Kris Krieger wrote: > IMO painting a canvas one color and then plopping a dot or stripe onto it isn't art.
I've thought about this, and my formative take is that, if an artist calls their work art, and they are being entirely honest and sincere about it, then it *is* art, whether you think so or not.
You may question their sincerity or truthfulness, and reject it as such, but, absolutely, it is the artist, alone, who determines whether their work is art or not.
This philosophical perspective appeals to me because it respects and elevates the artist and their work, such as by acknowledging their right to one of the crucial aspects of their art-- its definition as such-- while at the same time, wresting the same kind of power of definition where it doesn't belong. It also improves our semantics regarding, and possibly our understanding and appreciation of, 'art'.
No doing that you only prove one important point, --- that so much art today is acturly about Social skills.
If 10 Arts critics say your crap is Art then it is art , and it belong in particular buildings. The more nonsense and dull words about it, the mopre Art it will be --- but not before a lot rubbish been wrote, words that could cover whatever "Art" , --- it's just a question about curators and how much nonsense can be shared.
Then with all art you still be up against the fact, that "Art" is the work of those dead guy's that hang on the walls of the Museums, Museums are those useless twisted structures that thay made , to be sure to kill Architecture as an art form.
If we were to apply that logic to the rest of life, can you imagine what a disaster that might be. Each person defining each term as they wish it to be defined.
How about this definition. Art is art when somebody is willing to pay for it.
I'm saying that it is not for me to tell you your "Mr. Hankey" is not art if you think it is.
That would ignore the Other Mind problem, incidentally: If I say I'm sad, you cannot absolutely refute that fact, short of becoming me. So, in the same sense, if my artwork was an expression of the spirit of my sadness, as I truly believed it to be such, and someone said it was not art, they would be in error by this philosophy.
If it's for your person, then fine. But if you go hang it on a wall somewhere, then your definition is no longer personal...it's public. Because YOU call it art, doesn't make it so. You may have intended it to be art (based on your personal definition of 'art'), but that still doesn't make it art.
Let's see...the word is used to define the work, right? We're talking about applying the word to the work. It may happen that the word doesn't fit--even if we want it to fit. For instance, I can't oil paint very well (well...not at all). If I were to create a painting, I'd be hard pressed to call it "art" even if were my intent.
Intent is not sufficient cause.... You can't call it art just because you INTENDED it to be art. You call it art when it IS art.
Not really... I think it's a great, workable definition. But, I offer it with the caveat that you can't buy taste.
3D Peruna wrote in news:vTnbg.99$ snipped-for-privacy@fe06.lga:
People are increasingly doing that as it is.
In the past, I'd had people come to me for non-professional/personal advice or councel, and I finally gave up bothing because most had the attitude that "words mean what they want them to mean".
Then they would whine and kvetch and piss'n'moan that "nobody understands them". Well, how the heck *can* anyone understand someone who continually uses words to mean anything *except* what the vast majority of people understand them to mean (and the dictionaries define them as meaning)?!
Yeesh...
Art is communication one a deeply moving, "gut" level.
People try to describe Art (and no, *not* just pseudo-intellectuals or academicians =:-p ) because most people tend to try to describe what things mean to them in general.
Tho' thre are some people who attach a lot fo blither to some things because they're only trying to appear celver, or justify why they paid what they did, and are too psychoemotionally insecure to simply say "I got it because I like it".
If I feel sad at home and then go to an outside auditorium and announce to an audience that I feel sad, I still feel sad. You, they, can say that I don't feel sad or that I don't know what sad is, etc., but that doesn't change the fact that I feel sad.
As a scenerio; I complete a work similar to something Kris mentions above (paint and a dot or stripe on top) that, during its process, has me crying, because it is an expression of the sterility of the profit-driven world, etc.. Is it art? So Kris comes along and says that it's not art. Is that fair to the artist? And maybe someone else in a priveleged position of social influence, like a politician or a media channel personality, says it's not art, and suddenly "everyone" agrees: Not art. Is it still art?
I will suggest that denial of some forms of art as being such, despite the artists' insistence to the contrary, is "philosophic or semantic bookburning", and that, as a culture, we are diminished by it.
I'm arguing that, absolutely, it does, or at least that a "priority-of-definition" must be acknowledged as being with the artist. If not, then who else? George Bush? Just because YOU or Bush says it isn't art doesn't make it so, and, indeed, your contentions need be dead last on the list of considerations by my philosophy.
