< p > In recent years, the word “art” is roughly used as an abbreviation for creative art or fine art, where some skill is being used to express the artist’s creativity, or to engage the audience’s aesthetic sensibilities, or to draw the audience towards consideration of the “finer” things. If the skill being used is more lowbrow or practical, the word "craft" is often used instead of art. Similarly, if the skill is being used in a commercial or industrial way, it may be considered "design" (or "applied art"). Some have argued, though, that the difference between fine art and applied art or crafts has more to do with value judgments made about the art than any clear definitional difference.

< p > Since the Dadaist art movement of the early 20th Century, it can no longer even be assumed that all art aims at beauty. Some have argued that whatever art schools and museums and artists get away with should be considered art, regardless of formal definitions (the so-called institutional definition of art).

< p > Some commentators (including John Dewey) suggest that it is the process by which a work of art is created or viewed that makes it art, not any inherent feature of an object or how well received it is by the institutions of the art world (e.g. if a writer intended a piece to be a poem, it is one whether other poets acknowledge it or not, whereas if exactly the same set of words was written by a journalist as notes, these would not constitute a poem).

< p > Others, including Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910), claim that what makes something art (or not) is how it is experienced by its audience, not the intention of its creator.

< p > Functionalists like Monroe Beardsley (1915 - 1985) argue that whether or not a piece counts as art depends on what function it plays in a particular context (e.g. the same Greek vase may play a non-artistic function in one context - carrying wine - and an artistic function in another context).

< p > At the metaphysical and ontological level, when we watch, for example, a play being performed, are we judging one work of art (the whole performance), or are we judging separately the writing of the play, the direction and setting, the performances of the various actors, the costumes, etc? Similar considerations also apply to music, painting, etc. Since the rise of conceptual art in the 20th Century, the problem is even more acute (e.g. what exactly are we judging when we look at Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes?)

< p > Aestheticians also question what the value of art is. Is art a means of gaining some kind of knowledge? Is it a tool of education or indoctrination or enculturation? Is it perhaps just politics by other means? Does art give us an insight into the human condition? Does it make us more moral? Can it uplift us spiritually? Might the value of art for the artist be quite different than its value for the audience? Might the value of art to society be different than its value to individuals?