...But I know it when I see it

At the spring exhibition of a local art group the other day I heard that some artists had cancelled their memberships because they felt that some of the paintings being hung were of such a low standard - "not art", in fact. Artists are an intolerant lot.

But certainly - as at any art exhibition - among the many pictures on the walls which demonstrated substantial talent there were a few ugly and unskilled daubs.

I spoke to the painter of several of the former kind and we tried to work out how one could define art, or at least recognise it. We agreed that it was unlikely that we could find an answer since greater experts have spent a lifetime trying to do so, and failed.

Afterwards it occurred to me that the answer is really much the same as the one given by A.E.Housman when asked for a definition of poetry. He replied that he could no more define poetry than a terrier could define a rat, but that he thought that both he and the terrier recognised the object by the symptoms it provoked in them.