Art

Well both the video and the essay were interesting but the video stood out to me. But in the philosophy of beauty, something struck me. I did agree with a lot of what he was saying! I totally agree that a signed urinal   isn't art; that a messed up bed and some garbage isn't art. And when the "artist" of the messed up bed said that it was art because "she said so" that struck a nerve. If what she said was true than ANYONE could be an artist, it wouldn't take skill or technique, or understanding a medium or any of the basic principals of art. Take Picasso for instance, he is known for his abstract paintings, but what people don't know is how hard something like that is! He knew the in and outs of art, he understood the "rules" first, he didn't just go and paint all those abstract pieces right off the bat! That's what people are missing today, is the understanding that no everyone can do art. That it IS hard, and that you do have to have a God given talent to do it. And it pains me to see some people take advantage of the broad aspect of art. 
On the other hand, one thing that I disagreed with the movie was how he seemed to only show pieces like the signed urinal or the messy bed as "abstract". There are SO many beautiful, genius, abstract pieces in the world that he failed to talk about. He only stuck to the basic, old renaissance styles of sculptures, or only the portraits of oil/acrylic paintings on canvas. He didn't show anything like Kandinsky or Picasso or any famous abstract sculpture. He never said anything about how hard it is to be an abstract artist, they probably take as much time if not more on a piece as any realism artist because they have to think outside the box, outside the normal and that is intensely difficult. That being said, one thing that I did like about the essay was the he talked about the beauty in abstract art! I appreciated how he went through things and explained them in a way that looked at all ends of the spectrum.
All in all I concluded that in today's world we have lost some of the beauty in art, some of the understanding of what art really is and how to do it, but I also think that in today's world art can be something that doesn't have to be just perfect, or look like you could pick it up, but it shows the world through the artists eyes (after you have mastered the basics of course).