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Accepted Definition of Art

Rod Witten

pro member
I've read through a number of posting in the "Photography as Art" forum and I see many opinions about the meaning and defintion of art. I may have missed it somewhere but has this forum agreed on a definition for the term ART? The inexpensive Webster's dictionary (9th ed) that I have suggests that ART is created/produced/employed by someone who consciously uses experience , study, or observation and creative imagination. Is there a better definition or is this term something that's ment to be debated forever?
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
It's Discovery and Experience of Commanding Esthetic Form that Defines Art

Hi Rod, defining art has always been a struggle, like using the word "love" or "beauty".

Here in OPF, there is an array of opinion on what constitutes or should constitute art. I'd be interested to see what definitions and notions you have discovered so far. I expect and hope that they are all inconsistent, LOL!

I personally have been most interested in what might be the process by which art is created and what properties a work of art might possess. I have written much but decided to not be didactic here. Rather I'd say briefly that we all struggle with finding an agreed definition.

For myself it appears that art is a material object in which a unique magnetic esthetic experience is found such that people want to return to it again and again. It may be pure form or associated with some narrative feelings or ideas and even beauty but these are not required.

Asher
 
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Rod Witten

pro member
Asher,

I like your description of art. I would add that art seems to be applied to human abilities as well: debate, speaking and so on. For example, "the art of making friends" is a common phrase in society. The definition seems elusive and we may need to trap it by defining it's extremes first. For instance, Webster's defines the term "artless" as 1) lacking art, knowledge or skill 2) made without skill 3) free from artificiality 4) free from guile or craft.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
A "Definition of Art", Tentative Practical Paradigm for Creative Works.

Asher,

I like your description of art. I would add that art seems to be applied to human abilities as well: debate, speaking and so on. For example, "the art of making friends" is a common phrase in society. The definition seems elusive and we may need to trap it by defining it's extremes first. For instance, Webster's defines the term "artless" as 1) lacking art, knowledge or skill 2) made without skill 3) free from artificiality 4) free from guile or craft.

Hi Rod,

The art of artful or art of making friends is each a human behavior where physical form and public museums to show this is not a property. Art here has a distant connection with art as a tool for appreciating the esthetics of chosen physical form.

Agreeable experience can be enjoyed but hard to find again. Sunsets and beautiful people passing are transient. Perfection is elusive. The lion is to dangerous to approach. Art solves this problem by choosing forms which can rediscovered and experienced at will and so mitigate the harshness of life and detract from life's disappointments, boredom and our inevitable path to degeneration and then death. Societies have discovered their own standards for art, but all variants, I posit, function in the same manner. So while there is no standard definition of art, this is my own current working model:

Art is a physical form chosen or designed by humans though which esthetic experience is predictably enjoyed, valued and sought by those open to that experience. Where the form is durable, it may secured, collected and exhibited. Where it is a blueprint it may be executed in performances from time to time. In each case the work, by surviving the artist, gives both a measure of immortality.

Asher
 
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Rod Witten

pro member
"A "Definition of Art", Tentative Practical Paradigm for Creative Work

Art is a physical form chosen or designed by humans though which esthetic experience is predictably enjoyed, valued and sought by those open to that experience. Where the form is durable, it may secured, collected and exhibited. Where it is a blueprint it may be executed in performances from time to time. In each case the work, by surviving the artist, gives both a measure of immortality.

Asher


Asher,

You have provided a solid foundation. The first sentence clearly enables photographic output as a form of art.

Thanks
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Asher,

I like that as a definition.

Bart

Bart and Rod,

I have been studying what the process of art might include. My initital approach of just an "Arc of Intent" with the artist doing all the work until the finish, is still valid, but this early version proved insufficient. That set me on a quest, working to solve inadequacies

Then came my crazy photography shooting spree and my back problem. There's one advantage of pain and pills and being confined weeks on end mostly between the bed and a couch and that's time to read! It's amazing how one can get thousands of wo/man-years of scholarship for the price of a few rolls of film! That's how much of a bargain some books are!

So I have really been re-examining my knowledge and appreciation of aspects of art from different cultures and from earliest time. I have taken a lot for granted, just enjoying what is there for me in galleries and books. I am now interested in how we have used art and what art does for us. In doing this, I'm aiming to build a deeper understanding of the process by which art gets made and then functions for us.

In doing this, I am taking my gleanings and using this to construct a defensible hopefully universal definition of "Art". This might be strong enough to then function as a reference to which I might turn in my own attempts at creative work.

I have been thinking that one might do better if one is building something for which purpose and function could be known.

