 2009

Is art unique To humans

I feel it is necessary to come to a proper consensus rather than just reverting. This isn’t a clear cut issue and one of the shortcomings of the current definition is it’s necessarily biased as we are humans, so any definition will be quite Non-anthropomorphic—there is an entire article dedicated to Animal-made art so how could you say only animals make art. Legendarycool (talk) 07:19, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

The standard definition of art is that it is a human activity. It's one thing to say every bird or cricket or frog or whale is a musician, although the conventional view is that only human judgment decides what is or is not music, as suggested by Jean-Jacques Nattiez here. Wind blowing through trees may sound like music, in which case no animal of any kind needs to be involved. Your edit states that art is a range of activities "most commonly displayed in humans", but this is unsupported, and there are more ants building anthills than there are human artists, and always have been. Popular media has often drawn attention to trained elephants or monkeys who can swing a paintbrush, but can you name any notable works of art made by non-humans? Has any non-human animal ever trained another non-human animal to paint or draw or compose waltzes? It would seem that the animal performer is merely a utensil used by a human to produce a novel sensation, a saleable product, or (often) a demonstration of how little skill it takes to create art that will impress supposed experts. Just as a chimpanzee given a brush and paint can be trained to produce something that resembles abstract expressionism, a trained parrot can utter a string of words and phrases that may sound like poetry to a human ear; do you propose mentioning parrots in the lead section of Poetry? Is every spider an architect? Ewulp (talk) 01:28, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

First of all thank you for your willingness to find a solution to the current disagreement.

Your first argument stating “ The standard definition of art is that it is a human activity.” Has a few issues as that definition is only used, as far as I could see by Oxford Languages, which is an issue as most other definitions of art didn’t even mention humans/people (most did use pronouns in the example which could be inferred as talking about a human). Here are a couple of definitions that contrasts oxford language’s one: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/art (does say art is characteristic of humans but only in an example, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/art (calls it once of the humanities though that would not mean exclusively), https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/art (uses humans as examples as we most commonly talk about human made art), https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/art (same as Cambridge), https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/art (this one uses people but even then that is not universally used to refer to exclusively humans) and https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/art (only definition 3 mentions humans).

Your second argument “… the conventional view is that only human judgment decides what is or is not music, as suggested by Jean-Jacques Nattiez here.” Has a glaring issue why is the human the deciding factor because a bird choosing a mate for it’s song would play the same role and that suggestion would only apply to what is ‘human music’ or what sounds like music to a human.

The third argument you present “ Wind blowing through trees may sound like music, in which case no animal of any kind needs to be involved.” I do agree no animal is needed to make art by some definitions like Cambridge’s definition.

The forth point you present “ Your edit states that art is a range of activities "most commonly displayed in humans", but this is unsupported, and there are more ants building anthills than there are human artists, and always have been.” Is correct and the wording I had can definitely be improved upon but the article in some way need to be changed to be more accurate.

Your fifth argument “Popular media has often drawn attention to trained elephants or monkeys who can swing a paintbrush, but can you name any notable works of art made by non-humans? Has any non-human animal ever trained another non-human animal to paint or draw or compose waltzes? It would seem that the animal performer is merely a utensil used by a human to produce a novel sensation, a saleable product, or (often) a demonstration of how little skill it takes to create art that will impress supposed experts.” Is flawed and as I see it quite disingenuous as the point you made about me being able to name an artwork has nothing to do with this, your second point is quite useless as a painting or drawing or waltz isn’t something that has been universally made by humans though I appreciate your use of the phrase “…non-human animal…” . The point you make about how it’s only used to make a unique product to sell is not so strong due to the use of art as a form of stimulation in zoos as well as to sell which I do not deny. The point made about art critics is not very logical as modern art is in someway an expression of one’s self and the process of putting something done.

(On a less relevant note I would recommend doing some impressionist or abstract art as it’s just fun to do).

