15 Dec 08 - 07:45 PM (#2516375) Subject: BS: Define 'art' From: frogprince From the Betty Page obit thread, speaking of pinup pictures such as Betty was famous for: "The need to keep the pretence up that these things were art really did give them a kind of innocence..." Where do you draw the boundaries of "art"? I wouldn't consider those pinups to be "great art"; actually, I had never given a moments thought as to whether to define them as art or not. Now I begin to think this is just about as loaded as "what is folk". The time was when most "artists" insisted that no photography could be considered to be art. If one could say for a fact that no pinup photographer has ever felt any motivation whatever apart from producing something marketable, that might remove them totally from the definition of art in my mind. But, let him once say "there, that's beautiful" sincerely when working with a model... I've been referred to a "one artist with a taste for the bizzare" in a local paper, and introduced once as "a wildly creative artist". I do some things which I give myself credit for as decent quality art, and some things which I just do for a little fun . How do you distinguish art from non-art? Dean |
15 Dec 08 - 07:54 PM (#2516382) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: artbrooks I am Art. Anyone else is non-Art, with the possible exception of Art Thieme and Art Garfunkle. |
15 Dec 08 - 07:58 PM (#2516384) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: katlaughing I have a friend who makes a good living selling the old classic pinups and glam shots of the stars. Those, to me, are a kind of pop art...a classic example of a certain era and to be valued as such. One photographer whose work is always ART, to me, is Joyce Tenneson. I learned of her from Mudcatter "Homeless" himself a photographer/artist. I've always really liked your stuff, too, Dean! |
15 Dec 08 - 07:58 PM (#2516385) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Bobert "Art is shit"...(Duchamp)... Well, yeah, it is... |
15 Dec 08 - 08:02 PM (#2516387) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Joe_F 1. Art is the part of the world that has been deliberately shaped by human effort. The exterior of art is called nature. 2. Art is what artists make. Artists are people who believe they have to make something. |
15 Dec 08 - 08:03 PM (#2516388) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Bill D an "artist" is someone who produces a supply, whether or not there is any 'demand'. This leaves open definitions of good art and bad art. If you create something not naturally occuring, in order to achieve an aesthetic, rather than simply practical item, it has an element of art. I have my reservations when it is done randomly, as by throwing paint at a canvas, but even adorning a pretty girl with ... ummm... 'interesting' items of clothing and other accouterments is a 'sort' of art. I prefer art that is permanent and more publicly accepted, but *shrug* |
15 Dec 08 - 08:06 PM (#2516392) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Bill D and yes, photography can be real art....even sensual/erotic photography. Opinions differ about 'beauty', but it can be art without being beautiful. |
15 Dec 08 - 08:11 PM (#2516397) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Bobert As a painter, illustrator and a printmaker, I'll just stick with Duchamp... |
15 Dec 08 - 08:14 PM (#2516400) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: frogprince Thanks for the link to Tenneso, Kat; I'd never really discovered her, and she's terrific. |
15 Dec 08 - 08:45 PM (#2516417) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: olddude Picasso once said it took him a lifetime to paint like a child Art to me is visual emotion no matter what form it takes. A great photographer can press my buttons as well as any master painter. |
15 Dec 08 - 09:13 PM (#2516438) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Rapparee Everything I like is art. Everything you like is art with a capital "F". |
15 Dec 08 - 09:46 PM (#2516443) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Bee-dubya-ell Art is the translation of a person's reaction to a stimulus into something other people perceive to be of value. |
15 Dec 08 - 10:11 PM (#2516449) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: catspaw49 We have several "Arts" around here and every damn one of them defies definition...... Spaw |
15 Dec 08 - 10:18 PM (#2516454) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker 'Art' is anything an Art Dealer can persuade a rich sucker or gullible f@kwit Gallery Curator to buy £££$$$$!!! |
15 Dec 08 - 11:52 PM (#2516494) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: katlaughing You're most welcome, frogprince. She's really good, isn't she? |
16 Dec 08 - 01:14 AM (#2516526) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Art- Old English for 'is' or 'am' or 'are'. Present tense of state of being. |
