Through the keyhole of self-awareness

I am sitting at the window seat of the Alitalia flight. It is flying over the Italian alps near Milan, few minutes away from landing. The sun is setting behind the alps creating a vast dynamic art that sweeps slowly across as the aircraft moves over the mountains; a small house besides a stream in the valley beneath, clouds resting halfway up the mountains. And, this is just in the tiny bit of earth and sky that I happened to pass through. Spectacular, sublime, artistic beyond human comprehension.

What is Art? Can art be for itself, without a context, without a witness? Universe as an enigmatic art: the Great Riddle; the greatest of art - always incomprehensible, challenging us forever to raise above ourselves in order to perceive it more fully, in order to participate in it.

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is something beautiful automatically art? or just beautiful?

Art, (in an admittedly not so humble opinion...) is a method of communication. it need not be beautiful, but it should at least say something, even if the something is very simple. And by the nature of being a method of communication at least presumes an audience even if one is not present or even forthcoming.

Nature on the other hand is just Beautiful, and need not say anything.

So, Spectacular? Yes.
Sublime? Absolutely.
Enigmatic? Of course.
Worthy of study and understanding? Without Question. (small irony there...)
artistic? no.