This definition of mine is devoid of reference to other aspects that might be found in art but none of which are required:


function
particular materials
technical excellence
particular physical form
narrative
epic event
social values
ethic
morality
higher purpose
transcendence
spirituality
understanding or getting "closer to God"
worship
sex or sensuality
purpose
human feelings such as joy, sadness, elation, despair or love or hate and the like
beauty
ugliness
truth
verisimilitude i.e. be grounded in reality or appearing to be so
good or bad

The work must however, get our attention and, if we are open to it, at least for a moment draw us into its essential esthetic physicality, even if one or other of the non-required elements are present and provide an agreeable experience.

This is where I am so far!

Asher
 

Rod Witten

pro member
Testing the Definition with Variables.

[QUOTE=Asher Kelman;
.... this is my own current working model:
Art is a physical form chosen or designed by humans though which esthetic experience is predictably enjoyed, valued and sought by those open to that experience. Where the form is durable, it may secured, collected and exhibited. Where it is a blueprint it may be executed in performances from time to time. In each case the work, by surviving the artist, gives both a measure of immortality.

Asher,

So, when I look out my window at a formation of morning clouds, I can call the scene "Art". It's not my art however, unless I capture it in some physical form. Since I essentially had no control over the subject (cloud formation and background sky), my art in it's original state, could be considered natural art as it relates to the subject. If I could alter the subject prior to capture or do alter it post-capture, my art could be classified as artificial (I prefer to call it "sculptured"). Regardless of it's classification, if enough people liked it (measured by the quality and volume of observation and discussion) I would have accepted art and if enough people acquired it ("secured, collected and exhibit"): successful art.
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Asher Kelman; said:
.... this is my own current working model:
Art is a physical form chosen or designed by humans though which esthetic experience is predictably enjoyed, valued and sought by those open to that experience. Where the form is durable, it may secured, collected and exhibited. Where it is a blueprint it may be executed in performances from time to time. In each case the work, by surviving the artist, gives both a measure of immortality.

Asher,

So, when I look out my window at a formation of morning clouds, I can call the scene "Art". It's not my art however, unless I capture it in some physical form.

For sure Rod you can enjoy the physicality of the clouds as art, but they are transient...


....and that's what art in a way represents, stores of physical esthetics to be experienced anytime we schedule!


We cannot call up the cloud in perfect form at will. It's not like the natural unique beautiful driftwood we might find on the beach, that can be taken and stored to celebrate and enjoy. A cloud is not a performance of a blue print. It's just nature. We cannot store cloud.

It cannot be predicted and staged. For all these reasons, a cloud, a sunset or a pastoral or a waterfall or not art until you have it fixed for performance, but these, thank goodness, still depend on the hazards of nature! Art when chosen, now has a form which we can describe. Each instance of a ballet has a general prescription, a blueprint. Any instance of its performance might vary as in handmade prints of a picture. Any performance, in its prescription and for sure when complete, can be described. The work can be experienced transported anywhere in world we can afford to schedule it. You can't so that with a cloud.

Sorry, Rod

A cloud is not art!

However, if you had a cloud-making machine as part of a performance. Then that might be art as you can stage it anywhere! Would it be good art? I don't know!

Asher
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
A qualifier. I have only approached a definition of Art as a task for my own guidance. Still, I hope the approach of seeing Form as the essential backbone of art as a tool for obtaining predictable esthetic experience by people open to that, might have utility to others.

I'm not making any judgment about quality, ranking or my own preferences. To get those, add your own chosen extra elements, (that were excluded as being non-essential) in my tentative definition above!
 

doug anderson

New member
Doug's Anti-Definition

1. It discovers through individual imagination a way of seeing something in such a way that the viewer feels he or she is seeing it for the first time free of cliche or conditioned response.

2. It demonstrates a high level of craft.

3. It touches the viewer on more than one level.

4. Every time someone attempts to define it, it slips immediately out of their grasp so that the question must be asked anew each time.
 
1. It discovers through individual imagination a way of seeing something in such a way that the viewer feels he or she is seeing it for the first time free of cliche or conditioned response.

2. It demonstrates a high level of craft.

3. It touches the viewer on more than one level.

4. Every time someone attempts to define it, it slips immediately out of their grasp so that the question must be asked anew each time.

2. It demonstrates a high level of craft"

I don't think that ART has anything to do with craft. The clear example that comes to my mind is the one that I posted here in a similar discussion before and involves the painter Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier

Meissonier_thumb.jpg


the most famous and important artist of his time precisely because of his perceived High Level of Craft (he spent months researching every detail of how to paint, for example, the horses minute appearance) and the very opposite young painter that was infamous for his lack of high level of craft:

Édouard Manet

images


So, at least, we need to define the phrase: High Level Of Craft to accept it in the mixture that will give us a definition of ART...
 
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Every time I post the painting of Napoleon retreating is the end of the thread.... or it may be that is election Tuesday?

