Reading by Ernest W. Adams

Adams defines art

According to Adams, there are many definitions of art and I agree most of them. He think that 'art has messages', 'art has content' and 'art contains ideas'. Of course, artists create the work in order to express their personal feelings or thinking, even the contents are meaningful or not, such as the artists in renaissance painting in order to show respect for the religional figures or create new kind of painting techniques. In terms of the idea that 'art should make you feel something', I would like to take Da Vinci's famous work, Mona Lisa as an example, it certainly puts viewers into consideration about the mystery smile. Moreover, 'art is not formulaic', I think the Duchamp's Fountain in Dada movement can proof this notion because it broke all artistic formulars in the early period. Furthermore, 'art has aesthetic', we can judge beauty and ugliness of art works through its artistic qualities, meaning and so on.

On the other hand, I disagree with some definitions of art by Adams. 'Art does not involve merchandising', but as we know, people treats Wong Kar Wai's movies as art forms even though they have merchandising consideration. Also, the notion of 'art versus popular culture', I suggest that popular culture can be defined as art since it can resonates general public's responses.

The qualities of videiogames to be considered as art

According to Adams, whether videogames to be considered as art forms or not should depends on the medium itself, they must contain some qualities that other art forms have. The certain qualities are listed as follows.

- 'Games must seek to do more than provide fun'
- 'Computer games need an aesthetic'
- 'Games must challenge the players as other art forms challenge their viewers'
- 'Gaming awards must recognize aesthetic merit and not merely technological prowess or craft'
- 'Games must be the subject of genuine critism, not merely product reviews'
- 'Games developers must experiment with the medium'