This was always a raging question back in the stone ages when I was a Fine Art Major. It always involved heated discussions over caffinated beverages and pretentious attitudes.
A professor of mine tried to classify it. He spoke of "Art with a big 'A' and art with a little 'a'. I really hated that, as I make no such distinction between art and craft. For me the airplane modeler produces as much art as the professional Artist/Painter. Which is why I usually refer to art in lower case, I wouldn't want to separate it into some elite category.
As an aesthete (boy, that's a pretentious label, eh?), I still think about what it actually is. The definition slips out of our grasp when we try to define it. Some people even tend to see art as proof of God, so it must be an important question to us. It makes me curious.
So here's what I think about it. I think that art exists within the mind of your target audience. What is on the paper doesn't matter. Beauty doesn't matter. What matters is the effect that you have on that other mind. Writing is, of course, art. Conversation is art. We are all of us artists in ways, and some are even geniuses of art, without ever having picked up a pencil or paintbrush.
So, what is art to you?
Posts: 2506 | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote: I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.
posted
Man, did we have this discussion often lately! My husband got rejected on some application because his work was not considered to be 'Art'. And then some weeks later I went to an Art gallery in the nearby town, and this manager immediately took two of his works to sell. He loved the quality of the paintings. So I don't get it. I am always thinking about these famous painters in earlier centuries who were very poor and not appreciated, only until after their death did they get real appreciation. This would mean an artist is somehow ahead of his time, not fully understood by the contemporary public. If this is true, how will we ever be able to recognize a contemporary artist for what his work is worth? And how ageless is art? Does it stay 'art' forever? Do you still think the Mona Lisa is art?
Sorry, I am only posing more questions. I haven't got a clue on how to define art. I will follow this discussion with interest though.
(In case you want to see some of my husband's work, it is here.)
Posts: 1247 | Registered: Apr 2000
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quote: I just paint things I always thought were beautiful, things you use every day and never think about… I just do it because I like it. --Andy Warhol
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I think that art is a basic human need. We need to be able to express ourselves and our feelings in some sort of trancendent way. Therefore, art is highly subjective. The ways in which we express ourselves are unique to each person, as are the ways in which we interpret our surroundings. So, I don't know if there is such a thing as Art. I think it may all be art.
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Art is when you can put a little bit of yourself in a form that other people can see and understand.
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"Art" is a convenient label that, like "love", causes many arguments due to people mistaking it for something objective and qualifiable.
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I think I tend to agree with ludosti and ae. As I stated earlier, it's an elusive variable (art that is).
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My drama teacher once told me (or rather, my class) that art needed an audience. Of course that was pertaining mostly to drama, but other sorts of art too. I put up my hand and asked if that meant of there was no one left on earth, there would be no more art.
Art obviously does not need an audience. I think art is something that is created with the intention to create and to project emotion or feeling.
In this way, such things as windmills, computers etc. are not art, but a rock on a pedastal which was intended to be there, is.
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I love John Cage. My dad bought me the sheet music to that piece. It's in 3 movements. It's regular sheet music published by Scribner or somebody. I hope I'm not violating any copyrights if I quote it here in its entirety.
I
<tacet>
II
<tacet>
III
<tacet>
I'm still practicing and I hope to be good enough to perform it soon.
Yes, I do think John Cage is art. I saw a thing about him on American Masters and he was totally awesome. He was very zenlike, breaking the mind of logic. His work thrills me and makes me feel very alive. It's definitely art.
I agree that there's a continuum of art from digging a really nice ditch to making original design earrings to painting the Sistine Chapel. I think life is art, or can be. I hope mine when it's over I can look back on and think that as a work, it wasn't too bad. Perhaps a very faint hope, that.
Art can't be defined, I feel certain. It will defy any attempts to define it. Will break out of any mold into which it's cast. Art must be remade continually like bread, or like love. It doesn't just lie there like a stone. It has to be made.
Art does partake of the divine. I do see god in art. Aren't humans awesome, that we do this? That we shape the world in this way? It's a divinity in us that drives us thusly, I do believe.
[ August 25, 2003, 09:09 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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I remember watching John Cage on Good Morning, Mr. Orwell at about midnight on January 1st, 1984. Throughout the show, they would cut back to him creating music from an elaborate instrument made of thorny twigs.
He would pull one with a finger or thumb, and it produced a rythmic vibration. Then he would add other vibrations from other thorny twigs on the instrument. It sounded really cool. The other aspect of it that I enjoyed was the idea that, if he didn't have heavily callused fingertips, those thorns would have been painful as well!
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I think that art is partially defined by the purpose for which it was intended. If the creator meant for it to be art, you can't very well argue against that, for who would know better than the one who created it? However, I also don't think that art can have a specific definition. Art means different things to different people, so there is no one way to define it. What one person might consider to be art, another might view as trash. For me, art is something aesthetically pleasing, usually something that makes me think or moves me somehow. Thomas Kinkade paintings, for instance, are not art. While the guy has some talent, his paintings are mass-produced and there is no thought, no concept, behind them. I consider the scribblings that my neighbors' kids give me to be of a more artistic nature than those Kinkade atrocities. Posts: 1225 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Being a complete Neandrethal, art for me is the female human body, specifically Pam Anderson Lee with dental floss and 2 smiley face stickers as a bikini.