The final point you give is “ Just as a chimpanzee given a brush and paint can be trained to produce something that resembles abstract expressionism, a trained parrot can utter a string of words and phrases that may sound like poetry to a human ear; do you propose mentioning parrots in the lead section of Poetry? Is every spider an architect?” These point are quite interesting but the first point is covered in the last two paragraphs, only a trained parrot can mimic not make those sounds so not parrots don’t belong in Poetry anymore than if I were to sing in Sumerian for a crowd. The final point is flawed as not all spiders make webs but I get what’s your saying.

overall I feel that the current article needs to be changed in some way to accommodate this.

P.S. I apologise in advance for any errors I didn’t catch

Legendarycool (talk) 03:13, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Art is defined in terms of human activity even by the examples you cite, and more explicitly so by the better sources. Art and Philosophy: Readings in Aesthetics (1979, edited by W. E. Kennick) is a 729-page textbook of writings by thinkers from three centuries who have grappled with the question "what is art?". A foundational premise (p. 4) is that "'art' refers to a certain human activity, or group of related activities, as well as to the products of that activity, or those activities". According to the definition you seem to lean toward (as in "The third argument"), anything at all that people appreciate is art, which renders the term rather meaningless: a hen's egg is art, an attractive cloud is art, the moon is art, etc. Standard books about art and the arts do not mention non-human animals as artists at all, or objects that are not artifacts as works of art, and Wikipedia follows sources. If you think there's "a glaring issue" in the "second argument" take it up with Nattiez—we cannot know whether a bird thinks of a bird's vocalization as music or as something else (maybe an alarm or a demonstration of fitness). A trained parrot may be able to reproduce many words and phrases; every time it chooses certain words/phrases/squawks and puts them together in combinations never heard before it performs the same activity a human writer performs, so given your stated beliefs it is not clear why you reject the idea of parrot as poet. If you really want to add a line to this article about elephants trained to make paintings, place it near the bottom of the article please, because it is trivia; it does not belong in the lead section, and certainly not in the first sentence. Ewulp (talk) 04:44, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Absolutely; anything more is clearly WP:UNDUE. Johnbod (talk) 14:44, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Generative artificial intelligence seems a more urgent reason to adjust the article's definition, since there's little reason to not call art created by algorithms art, but good reason to not call that a human activity. The prompts don't have to be provided by an artist, so the algorithm is generally considered the more defining element than the person asking for a desired result. The article already mentions a necessity of a "re-evaluation of aesthetic theory in art history today and a reconsideration of the limits of human creativity" as a consequence of AI use of images.

In fiction, it seems quite natural to accept art as something that can be created by non-humans (by anthropomorphic animals, for instance), indicating that the human aspect is not a strong factor in the general interpretation of the concept. The possibility of extra-terrestrial cultures is also quite commonly imagined, and would probably entail non-human art (or at least commonly does in science fiction).

A simple solution could be to change "human activity" to "cultural activity". Maybe not a totally flawless alternative, but at least a bluelink to Culture makes more sense to me than the current link to Human behaviour . Joortje1 (talk) 16:32, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Or just activity

P.S. thank you for contributing to this discussion, have a good day. Legendarycool (talk) 23:07, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Art vs The arts vs Visual arts merges

Per a discussion on the Vital articles discussion page here, there is some ambiguity in the scope of these three articles.

• There is some agreement (with some dissent) that useful distinctions cannot be made between art and The arts, and that they should be merged, although it is unclear which direction the merge should be performed.

• It has been suggested (by me) that if art is determined to be primary, renaming The arts to Types of art would be valuable.

• There is agreement that the article for art claims both that it is about visual art, and that it is referring to a more expansive definition than just visual art.
• There is some agreement that if the article for art is committed to being defined as "visual arts" rather than the expansive definition, visual arts should be merged with art.

I am putting this here instead of Wikipedia:Contents/Culture and the arts as I currently think this is the appropriate place for content/merge discussions to occur. Pinging some editors who have been involved Thi, The Blue Rider, Cactusizo, AirshipJungleman29, Starship.paint, Zzzs and Aza24

Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 00:09, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I began trying to draft a new article on the arts, see User:Aza24/The arts, but came across what seemed numerous contradictions on Wikipedia. Dictionaries seem to say:

• Art: a wide range of creativity involving skill or imagination. Without context, often means just visual art, but can just as easily mean musical, literary etc, if that is the context.
• The arts: a wide range of creativity involving skill or imagination. Always means visual, literary, musical etc.