Art has a broad stroke, a broad definition, a broad philosophy, any way you paint it. Ones art doesn't need to fall under anothers definition to be art.
That sounds disingenuous, and cheapens or diminishes the value, meaning and potential of art. It concerns me that you see it that way, too. I mean, you're an architect? The artist is your sibling.
"Warm Worm" wrote in news:3QKbg.26148$Qq.3886@clgrps12:
Your internal state is not at all the same as a created work (of whatever merit or definition) put on display with the intent of having people see it, and intereact with it. If you take your sadness and write a poem, compose a piece of music, make a painting opr drawing or sculpture, then there is something to talk about. Your internal state in and of itself is irrelevant, and has nothing whatsoever to do with determining whether a created work is Art.
A work of art would coommunicate to others something about the poignancy of sorrow, it would touch others, elicit a reaction from them.
Your internal state, and your announcement of it, is not the same.
Three simplistic stipes and a dot does not communicate the complex idea that you're citing. That might have been your *intent*, but the thing itself does not communicate that intent. Your emotions aren't really relevant if they are not communicated by the work.
I've seen works that communicate the idea you expressed. Calling three stripes and a dot their equal demeans the meaning and *actual* communicative power of those works.
"Fair" has zipsquat to do with it. Any toddler can stamp a foot and whine "it's not fair". But fairness is often in the eye of the beholder. If one thinks it's "not fair" that everyone falls all over themselves mollycoddling one's "feelings" regardless of whether one's work communicates anything at all, well, IMO, *that* is not fair - because it is nothing more than one's petulant *demand* that everyone forget their own "feelings", and the "feelings" of people who do create works that communicate things to people, move people, and mollycoddle one's own to the extent that one is somehow "required" to call tripe art, just to shut one up? THat's merrely childishness.
*Anyone* who creates always runs the risk that their creations will not resonate with others during his lifetime. Maybe it will resonate with the next generation, but the creator won't know that.
All that a person can do, is his (or her of course) best, and hope that the work will touch others. That person does not have any right to demand/force others to praise his work, if they don't find it worthy of praise.
Also, one characteristic of real Artists is that they don't create merely to gain the praise of others. Artists create because they are driven by some inner fire to do so. It's always gratifying if people are moved by one;s work, but even if they are not, the Artist continues. The petulant child demanding praise does not continue.
Extremist statements. If a tsunami was coming your way, would you rush to save an original Monet, or a piece of "sofa art" that you got for @25 at Whatever-Mart?
If a work touches him emotionally, Yes.
Art is about communication, about an attempt to understand something about the world (be it the inner world or the outer world), and then communicate that understanding.
Belief is not the same thing as reality. Belief *can* be real, but it definitively so.
Art is defined by its ability to endure, IOW, communicate repeatedly to people across time and even across cultures. Some work does that, some does not. It's not merely a matter of individual taste (as in, "I don't like purple walls in my house"). Nor is is a matter of mere beleif on the part of someone who does something.
It's not a matter of "contentions". This isn't stuff I'm just pulling out of my butt. It's what I accept but it's also what has been accepted for centuries - Art is a form of communication, and Art is something that does communicate something. And it communicates without requiring paragraphs of circumlocution and obfuscation that is supposed to be accepted as "explanation".
Well, you can think your own stuff is Art, and that's fine, but you cannot demand that anyone else *must* adopt your opinion.
No. When you're talking about three stripes on canvas being purchased for $2million+ of taxpayer money, the financial definition is precisely correct. The vast majority of people will look at it and say it's crap. Only a few poeple will bend over backwards trying to use long paragaraphs of convoluted polysyllabic meanderings to "explain it's deep meaning".
Art stands by itself. in many cases, an understanding of the cultural underpinnings of a work helps to deepen its meaning, but Great Art supercedes even that, and communicates something even to peole who don't understand its cultural meaning.
Specious. And not relevant. Even it it's true, being a "sibling" doesn't mean that one has to completely toss aside all of one's common sense, aesthetic sense, and general sensibilities.
At the same time, Art is very much in the eye of the beholder. There are numerous examples of things I've heard called "art" that I think are fatuous crap intended to make a killing off pseudointellectuals with more money than brains. I don't care that the Vancouver museum paid $2million+ (and several years ago at that) for three stripes on a canvas, I don't care about anyone's "statements of meaning" or any pseudointellectual blither - IMO, "they was robbed" - and I was also robbed, given that part of my already-exhorbitant tax burden was spent on it.
