“It’s pretty – but is it art?” A question asked by Kipling in “The Conundrum of the Workshops”, and one that routinely provokes debate among critics, creators, and audiences. So what do the public think qualifies as art, and what doesn’t?
New YouGov data reveals a broad consensus that painting (97%), sculpture (96%), photography (93%), and, well, other stuff that typically appears in an art gallery makes the grade. Britons feel the same about dance (82%), poetry (79%), tattoos (78%), animation (79%), graffiti (76%), comic books (70%), movies (65%), interior design (64%) and fashion (63%) – albeit to a lesser extent.
But which forms aren’t considered artistic?
Video games, for one. The now-departed film critic Roger Ebert said in 2005 that nobody has created a game comparable with the great works of poetry, cinema, literature, or music – reaffirming this sentiment in 2012 – and some years later, people are still arguing about it. As far as the British public goes, a little over a third think video games count as art (37%), while half say they do not (52%).
This does, however, represent an 11-percentage point increase in the opinion that video games qualify as art since the last time we asked about this in 2017.
And in any case, video games certainly aren’t alone in this. TV shows, for example, are considered an art form by just two in five Britons (41%.)
People are slightly more likely to think stand-up comedy counts as an art form, although opinion is evenly split: 44% think it counts as art, and 45% do not. And Britons are more likely to think cooking is art than either (49% vs. 42%)
Britons are far more negative about some other formats. Memes? Not art, according to nearly three in five Britons (23% art; 57% not art). AI-generated images from platforms like Dall-E or Midjourney? Some 25% say they count as art, while 60% say they do. Fan fiction (33% art vs. 42% not art) and advertising (35% vs. 54%) get better numbers.
Britons most likely to say classical, jazz, blues music count as art
With long-running debates about rockism and poptimism in mind, we also asked the public which forms of music they consider to be artistic.
The forms with the most creative merit, according to Britons, are classical (67%), jazz (59%), and blues music (57%). According to YouGov Profiles, only 23% of Britons say classical is among their preferred genres, with just 12% and 14% saying the same of jazz and blues respectively. So if they are broadly recognised as art, the public still aren’t massively interested in listening to Brahms or Ornette Coleman or whoever.
Most genres we asked about cluster around the 50% mark, but K-Pop noticeably stands out at the bottom of the pack, with only 39% of Britons saying they consider it art.
Which film/TV genres count as art?
Finally, there are perceptions of snobbery towards science fiction and fantasy in some quarters, so we thought it was worth asking those Britons who consider films or TV to be art whether some genres common to both mediums are considered more artistic than others.
Drama is most likely to make the grade (55%), followed by historical films and TV shows (52%). And worries that fantasy (51%) or sci-fi (51%) works have been ghettoized may be alleviated by the fact that half of Britons consider them to be art.
Another commonly derided genre – horror (40%) – is considered artistic by two in five Britons, as is its close cousin the thriller (41%). Comedy sometimes suffers the same perception, but the same proportion consider these movies and TV shows to be art.
Luminaries such as Martin Scorsese have said that superhero movies have more in common with “theme parks” than works of art, and just 37% of the British public think they qualify as artistic. But it is crime films and TV programmes that are least likely to make the grade, according to Britons (32%).
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Methodology
YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. This study was conducted online between 30 August - 4 September 2024, with a nationally representative sample of 2,070 adults (aged 18+ years) in Great Britain, using a questionnaire designed by YouGov. Data figures have been weighted by age, gender, education and social grade to be representative of all adults in Great Britain (18 years or older), and reflect the latest ONS population estimates. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.
