Art is a term that describes a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities, but is most often understood to refer to painting, film, photography, sculpture, and other visual media. Music, theatre, dance, literature, and interactive media are included in a broader definition of art or the arts. Until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences, but in modern usage the fine arts are distinguished from acquired skills in general.

Many definitions of art have been proposed by philosophers and others who have characterized art in terms of mimesis, expression, communication of emotion, or other values. During the Romantic period, art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science".

The nature of art, and related concepts such as creativity and interpretation, are explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics.

The Encyclopædia Britannica Online defines art as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others". By this definition of the word, artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind: from early pre-historic art to contemporary art; however, some theories restrict the concept to modern Western societies. The first and broadest sense of art is the one that has remained closest to the older Latin meaning, which roughly translates to "skill" or "craft." A few examples where this meaning proves very broad include artifact, artificial, artifice, medical arts, and military arts. However, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology.

Baer (or Bär, from German: bear) is the surname of:

John M. Baer is an American journalist working for the Philadelphia Daily News.

Baer earned a degree from Mount St. Mary's University in Maryland and a Masters Degree from Temple University. He studied at the Brookings Institution and worked in Congress as a Fellow of the American Political Science Association. He has also attended the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles inaugural Journalist Law School program.

The political website PoliticsPA gave him an "Honorable Mention" in their "Best Capitol Correspondent" feature, saying that Baer's "articles cut through all the Capitol B.S. and gives readers a simple, straightforward understanding of politics and state government." In 2002, the National Journal named him one of the top 10 political journalists outside Washington, DC. In 2005, he was named one of "Pennsylvania's Most Influential Reporters" by the Pennsylvania political news website PoliticsPA.

In 2007, he received a Second Place Keystone Press Award for his column from the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association. In 2008, the political website PolitickerPA.com named him one of the "Most Powerful Political Reporters" in Pennsylvania. In 2008, he received an "Honorable Mention" Keystone Press Award for his column from the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association. The Pennsylvania Report named him to the 2009 "The Pennsylvania Report 100" list of influential figures in Pennsylvania politics and described him as the "one journalist who should be read by all politicos."

Josephine Gail "Jo" Baer, born Josephine Kleinberg August 7, 1929, is an American artist, whose works are associated with minimalist art. She began exhibiting her work at the Fischbach Gallery, New York, and other venues for contemporary art in the mid-1960s.

Before relocating to New York City (1950–53) to work for a master's degree in psychology at the New School for Social Research, she lived on a kibbutz in Israel for six months.

Baer's early work was informed by an admiration of the Abstract Expressionists — Gorky, Motherwell, and Rothko — a movement she later rejected, in favor of painterly hard-edge work. Baer notes that the early Minimalists called their painterly hard-edge paintings "idiot work," since they were made on saw horses, rather than on the wall. Knowing what she needed to do, she just got it done.

Having grown up in Seattle, Baer's early paintings employed the black, red, green and beige (or sand) familiar to Northwest Indian Kwakiutl totem poles. In 1962, she began the series of paintings that dealer Richard Bellamy later named the "Koreans."

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh President of the United States (1829–1837). Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (1814), and the British at the Battle of New Orleans (1815). A polarizing figure who dominated the Second Party System in the 1820s and 1830s, as president he destroyed the national bank and relocated most Indian tribes from the Southeast to west of the Mississippi River. His enthusiastic followers created the modern Democratic Party. The 1830–1850 period later became known as the era of Jacksonian democracy.

Jackson was nicknamed "Old Hickory" because of his toughness and aggressive personality; he fought in duels, some fatal to his opponents. He was a rich slaveholder, who appealed to the common men of the United States, and fought politically against what he denounced as a closed, undemocratic aristocracy. He expanded the spoils system during his presidency to strengthen his political base.