Ken Crost Art

The Question That Never Settles

What is art? The question has haunted philosophers, critics, and makers for centuries. Some insist it must be beautiful. Others demand it be shocking. Still others say it must serve a purpose. But perhaps the truest answer is simpler: art is what moves us, what insists on being seen, what transforms the ordinary into something charged with meaning.

The Subjectivity of “Good” Art

If almost anything can be art, then what makes it good? One person’s masterpiece is another’s mess. A child’s crayon drawing can hold more truth for a parent than a million‑dollar canvas in a gallery. “Good” is not a fixed category—it’s a mirror, reflecting the values, wounds, and desires of the viewer.

The Somatic Dimension of Art

Art is not only an idea—it is an event in the body. A painting can quicken the pulse. A performance can make the skin prickle. A sculpture can draw breath into the chest as if the body itself is remembering something long forgotten. These somatic responses are not secondary; they are the very proof that art is alive. Before we name it, before we judge it, we feel it.

Richard Shusterman and Somaesthetics

Philosopher Richard Shusterman coined the term somaesthetics to emphasize the soma—the living, sentient body—as the indispensable medium of all perception. For him, aesthetics is not just about beauty or fine art but about cultivating awareness of how our bodies perceive, perform, and present. In this view, art is not confined to galleries or stages; it is woven into the way we breathe, move, and sense the world. To engage with art is to engage with our own embodied being.

Art as Encounter

Art is less about the object itself and more about the encounter it creates. A mask, a poem, a painting, a performance—each is a threshold. The question is not “Is this art?” but “What does this do to me? What does it awaken, disturb, or reveal?”

Closing Gesture

So perhaps the better question is not what is art but what is art doing to us right now. If it unsettles, consoles, provokes, or heals—if it stirs the body as much as the mind—then it is already fulfilling its purpose. Art is not a definition to be nailed down, but a living dialogue between maker and witness, between sensation and meaning, between soma and spirit.

Related Topics

• What is art

• Subjectivity in art

• Somatic experience of art

• Richard Shusterman somaesthetics

• Embodied aesthetics