Oh I also appreciate the rococo movement and plan on decorating my new home with pop art with an ecclectic mix of dada and surrealism where nothing but my personal tastes dictate what goes where.
I am more fascinated with not what one would call "traditional art" but more eccentric art. Why are hospital scrubs fashionable? Why do some things become labeled fashion at all? And how does fashion graduate to art? And how does art of the here and now transcend into the realm of greatness, to be admired for all of time?
Timothy Zahn developed a wonderful character named Admiral Thrawn in his Star Wars Trilogy that admired the art of his conquests. I recall him reminiscing about a certain planet's artwork and sorrow afterwords about annihilating them completely into extinction.
I better stop now. I am changing gears too quickly. Bye.
Edited for complete stupidity on the author's part (Now you are wondering why so much still remains, but I am not laughing!)
Definitely. This is why this is art, while this is craft. I can say this because I've met both of the artists and watch them work and I know why they do what they do. Just because something is in an accepted artistic medium doesn't mean it's art. Conversely - just because something's in a kitsch medium doesn't mean it's kitsch. And most importantly - just because nobody understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
quote:Thomas Kinkade paintings, for instance, are not art.
Amen, brother! And I'm not just saying this to be snotty or uppity - the man's lack of marketing ethics nullifies whatever artistic aims he was striving for. When you sell unnumbered editions of prints, or worse - numbered editions, but then fail to destroy the block, you're swindling your audience and proving that your ambitions, as lofty and spiritual as you may claim they are, are nothing more substantial than financial.
Here are some of my favorite art theory works that have helped me develop my own personal working definition of art:
Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art - the seminal early 20th century work that defines abstractionism and, in my humble opinion, refutes much of abstract expressionism.
Anything by my favorite contemporary critic Donald Kuspit - I've heard Kuspit lecture on Kandinsky's work and compare it to the "soulless" art of the later 20th century. Solid, soild, stuff and very academically based.
The Journals of Paul Gauguin - Not only do they comment on his visual art, they are art in themselves. You begin to see Synthetism in personal writing, and it's brilliant.
And, also, the diary of Frida Kahlo - It's out of print, but pick it up if your library has a copy. Intense. The woman's life was a work of art.
Also, if you're interested in LDS art theory - there is an amazing book by Hagan Haltern, an artist and currently a professor at BYU called Art Integration that I think I bought the only used copy available of. If you ever run across it (I'm pretty sure the BYU library would have a copy), and you've been torn between abstraction and representation in religious imagery, you have to get it.
Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water, which I won't shut up about. It's great. Trust me.
posted
Well, I bought a badge in a little shop in San Luis Obispo once that said, "Art is anything you can get away with."
I kind of like that definition, but I'm sure that isn't what you had in mind. So, I'll try to do a little better.
In my way of thinking, art is what we do to try to figure out what we think of the universe and life. Kind of an all-inclusive definition, isn't it? I'm okay with that, because I believe there is a little art in everything. Even science. Even how we go about living our lives day by day. Definitely not just writing and painting and music and all the things we usually slap the label "art" on because they look or sound or seem pretty when we look or listen or read.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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As I originally stated, I do not like the distinction placed between art and craft.
I think that the quilter has as much aesthetic value as the sculptor.
And, again, a few of you still tend to mention Art versus art.
So I've been considering, what really is a craft? A means for creating art, the skill to do it? Is a toolmaker, one that makes a hammer or saw that is, just a craftsman? Does the craft have to have some aesthetic value or make a statement to be considered art?
Here's another thing that drove me nuts (admittedly a short trip) about school and art. I would go to Art History, studying modernism, and be left with the conclusion that there are no rules in art. The professor would say this himself. Then, later in the same day I would go to Design and have the same professor tell us that we would need to use the rules of composition. Boy, no wonder our ideas about art get so messed up!
So, please, add to my confusion....
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What do you think? Art? Or not? The original picture is on the left. The finished product is on the right.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Art? Art is, well...confusing. With the exception of prose fiction, anyway. Of course, my aesthetic sense is even more weakly developed than my sense of humor was before I produced a prosthetic one.
I recall reading a book on Christian education that claimed the churches of Christ had never produced any great artists except in the field of music and that our art programs were seriously deficient. (It also pointed out that the only one of our colleges with a philosophy department was Pepperdine.) Perhaps not surprisingly, I believe my response was "so what?" I can't say for sure that my opinion has changed.
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Feb 2002
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The only statement more meaningles than "this is Art" is "this is not Art". The former is just a fancy way of saying you like it; the latter is a fancy way of saying you don't.
Posts: 2443 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Wow. When I saw the thread title, it took me right back to English class last year. This was my teacher's favorite topic. She and I had many discussions. My favorite art quote (and the one that pretty much sums up my entire perspective on art) is by none other than the Cookie Monster: Me no know art, but me know what me like. Posts: 2149 | Registered: Aug 2000
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