What is an Artist, Anyway?

Youquing Wang

Recently, I've been required to ask myself whether or not I am an artist, and what makes me such. College admissions officers want to know what makes my art stand out, and whether it is art at all. I've been on several phone calls in my recent history in which I have had to smile and nod at their stories of community crochet projects, all while questioning my entire identity. 

At my core, I am a writer. I know this to be true, if only because I am writing this very blog post. I am a dancer. I sing. I play guitar. Yet despite all the artistic endeavours I pursue, I still doubt whether or not I am an artist. Why? Because I can't draw. 

There is a reason I choose to highlight other artists for my cover photos rather than painting my own. My abilities in visual art stretch no farther than an elevated stick figure. And while I know that visual arts like drawing, painting, and sculpting aren't the only forms of art, and that I could get better at any of those if I practice, the fact that I can't draw shakes my whole identity as an artist. 

Technically speaking, a generative AI model could probably "draw" better than I. I'd like to think I could write better than it, and I know I could dance better, since it doesn't have a body. The real question is not whose abilities are greater, however, but whether the technical skill of those abilities merits the title of "artist." 

Number 18 by Jackson Pollock

Most five-year-olds can draw, to a certain degree. They draw a simple pentagonal house with a sun in the corner of the paper, and a stick figure with hair. In the simplest sense, this is art. Yet, children's art typically isn't hung in museums, and Jackson Pollock's work is, even though the technical skill required likely isn't much higher. (Olivia the Pig proved it.) So what is it that makes Pollock's work artistry, and children's paint splatters not? Or, if they are both art, what merits one a museum appearance over the other? And, if a generative AI model can replicate both, does that count as art?

Personally, I do not understand modern abstract art. I have never liked Picasso or Pollock, and I detest that banana duct-taped to the wall. Thus, I cannot speak to what grants these artists their fame, because theirs is the exhibit I am most likely to skip at the museum. However, though their art does not appeal to me, I can agree that it is art (excluding the banana). Why? Because it is something made by man for a purpose. 

After much thought, that is the most absolute definition I can find for art. Art, at its core, is something made by man for a purpose. That purpose could be beauty, as in the case of the Impressionists. That purpose could be space exploration, as in the case of NASA's aerospace engineers. That purpose could be fun, as in the case of child artists. What matters is not the technical skill level nor the beauty of the thing, but the humanity of it. 

Creating art is an inherently human action. In fact, it is a Christian action. C.S. Lewis writes that humans create because we are made in the Image of a creative God. For us to create is to imitate His creation of us. Art, at its core, is the most honest expression of humanity. It says in pictures what words cannot, and in words what language ordinarily does not. It is an expression of the lived human experience, of emotions that can only be showcased by being felt. Art, in all its beauty, is not something that can be mimicked or generated. 

This is why I feel so passionately that AI cannot create art. Not only are its images and text generated from work that humans made, but just as an AI model cannot dance with no body, it cannot be an artist with no soul. If our artistry truly is a spiritual act, then one with no spirit cannot accomplish it. Something inanimate cannot express the same feeling as something alive. An AI model could generate the most beautiful picture of the most beautiful subject, yet its beauty would mean nothing because there is no purpose or life behind it. 

Art is a spiritual language. Every human who creates is an artist. And the most beautiful thing about it is that it can never be artificially produced.