What is art? Are there such things as high and low art and is one better than the other? Do the Arts make us better people? And do we care? Big questions we're unafraid to grapple with before breakfast here on the Observer Review Desk. But when Professor John Carey's new book, What Good Are The Arts? landed on the desk we thought it was time to devote some proper time to the subject. The Review's extensive research department swung into action, polling the thoughts of the great and good from the world of the Arts as we attempted to take on these thorny questions. The results - as you'll see in this Sunday's paper (or right now on the blog) are diverse, thought-provoking and raise plenty of questions about the nature of our artistic endeavours.
Personally, I find something neatly democratic in Carey's assertion that art is anything anyone has ever regarded as art, but that it might only be art to one person. I for one won't feel any guilt the next time I settle down to an episode of Footballers' Wives