Now, if you go smear some fingerpaints onto canvas, and use some big emotional exposition to convince someone to pay you $10,000 for it, hey, more power to ya. But there is no way you can convince me personally that it's Art, unless it communicates something to me other than having rooked some sucker into paying big $$$ for it.
Mayby that isn't "fair", but it's just as fair as, for example, my writings being turned down by two publishers, or the shop not taking my painted eggs on consignment because they'd have to charge too much, or so on and so forth. OTOH, I have been able to sell some of my graphics, and I'd had a market for my pen-and-ink bird drawings but then had to go onto meds that5 make my hands shake too mcuh to do that sort of fine-line work any more. But that isn't a matter of "not fair", it's a matter of "that's life".
Anyone who creates something is naturally disappointed if it doesn't go over. When that happens, a creative person will try several things - he might say, well, to heck with the critics, *someone* will eventually appreciate my work, I just have to find those folks; and/or he might work at refining his technique and mode of expression, and/orhe might even find an alternate means of using that creativity that ends up suiting him better as well as producing some income.
But for one person to claim That's Just Life for everyone *except himself*, and that *his* feelings "must" be respected and coddled and so on - well, that's nothing more than childish simpering. And that is not an adequate or valid basis for claiming something to be art, or even for making art. Art is a statement. a shout, a cry, a whisper, a clarion call, a caress, a punch in the gut... - but what Art is *not*, is a whine.
The definition of art is actually fairly well established:
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The historical root of the word 'art', is close to 'skill' or 'craft'. In terms of painting or architecture or music, etc., an 'artist' is generally one who shows a level of high skill and concept in their works. I agree that the artist's claim also plays a part, but it is not, and should not, be the only defining criteria. There ought to be a body of work that clearly demonstrates that an artist claiming to be so, is so because of their exceptional skill and concept.
The real problem is not the word itself, but that different people are able to rate 'skill and concept' differently, based on their education, learning, expectation, etc. Some people take the position that any creative act is 'art'. Unfortunately this view is not really helpful in allowing one to distinguish lesser and greater craft. After all, there is a whole range, from 'everyday craft' (in painting by the numbers for instance- which is more like a game rather than a craft) to mastery of art exhibited by Michaelangelo, Rembrandt, Cezanne, etc. In between is the gamut of artistic works which demonstrate more or less craft, skill and concept. Whether these in-between works ought to be placed in a museum is a matter of debate, and ultimately, a matter of time (and space).
The same applies to all aesthetic fields (architecture, painting, music, etc.) as well as, to some extent, manufacturing.
snipped-for-privacy@cpu-net.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:
Exactly :) . Which is why most people cannot consider my prior examples to be "art" - most people expect art to be something other then what their pre-school toddlers can do with a box of finger paints.
Yes, that summarizes (and probably better states!) part of what I had tried to point out.
At the same time, there are the Naif and Primitive types of 2D art. Folk art is a type of Primitive style, such as the works of Grandma Moses, who was untrained, yet has touched a great many people with her work vecause of the content.
Just a thought here, but, it just occurred to me that maybe part of a viewer's (listener's, reader's, etc.) evaluation is not so much a specific sort of skill, but rather, a sense that the creator was using his or her best skills and abilities, and also maanges to communicate.
Yes, that summarizes one part of what I've been opining.
At the same time, though, it's possible that Art can be produced by people who do not claim to be, or think of themselves as, Artists-with-an- uppercase-A. As the saying goes, talk is cheap, and I've known enough people with maybe a teaspoon of talent and/or skill but barrelsfull of whine, to be unable to take people's claims seriously. There are too many people in general whose main talent seems to be self-inflation, self- aggrandizement. Those people too often drown out the people who have real, demonstrable talent.
True, to a great extent, but I think that a desire and appreciation for things that move us is a fundamental part of human beings (well, most of them at elast).
Now, tastes do differ as to what is and isn't beautiful.
I agree re: craft, but I do think that the crux of Art is Concept - *and how effectively that concept is communicated*.
In the end, skill and craft only take one so far - there are people who have the skill (and steadiness of hand) to paint/draw images that can barely be distinguished from a photograph, because their level of realism is so high - but that skill does not in and of itself produce Art.
There are many skills that can be taught, such as the Rule of Thirds in 2D composition, and such techniques can improve anyone's work. An Artist, however, senses many (possibly most) of these things intuitively, as a given - and also has a sharp sense of when and where the rules can be broken.
