cellophanedeity

Out of fear of the demise of the philosophy forum, I present you with the following question:

Can art be defined?

Even after taking an entire course on aesthetics, I do not have an answer to this question, though I am leaning on the "no" side.

What do you think? Can you do a better job convincing me than professional philosophers?

Willravel

It depends on the art, the artist, and the person experiencing the art. I think that when the three groups can come to a unanimus decision about a piece of arts definition, then perhaps then it can be defined. Other than that rarest of cases, I'd say no. Because art evokes an emotional response, it is rarely the same thing to everyone. Where I see Mona Lisa as drab, yet brilliant, others might see it as a serious expression of emotion. We're both right, of course.

flamingdog

Are you talking about a piece of 'artwork', 'art' as a whole, or what?

If you mean the concept of 'art' as a whole, then I'd say yes.

At its core, it's an expression of an intangible idea through a tangible medium.

Bit wishy-washy, isn't it? Of course, we run into all kinds of problems in defining those terms, particularly 'idea' and 'medium'.

That still leaves the question of is it 'good' art, or 'bad' art open to interpretation, but at the core of it, in my view, one brick placed on top of another is art if it's done to express an idea.

rofgilead

I think trying to define art is like trying to define what makes objects of art appealling to people. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance talks about this subject fairly in depth, so I would recommend that you check that out Cellophanediety. I don't think Art is defineable in a way that would allow for an exception to break the rule of the definition of Art. Art is an existing idea, but not one that can be defined or limited by rules of aesthetics.

I like ideas that can never be defined! They are almost non-sensical or irrational!

roachboy

you would think that this would be a philosophical matter at first--but that would entail that you understand there to be a type of essence that distinguishes "art" from other things.
and there isnt.
on this duchamp was right: art is what is presented to you as art.
what gets defined as art is a sociological matter: the space in which something is encountered, the expectations brought to the experience, the way a particular experience is framed, in short.

if you think about it, aesthetic philosophy actualy tips directly into this sociological process (should be plural i guess---this post is so vague...): because aesthetic contemplation begins with the art/object as a completed whole, encountered already enframed as art (in a museyroom, in a garden, in a concert hall), aesthetics erases the processes of making objects/events, and the actual practices of the makers of objects/events along with it---it substitutes the aesthetic philosopher, who is positioned as a kind of arch-critic, who outlines the parameters of legitimate interpretation of these objects--the artist him or herself gets replaced with a mythology of the Artist that gets wrapped around the proper name of the artist. this reworked notion of the Artist serves a whole range of dubious ideological functions (adorno is good on this). but the actual artist/maker and the actual processes that shape a particular piece, all are subsumed under a mythological double. the result is totally debilitating if you as someone interested in making things commits the error of thinking about actual art practice through this sad bourgeois mythology that purports to describe the making of things. a second result is the naturalization of the definition of art--one encounters an object already finished and already sited, so all elements that contributed to the social definition of an object as "art" are erased as well. all power reverts to the institutions that specialize in mediation.

short version: aesthetic philosophy is about the classification of objects.
making "art" is about process, an orientation that entails a very different relation to objects/events produced....for the former, objects are the necessary point of departure for thinking...for the latter, an object/event can be understood as a marker of a particular combination of processes/influences/modes of thinking or acting that obtained at a particular phase of a longer creative process. and in my experience at least, it is not obvious that one can seperate creative activity from the range of other engagements with the world. aesthetics would have you beleive that creativity was a discrete space of activity.

all aesthetic theory does, really, is integrate "art" into captialist rationality.
it says nothing of any interest about art, its nature, or the process of making stuff.
it is good to know aeshtetic philosophy, however, because for some reason it persists---despite all kinds of negative effects--think about what classical music has become--a culture of repetition--and you'll get an idea of these.

btw the cultural regime within which aesthetic philo was determinate has been blown apart. in music, you can watch its collapse in accelerated form by looking at the rise of process-oriented compositions via folk like cage--who is important mostly for symptomatic reasons---but think about it: classical music as a social institution presupposed particular types of monopoly--on the spaces of performance, the rules that obtained both for the musicians and the audience within those spaces, the training of musicians--all these have been fundamentally undermined by teh rise of recording technologies, reproduction technologies and the types of composition/organization of sonic material that have arisen in response to/interaction with these technologies.

got to go. cutting this off here for now.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Mantus

Oh thank God! My head was this close to exploding.


