> You know, there's something about this I don't like. It's a niggling little something that always gets at me when I'm listening to this particular argument, and I think I know what it is. This line of thinking seems to mandate allegory as the only valid art: the artist must infuse it with meaning, or it is not art. I don't agree with that.

I don't either. I've used the word "meaning" in this thread reluctantly and used more vague words when I could. I've said art should "convey something," and if that "something" is "meaning," great. But it could also be "beauty" or "perspective" or "feeling." One could argue that these all fall under "meaning," but I'd rather not have to fight over defining "meaning" (which tends to imply that ideas or rational thought is involved) in *addition* to all the other terms in play.

> And yet, the argument breaks down if that side is removed: if we define art as being something that one can get meaning out of...

That's a logically unsound leap anyway. It's the old "if a then b" does not imply "if b then a" thing. If all art must have meaning, this does not imply that all things with meaning are art.

Later, you go on to say that you believe "if it doesn't have meaning, it isn't art", which is "if not b then not a," and *that* is a perfectly logical consequence of "if a then b."