The problem: although dictionaries somewhat neatly (not always) organize the two distinctly, most sources do not. There are major books about Art that talk about music, painting, literature etc. and do not make any fuss. So if I'm only using books about "the arts" for the arts article, suddenly I can't use sources of essentially the same scope that happen to call it "art". Thus in reality, "the arts" is not a meaningful distinction; it is nonsensical to say music is not art but it is of the arts.

I cannot see the arts article becoming useful. At the moment it is essentially written like an Outline of the arts, and any attempt to meaningful expand it would essentially turn it into a duplicate Art article. To make matters more confusing, this article—Art—talks about musical, visual and literary matters already. I strongly think the arts should be redirected to art. Aza24 (talk) 00:31, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I think Aza24 sums up the issue well, and I also support merging The arts into Art. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 00:43, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

• No for the Visual arts merge. The visual arts are, of course, a stand-alone form of art, always have been. This may be an example of so many active editors thinking up so many new things to edit or change on Wikipedia that proposing changes of long-time accepted forms becomes inevitable. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:49, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Randy Kryn For clarity, what do you understand as the distinction (and could you provide sources that attest to it)? And if you support the current distinction drawn, where art refers to visual art, do you have an opinion of a merger of those articles? Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 13:03, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Would have to study the matter further but I'd assume this has been discussed and decided previously. Maybe one way forward would be to alert the WikiProjects about this request to stir-up, I mean provide for, a larger discussion. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:11, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I'll notify the Wikiprojects now. I didn't see any previous discussions on a visual arts/art merge, which is to my mind the most obvious merge given the status quo. If I've missed it, would be a valuable read. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 13:17, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. On a practical level, merging Visual arts into the Arts page would slightly confuse the issue as Visual art is an accepted name and distinctive artform/legacy. The size of the pages could be an issue as well, not wanting to lose anything while mixing a virtual hobo's stew of the two (will stop here having come up with a "too clever by half" metaphor). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:29, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't really disagree. The difficulty is laid out most clearly with Wikipedia:Contents/Culture and the arts defining Art as referring to "visual arts" in distinguishing Art and The arts: [The arts] is a broader term than "art," which as a description of a field usually means only the visual arts..

Re; page size, I think summary style is underutilized here. For example Art#Public_access is quite hodgepodge and I would split it off, given it apparently deserves its own subheading on a very broad-concept article. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 13:43, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose both mergers "Art", "the arts," and "visual arts" are all very distinct topics. "Art" is generally the product of "the arts." "The arts" are types of jobs, skills, and activities that produce art. "Visual arts" are a type of art. It may make more sense to think of the term liberal arts education, which think of art as a "learned skill" as opposed to what we think of as fine art. For example:

"Cartography" is the "Art science and technology of making maps." I'm a cartographer who teaches Geographic information systems in a college of liberal arts and who produces cartography professionally. Cartography in this case is under "the arts," the maps I make are "art," and they likely fall under the category of "visual arts." I do not generally consider my work to be Fine art, but I have made some stuff that could be lumped in that category. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:24, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Aza24, how does this map to your read of the literature? Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 22:49, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

As I've said above @GeogSage's case seems like a clear-cut easy way, but it is simply not the reality of RS. Art/music/literature critics do not bother to distinguish the two terms in the way that is being proposed here. There are plenty of studies on "Art" that discuss non-Visual forms without hesitation, and just as many on "the Arts" that do the same. The difference is highly overblown by the creation of separate articles and I cannot see it being useful to readers.

By the way, Art and The Arts are both commonly described as creativity involving skill or imagination, there is not really a meaningful distinction in dictionaries on that front; this solely "product" idea is not in RS.