Next we can discuss the The Sex of Angels (you know: if the have, and they even exist. All tree major religions believe in them...)
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Every time I post the painting of Napoleon retreating is the end of the thread.... or it may be that is election Tuesday?

Next we can discuss the The Sex of Angels (you know: if the have, and they even exist. All tree major religions believe in them...)
Hi Leonardo,

Maybe because we see a black patch on our screen instead of the Napoleon painting. I guess that the site (http://www.artcyclopedia.com/images/Meissonier_thumb.jpg )prevents off-site linking to their images. One you have visited the site using their URL, then the image is in your browser cache and then it shows. Just for your info :)

Cheers.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
1. It discovers through individual imagination a way of seeing something in such a way that the viewer feels he or she is seeing it for the first time free of cliche or conditioned response.

2. It demonstrates a high level of craft.

3. It touches the viewer on more than one level.

4. Every time someone attempts to define it, it slips immediately out of their grasp so that the question must be asked anew each time.

Hi Doug,

My tentative definition of art in my writing has no reference to craft since craft does not define art, rather might characterize how some particular instance of art might have been achieved or refer to your own taste.

Likewise a pious person might insist that art must bring one closer to God. That just reflects one particular kind of art which some people value the most.

We need (and I have attempted to develop here) a definition that is impervious to the vagary and caprice of fashion, fad and personal taste. I approached this by examining what perhaps art serves to do for humans and then what works deemed to be art might be successfully included.

Asher
 
Asher, I see the big black patch, I suppose that it happened for me to redirect images eh? my problem is that I think in terms them, so I have the habit of grabbing them here...

Defining art... has someone done that before? I'm not complaining, I like the challenge and I think it is necessary since there are so many posts here and in other places that refer to images as "artistic", or art-photography. I used to work in West Chelsea and I saw what type of images are being exhibited in there... sometimes this and what people tend to think that is artistic is as different as Obama and Palin's idea of fair government is...
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier compared to Ultimate Modernism

Asher, I see the big black patch, I suppose that it happened for me to redirect images eh? my problem is that I think in terms them, so I have the habit of grabbing them here...

Defining art... has someone done that before? I'm not complaining, I like the challenge and I think it is necessary since there are so many posts here and in other places that refer to images as "artistic", or art-photography. I used to work in West Chelsea and I saw what type of images are being exhibited in there... sometimes this and what people tend to think that is artistic is as different as Obama and Palin's idea of fair government is...

Meissonier_thumb.jpg


I thought this was an example of contemplative art!

So here's some art I can find by Monsieur Meissonier:


Meissonier_-_1814%2C_Campagne_de_France.jpg


"Campagne de France"

Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier




Cheers!
 
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Yes, thank you.. now we can see this painting in all its glory.

In the mid 1800's there was no movies, no tv, no photography -well, not until 1840's- and no internet. So, what did people in Paris did to get entertain? ... they wen to Salon shows. This where held yearly and where hugely popular and consisted in galleries filled up with contemporary works organized in alphabetical order.

The artist that painted this "Campagne de France", Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier was as famous in ways that contemporary painters are not.

So, that is my example of how difficult it is to define art. This painting is now much less important than Édouard Manet, but of course we now know that Manet singlehandedly invented modernism -something very important for all of us-, and at the time modernism was being invented by Édouard, people hated it so much that some viewers threw objects -like canes that where popular in Paris- at the offending "art" being proposed by this insolent painter...

Also, think about this other factor more related to this forum. The Campagne de France ... look at it, it is a painting that wants to be a photograph! Meissonier's heros where painters like Johannes Vermeer that used a camara obscura, -basically a view camera where the film holder is the painters brain-, so, when someone came up with a chemical way to fix the image and nature could hold its own pencil to easily draw better than the best artis t Paris could produce... art lost interest in that ... what you see above this post...
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
So, that is my example of how difficult it is to define art. This painting is now much less important than Édouard Manet, but of course we now know that Manet singlehandedly invented modernism -something very important for all of us-, and at the time modernism was being invented by Édouard, people hated it so much that some viewers threw objects -like canes that where popular in Paris- at the offending "art" being proposed by this insolent painter...

Let me find the source, but an art historian-thinker declared that to be a worthy, new form of art, the works must be met with derision. Only after that are they appreciated and beauty is discovered.

Also, think about this other factor more related to this forum. The Campagne de France ... look at it, it is a painting that wants to be a photograph! Meissonier's heros where painters like Johannes Vermeer that used a camara obscura, -basically a view camera where the film holder is the painters brain-, so, when someone came up with a chemical way to fix the image and nature could hold its own pencil to easily draw better than the best artist Paris could produce... art lost interest in that ... what you see above this post...
Had photography been digital then, we might have missed the whole process of Impressionism to modern and post modern art!