I think, that if we found a percise meaning for art then it would lose it's essence. It would become a construct, technical - part of an assembly line and all it's charms would be lost.

Anyways, discussing whether something has artistic value is half the experience and half the fun.

onodrim

I don't think art as a whole can be defined. There is no single something that makes art art, it simply is. It's more of an experience, an internal feeling that you know you're seeing something that is beyond simple definition. Sure you can categorize art, explain the processes one uses to create each type of art, but I feel that the essence of what art itself is goes beyond simple definition.

For example, one can hear a symphony played by the greatest orchestra in the world and exclaim it was a wonderful performance an be moved to tears. Now a musicologist could explain how the use of a cresendo, the perfect blend of harmonies and orchestration creates a sound that is musically perfect, but it's impossible to explain why that cresendo, that chord, moves us in the way it does. It touches something deep in side that we can't define.

I hope that made some sense at all.

__________________
"The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides"
-Carl Sagan

asaris

I suspect art can be defined, but what counts as a piece of art is subject to debate. Notice that it is a significant claim that 'what counts as a piece of art is subject to debate'. It indicates that the old adage, "There's no disputing about taste" is incorrect. We can, and often do, argue about whether or not something is a work of art. This seems to indicate that there are rational criteria for whether or not something is a work of art.

I tend to subscribe to a Kantian theory of art, though you should take that with a grain of salt, since I'm hardly an aethetician. He has what I think is a pretty good definition. It's been a while, so I apologize if this isn't entirely accurate. Art is something which gives rise to the free play of ideas. I'll try to look it up in his third Critique later.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

CSflim

Art is the stuff that is found in art galleries.

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CSflim

On a releated note, how well do you know your 'stuff that is found in art galleries'?

<a href="http://www.modestypanel.com/artorcrap/">Art or Crap</A>

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roachboy

interesting: the art or crap thing simply reinforces the argument that art is what the artists/the galleries/the critics/the academics say it is and nothing else--the boundary art/crap is that of sanctioned vs unsanctioned "art" objects.

i dont think there is another way to distinguish art from anything else.
there is no particular type of experience that could be pointed to in order to distinguish art from nonart---similarly not everything that you might take as beautiful is art---not everything that might provide an experience of the sublime is art (particularly not if you follow the third critique argument closely in defining teh sublime, which is simply an experience like that of seeing something really really big)

take as an example types of music or visuals produced by folk who treat such production as part of a ritual practice---to define such music/objects as "art" is to split them away from their context and to focus attention--often arbitrarily--on the object rather than on what enframes the object (ritual, the systems that feed into ritual, etc.)----the notion of "art" in aesthetic philosophy derives almost entirely from the question of human creation in a christian context--this conception is usually processed through plato, through the figure of the demiurge. human beings discover form---god makes it--therefore human beings do not really create anything--they discover what is already extant. visit any african "art" museyroom and you'll get a good idea of how this ideology entwined with imperialism to arbitrarily redefine objects, to enact the superimposition of xtianity on other peoples.

more generally, if you focus on objects you cant even account for your own processes of making meaning.
the qualities that inhere in an object do not explain your responses to that object (look at the crap or art quiz from this angle and it demonstrates the argument)

art is a commodity: the erasure of process doubles the erasure of manufacturing in thinking about commodities: control over the definition of art is a mode of exercize of social power.

which is functional in that people like to be told how to react to phenomena.
this is art.
now you know what it is and how to act.
dont talk too loud.
be revenerent.
these Things are Sacred Things.
why?
because we say so.
because the building says so.

damn, these Things must be worth alot of money.
price=value.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

rofgilead

I agree with roachboy. The art-or-crap thing is silly, because who gives them the arbitrary authority to decide whether or not something is art?