The status quo is paradoxical on two counts: situation 1, if Art (just visual) and The Arts (visual/literary/musical), then how is the Art article different than the Visual Art article? Situation 2, if Visual Arts is distinct from Art (visual/literary/musical) and The Arts (visual/literary/musical), how are Art and The Arts distinct? The Arts is the sensible way out, just merge the count noun. Aza24 (talk) 03:31, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I think we may need to get an art historian in this comment section, if one isn't already here. I know that there are scholars who wax poetic about the difference between fine art and art. Furthermore, I know that the liberal arts are "Such a course of study contrasts with those that are principally vocational, professional, or technical, as well as religiously based courses." An artist makes art, sometimes visual art. The arts are a series of distinct ways humans make art.

I did a quick search on Google Scholar, and found some interesting articles I think we can add to this discussion. I have not read them in any great depth because I'm a bit busy at the moment, but will return to them later.

• Art vs. the Arts by Ronald Berman
• The Theory of the Arts by Francis Edward Sparshott

Also, I want to note that Encyclopedia Britannica has seperate pages for liberal arts, the arts, and art. They don't have a page for visual arts, but do have one for graphic art which seems close. Perhaps we can use their pages as models to help us here. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:16, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

The Encyclopedia Brittanica divisions are interesting, as "Art" and "Visual arts" are quite clearly merged upon reading the page for Art. We do have pages on both visual arts and graphics arts, do you think these should be merged if you think they are sufficiently close? Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 06:48, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Possibly. I would be hesitant to combine visual arts and graphic arts because I'm to ignorant to know if there is a distinction in the literature. If a compelling case could be made based on sources that these are not unique, I would support a merge, but I'm out of my depth to say any more at the moment. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:56, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

No - graphic arts is pretty obviously a sub-group of visual arts, just like sculpture, painting etc. Johnbod (talk) 15:00, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I could buy that interpretation as a reason not to merge. I'm on the fence here in that I don't know. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 19:49, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose both. "Art" just is very ambiguous in English, as has been recognised in many discussions on wp (especially in category discussions) over the years. The current situation is stable & nothing here suggests improvement. Btw, cartography is not one of the arts, any more than say "the art of making a good omelette" or "the art of constructing a good opinion poll". Johnbod (talk) 14:10, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

  • Comment:@Johnbod The relationship between "art" and "cartography" is a widely discussed and debated topic in the literature. As I stated above, there is a distinction between art and fine art, and there are different uses of the word "art," as you mentioned. That said, Arthur H. Robinson stated in his book Elements of Cartography, "Before the last century, the question of whether cartography was an art never arose, for it very definitely was." He goes on to say about modern cartography, "Cartography is certainly a creative art in the way that careful, creative literary expression is an art. Every map is a different problem requiring a new solution in the field of graphic design." In a chapter titled cartography as an art in the book Cartography Past, Present and Future, he goes into much more detail on the topic, most notably saying "In an important sense, all cartography is an art in that it is representational and that operation always involves some degree of abstraction. Geographical reality is infinitely complex and its complete depiction is quite impossible; elements must be left out and intricacies modified as a consequence of the fundamental requirement of information reduction. All maps, therefore, are abstractions and the decisions involved in the process are artistic in the sense that many of them must be made subjectively by the cartographer." Cartography today is defined by multiple sources with variations of "The art science and technology of making maps." [1][2][3]. Books like Map Making: The Art that Became a Science discuss this, and contemporary books like The Map As Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography go on to elevate some cartography into the category of Fine art. If you want to get into more scholarly theoretical discussions of this, I'd recommend reading Maps, Mapping, Modernity: Art and Cartography in the Twentieth Century, Cartography as an art and a science?, and Cartography and Graphic Design. On Wikipedia, it is listed on the page Applied arts, next to topics like Graphic design and Automotive design. As someone who is more on the theoretical side of things when it comes to cartography, I generally place most 21st century cartography as a subset of graphic design in my publications. If you have a strong disagreement, I'd first ask where you draw the line, as I can point to the book Believing Is Seeing Creating the Culture of Art that says the Mona Lisa isn't art. If you have a strong reason to disagree, you should probably get it peer reviewed.

  GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:19, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

  • I suspect that is how cartographers see things, but not how those involved in the criticism of the arts see them. Map users hope they are looking at essentially a product of science, though of course they are abstractions and "the decisions involved in the process ... must be made subjectively by the cartographer". But that does not make them art. But I certainly don't "want to get into more scholarly theoretical discussions of this". There are certainly artistic maps, but isn't a lack of accuracy a pretty essential precondition for these? Johnbod (talk) 02:31, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

    How to Lie with Maps goes into this a bit more detail, but in a paper title Ethics and Map Design: Six Strategies for Confronting the Traditional One-Map Solution Mark Monmonier argues "a conscious effort by map authors and cartographic educators to promote informed skepticism among map viewers." I can fulfil that obligation now: map users are looking at a model that is one of many possible ways to depict the same set of information. While there may be a few "more right" ways to make a map, and there are definitely "wrong" ways, is never an absolutely correct one. "All maps lie." The message the cartographer wants to communicate will inform their decisions. Furthermore, once you step out of the data frame and enter the overall layout, the map frame itself becomes an element in a graphic design layout. White space, color choice, font, and overall layout are all subjective things that the cartographer must decide on. There is a science to cartography, but there is also a subjective set of aesthetic decisions made in every map. The 21st century artistic scholarship is a mess, and their scholarship mostly applies to what constitutes fine art, which cartography isn't normally. It's a pretty extreme level of gatekeeping that not only goes against history, but isn't in line with others in the literature, and is likely so inconsistent internally that a true definition on what constitutes art is impossible. Is architecture art? Graphic design? Photography? GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:48, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think debating whether X is or isn't art will be fruitful. I also don't think introducing the concept of 'liberal arts' is useful, as at least according to our article on the topic, its relationship to the arts is that the arts is a subtopic.

From a NPOV perspective, we have a few approaches for distinguishing art and the arts:

1. Art refers to visual art, the arts refers to more broader coverage of art (the status quo distinction used, also used by Encyclopedia Brittanica, which means they have merged visual arts into art)
2. Art refers to the product, the arts refers to the process: represented in some form on the pages, although tangentially and without noting that this is a distinction.
3. There is no real distinction between art and the arts: this is how the topics are distinguished in the literature.

Per WP:DUE, distinguishing based off either of the top two would be giving undue weight to distinctions not made in the majority of sources. To meet DUE, the arts should be merged into art and then #1 and #2 should be folded into a discussion in Classificatory disputes about art#Definitions of art.

Johnbod this situation is unstable because efforts to write the arts beyond just a list of things classified as art have broken down due to it not being a discrete concept in the literature, as seen above. This is causing issues for Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/1. Which of the above distinctions do you think is most useful? Even if the pages don't get merged, some clarity on distinctions will be only helpful. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 06:48, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't really see why we need "to write the arts beyond just a list of things classified as art", as a top-level article, & "issues for Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/1" are a very low priority imo. I think we all know what people mean when they say "I like art"; hence the current situation. Johnbod (talk) 13:02, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm following this discussion and have some professional experience in this field, but find it hard to come up with a clear opinion. The overlap and distinctions of most definitions remain so unclear that neither of the 3 approaches ring entirely true:

1. Visual art may dominate what is regarded as "the art world", while works of art in music, theatre, poetry, movies and other forms of art have their own domains. However, the interest in performance art within the art world (actually quite prominent over the last decades) proves that art nonetheless doesn't have to be visual.

2. Relatively close, but too many sources tend to define "art" as an activity rather than just a "product" (even our current page does this). Also: would a "work of "art" thus mean "a work of product"!?! And what exactly is the product of "performance art"? While the term "product" can arguably also refer to an event or an experience/sensation/impression, its use will be very confusing if it isn't properly defined. The term "the arts" usually seems to describe the different disciplines and practices in which works of art are created.

3. The Berman source offered above clearly makes the distinction between "art" and "the arts", and as far as explained there (or as far as I could see) it seems somewhat related to approach 2. I assume that plenty other expert sources make a distinction (regardless of whether they agree). I'm afraid I don't really get how the argument "this is how the topics are distinguished in the literature" follows from "There is no real distinction between art and the arts".