16 Dec 08 - 04:27 AM (#2516584) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Lizzie Cornish 1 It's a tricky one, isn't it. I favour the more classical idea of art. I struggle with unmade beds and piles of bricks that have fetched a fortune. It's the Emperor's New Clothes to me. I once went to The Tate Gallery is St. Ives, in Cornwall and went into a room where there was just a black canvas, or rather, a white canvas that had been painted black, all over. This painting had its own security guard, as it was worth so much. ??? People came in to stare and marvel at it, and I found myself looking at them, not the painting, as there er..was NO painting, just black paint. They got up close to it, walked far back from it, stared at it, turned their heads this way and that...Oohed and Aahed at it. The kids had to take me out of the room in the end, because I got the giggles watching people being daft. I thought how unfair it was that 'artists' who do things like that get paid a fortune, and yet others who have the most amazing talent, are completely overlooked. I think much art today has lost the plot completely. Dead sheep don't do it for me, nor casts of heads made from the blood of the artist himself, which had to be kept in a freezer and got awful messy when the workmen were working in Charles Saatchi's house and turned the freezer off by mistake. Ha! The money that changes hands for total rubbish is staggering and to me, incomprehensible, as well as immoral, but then I'm kinda weird like that. Last Saturday I went round the National Portrait Gallery with my daughter, who loves art. She talked about the history inside each painting, the way the painting was painted and the reasons behind that, the messages that were so subtley conveyed by the artists of those times, etc etc etc..It was fascinating. I didn't get that staring at a small black canvas. Maybe that artist's idea was to get people to watch other people looking at his canvas, who knows, or cares... Give me the old fashioned guys, any day. My daughter's definition of art is something that causes a reaction, but I'm not sure I'd agree with her on that. My definition of art is Beauty, in some form or another. |
16 Dec 08 - 05:23 AM (#2516624) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Sleepy Rosie bit of a tangent here, because I'm never going to attempt to define what art is. But as a fan of a lot of what may be generally derided in the popular press, it's a shame to me that for some reason 'modern art' can seem so alienating to so many. It isn't really of course, it's simply that there appears IMO very little encouragement for (the working classes in particular) to learn to explore and experience all the various forms of expression out there. One of the interesting things is that children from whatever background, are so ready to be open to experiencing and responding to new and interesting stimulus. And yet as we grow older and learn to place ourselves in the boxes preformed for us, that willingness to be open so swiftly ceases. There needs to be more five year olds running around in art galleries. The atmosphere in some art galleries can be a big put-off, and all the assumptions that go with it. Sterile and frigid. I love it when some loud-voiced unabashed Amercian tourist stands next to me and fills the holy echoing halls with a honest good humoured "Do you get that? What's it supposed to be? I don't get that!" They are probably thinking exactly what I'm thinking, and what the black polo-neck jumpered young man with a brown corduroy jacket beside us is thinking, but dare never voice!! |
16 Dec 08 - 05:26 AM (#2516626) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Depending on the situation(and the 'artist')..Art for therapy might be great therapy, but it might not be great art! |
16 Dec 08 - 05:59 AM (#2516634) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: fat B****rd ASSUMING that most people here consider Tracey Emin's "Bed" to be a huge con, would it be more 'ART' and/or acceptable if it were a painting of a bed? Just a thought. |
16 Dec 08 - 06:33 AM (#2516653) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: diesel My tupence worth: Art is an expression of a moment captured, real or imagined. For others to enjoy, yes, but also for the the artist. It is a product of something the artist just 'had' to do. Its a feeling or emotion expressed. When the viewer 'gets' it - they get that feeling also. As for a reward for their work - is low down priority, reward so as to live to produce more is the aim. A slightly cheaper quote, not always accurate though, is to paraphrase Andy Warhol (I think); 'Art is whatever you can get away with' rgds Diesel |