I personally don't think taking common items and just putting them in an art gallery is art. I think that is just someone trying to "do something new", but it isn't art. It's not that a can of soup can't be art (since all our brains are is neurons firing in patterns, what makes one object of the world such as a painting art whereas a can of soup not), its just that trying to "do something new" isn't necessarily a guarantee of producing art.

To me, an object of art isn't something that one would just forget about moments later.

Art should, I believe, exemplify beauty (even if it is the beauty of ugliness..) - but this is just my criteria for art. For example, I like music that is pleasing to listen to, rather than "just something new" consisting of metal sounds and odd noises. I like art that is pleasing to look at and has depth. Therefore, much modern art is boring to me, because it lacks one of those two qualities.

asaris

Certainly under a Kantian theory of art, what is sublime is not art. I don't remember enough off-hand to say whether or not everything man-made that is art has to be beautiful, but I suspect that's the case if we use Kant's definition of beauty. If we use a more commonplace, 'common sense', definition of beauty, it's clear that there can be objects which are beautiful but not art. Purposeless designs are not art on Kant's account, but under a common sense definition of beauty, they can be beautiful.

Sure Kant requires art to have meaning, but that doesn't mean, strictly speaking, it has to be representational. Art which looks meaningless can have meaning, e.g., as a commentary on more traditional, representational works of art. Common-place objects can also be art in the same way.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

roachboy

i would hope that nothing i posted above could be construed as defending representational art....

btw it seems that this is not the only space in which folk are thinking about this matter....i'll post the link to the ny times article only because the text is quite long:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/bo...w/11gewen.html

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

asaris

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be implying that you were defending representational art. I meant to say that I'M not arguing that only representational art is art.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

cellophanedeity

Onodrim:
"There is no single something that makes art art, it simply is."

I think this is the best way of expressing this sentiment. I agree very much.

roachboy
"what gets defined as art is a sociological matter: the space in which something is encountered, the expectations brought to the experience, the way a particular experience is framed, in short."

This too feels true. I disagree with (or perhaps just don't understand) a good deal of the burgoise stuff you were rambling about, but I think that this makes a good deal of sense.

So I'm no further towards understanding aesthetics than before hand, but at least I understand that there are at least a couple of likeminded people out there.

asaris

cellophanedeity: if you have specific questions about understanding something, I'd love to help. I'm not trying to be condescending, it's just that I'm well aware that I tend to use the usual jargon of the field, and that laypeople might not understand it. It's a bad habit, I know, but one that's difficult to break.

A very interesting article, roachboy. It's long enough (and late enough) that I'm not going to discuss the whole thing. I just want to talk about a couple quotes, and add on an appendix.

"Karl Ruhrberg, the author of the section on painting in 'Art of the 20th Century,' writes that art 'can no longer hope to proclaim indubitable truths.'"

For Kant, the purpose of art is not to proclaim indubitable truths; if this is the subject of any discipline, it would be the subject of philosophy. But, of course, for Kant this isn't even the subject of philosophy. For Kant, the purpose of art is to give rise to the free play of the imagination. A piece of 'art' which only had one possible valid response would not be art.

"while discussion of the arts deteriorated into the solipsism of individual taste, in which no opinion was worth more than any other."

This is, ironically enough, the point I was trying to make most of all in my first point. We can have valid discussions of whether or not something is art. We can disagree, and at the end of the day, we might have to agree to disagree, but we can have a rational discussion about it without talking past each other.

I've been arguing here that a Kantian isn't limited to thinking of representational art as
the only form of art. However, there are limits. The basic conception of art, according to Kant, is that of the matter of genius enclosed in the form of taste. Of course, what Kant means by Taste isn't exactly what the person on the street means by taste, but this might give you a general idea of some of the limits. He says somewhere in the 3rd Critique that while art can portray the ugly, it cannot portray the grotesque (or something like that). The idea is that there are limits to what art can portray, and this seems to me to be right.

