Art has developed throughout the years and it has come to encompass various different forms. Some people might consider art to be the works produced at the peak of the Renaissance, such as this:

 the Birth of Venus by Sandra Botticelli. Other people might consider this,

Starry Night Over the Rhone by Vincent van Gogh, to be a great form of art.

However, as time progressed, art became things such as Picasso, which some people remark as ugly or different, and du Champ, the toilet structure. The first time I saw a picture of the du Champ, I was confused, just like my friends. How can a toilet (more specifically, a urinal) be considered art?

Dadaism was an art movement in the early 20th century that rejected most of the aesthetics that were applauded in the past. For example, the analysis behind Fountain is that it is and isn’t art at the same time; dadaist art is very anti-art but at the same time, people still consider it an art movement because it is still a way of self-expression. Therefore, a popular analysis of Fountain is that, “Art is something you piss on.”

Despite the message that people assume Fountain conveys, it is still a form of art. An analogy would be the evolution of makeup (which could be a great topic on its own); throughout the years, different countries and different time periods found different makeup styles more attractive. In recent years, in the US, people have begun to emphasize strong brows as opposed to the early 2000s thin, overplucked brows. The shift of beauty trends, to me, is a good analogy of art. As years passed, people began to emphasize different styles of art; in the beginning, artists emphasized painting patrons, beautiful people. Then, it moved to landscapes and more towards self-expressionism.

Now, in museums like the MOMA, people often question certain works of art (like abstract art). “How could a few slashes of red paint be art? How could this be in a museum?” These are the same questions that people asked about Fountain a hundred years ago, but there is still some deep meaning behind the slashes of red paint.