16 Dec 08 - 07:03 AM (#2516669) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Jack Blandiver Back in 1987 I made the biggest stone circle in Britain, assuming the points of any triangle can exist on the circumference of a circle. I took three stones from a beach in Northumbria, deposited one at Lands End, one at Margate, and one at Cape Wrath. This was a deeply personal sculptural project defined by the limits of my personal Vagabondia at the time and I would imagine most art operates on a similar level in terms of a creative interface between self & other on whatever level of ceremonial experience. Now I realise I could make a bigger one by placing three such stones on my coffee table, but it seemed important at the time. Some ten years earlier, I was interviewed by a young journalist who enquired why I did the sort of music I did (which back then was free improvised noise making where anything was admissible as music) to which I answered to express my emotions (I was only 17 at the time). However, when the piece came out she'd misread her own journalistic shorthand and wrote to experience my emotions. After a period of righteous outrage at being misquoted, I realised that this was closer to the truth - that I played music to experience rather than to express. This still holds true today; from traditional ballad singing, to free improvisation, to field-recorded environmental sound-scapes, to whatever else I might do in the name of music. As Camus said (as quoted on the back of Scott 4): A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened. Define 'art'? I'd rather say art defines us. |
16 Dec 08 - 07:26 AM (#2516686) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Ed T The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. Aristotle |
16 Dec 08 - 08:51 AM (#2516754) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Stu Art is the representation of the human condition. As someone once said, all art aspires to the condition of music, but of course music is art. In all senses, art is truly about the journey of the artist, and the final product can offer tremendous insight into our own personal journeys too. IB - love the stone circle. Did you take any pictures? I too create art for the landscape which I leave there although my own art is about the genius loci of various places in the countryside surrounding the village where we live. This too involves a degree of ritual in the placing of the artwork, and is partly intended as an attempt to reconnect with the ancestors and the land itself. This is something I intend to do much more of next year. As for the Emin's and Hurst's of this world they have more to do with marketing than art. I find them spectacularly bereft of integrity; they are derivative, dull and designed to service a market (some would argue that is the point though). As a graphic designer I too do the same with my own work - but then I wouldn't call that 'art'. At the end of the day, art may be the one thing that makes us different from everything else on the planet, but I hope not. What transient works of beauty do dolphins for example, create in their watery world? |
16 Dec 08 - 09:18 AM (#2516767) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Rapparee I'm really into the use of explosives to create Post-Modern Deconstructionism, and I'll be happy to create something for anyone who pays me enough. For example, I could Deconstruct your house, car, or back yard as soon as you give me the money and sign the necessary papers. |
16 Dec 08 - 09:30 AM (#2516778) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: M.Ted Art should always surprise us, because it gives us a chance to see what someone else sees. |
16 Dec 08 - 09:33 AM (#2516782) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Sleepy Rosie "IB - love the stone circle. Did you take any pictures?" I enjoyed the idea behind the piece too. But can't imagine that working somehow, at least for me. Wouldn't it rather undermine the err conceptual integrity of the piece, by breaking it down into three separate stones? Not trying to be argumentative here, merely interested. My own feeling would be that captured images could *potentially* reduce such a piece to a commodity. Which is I think one of the most unfortunate pitfalls that has plagued so much 'Brit-Art'. Having said that, if artists like Andy Goldsworthy never photographed their pieces then there would be precious little evidence of land art available to be discussed! So I'm quite content to be corrected.... |
16 Dec 08 - 12:03 PM (#2516925) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Amos It seems almost presumptuous to take a question that has challenged the best minds of the generations from Plato to Walter Pater and run up a Mudcat thread on it. But, hell, why not? The only measure of art is communication. That means the intent to communicate carried across time and space, arriving at a receiving viewpoint (usually a human) and creating their some degree of duplication, perfect or not, of that which first emanated from the origin point. One area this has not been taken to as far as I know is anyone seriously trying to develop art intended to communicate with other species--cows, aardvarks, or extra-terrestrials. But the core definition remains, when that does happen. That which succeeds in fulfilling the meaning of communication is named Art; everything else is technique or technology or logistics or drab economics. A |
16 Dec 08 - 12:09 PM (#2516932) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Amos Art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass - Walter Pater |
