Beta Fish

Location: My house

This is my beta fish, Sangre. He is not art because he is a living creature. I'm going to take a stand right now and say pets are not art. The same goes for that lady that was trying to sell "gothic kittens" on eBay.

He is very pretty though, with a bright red body and shiny blue and silver scales. And, he lives in a very pretty fish bowl with glass sea creatures that could be considered art, but they are not the focus of this entry. I wish to change the saying to "Fish are friends, not art!" That's not to say that paintings of fish can't be art.

I like to argue that nature is not art because our perception of nature can be skewed by art, especially if we have not seen much of the natural world for ourselves. Some people go hiking and expect to see waterfalls that look like they do in paintings, but it should be the opposite way. We should expect the paintings to look like the real thing. Our perception of art is generally shaped by our culture, so why is this often not the case when nature is the theme of the piece?