The Nello Test: Why My Definition of Art is a Knife, Not a Canvas
What defines art? I apply The Nello Test from A Dog of Flanders: Would you crave art over food and warmth? (I fail spectacularly.) I search for this artistic soul at a Vermeer exhibition but find it instead in a restoration video. I argue that the concentration and supernatural precision of the master repairers—scrapping paint with a tiny knife—is the purest form of art. In this sense, our master furniture craftspeople are artists, embodying art defined by the perfect, focused human movement.
