What is art? Whether we're talking about Picasso paintings or Banksy graffiti wall paintings, it remains an aged-old question that has inspired many treatises and debates across all social strata. Even people who breathe, eat, live, and love it could barely help us lesser mortals. A prime example of this is Georges Braque, who once said that "art is made to disturb. Science reassures. There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain." So what kind of meaning can we glean from what Georges has said? Lewis Caroll isn't much of a help either, when he lamented, "Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle."

Really, for an untrained eye, discovering and putting the answer in a neat little box to the question of "what is art" is almost impossible. Some veteran art enthusiasts wax poetic about Rembrandt's faithful renditions of real-life occurrences through his paintings. But these same people would also go gaga over Jackson Pollock's random splashes of colors in a canvass.

So 'real art' should be measured as such if we only see it displayed on fancy art galleries, with a suave and sophisticated audience, who sip their expensive wines as they cavort amongst themselves and exhort the values of the showcased artist? Should we then just dismiss the street graffiti works of the young punks who we encounter on our daily commutes to work?

Another great example to why the question of what is art and why it's so relative is the body of work of Norman Percevel Rockwell. Long ignored by the gentle sect, but has always enjoyed immense popularity with the rest of the public, Norman Rockwell is now all of a sudden the hottest thing since sliced bread. This sounds familiar to anyone who happens to know what happened to Vincent Van Gogh, who was absolutely ignored while alive. His brother Theo, who survived him after he has committed suicide, has managed to sell only one painting. And we all know what happened after that.

Then we encounter modern works of art that seems to be created mainly to disturb the rest of us. And the amount of money the artist manages to earn would almost jolt the rest of us out of our daily stupor. But if you look closely at their works, frankly, it sometimes makes your head inwardly scream, yuck!

Then on the other side of the coin, there are amazing breakthroughs of art that is expressed in other forms such as architecture, films, musical compositions, and fiction. A creation that catches the eye of many, and inspires gasps of admiration and pools of adulation from most of us. In cases like these, art becomes easier to quantify and definitely harder to say that it's too broad and relative for many people. Whenever the majority of us can agree in one cleverly created object, such as an image, sculpture, or edifice, art is far simpler to experience. Art then elevates our existence into something else, hopefully into a more ethereal occurrence which also allows us to identify better to the stranger next door.

In my opinion, from what I've seen in this world, art is relative because it is what is relevant to the person who experiences it. What may catch my eye may be totally ignored by you, and the same is true vice-versa. We plod on to this life until we both find a common ground wherein we both enjoy the same type of art in some way. Like a rock 'n roll shirt we both unknowingly purchased from a concert.