“The Painted Bird” The use of art has many functions. It lacks a satisfactory definition and is easier to describe it as a way something is done --“the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others” --rather than what it is. Jerzy Kosinski’s “The Painted Bird” describes the disasters that befall a six-year-old boy who is separated from his parents and wanders through the primitive Polish-Soviet borderlands during the war. Kosinski fails to mention the boy’s name and the names of the towns the boy travels over throughout the text.