Asher
 
Photography at the time of Vermeer was probably more "digital" than with Kodak and chemestry: It was based in the human eye that is "electric" ... Ohio and Iowa ... this is going blue, no?
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
So, that is my example of how difficult it is to define art. This painting is now much less important than Édouard Manet, but of course we now know that Manet singlehandedly invented modernism -something very important for all of us-, and at the time modernism was being invented by Édouard, people hated it so much that some viewers threw objects -like canes that where popular in Paris- at the offending "art" being proposed by this insolent painter...

Let me find the source, but an art historian-thinker declared that to be a worthy, new form of art, the works must be met with derision. Only after that are they appreciated and beauty is discovered.

Had photography been digital then, we might have missed the whole process of Impressionism to modern and post modern art!

The source for the ideas that new work in an epoch is rejected inititally comes from the important art critic Clement Greenberg (1909-1994)

Elizabeth Pettejohn the art scholar, has quoted him:

"It is possible to accuse the painter, Jackson Pollack, too, of bad taste, but that would be wrong, for what is thought to be Pollock's bad taste is in reality simply his willingness to be ugly in terms of contemporary taste. In the course of time this ugliness will become a new standard of beauty."

BluePolesBigPicture.JPG


Jackson Pollock "Blue Poles No 11"
 

doug anderson

New member
2. It demonstrates a high level of craft"

I don't think that ART has anything to do with craft. The clear example that comes to my mind is the one that I posted here in a similar discussion before and involves the painter Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier

Meissonier_thumb.jpg


the most famous and important artist of his time precisely because of his perceived High Level of Craft (he spent months researching every detail of how to paint, for example, the horses minute appearance) and the very opposite young painter that was infamous for his lack of high level of craft:

Édouard Manet

images


So, at least, we need to define the phrase: High Level Of Craft to accept it in the mixture that will give us a definition of ART...

Outside of a few serendipitous accidents, art requires craft to represent its subject. If you give a monkey a camera, he may make one out of 10,000 shots interesting; but he will not make 100 out of 10,000 shot's interesting. That is all I meant. I didn't assign craft the highest priority.

D
 
doug, I think that craft is part of the equation, but if you see the enormous amount of high craft that takes to make some objets that are not considere art. Or prominent artists that don't even paint their work. I went with a friend to visit
14.jpg

Jeff Koons' studio, New York
Courtesy Cheryl Kaplan ©Copyright Cheryl Kaplan 2005. All rights reserved.
http://www.db-artmag.de/2005/6/e/1/366.php

In that case koons "relies" on other peples craft ...
 

doug anderson

New member
doug, I think that craft is part of the equation, but if you see the enormous amount of high craft that takes to make some objets that are not considere art. Or prominent artists that don't even paint their work. I went with a friend to visit
14.jpg

Jeff Koons' studio, New York
Courtesy Cheryl Kaplan ©Copyright Cheryl Kaplan 2005. All rights reserved.
http://www.db-artmag.de/2005/6/e/1/366.php

In that case koons "relies" on other peples craft ...

Leonard: I know what you mean. Craft alone won't do it. There's a lot of very well executed kitsch out there.

D

PS I can't stand Jeff Koons.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
The Role of Craft in Creating Art

Master-craftmenship may or may not be required for art to be made. However some level of dealing with the physics of the backbone of the material and fashioning the ultimate form is almost always necessary. In this, there's no absolute standard of quality other than necessity to serve the physical esthetics and very structure of the work.

So craft only needs to be sufficient to make the esthetics of the form, as prescribed and imagined by the artist and hold any optional elements in the manner the artist chooses. That's all the craft thats required and no more for any work of art. Where craft more than this is used, it might even damage the working of the art by calling attention to itself in place of the essence of the art.

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Master-craftmenship may or may not be required for art to be made. However some level of dealing with the physics of the backbone of the material and fashioning the ultimate form is almost always necessary. In this, there's no absolute standard of quality other than necessity to serve the physical esthetics and very structure of the work.

So craft only needs to be sufficient to make the esthetics of the form, as prescribed and imagined by the artist and hold any optional elements in the manner the artist chooses. That's all the craft thats required and no more for any work of art. Where craft more than this is used, it might even damage the working of the art by calling attention to itself in place of the essence of the art.

Asher
I reread what I wrote and it stands. Still, I wish to add my admiration for craft and my suspicion when shoddiness is written off as "artistic choice". I see no reason why "fingerprints" of the process need to be on every surface and the workings of the piece call attention to themselves for no other reason than crudeness in workmanship.

Having said that, fine craft, like a great lens can only facilitate an outstanding photograph. It's the starting idea in the brain that counts the most and then luck, (in front of the lens), that needs to happen too!

Asher
 
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