Assignment Eight

As I have stated somewhere before now, probably in my first post, the "artistic", put in quotes for a reason, "Fountain" is considered, by me, to be a ridiculous sham that makes me question people's opinion of art. I have personally been in various heated discussions over what is art and what isn't. My definition of art has two parts and if one part is missing the piece is not art. It a) must take skill to create, and b) it must be hand made, no pushing a button and out pops a masterpiece kinda thing. It is my belief that the word 'art' is used much to loosely now a days and it drives me mad. To think that a urinal turned on its side with an engraving is considered art is horrifying to me. How can someone compare a urinal to the Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night"? It's completely preposterous! Furthermore one of the biggest arguments against what I believe that I have heard countless times is that "Well art makes you feel something!" This is true I will not deny that art does cause a reaction in our brains to form emotions. But not everything that causes emotions is art, genocide causes extreme emotions in me but it sure as heck is NOT art. It has become to easy for people to claim something is art when all it is, is a piece of trash, like my mother always tells me you can polish a turd but in the end it is still a turd. As I am sure you can tell I have very strong feelings about this.