16 Dec 08 - 02:55 PM (#2517077) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Jack Blandiver Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it - Bertolt Brecht (or Vladimir Mayakovsky, or John Grierson...) |
16 Dec 08 - 03:01 PM (#2517081) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: gnu Art is essentially a nice guy, except when he keeps on talking about how nice the weather is in New Mexico... nearly as bad as Amos with his fucking Calleeforneeahh sunshine all the time. |
16 Dec 08 - 03:37 PM (#2517123) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: GUEST,beardedbruce "an "artist" is someone who produces a supply, whether or not there is any 'demand'." Thanks, BillD!!! beardedbruce, artist |
16 Dec 08 - 04:22 PM (#2517159) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Ebbie "My daughter's definition of art is something that causes a reaction, but I'm not sure I'd agree with her on that." Lizzie Cornish If your daughter is correct, then my averse reaction to a current exhibition in Juneau means that it is art, after all. I had been labo(u)ring under the delusion that pasting together chicken wire, rusty nails and coarse felt was an exercise in elemental (as in Neanderthalic) futility. "...why I did the sort of music I did (which back then was free improvised noise making where anything was admissible as music)..."Insane Beard *g* Reminds me of a conversation I came upon a couple of years ago at a folk festival. A man I knew was making hard work of playing his banjo with a young man on mandolin. Man stops. He says, What key are you playing in? Youth: Um. Not any, really. Man: I mean, what chords are you playing? Youth: Um. Just kind of regular. Grinning, I walked on. |
16 Dec 08 - 06:51 PM (#2517299) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: frogprince "Reaction" may carry connotations for a bunch of us that throw us off the best meaning of the young lady's statement. Reaction could be picking up in any way on emotional communication from the artist. On the other hand, if she is going with the ijit theory that it's not worth calling art unless it's ugly and it ticks you off, I hope she gets over that. I consider art that conveys anger or pain to be as legitimate as that done to communicate beauty or joy, but I wouldn't want a steady diet of it. And of course it's "presumptous" to try to ask or answer my initial question, but I'm enjoying the thoughts we're getting here by messing with it : ) Dean |
16 Dec 08 - 10:00 PM (#2517412) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: M.Ted Art is always better than anything anyone says about it. |
16 Dec 08 - 10:01 PM (#2517413) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: M.Ted And anyway, artists define art by creating it. |
17 Dec 08 - 10:28 AM (#2517798) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Uncle_DaveO For background of what I'm about to say, I'll say that I was an art major, with particular interest in painting and printmaking. I had some small successes, second prizes at this or that show, but I came to the conclusion that I was never going to be "a great name", and didn't have the internal pressure to create, create, create come hell or high water. So I got into something else. But in the process I did a lot of thought about what art is. Not "great art" or even "good art", but what art itself is. I'm not talking about crafts, or utilitarian design here, and I'm not limiting myself to the visual arts. My line of thought (you can call it a definition if you like) goes as follows: 1. Art is a conscious arrangement, a display of thought (thus excluding the results of an accident that the "creator" thinks is usable) 2. By a human being (thus excluding a sunset or a mountain landscape, for example, no matter how gorgeous or awe-inspiring) 3A. Intended as communication with other human beings 3B. With the intention of creating a basically emotional reaction in the human observer. Under 1., the medium may be paint on canvas, a carving in stone, a one-time "performance art" piece, a play, a symphony. . . "any medium" The comment under 2. is self-explanatory, I think. God does not make art, nor does nature, nor elephants, nor chimpanzees. It's a uniquely human endeavor. Under 3A, the little dance you do in private when you learn that your rich uncle died and left you a million is not art, because it's for yourself, not intended as communication to others And 3B, the intention is not merely to communicate ordinary facts or the like; it's to raise some (perhaps small) degree of emotional reaction in the human beholder. If a production passes those four tests, it's art (according to yours truly). Notice that I didn't say "good art" or "effective art" or "great art". Notice that I didn't mention beauty, because many pieces of art, or even of great art, are consciously ugly, or horrifying. Or perhaps merely humorous. Such as "Guernica" or "The Scream", which can hardly be called "beautiful". Notice, too, that I didn't refer to how successful the communication to another human being might be. An artistic creation, by this "definition", may be art but completely fail to raise any reaction in the beholder. It's still art because of the human intention, even though not very "artful". Looking at the other side, a piece may be valuable to a beholder without being art. That landscape I referred to, though not art by this line of thought, may be tremendously affecting and lifelong-rememberable to the viewer, but still not art. I could go on ad nauseam about this (and may, if the thread suggests it later), but I've pontificated enough for now. Dave Oesterreich |
