February 21, 2005
An interesting topic to debate...
Well here I am half-way through my first semester back at school. It’s spring break, and I’m working on a short paper I have to write over break entitled “What is art?” This has turned out to be a much more difficult question to answer than I originally anticipated.
I’m posting my paper as it develops. I have just a few complete paragraphs with a bunch of questions below that I need to answer. I reserve the right to change any or all of my conclusions at any time. =) I guess what I’m most interested in accomplishing here is soliciting some of my much smarter friends’ opinions. (Even if you’re not much smarter, I still want your opinion, LOL.) So please, dear reader, click on the “Continue reading” link and post a comment when you’re finished if you feel moved to do so.
Beautiful objects surround us everywhere we go. You can sit under a lovely shade tree listening to the sound of songbirds, or you can go home and put on a Dvorak symphony sitting across from a Picasso print. Or how about the awesome fright of an impending thunderstorm, is that more inspiring than a creepy, mysterious Munch print? Some of us maybe prefer scenario number one, some may prefer scenario number two. But it would be hard to argue that one of these examples inspires people more or less than the others.
So what is the difference? What makes some of these examples art? It’s very simple. God or a Creator makes nature, and mere mortals make art. Artists attempt to re-create nature, or at the very least, the inspiration one finds in nature. Artists attempt to create a tangible manifestation of their own creativity.However, not everything that “artists” create is art. There are plenty of really bad artists! There are plenty of really bad pieces of work created for all the right reasons, by great artists, that SUCK!
How does one determine whether something is inspiring or not? Inspiring to whom? What defines someone as a competent judge of art?
It doesn’t have to be pretty; it doesn’t even have to be a recognizable. But does art have to arouse a feeling, or can it just be aesthetically pleasing? “Hmm, that’s a beautifully crafted vase.” Where do you draw the line between craftsmanship and art? Can/should a creation be art to one person and just an object to another? In other words, is it just a matter of education and expertise?
Does a work of art have to have been created with a purpose? If I let the computer randomly select notes, and it comes up with a beautiful melody, is that art?
Observations from Diane Ackerman’s book “A Natural History of the Senses”:
Art is a highly organized way of beholding nature. Art makes a locale, or an abstract emotion, tangible at one’s leisure. It can be rotated and viewed from different vantage points, and fixes this image or emotion in time. It transforms the instantaneous into the permanent. It is an organized response to what nature allows us to glimpse occassionally.
Art also allows us to experience intense emotion in a controlled environment. We give artists the responsibility of feeling emotions such as grief, sadness, joy, pain, wonder much more passionately than the average person may be comfortable with. And the artists’ manifestation of their emotion allows us to identify with another human being, and makes it alright to feel intense emotion. Artists embrace this intense passion as their livelyhood.
Perhaps a better question is, what isn’t art? I do not agree with people who have very vague definitions of art, that it is simply an expression of the artist’s feelings or thoughts. That’s the lazy person’s definition if you ask me.
Unfortunately for me, my own definition seems to be leaning towards a few very simple words (that I can’t seem to get 2 typed pages out of): man-made, and either inspired by or in some way representative (realistically or in the abstract that is) of nature.
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Art was a guy that lived across the street from us when I was in high school. He had hurt himself doing house work at some point and was paralyzed, in a wheel chair, for the rest of his life. Art was a good guy who always smiled. He’s since moved. I don’t know where Art is now.timsamoff () (URL) - March 14, 2005 at 09:56 am
Well I guess I had to know I’d get at least one smart-aleck!!! =PJeano () - March 14, 2005 at 11:13 am
Wow Jeano… I’m not sure I can be much help here; I guess I’m really confused as to what art is as well. I went to the Guggenheim once and literally laughed my a** off at what was considered “brilliant”. I guess throwing human crap at a canvas and elmer gluing a rubber tire onto the canvas next to the crap is considered high art by some people’s standards. Or, how about The Gates in Central Park? Sorry… I’m not awestruck by orange painted 2×4s with home-made looking orange curtains hanging from them. In my own humble opinion, the $20 million spent on The Gates could have fed all of Manhattan’s homeless for several months. On the other hand…I watch my 18-month old son run his fingers and palms through his red, blue and yellow Elmo finger paint bubble bath on the bathroom tile wall, and I’m amazed at what he creates.
I can see the intense concentration on his tiny face as he moves the colors together and around, forming more hues, shades, and shapes. It’s amazing! I would hang Otto’s “art” on my wall any day over and above a dung-slung canvas with a hefty price tag. But hey, what do I know about “art”?
Mary () - March 16, 2005 at 6:16 pm
Heya Mary, question for ya. So if you knew Otto used specialized paints developed by Nasa at the cost of millions of dollars to withstand the extreme environments of space and that NOAH developed his canvas that could be taken 10000ft below the sea and still remain true to the paint, would you be more critical? Prolly not, you’re his momI suppose my point is that one should divorce him or herself from the glitz and glam surrounding the piece and try and focus just on the piece for the piece. If it strikes you, great. If you can take something away from it, even better. If not, that’s ok too. The problem with “great” art is that there’s all this build up and many times some obscene level of monetary stigma attached with it that causes one to distort (conciously or subconsciously) their view of it. If it’s hanging in SOHO, it MUST be better then something hanging in a diner in the backwoods of Kentucky. Or is it we just see it differently, given the company it keeps or the story it was birthed to?
I would say something has artistic value if it has stark meaning to you (not talking about memorabilias). If not, then it may be just a bunch of run-on sentences that you feel serves no purpose or makes little sense… and that’s fine. There are many poems still to be read, sorted through, some kept and others discarded!
BTW- Is it possible to get a bigger edit box to type in?
matt () - March 21, 2005 at 8:13 pm