Interestingly, this is starting to border on what I wrote my MA thesis on. Of course, I can't just post that here. But the basic idea is an argument against transgression in the arts. In the essay, this idea is applied mostly to literature, but I suspect that the same arguments apply to art as we're talking about it here. The argument goes that art, in trying to trangress bourgeois custom, ends up feeding into this custom, by giving the bourgeois something to define itself against. By contrast, art which self-consciously affirms the bourgeoisie cannot be appropriated by the bourgeosie, because the bourgeosie is by definition not self-conscious. So the art which is most transgressive is art which affirms the bourgeosie.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

cellophanedeity

Asaris, I've read the Kant (I'm assuming you're referring to "The Analytic of the Beautiful") and I quite understand the jargon. I'm a soon to be ex-philosophy specialist.

I don't think Kant quite deals with the question of whether Art is able to have a clear and precise definition, unless I'm mistaken.

TheObserver

If art cannot be defined then it's a meaningless word is all. the question can art be defined is pointless... you must rather ask does art have a standard definition. Definitions are pretty much meaningless.. definitions are made up. All words are all labels, and whatever they're labeling is it's definition.

However my definition of art would be expression of notions. So whenever things are used in that way it's an art. It could be an attempt at beauty, at conveying ideals... whatever...

P.S. the reason that if the word art can't be defined then it's meaningless is because then everything could be art... or nothing... it would be meaningless to call something...

also the reason why the question can art be defined is pointless....

Because to understand that question precludes understanding that art already has a definition. Because once you use the word art in the question in that way, people have to have a definition for art, to know whether it can be defined.. but since you're question is asking whether it can be defined... to understand the question means that there is no need to ask it. Do you follow that, it's kind of trixie. Basically if you can understand what you're question is trying to ask then you shouldnt' ask that question... It's kind of like this:

can the word art be defined.....

Well they already have to define it in their heads as they read in order to udnerstand the question.. so if you can understand the question then there is no need to ask it... because the answer is yes....

Which is why it's better to ask.

How would you define art, or what is the core definition of the word art, etc... blah blah.. ask that...

duckznutz

Why is everyone getting tied up in knots about this? The definition of Art is simply anything that is designed to alter your emotional or spiritual state . . . . . to 'move' you.

The definition of 'good' art versus 'bad' art is a different question.

__________________
Where your talents and the needs of the world cross . . there lies your vocation.

rlbond86

The first thing that comes to mind is...

art is all that is subjective.
It might not all be good art though.

Tachion

Art is something that was created or labeled with the intent of being recognized as a piece of art.

That is why a white canvus is just a canvus until someone says it was his intent it should be art.
Thats why a soup can label is not art until someones makes it with the intent of it being art.

martinguerre

roach...it is interesting to note the intersection of class in this question. namely, in what free time does a person aquire the culturation that impresses a heuristic of "art or not"?

at the same time...almost every culture i can think of devotes substantial resources to art, as long as they somewhat exceed subsistance level.

Hmm.

__________________
For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

Sgoilear

I think that art can be defined as anything that evokes an emotional reaction.
In the case of much modern art the reaction that it invokes in me is typically disgust or anger which may or may not be the reaction that the artist intends.

__________________
"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." -George Bernard Shaw

Enrico_Gruen

As a new user to the forum, I've found myself darting around looking for a a thread that really caught my attention as a way to dive into the process. This is definately the one.

My last year of high school (lo the many years ago) in creative writing class, we started a debate on the nature of art. This debate, which was only intended to go one period, ended up lasting almost the entire semester, becoming quite heated at times. At about the midway point of the term, I have a revelation about the nature of art. It was not generally accepted.

I argued that "art" could very well be the word that describes a person's emotional reaction to a thing. Their indescribable, intense emotional response could in itself be the art, thus allowing the thing to be simply a thing. To me this only seemed fair, as asking an inanimate object to be something so much greater than the sum of it's part seemed rather unfair; worse still was the reality that placing so much stake in something that was only every going to be it...was likely a recipe for disappointment.

