As far as we know, the human being is the only organism that is awarded of its consciousness in close relationship with its long-term memory and future desires. This ability let us recreate, transform and evoke the perception of our surrounding reality, bias our senses, in a process that we may call imagination. Imagination is the key element for purposing a definition of art.

In its more row definition, art creation is the intrinsic necessity of the human being for materializing our individual imagination. While doing so, a transfiguration of the reality is obtained and a new enriched reality produced. Therefore, perception, interpretation, and transfiguration of the reality create the cycle where imagination and art production coexist and evolve. Art can be seen then as a decantation and sublimation of the reality.

In addition, each time that this materialization of the individual imagination is generated, the creator explores a small part of his or her self-consciousness in a way that is not tangible or explained by any other medium. In this way, science, technology, religion, and philosophy among other fields could only support the artistic process, never override it or dislocate it. Art creation is then, a way to explore, understand, discover, and know fragments of our selves. This exploration and understanding is linked to what we call intuition.

Intuition, understood as knowledge based on instinct feeling rather than methodical reasoning plays also an important role in the art creation. For some, it is a natural give associated with the notion of talent, for others it is a learned ability product either of a self-awarded experience or a randomly, not-linear, and not-easily tracked learning. Either way, the art production requires other equally important components.

The materialization of our individual imagination into an observable entity, which could be perceived by other persons, requires two key elements a medium and a technique. They play a transcendental role as catalysts of the virginal idea. Without them, imagination would not be observable. Both are of extraordinary importance for the artistic experience to the extent that the boundaries between imagination, technique, and medium are typically blurred.

The medium is the abstract materialization of the creative idea. The medium produces the context where a piece of art exists and the context gives meaning and points of reference to the art. As part of a common context that is observable by a community, art is also a ritual. Sharing, observing, reproducing, developing, and judging pieces of art, and embedding them into the plausible reality sift the individual art creation into a social behavior. If art creation is an individual activity, the art ritual is an element of the collectivity.

The technique is the tangible mechanism within certain medium for translating the imaginary into a specific piece of art. Because the technique plays a substantial role in the materialization of an idea, historical care has been put on its development pushing constantly its limits. From this exhaustive individual and collective interest originality has been emerged as other part of the artistic paradigm.

Originality is an additional value of the art expression either if it is intentionally searched or unconsciousness obtained. It produces new points in the finite state space of what we as humans can preserve within the limits of our senses. Because the elements for the production of art are also finite, as they are extracted from a finite reality, originality and search of limits are exploration of the structure and the form.

In the same manner that the technique is the instantiation of the medium, the form is the particular recreation of the generic concept of structure. In their own domains, structure and form establish the internal configuration and rules of a piece of art and are necessarily confronted with the reality and the context. Structure and form give coherence and completeness to a piece of art –whatever it means within a specific context-.

Said that, are only thoroughly works derived from the translation of the individual imaginary could be consider art? Not necessarily, so far we have purposed a description for the art production. However, art production is a tiny fragment of the entire paradigm of art.

Art perception is other component of the art that in some cases may override the art creation percepts in the sense that humans may consciously or unconsciously set his or her senses to resonate with a particular stimulus. In this way, any event, situation, or activity tangible or intangible may generate an artistic event if it triggers in the receiver, the specific associations, memories, desires, or analogies that make him or her to see a poetic reality.

A poetic reality is, as I said, a transfigurated and decanted reality either because it is the recreation with an artistic object or an artistic perception of the original reality. In either case, this parallel or virtual reality is indescribable by no other way than its own existence. In other words, the artistic experience cannot be translated nor reduced, nor extrapolated.

Because the poetic reality is open to multiple interpretations, there is neither a grounded true nor a collective understanding in the meaning of a piece of art. There is perhaps a temporal agreement within a community for judging a piece of art that is never universally adopted. This quality makes that any piece of art became a finite segment of an infinite space. Therefore, there are not practical goals, nor tangible benefits besides enriching and complementing our appreciation and interpretation of both the real and the untouchable realities.

This parallel poetic reality that has accompany the true live since the origins of the consciousness has created its own history. The art history is an alternative reality that encompasses the real history. It has its own paradigm and is so extensive and subtle that is an independent entity. If the real history is the register of the human actions, the art history is the register of his imagination, fears, and desires.