17 Dec 08 - 11:05 AM (#2517843) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: GUEST,S Dedalus Uncle DaveO, what you write comes very close to what a certain Irish author wrote nearly a century ago (but your first point, in his formulation, was expanded; the conscious arrangement "of the materials of this world", I think, thus encompassing painting, poetry, music &c &c). |
17 Dec 08 - 11:15 AM (#2517855) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Amos Oddly enough, Dave, your pontification parallels my own, and will probably receive the same silent treatment. But it is an insightful analysis. Art is "effective communication", of course, onl;y when it receives attention. A landscape might be wicked powerful in the way it presents an ordinary moment, causing an attentive observer to go into an altered state of wonder or insight, while an obtuse observer dismisses it as "just a landscape". This brings up another question. One of the ways in which art sometimes jogs the reader into a new moment of thought is by contrast with the expected. "Ceci n'est pas un pipe" is a top-drawer modernist example. So are Picasso's blue women and a lot of others. I wonder hopw much we lose looking at a Vermeer or an eighteenth-century landscape because we do not have the framework of the expected anymore from which to see contrast. In an age when nobody sees full-rigged sailing vessels anymore, how do you understand the contrats created by an artist in an age when there was nothing else in the harbors? How can a suburbanite grok an agrarian landscape when he wouldn't know a cow from a kangaroo? A |
17 Dec 08 - 01:26 PM (#2518039) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Rapparee There are those who would say that true art would define the cow and differentiate it from the kangaroo. "Performance Art", if only done once, isn't art. It's ego on display. "Hamlet" is art because it allows actors and directors to work within a the discipline of the play to create their own vision of what is going on. A single piece, done once and then tossed aside, doesn't communicate. And as much as I hate to agree with Amos, art IS AND HAS to be communication: with the present and with the future within the context of the past. (I might agree with Amos, but I thought of it first.) |
17 Dec 08 - 02:13 PM (#2518107) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Used to avoid lame discussions on how 'artists' define 'art'. Sounds like the inept selling excuses for selling cheap crap! All I know is, I know it when I see or listen to it.... the rest is just pompous self aggrandizement. |
17 Dec 08 - 03:17 PM (#2518180) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Uncle_DaveO G from S, I think you are talking about the value a piece of sculpture, writing, music has for you, which is valid for you but a different matter from what the concept of art is. Or you may be talking about "good art". An object (painting, poem, novel, performance) may have great value for you, and not be art. And an object may be art and have no value for you. Or a work of art may be a complete failure, and yet cause an emotional response in you and have a high value for you. I can almost hear you say, "Huh? What was that last? How can that be?" Suppose I'm a composer and I compose an orchestral piece, and my intention is to communicate to a listener a sense of horror at war. I manage to get it played in public, and the orchestra plays it just as I wanted it done. It's last on the program, and there's a rousing ovation. I feel puffed up about what I've done, and I go to stand in the lobby as the audience files out, hoping to hear more of their reaction while the emotional impact is still fresh. As I stand there, I overhear comments that puzzle me, until a little old lady who has a reputation as a knowledgeable music lover comes up to me and says, "Oh, Mr. Composer! I'm so thrilled by your piece! You really communicated to me! I want to hear it again and again!" (As you can imagine, I'm really puffing up now.) But then she goes on: "It's so beautiful! I felt as if I were right there at that garden party!" Then I realize that my piece is an abject failure, even though it is of value to the hearers (assuming the old lady is representative of listeners' reactions, the ones that puzzled me). My piece was "an arrangement in any medium" addressed to people, with the intention of communicating an essentially emotional message. Oh, it's art, all right. From the tenor of the old lady's reaction, it's even presumably of value to the listeners. But it's a failure just the same, because the intended communication did not occur! So it's art, and valuable to the hearer, but it's not effective, not "good art". Dave Oesterreich |