There's evidence of this everywhere...how many of us were truly impressed by the Mona Lisa when we saw it for the first time. It's smaller than we expect, and protected by a railing and dark glass. How many of us have gone to visit famous works of art expecting them (the things) to impart some reaction onto us...the feeling of being in the presence of great art.

Compare that example to the number of times you stood in total awe of a sunrise. If you're like me (spritual, but not religious) you might have marvelled at the natural art. We know the sunrise will come, just as we know the Mona Lisa is in the Louvre. Why does one impress us so frequently when the other perhaps does not?

It could be because we don't see nature as art (in the same sense as a symphony) and therefore don't expect it to conjure the same level of emotional reaction. Or it could be (and this is where is start to come together) that we feel that we are integral to nature, in exactly the same way that we can feel distant from a painting? It is only then that we realize that we are, in fact, the art. The response starts with us, allows us a connection with a thing, thus permitting emotional communication (if you will).

Food for thought and something I hadn't really thought about in a long time. Look forward to seeing it through.

__________________
Enrico Gruen

“Any 20 year-old who isn't a liberal doesn't have a heart, and any 40 year-old who isn't a conservative doesn't have a brain.”
- Winston Churchill

asaris

Well (and this is just off the cuff), but it seems clear that there is some relation between 'natural beauty' and 'artificial beauty'. That is, we value art that reminds us of the beauty of nature. But we should probably also distinguish between the two. There are things we value in art that we wouldn't value in nature (for example, a nice turn of phrase in a poem probably doesn't have a counterpart in the natural world).

But it seems important to art that it be capable of inspiring what you refer to as an emotional reaction, and what Kant calls 'free play of the imagination'. Art, at least good art, should awake some activity of our minds, but not be designed to provoke a specific reaction (the latter would be propaganda). I'm reluctant to say that this is a 'definition' of art, since it's certainly subjective in nature, but it seems like a good way to distinguish good art from bad art.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

MexicanOnABike

i havent read all the posts...but yes, it can be defined. most of the things that are said to be art, usualy are and i thought that everything was till last week.

our 3d animation teacher showed us a guy who does random morphs on random pictures. (imagine the smudge tool or liquify tool in photoshop on random paintings with newage music playing) that's all it is and he gets money for this. it's complete crap. everyone knows it's crap... i'm sure that even he knows it sucks. so is that art? i say no. applying a filter in photoshop doesnt make it art. theres gotta be something more complex than that for it to be art.

xepherys

Art, much like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder alone.

duckznutz

mexicanonabike, it IS art . .. its just crap art. In much the same way that you can eat paper . . . so paper therefore 'food' . . but its not steak with pepper sauce and fries and a beer.

__________________
Where your talents and the needs of the world cross . . there lies your vocation.

MexicanOnABike

i dont like the way everything is art because someone says it is. theres a fine line between crap and art... and everyone should see what makes it art before calling it ART.

like: this painting represents ............. . ........................... so it is art.

and: this is just the cloud filter from photoshop. so it's not art.

asaris

Can't we just say that it's art, but very, very bad art?

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

MexicanOnABike

very "to infinite" bad art. ok. i agree.

d*d

Actually you could print it frame it and call it Art.

my attempt

Art... you can label anything that has been created in some way by the the inteference of a person 'art', urinals, carrier bags, sheds - can all be taken out of their context as held up as a piece of art because they have at some point been created by a person, this leaves a huge scope for classification and what becomes artistic merit depends on either the technical difficulty or talent in creating the object or the statements made by the use of and juxtaposition of objects.

The Value of art is a strange concept and is built up by those pertaining to be critics who tell us what deserves more merit, when this really is a decision we should all make ourselves - much easier to let someone else tell you though.

tecoyah

Art is that part of the human mind that the senses use for emotion. It is not something outside ourselves....Art is a piece of YOU.

