What is Art, you decide

Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Some art is obviously lovely and widely admired, yet can be dismissed as being low art. High art is something out of reach of us ordinary types. Hence its name. It's been produced by the art gods way up high.

To many a pile of bricks or a glass of water on a shelf are not art. To others these are installations from the art elite. They lack formal beauty or obvious craft. They confuse the observer and, we are told, raise questions. Which has become the highest or maybe sole purpose of art.

Once while visiting the Tate Modern, ostensibly to view the Picasso and Matisse exhibition but largely just to visit the building itself, there was a long queue for everything. Queues to see: A stairway leading up to a small wooden chair - baby bears presumably, unbroken and waiting for goldilocks to crush it under her selfish weight; A TV screen the size of a letter box looping a film of a largely unmoving group, presumably arranged for a wedding photo. Queues everywhere and for everything. Standing in the longest queue, for the gift shop, I joked with the lady in front of me that "I hope this exhibit is worth the wait". She replied without irony that "as long as it puts a question mark in your mind."

It's a fine line when discussing what is or isn't art between being too conservative and too pretentious. Fashions in art are always changing and dismissing a new style might one day be revealed as mere shortsightedness.

At some point even the most widely accepted artist, if their work was in any sense pioneering, have met with derision. Turner whose name is now more well known for the prize his estate awards to new artists was the subject of this joke: when is a cow not a cow? When it's painted by Turner. Of course the modern version of this joke would be: when is cow brain matter not cow brain matter? When it's a brick in a Turner prize exhibit.

Turner who is nowadays highly regarded was a contemporary of Constable who is not. During their working lives Turner was successful and Constable was not. Yet while Constable's picturesque figurative paintings have become widely popular his image suffers. In a modern context it is assumed that painting what you see is pandering to low brow imagination. Whereas Turner's more abstract work is assumed to be more adventurous. Yet in his own time Constable was considered a rebel for painting on location. Now that his work is used on tea towels and jigsaw puzzles he's regarded as somewhat commonplace.

Poor Constable. It seems he can never win. He proves that one test for art - that it challenges the viewer is flawed. What is daring now is mundane tomorrow. Take note Mr Hirst the shock value of putting a sliced-up cow in a tank doesn't last.

Art we are told must be for art sake. So we favour art that appears to be inspired to serve art rather than the artist's bank account. The all too obvious figurative paintings seem designed for a ready audience. Whereas a drizzle map of criss-cross lines of different colour paint seem intended to please only the artist. Of course to prevent this from being masterbation the artist must suffer. For the art, of course. It's not bollocks if it's Pollock's.

Art for art sake and the notion of the struggling artist is bogus. Poor constable found few benefactors. But throughout history art has mainly benefited from patrons who commissioned works and sponsored artists. And many of today's most avante garde artists are fairly well off. They have the ability to appeal only to the elite and therefore appear edgy, because the untutored masses don't get it.

The man in the street doesn't have room in his house for Tracy Emin's unmade bed. And Rachel Whiteread's Ghost needs to haunt a big space. These pieces need big money just to be displayed. There's nothing small scale about these works. Whiteread has won commissions from Austrian authorities, so there is a market and she isn't struggling.

Once art was as much about craft and technique as it was about meaning. The impressionist employed dazzling new painterly techniques to capture the fleeting moment or the feeling of light. Now artists like Whiteread, Hirst and Koons create projects rather than construct works. They are art architects. Although much of the impact of their work is derived from the spectacle of the finished product, they themselves are more the designers of the concept. The designers of the question. It's all about the spin. This most high concept and modern of arts while achieving acclaim for it's unconventionality is the most commercial of all.

Why is Koons large replica of a mickey mouse toy art? Why is Hirst's copy of a children's educational muscle man toy art? Because they tell us it is. The guy who sued Hirst for stealing his toy design wasn't an artist, so his toy wasn't art. He didn't have any spin. These artists they make you think don't they?

Some apply a very narrow definition of art that it must be figurative, painterly and pleasing. Others reject formal prettiness in favour of more difficult works. The definition is so broad that almost everything is art. But then what is it?

In the end as is often said, no truer words were ever spoken in jest: I don't know much about art but I know what I like.

What is art? You decide.