Comment by card_zero

Where does the "art is about inciting a response" theory originate from?

I went and looked at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_art but couldn't find it there. The "anti-essentialist" section is good, though, I think. It has Berys Gaut listing ten properties of art, all of which are nice-to-have but none of which are essential. Then if a piece ticks lots of boxes it's a shoo-in, but if it doesn't tick many of them you can argue about it.

Some of those involve eliciting some sort of response, but you could also have a decorative piece with this combo:

(i) aesthetic, (iv) complex, (v) meaningful, (vi) idiosyncratic, (vii) imaginative, (viii) skillful, (ix) art-shaped, (x) intentional

Which would be 8 out of 10, to which we could add "completely ignorable" and it could still be art. I don't see why attention-grabbing and provocation is important, and it certainly isn't sufficient on its own, plus it's irritating.