TA's Question on Weitz

On page 414 Weitz asserts that all conditions we previously may have felt as necessary for the definition of art can be denied. The most fundamental one he brings up is the idea that art must be an artifact, that is to say, human-made.  He says that a piece of driftwood could sensibly be called a sculpture if we were so inclined. 

Give reasons for and against the proposal that things, which are not human-made, could be called art. At which point do we call something human-made? (We make sculptures out of marble, but we don't make the marble, so could putting driftwood in a museum be sufficient to be called "human-made"?)


This claim could be argued with extremely different reasoning and results, depending on one's stipulated definition of "human-made."  Weitz has a good point in his reasoning behind his dismissal of the artifact-based element in many definitions of art.  Finding art in a piece of driftwood, as he says, could be considered as an appropriate counter example to those who include "artifacts" as a necessary part in their definition of art.  However, I would argue that Weitz is incorrect in this instance.


As we stipulated in class, I would agree that the all it takes for a work of art to be human-made, is the manipulation of said natural or artificial material by a human.  This is the definition of "human-made" that I would define to be an artifact, as an artifact is anything that's human-made.  If this were to be the case, Weitz's argument with the piece of driftwood in a museum would still fall under the category of an artifact, in my opinion.  The medium the driftwood is presented in has been manipulated, which makes it human-made, and in turn, an artifact.  


In principle, the piece of driftwood being placed in a museum is no different from millions of other works that the great majority of people would classify as art.  Michelangelo's statue of David is simply manipulated marble, which as Nicole points out, is definitely not human-made.  In my opinion, the statue and the piece of driftwood are both human-made, and therefore artifacts.  Of course, the driftwood is only manipulated in its medium of presentation, while the statue of David was manipulated in medium and form as well.  Nonetheless, both natural elements, marble, and driftwood, were manipulated by humans and skillfully intended to convey aesthetic reactions from viewers.