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

roachboy

i dont see why folk want to link art to emotion exclusively...it seems to trivialize the undertaking (making stuff or "art") by limiting any possibility of other motives.
nor do i see how this kind of equation (art-space for the expression of emotion) functions as a definition.
it seems like an attribute of subjective relations to objects that are designated "art"...in other words, emotion is something individuals associate with "art"....

say one were to take this definition seriously, however: not all work that traffics in emotion gets designated as "art", yes?
and there is no essence to a work that is called art that makes it inevitable that it be understood as such, yes? lots of stuff that traffics in emotion--hallmark cards, posters carried by operation rescue types, political graphics, etc.--are not often understood as art, and when they are, you usually find the choice accompanied by large rationales for it, most of which are historical in nature (x becomes an exemplary graphic for particular types of political action at a particular time, for example)...

art is what the holders of cultural power say it is.
it is what you encounter in spaces that are designated as containers for this type of object.

side note: i do alot of piano music--it is understood by most of my comrades as being difficult--but when things are working, the music is also kind of mind-altering (so ia m told at least--i cant really judge this kind of thing--my reactions are my reactions and are conditioned by being in on making the stuff but not really rememebring much about the performance)...if at some point, my music were to get designated art, i would find the evaluation arbitrary--it would say nothing about the processes involved, nothing about my relation to them, nothing about performance, nothing about anything, really.
it would shift people's relation to it, and to me, but i am not at all convinced that these sifts would be good.
on the other hand, i would be pleased, in all probability, because it would become easier to get money to continue.
and that is about all there is in it.

one of my favorite quotes: poetics is to poetry as ornithology is to birds.
poetics here stands in for systems of classification of works.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Valentina

This is so simplistic, but I think it may be true. (Because, as some have pointed out, we are not here attempting to define "good art," but only "art.") I also kind of like the "expression of an intangible idea through a tangible medium" definition.

I don't think we can say that anything that "moves you", or "inspires emotion" or "promotes the free exchange of ideas" is art--because too many non-art objects would meet these criteria (e.g. a massive redwood tree, an arresting rock formation, the mating behavior of a bird-of-paradise, etc, etc...)

The difference is intent--and specifically, intent to create art, which is most likely a uniquely human motivation.

But consider the bowerbird. Male bowerbirds (there are several different species in the family) create large, elaborate structures from natural materials for the sole purpose of attracting a mate. They then decorate these structures with various objects (both natural and man-made, depending on what's available. Some species favor blue. Others collect only white objects, and still others will decorate the entrance to the bower with a rainbow of natural objects, in small piles grouped carefully by color). The bowers of some species are incredibly beautiful, obviously require considerable skill to create, and call to mind the artwork of Andy Goldsworthy.

But are they art? If "intent to create art" or "intent to express some intangible idea" is the proper definition, then I guess bowers are not art. But they sure are both beautiful and thought-provoking!

Can non-humans create art? Check out this link for a few photos, and a discussion of the question:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bowerbirds/art.html

roachboy

how can you talk coherently about intent?
particularly given that traditional aesthetic theory defines the artwork as complete in itself, something encountered already in place, severed from the processes that went into fabrication, seperate from the artist----who is reduced to a floating proper name the "meaning" of which is filled in via the various classifying activities of critics/art historians etc etc. these "meanings" are inevitably a function of other classifications: the prevailing ideology of artistic production, the tradition or school into which the piece or artist has been placed---this (scarcely outlined) relation to artworks is the source of the illusion that there is something different in kind about an artwork that distinguishes it from other types of fabricated objects---once this ideology collapsed (and it has in various quarters, tho perhaps not amongst the public at large--but then again, who knows what this abstraction might think? it is legion) you began to see arguments from/about intent.

how do you know intent?
have you tried to approach making things in this way: declaring TODAY I SHALL MAKE ART and not laughing afterward?
even if you were to ask the person who fabricated an object, would you anticipate a full or even useful account of intent?
wouldnt the responses vary wildly medium to medium. artist to artist--to the point where the category itself would become something that could be interesting in aiding interpretation of the meanings ascribed to the work itself, but impossible to rely upon to distinguish art from other types of fabricated objects?

