What is art

The question 'What is art?' is a linguistic problem, not an artistic one. All concepts have a beginning and an end. Neanderthals did not enter caves and paint to create art, they did it to appease their gods and create good fortune for their hunting. The concept of art, the way we understand it today, seems to have appeared in the 18th century, and then, at the turn of the previous century, everyday utility goods became objets d'art.

A concept that does not exclude anything at all lacks function. Art is a three-hundred-year-old parenthesis. Had we instructed a coach driver long ago to take us 'dead ahead', he may have driven us straight to a cemetery.

If you assume that we think through language, then art is a way of thinking about things that we lack any other language for.