Joortje1 (talk) 14:25, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I believe that there is another important and prevailing distinction between "Art" and the related terms, which is described in the introduction of the Sparshott source offered above:

Works of art are "expected to provide worthwhile experiences"

This arguaby fits approach 2, but it seems more like art is a certain label of quality or relevance rather than the "product" or the "acitivity" itself. It may differ from person to person what is considered art or not, but many will admit to just don't get (a specific work of) art and leave it to the experts and their institutions (museums, galleries, fairs, critics, art historians, artists, et cetera).

Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to catch this meaning in a useful definition. Although often implied in the use of the word "skill", most encyclopedic definitions don't seem to properly cover this. The terms "skill" is confusing, since many modern/contemporary works of art intentionally avoided to express the types of skill associated with "fine art" and "crafts". Consider the extremely influential work Fountain (Duchamp) and other found objects.

All in all, it seems to me that the pages could use some work in making these distinctions clearer to validate the existence of so many pages on very similar subjects. Not just through better descriptions in the lead section, but also by getting rid of redundant overlap ("summary style is underutilized") . Joortje1 (talk) 14:40, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for this interesting input Joortje1. I think "works of art" has a colloquial meaning with a connotation of quality that "artwork" doesn't necessarily contain. Just my language vibes, no sources backing that up, disregard as you may. It is an interesting, narrower definition, although I'm not sure we want to define kitsch out of a definition of art in wikivoice. I found your points on performance art particularly compelling.

Re; I'm afraid I don't really get how the argument "this is how the topics are distinguished in the literature" follows from "There is no real distinction between art and the arts". this is in reference to Aza24's attempt at researching to write the arts to GA, and finding that despite some academics making distinctions between art and the arts, most use the concepts interchangeably and don't draw the hard distinctions that we are trying to draw. So it's our imposition. Likewise in politics, I think it would be undue to define politics in terms of how it is distinguished from "the political", even though some academics do distinguish them. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 09:55, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose – they are different names for different but related aspects. Hence the reason that there are different names. —Jonathan Bowen (talk) 20:40, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose- If they were the same thing, the proposal would have came earlier. I don't believe they are the same thing however, and should not be merged. Art is the aspect of coloring and drawing, The Arts are certain human-made concepts, and Visual Arts are some kind of combination of the previous two. Hellow Hellow i am here 13:41, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Support merging the arts into this article. This article is already also about nonvisual art. There is no reason to have a separate article for the arts or am I missing something? This point makes sense: "Art" is generally the product of "the arts." but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be merged. This article here already contains information about the practices, industries and activities that produce the art and not just the art itself. However, oppose also merging visual art into it as well. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Comment:

Oppose to merger before deciding to comment instead.

*Strong Oppose for visual arts: Although I haven't read much above (guessing from the opposes that they won't provide reason for me not to oppose), I think that visual arts in itself are a significant type within the classification of art, and the reason you may have thought that both need to me merged is the current page for Art, or at least the images are not diverse enough to show different form of arts (literally none seems to be non-visual), like vocal, dancing performances, and even more... and maybe even mathematics. In all, though I haven't read the article for myself, I...

I think this article ART is already very biased, or say giving undue weight to visual arts. Content from The arts should be incorporated here. Either I am very right, or a F.A.Q. distinguishing the two needs to be put on the talk page. ExclusiveEditor _{Notify Me!} 13:57, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Support merging The arts with Arts, as it is a distinction that isn't present in reliable sources. I don't buy the argument that, just because it wasn't done earlier, it shouldn't be done now – if anything, it is always good to question things that have stayed the same because of inertia. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 23:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

The arts and Arts are already merged, ie they are the same article. That Art is a different article is nothing to do with "inertia", there have been lots of discussions, almost continually so. You will find that is a distinction present in reliable sources. Some are quoted higher up here. Johnbod (talk) 02:46, 12 December 2024 (UTC)