i ahve been fascinated by the bauhaus for a long time--it'd be a good thing if a new bauhaus were conjured into existence i think--it'd be a great place to be, to teach at,etc.---anyway one of the central aspects of the bauhaus approach was more or less the following: when you are engaged in making things, you focus mostly on craft. why? because you can.. sometimes, you will find that craft relation opens onto something beyond itself. the results of this could be art.

at a lesser, personal level: when i practice i focus on technique, but technique is not an end--it is just something i can focus on. i find it endlessly interesting, working out various ways to carve up mentally the enormous abstract space that is a piano keyboard, to work on adjusting my vision and ways of thinking to accomodate higher levels of complexity/simultaneous voices, etc. but the whole relation is predicated on another, which is hopelessly vague (openness, stillness), is linked to a kind of meditative or ritual space. the space that presents the possibility of going beyond this craft relation (practice) into something else is performance--but the curious thing is that when i hear the recording back of a performance, it is the first timei have much in the wya of conscious understanding of what happened in performance, and the interaction of levels of engagement is far too complex for me to sort out,so i do not try. this also creates the problem of not being able to really judge my own work. but i suspect that many folk share this limitation.

the point is that intent is so murky as to be almost arbitrary.



i also do not see why folk would want to link art directly to emotion either: this seems to radically limit what a piece can do. such an emphasis would wipe out most of the space in which conceptual art works, for example: you would not be able ot raise questions about the nature of art or the character and implications of political ideology or make statements about the problematic status of this fiction folk refer to as "reality" if all that art could do was cycle through emotions.
such a position also seems to downplay the role of sublimation--that is the indirect expression of---say--emotional contents.
the curious thing is that this notion of art as a medium for the expression of emotion runs directly counter to what many artists have said about the space from whcih they work: many are very still inwardly when they work--detached, analytic---focussed, engaged in a practical relation with the medium that does not conform to the criteria for interacting with the world that traditional epistemology has come to validate (i was reading a description by ad reinhardt last night of the state from which he painted that triggered this response--there are many many others who have talked about process in a parallel way)....for many, particularly modernists and after) art is as much a philosophical undertaking (i.e. paul klee, kandinsky, john cage, etc etc) as it is a space to work through emotional matters.

at best, you could say that, for many people who engage with a medium in a creative way, the expression of emotion is important.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Valentina

Let me begin with the disclaimer that I know almost nothing about art, aesthetics, or philosophy. So this definition is news to me. It's interesting, though. I like how it opens up the possibility that bowers could, indeed, be "art."

I may not know anything about philosophy, but I do know a number of people who consider themselves "artists."

C'mon, let's be honest here: People who create "art" (as most people understand it) generally do so with the express intention of creating art. They work hard to become better at their art form, no matter what it is. The stuff that hangs in museums wasn't created by people who just randomly picked up a brush one day and "accidentally" created an important painting with absolutely no intent do realize an artistic vision (i.e. to create art), even if they were not quite pompous enough to utter the phrase "Today I shall make art."

In many cases, yes. Sure, the responses would vary with medium. So what? The common denominator in most cases would be that the object (or performance) was created in order to convey some creative vision, some idea, some feeling. All the interviews I've read in which assorted painters, sculptors, choreographers, poets, composers, filmmakers, and other creative souls have discussed their work would seem to corroborate this notion.

Am I crazy to think this? Like I said, I know very little about this subject. Please enlighten me if I'm way off track, or missing some big part of the picture here.

Hm. Well, I sort of think that whether you consciously say to yourself, "Today I am going to create art" or "Today I will work on perfecting my craft" is really just a matter of semantics. The latter is, I agree, a more common conscious thought among artists, but the ultimate goal of "perfecting one's craft" is, in many cases, to create art. I was thinking more about visual art when I made the statements about intent, though.

Maybe the medium does make a difference though: I'm not sure I'd categorize a masterful novel or a finely crafted short story as "art." (Would anyone?) I'd say they were the creations of a writer who had mastered the craft of writing. And I know that the clumsy, plodding short stories produced by many aspiring but untalented writers are definitely not art, no matter what the intent of the creator!

