Juan A. Esteban

Contemporary artist and independent researcher.

Illustration of Juan Esteban's runic monogram rendered in a three-dimensional architectural style within a frame, set against a light background.

What is art? A map of the debate for beginners

Reviewed as of 27 September 2026. If anything has changed, let me know and I will update it with the date of the change.

Almost every student of Fine Art, Art History or Philosophy comes up, sooner or later, against the question of what art is, and finds a debate ahead rather than an answer. This guide offers an introductory map of some central positions since the mid-twentieth century and of the recent discussion about artificial intelligence. It does not attempt to cover the whole history of aesthetics, nor is it a substitute for reading the texts.

The challenge to definition

In 1956 Morris Weitz published 'The Role of Theory in Aesthetics'. He argued that art is an open concept: works are related through family resemblances, not because they all share a closed set of necessary and sufficient conditions. Since artistic practice can produce new cases, a rigid definition risks excluding precisely what transforms the concept.

Weitz did not claim that it was impossible to discuss or recognise art. He denied that a real, closed and definitive definition could exhaust the concept. Much of the later debate can be read as a response to that challenge.

Beyond the visible: Danto and the artworld

Arthur C. Danto published 'The Artworld' in 1964. His argument starts from the problem of perceptually indistinguishable objects: if two things can look the same and only one is art, the difference cannot lie solely in their visible properties. For something to be seen as art, an atmosphere of artistic theory and a knowledge of the history of art are needed.

Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes offered a particularly fertile case, but they were not identical in every respect to the commercial boxes. What matters for Danto is the philosophical possibility of indiscernibles with different statuses, not an empirical claim of absolute identity between particular objects.

The institution: Dickie

George Dickie set out an institutional theory in Art and the Aesthetic: An Institutional Analysis (1974) and revised it in The Art Circle: A Theory of Art (1984). In the first version, a work is an artefact on which a person or persons acting on behalf of the artworld confer the status of candidate for appreciation. In the later formulation, Dickie describes a system of related practices and roles: artist, work, public, artworld and presentation systems.

The theory does not simply say that 'art is what is in a museum'. It tries to explain a social practice in which certain objects are created and presented to an artworld public. The best-known objection is circularity: art is explained through the artworld, and the artworld through activities relating to art. Its defenders reply that circularity can be informative when the concepts belong to an interdependent social practice.

History: Levinson

Jerrold Levinson proposed an intentional and historical definition in 'Defining Art Historically' (1979). Put simply, his idea is that a work is something that a person in the appropriate position with respect to it seriously intends to be regarded in a way in which earlier works were or are correctly regarded.

The theory links new art to inherited modes of regard without requiring an institution to confer status. Its strength is that it explains historical continuity; its difficulty is accounting for the first arts, radical breaks and what counts as an appropriate intention or mode of regard.

A cluster of criteria: Gaut

Berys Gaut argues that 'art' works as a cluster concept. A list of criteria may include aesthetic properties, emotional expression, complexity, originality, skill, artistic intention or belonging to an established art form. No criterion has to be present in every case. A sufficient combination can justify the classification.

This position avoids both a single essence and a complete absence of criteria. Its problem is explaining what goes on the list, how much counts as 'sufficient' and whether the cluster offers a definition or a reasoned method of identification.

Other paths that this map leaves out

The debate is not limited to these four answers. There are aesthetic, narrative, functional and disjunctive definitions; theories of practices and traditions; and phenomenological, pragmatist, feminist, decolonial and critical theory approaches. There is also a sceptical position different from Weitz's: perhaps we do not need a definition for every purpose for which we use the word.

This map chooses theories that help to understand the move from conceptual openness towards institutional, historical and criteria-based explanations. It does not present them as the only options.

Artificial intelligence reopens the problem

Since 2024, several studies have applied these questions to the outputs of generative AI. At least three questions should be kept apart: whether the output can be art, whether anyone is its author and who deserves recognition or rights. Answering one does not automatically settle the others.

In one family of positions, Simona Chiodo rejects defining AI-produced artefacts as art; Claire Anscomb questions whether AI is an artistic collaborator and proposes analysing assisted production; João Vitor Schmidt discusses whether an artificial agent can meet the institutional conditions of authorship.

Another family accepts that there may be artefacts or works without a clear author. Nurbay Irmak defends the possibility of genuine artefacts without authors; Tamer Nawar analyses the authorship gaps opened up by generative AI; Joseph G. Moore sets out an antinomy in which an image can seem to be a case of art even though none of the usual candidates turns out to be a satisfactory artist.

The positions do not form two perfectly homogeneous blocs. They differ in what they mean by work, artefact, author, intention and agency. The value of the debate lies precisely in not treating those words as synonyms.

Where I stand

My proposal, structural surplus, starts from a separation that AI has made more visible: whether an artistic event has occurred is one question, who can be considered its author is another, and whether an institution recognises it is a third. I argue that the first question can be answered independently of the other two.

This formulation summarises what has already been published in 'Art as Structural Surplus'. It does not mean that authorship and recognition are unimportant, but that they are not, on their own, a necessary condition for the artistic event to occur.

How to use this map

  1. Pin down the specific question: definition, recognition, authorship, value and legal status are not the same thing.
  2. Choose a theory and read its main text in full.
  3. Reconstruct its strongest version before raising an objection.
  4. Look for a critique aimed at that version, not at a caricature.
  5. Apply both arguments to a hard case and explain what fact would make you change your conclusion.

The map is there to help you find your bearings. In academic work, cite the original sources and check the page numbers in the edition you use.

On the open conversation

This guide is a selective introduction to the debate on the definition of art. Important traditions and authors are missing. The section on structural surplus is limited to the published proposal. If you teach aesthetics or philosophy of art and notice an unfair simplification or a gap that makes the map hard to understand, the guide remains open.

Sources

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