Personally, I think it applies to anything and everything a human being does and can do.
The appreciation of primitive art, and classification of such craft as art, is in part based on the recognition that the level of skill involved is above the norm of objects typically created in primitive cultures, but it also derives from the word 'art' also meaning a class of manmade works (like liberal arts). Nevertheless, even this definition is based, ultimately, on a level of skill/craft... the distinction is of course 'primitive'.
I myself don't put much stock in 'communication' because a lot of art and art appreciation can occur without any contemplation of concepts or ideas, but only the appreciation of an object's or piece's characteristics. This is especially true of architecture and a lot of instrumental baroque/classical music, as well as 'abstract painting'. The notion of art 'communicating' can even detract from the aesthetic appreciation of a piece.
If there is a carry over of idea or sentiment from a work of art to someone appreciating it, to me that's just icing on the cake, but not a determining factor as to whether it is cake.
This is a little different in other classes of art, like literature, poetry, opera, programmatic, music, songs, allegorical paintings and the like, where meaning is an integral part of the work's structure.
Nevertheless, even in the case of the Pieta', I can still appreciate THE WAY Michaelangelo arranges Christ's body, the choice of textures, the angles and respose of the bodies, the expressions and gestures in the hands and faces, without ever having to bother with the fact that it's a statue about a mother's mourning a dead son (to put it bluntly), much less that it is a work of strong religious significance.
In fact, my criteria is only that they have a body of work, not whether they themselves make any claim to being an artist, for exactly the reasons you point out.
I disagree, for reason cited above. To me, the overriding quality of art is that it have aesthetic value, meaning a harmony of arrangement, style and elements, such that, to use Alberti's words, to add or subtract anything would diminish it. That is why, for me, craft is the element of prime importance, given that art is manmade, as opposed to natural events with their own aesthetic value, like flowers or sunsets, or sunrises.
The art can communicate extra-aesthetic elements, like a plot, a poem, a feeling (like the fear and anguish in the the Dies Irae of Mozart's Requiem) may be critical to how a work is structured, designed and executed. Nevertheless, I can still aesthetically evaluate the relatively minor differences of decorative style on the exteriors of Palazzo Medici (Michelozzi) and Palazzo Gondi (Sangallo), without caring a wit about what are the architectural semantics (if any) of rustication, for instance.
Which is all part of craft and skill. By skill, I mean not only knowing the basics of technique, of design, of how to produce craft, but also the skill in design and in execution itself, in order to produce a good looking/sounding product. This involves all aspects of creativity as an overall talent. In the case of music for instance, a composer of good sounding music would be expected to know the tonal ranges of the instruments, the limits of how they can be played, as well as having a knack for design and layout of a piece of music, of melodic craft, of harmonic technique, when to break with sonoric expectation (dissonance), etc. There is much much much more to artistic skill than knowing how to paint a photograph.
Art is a Heavy creature , today a sad Cow but tomorrow the means of perfection the joy of beauty ,new cheap safe houses and a mountain of money. Art come in small buckets these day's 20 years after Bilbao , architecture still deal more with spetacular display and Innovation in academic vocabular, ------- Robots ; just mimic working Peopla , Viola hokus Pokus now we "Build" digital , we rewrote exactly what was here into computer cods, why didn't that create a new architecture ? The strange thing is, that when I mention 3D-H ,some think of it as a method , that in 20 years will be reconised as genious and innovative, just the right thing to solve a lot of problems ---- but will they reconise no, Romans never do youi can tell them where to dig from a mountain of money, they rather charge you a parking fee, as it can be processed in a pyramide.
From what I understand, and even from what I gathered from a philosophical demo in one of my art classes once, it most certainly does with a context: The plucking of the guitar string can have a different meaning 'at that time' than the same event 'at another time'.
As an example, you may decide that the context of your single brief and sole plucking of the guitar string during your art performance shall be about the notion of music's purity, about the note as a tree in a forest, about that journey through all the notes as trees, and how a single note is that first step. You could, if you wanted, drag that note out somehow and amplify it to show it is in fact composed of many little harmonies and frequencies, etc., -- little notes in and of themselves to a single song as single pluck-- that create that single note and tonal quality, that ultimately make a guitar sound something you cherish above all other instruments, that make music to your ears.
There's your art and music right there.
That's partly why I keep going back to the artist and context... and why I feel that Kris, and now Marcello et al. would do well to be ambushed, Spanish-style, with a fresh crate of rotten tomatoes. ;)
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