I've studied dance pretty seriously. But I don't think dancers are "artists" in the same way that choreographers are. Choreographers generally do have the intent to create "art"--in this case, that usually means a series of movements that expresses/provokes some idea or emotion. Same with musicians vs. composers/songwriters. In both cases, one is an artist and the other more a craftsperson. Does that make any sense at all? Maybe I'm wrong...Just because you're interpreting someone else's creation doesn't necessarily mean that you aren't also trying to convey your own artistic vision...Or does it?

Not surprisingly, I've also argued the question of whether or not stripping can--at least in some cases--be considered 'art'. I'm undecided on that one, but I think intent might come into play.


So, roachboy, I'm curious: Feeling as you do about intent, do you believe that non-humans can create art? Would you classify bowerbirds' bowers as art?

roachboy

interesting, valentina: first let me say that sometimes i find my tone is far more severe in posts than i had any idea was the case when i was writing them. i might write something as a way of goofing around only to find that when i look at it later all that goofing around stuff has gone away, disappeared, ffft....i dont think there is much to be done about it (cant bring myself to use those goofy emoticons--they annoy me--cant do it...) so there we are.

it's not that i think intention unimportant--i just dont think you can know about it really. so i dont see how it can function as a criterion for defining art vs. non-art. it seems to me a speculative category. for example [[putting side questions that might arise about what i am doing]] i dont really know what my intent is when i do music. it is more a way of thinking in itself than it is an object that i can have a relation toward. and i dont approach playing with specific motives (if i can avoid it) beyond constraints that might be in play (compositional or situational, it comes to the same thing)--but then again, the medium i work in is particular, as they all are--but it is the one i know about, so if i am going to ry to talk about this kind of question, i have to refer to it (you cant see me cringing about this. you can fill in the cringe-image of your choice and so make this more performantive-like)

things get more complicated when you move to trying to figure out what a given work might "mean"--usually people try to revert to infotainment about the biography of the person who made the piece to explain something about it--and i think that this kind of information does explain some things--but not everything--and so biography is not the ultimate context.

if by intent you mean motivation to be engaged with a process at all, i still dont know...people engage with a craft/art process for all kinds of reasons--maybe an escape from the drudgery of everyday life, a way of feeling for a while llike they get out of themselves, dissolve their bodies or connect with their bodies--for me it playing music is as much a meditation practice as anything else--so even at this level, i dont see a particular kind of intent operating--more a wide band of motives with no way to choose between them. maybe some folk get involved with making stuff because it operates for them as a mode of social distinction--maybe it is a political thing---maybe it is a function of a kind of immediate affinity with an instrument or medium....all are possible, all would be legit, and i cant see how to move from even this description of possible motivations to a coherent type of motivation that may unite them, such that you could use it to define art.

i guess you could hypothetically make a list and compare the elements and derive commonalities that way--but the results would be the result of induction---you wouldnt be able to say anything on that basis about how anyone might be motivated to engage with making things.

the way we are coming at this question is a bit funny because of the question posed in the op: so the discussion keeps getting pulled toward the question of defining art. i dont think there is anything essential about a piece/work that makes it art--i think it is a social distinction. if you were to see, say, karen findley who may do a strip act in a performance art context, is it art or no? posing that question would seem to me part of the point. and it is only interesting because the question is open. and remains open.

i got to run--the animals making art thing could be interesting, but i need more time to think/write anything about it.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

duckznutz

You might not like it, but its still true. If someone says its art it is therefore art to THEM. It may not be art to YOU. Everyone is getting tied up in knots trying to pin this down with words. At the extreme edges of the world odf art (when it becomes debatable whether or not something IS art) then just accept that something can be art to one person (ie it was designed to move them and it does), and NOT art to someone else. There is no higher authority outside of yourself to decide this.

__________________
Where your talents and the needs of the world cross . . there lies your vocation.