17 Dec 08 - 04:45 PM (#2518269) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: VirginiaTam A _unny sound and/or smell One _iece of a whole wheeled mode for _arrying stuff maybe a _aste or pas_ry or harlo_ Crom_ell had 'em Ammunition for Cupi_ |
17 Dec 08 - 04:53 PM (#2518279) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: John Hardly There's a field of thought out there that claims that art goes back to man's earliest need to communicate concepts. Most language (espcially written language) scholars have long ago dismissed pictograms as being very meaningful in the development of the written word. They (pictograms) just weren't. But, on the other hand, the development of the written word has done much to alter the usefulness of art as a communication. We can convey many concepts more easily and more accurately with words. But art is still capable of conveying what often words cannot. The trouble with much of modern, avant garde-and-beyond art is that it does NOT communicate without written explanation. So if art is not capable of communicating on its own (without verbal/written explanation or description), it has lost complete touch with its very raison d'être. |
17 Dec 08 - 05:32 PM (#2518313) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Dave, liked your post! John's response also was cool, however, the ability to communicate the emotions accurately, as per your post, brings virtuosity into play. I would think of it as, virtuoso at his art, is like saying, 'He really communicates from his soul to mine, at his given 'craft'(read:art). Also, with that, anyone who has a God given talent, should respect both the giver of that gift, and the gift itself, and show that respect for developing that talent, respectfully. That includes lots of homework! Then again, if one has all sorts of pent up emotions, with nothing much to say, and no developed talent either, well, they could always stick to blogs and politics!.....(wink) |
17 Dec 08 - 06:47 PM (#2518399) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Uncle_DaveO Virginia Tam: I'll bite. What's that all about? Dave Oesterreich |
17 Dec 08 - 08:57 PM (#2518500) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Amos Rapaire: I came to terms with this issue in 1964 in a term paaper I wrote pn PAton's metaphysics. John Hardly: I must disagree with your assessment of modern movements in art. While they do not embody concrete situations they very much do communicate. After all, hearing someone go "Woof" is just as evocative as hearing someone say "Dog", if not moreso. A |
17 Dec 08 - 09:45 PM (#2518525) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Art Thieme Art is a lie that lets you see the truth!---Pablo Picasso Art Thieme |
17 Dec 08 - 09:46 PM (#2518528) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: John Hardly "While they do not embody concrete situations they very much do communicate" But, then, that begs the question: Why, more than any art in history, has the more contemporary art required explanation? If it communicates, why does it stand less on its own than any art in the history of man? It requires academia. It requires the middle man of gallery (Christies, Sotheby's) because, on its own it does not communicate. Or, it communicates -- not about concepts that required art for communication (art's founding raison d'être) -- rather, it communicates class -- that I am better (richer, more educated, of a higher caste) because I culturally "claim" this art. Of course contemporary art communicates. But it also does not. And it usually does not match the explanations that positively MUST accompany it. You can find the exception. But you just KNOW the rule. |
17 Dec 08 - 10:32 PM (#2518552) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Rapparee I came to terms with it in 1963 in a bull session at a friend's house. (Really. We used to talk about things like "What is Art?" and "How does Pope's use of iambic pentameter compare to that of Swift?" and "Where in the hell did you get that fifth ace??" We also came to the conclusion that discipline was essential to Art, that even Jackson Pollack's stuff demonstrated discipline, as did that of John Cage and Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Henry Moore and it was part of the viewer/listener/reader's enjoyment to determine the discipline and how it affected and effected the artist. These discussions were usually accompanied by a certain amount of Fine Olde Scotche Whiskye, even though at the time we were all under age. |
17 Dec 08 - 10:49 PM (#2518563) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: M.Ted All art is self-explanatory. |
