Pragmatists like to answer the question of whether art is just dispensable decoration with a yes.

If the question of whether decoration can also be art were more difficult to answer, the now traditional saying could help: Everything is art! Assuming this would simplify matters.

Art would thus be eliminated.

So even decoration cannot be art – but at least it is decoration.

Of course, we do not subscribe to this saying because it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding.

In this question, we tend to follow the art educator Leo Weissmantel (1888-1964), who said that we need a broad basis of artistic education in the population so that, on the one hand, the top artistic cultural achievements can grow and, on the other hand, the competence to judge what artistic cultural achievements are can grow from broad experience.