The Concept of Art and Works of Art in the Theory of Art and in the Restoration Industry

Abstract

At all times, art has quickly responded to the evident and concealed socio-political processes in the society. Starting from the first decades of the twentieth century, the semantic meaning of the terms “art” and “work of art” gradually has changed; art does not always refer to the category of beauty, and therefore the criteria for the selection of artefacts to works of art also has changed. The transformation of the phenomenon into art occurs gradually: first it arises spontaneously, then specific genres and professionals appear, then it becomes a social pheno­menon and holds a particular niche in the cultural life of society. So, art should be a means of educating society, which develops according to the laws of aesthetics and composition, and in this case, the elemental phenomenon becomes an artistic phenomenon.

The restoration industry is quite conservative; it adheres to the criteria for defining a work of art and the basics of preserving and reproducing a work of art that developed during the 20th and 21st centuries, in