17 Dec 08 - 11:29 PM (#2518575) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Amos The art I am thinking of--say, for example, a de Kooning or a Picasso--does not require explanation, unless it is being used as a discussion piece, which may not be its original intent. Abstract expressionism was not generated, I am sure, to be explained. I think M. Ted has his finger on the truth in his 10:49 post. All the explanation in the world is derivative and is a different subject. Mona Lisa has been explained as many times as the Cubists have, I expect--yet it does not make her any more enigmatic or lovely in execution. One reason why some art tends to generate a lot of explanatory talk is because it generates unfamiliar thoughts and feelings. An alternative is to be still in its presence and discover what those feelings are and may mean to you. But not everyone has the temerity to stand and face the unknown that way, so they talk a great deal about it instead. I think of it as a kind of herd instinct in homo sapiens, who vary widely in their degree of courage and discernment and ability to self-reflect. A. A |
18 Dec 08 - 08:21 AM (#2518776) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Instead of 'defining' art, on a blog...go do your music...and creative writing. Let those who envy that gift, decide if it is art or not....and frankly, who cares? You have dreamers, and interpreters of dreams...the interpreters of dreams interpret, for that is as close as they can get, to actually experiencing the dream...and sometimes, they'll even PAY to hide their inabilities! |
18 Dec 08 - 09:19 AM (#2518818) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: VirginiaTam to Dave Oesterreich just a bit of artistic word play A _unny sound and/or smell + F = funny and FART One _iece of a whole + P = piece and PART wheeled mode for _arrying stuff + C = carrying and CART maybe a _aste or pas_ry or harlo_ + T = taste, pastry, harlot and TART Crom_ell had 'em + W = Cromwell and WARTS Ammunition for Cupi_ + D = Cupid and DART |
18 Dec 08 - 09:31 AM (#2518837) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Amos My love she speaks like silence Without ideals or violence She doesn't have to say she's faithful Yet she's true like ice like fire People carry roses And make promises by the hours My love she laughs like the flowers Valentines can't buy her In the dime stores and bus stations People talk of situations Read books repeat quotations Draw conclusions on the wall Some speak of the future My love she speaks softly She knows there's no success like failure And that failure's no success at all The cloak and dagger dangles Madams light the candles In ceremonies of the horsemen Even the pawn must hold a grudge Statues made of matchsticks Crumble into one another My love winks she does not bother She knows too much to argue or to judge The bridge at midnight trembles The country doctor rambles Banker's nieces seek perfection Expecting all the gifts that wisemen bring The wind howls like a hammer The night blows rainy My love she's like some raven At my window with a broken wing |
18 Dec 08 - 11:52 AM (#2518968) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: John Hardly My fart he speaks like silence His smell holds all the violence He doesn't have to say he's there Yet he, like, totally ruins the air |
18 Dec 08 - 02:10 PM (#2519098) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: VirginiaTam JUDGING ART The Prosecution Art has no conscience It is not alive Only a reflection of soul A cracked mirror, fragmented, distorted by another's perception The Defence Art is conscience It does live Truly breathes, consumes changes and grows is gratefully absorbed, accepted by another's emptiness The Verdict Poetry is for the meek Music for the dispirited Literature the hungry Art lonely |
18 Dec 08 - 02:35 PM (#2519112) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: John MacKenzie He lives in Albuquerque NM |
18 Dec 08 - 07:54 PM (#2519395) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Keep 'em coming!! |
18 Dec 08 - 08:01 PM (#2519403) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: LilyFestre For me, art is something that strikes something within me. It doesn't have to be some classically designed sculpture or painting...if it makes my heart happy or makes me pause to admire the beauty or if it tickles my brain into pondering something for a bit, it's art. Michelle :) |
18 Dec 08 - 09:19 PM (#2519458) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Bee-dubya-ell "Art" is an archaic second person (singular and plural) conjugation of the irregular English verb "to be". Example: Wherefore art thou, Romeo? |
18 Dec 08 - 10:50 PM (#2519478) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Amos BeeDub: If yer gonna act like a scholar, omit the comma. The question is "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" as opposed to being Clayton or Marcello or some such goofy name. The word "wherefore" has never meant "whereabouts" and has always meant "Why" even in good Queen Bess' day. A |
18 Dec 08 - 11:23 PM (#2519485) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: GUEST,Guest from sanity Amos, ..You're starting to impress me! Liked you poem..is it yours? |
