art and its objects

Jag köpte en bok ur en boklåda idag: Art and its Objectives av Richard Wollheim. Den öppnar med: What is art? Art is the sum or totality of works of art. What is a work of art? A work of art is a poem, a painting, a piece of music, a sculpture, a novel...What is a poem? a painting? a piece of music? a sculpture? a novel?...A poem is..., a painting is..., a piece of music is..., a sculpture is...a novel is... It would be natural to assume that, if we could fill in the gaps in the last line of this dialogue, we could have the answer to one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture: the nature of art. The assumption here is, of course, that the dialogue, as we have it above, is consequential. This is something that, for the present, I shall continue to assume.
Shit. Det fanns ingen möjlighet för mig att förbise denna txt.