19 Dec 08 - 07:03 AM (#2519671) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: John Hardly Sure, you like Amos' poem and completely ignore my masterful re-write. Philistine. |
19 Dec 08 - 07:16 AM (#2519677) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Stu Ars longa, vita brevis. |
19 Dec 08 - 09:49 AM (#2519776) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: frogprince That's Latin for, "your arse will last longer if you stuff vitamins in your briefs"... |
19 Dec 08 - 06:20 PM (#2520189) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Well, I have to congratulate him for perhaps(not sure, yet) Having an original idea....Your turn! |
19 Dec 08 - 07:33 PM (#2520237) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Ed T This is interesting "Three near-invisible drawings discovered on back of Da Vinci masterpiece" http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article5365300.ece |
19 Dec 08 - 10:02 PM (#2520319) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Alice well, here is an example of performance art |
02 Jan 09 - 08:08 AM (#2529526) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Folk Form # 1 Art is something that is made for no reason at all except to be appreciated for itself. |
02 Jan 09 - 09:04 AM (#2529556) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Donuel I was once called before the high priests of the Jesuit Order and questioned rather extensively regarding my work, my ideologies and my future intentions. When they asked me to define love, I stopped. After a long pause in which I had felt a surge of emotions from anger, fear and suspicion, I told them my definition would be meaningless to them but rather it was for them to discover the meaning, definition and practice of love in their own lives. There was a bit more give and take after that as well as some blatherings of my own about St. Thomas Aquinas and the quasi inquision was over. I would have to define 'art' in the same context as I did 'love' 38 years ago. PS: In case anyone is curious about what happened next: The Jesuit Order decided the following year that my work as a secular clinical hypnotist needed a Godly alternative in the community so they set up an office similar to mine with one of their own in charge. Afterall the age of "New Age" alternatives was begining to get a full head of steam. The person they put in charge of this project was very straight forward about the project funded by the church. He came to visit a couple times with hypnosis questions and advice of his own. The last time I saw him he asked how I felt about the competition I now faced in the community and I was rather flip when I told him that it was a matter caring, I don't care and it doesn't matter. There was little in the new age philosphies I found credible except for the concept of Gaia. I soon left the field and began the quest to grow a family. |
02 Jan 09 - 09:34 AM (#2529572) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: VirginiaTam Didn't Matisse say something along the lines that to define art is to do it great harm or injustice? Defining art limits, maybe even destroys the spirit of art. That spirit being the artist's rendering of an idea or collection of ideas in a evocative or provocative form and the recipient's personal interpretation of / self-application to the art experience. Humph! So much for my highchair philosophy. Shutting up now. |
02 Jan 09 - 09:57 AM (#2529585) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: MaineDog My mother always used to say of art she didn't like, "Oh, that's not art, its just gross!" ergo, Art is anything that grosses out your mother. MD |
02 Jan 09 - 11:05 AM (#2529645) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Charmion Art is what I like. Anything I don't like (or at least find intriguing) is just junk. Ask any critic; once you strip away the fancy-schmancy jargon about brushwork and challenging the verities, that's what they'll tell you. |
02 Jan 09 - 11:57 AM (#2529691) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Amos GfS; No, not mione-- I thought it would be well known enough not to need attribution. It is a Bob Dylan song, "Love Minus Zero/No Limit". I thought injecting it would elevate the dialogue from the tedious to the purely experiential. A |
02 Jan 09 - 11:48 PM (#2530217) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Art Thieme ME !! |
03 Jan 09 - 01:14 AM (#2530246) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Amos, oh,...jeez! Was about to applaud your writing skills..and silly me. I used to do a lot of Dylan....years ago....! |
03 Jan 09 - 04:34 AM (#2530283) Subject: RE: BS: Define 'art' From: Georgiansilver Pure art is what any one individual appreciates as such....... but then you have 'commercial art' the stuff that they (whoever they are) buy for thousands.. or millions as an investment because they know so many others want it....... the big question is... why do the others want it? Is it because they appreciate it or because they want to invest?? Beats me!!!! |