What is Art?

[LuckyR]

(Nested quote removed.)


Very true, though the basis for what you quoted from me is that to me art appreciation is in the audience (viewing side) not the artist (or the production side)

There is no art for audience to be appreciated unless there are artists appreciating art and their own work. Audience of art and artist are not mutually exclusive.

Artists generally trash their own work if they do not appreciate it themselves first. Artist and audience are both, in effect, the audience of the same work.

An artist is always criticizing/critiquing his production and process. An audience critiques and criticizes the product of the artist's process (and also, therefore, the material outcome of the artist's self critique).

Also, the artist very often utilizes or uses feedback from his work's audience toward his ongoing creative processes.

Art work generally taps into the degree with which an audience is themselves creative - an audience's own creativity or potential creativity (the creativity to find their own story within a work - "it speaks to me").

The art form is a conversation between each of these two players.

As to the subject of 'the depth of (the artist's) soul' in his work, this too is as subjective as any other form of analysis as to levels of appreciation in an audience. For example, I happen to think Pollock's art is crap. So, to me, the 'depth of his soul' that I see in his paintings would be one of a shallow depth.

I am therefore not feeling much appreciation for an expression of a shallow depth of soul which I perceive to be the case in a painting by Pollock.

I agree with your points as stated. The artist is both audience (classically the first audience member) and artist. Thus the individual human artist is not excluded from being an extremely important member of the "viewing side". However they are unique in being the entirety of the "production side".

[Grunth]

(Nested quote removed.)

There is no art for audience to be appreciated unless there are artists appreciating art and their own work. Audience of art and artist are not mutually exclusive.

Artists generally trash their own work if they do not appreciate it themselves first. Artist and audience are both, in effect, the audience of the same work.

An artist is always criticizing/critiquing his production and process. An audience critiques and criticizes the product of the artist's process (and also, therefore, the material outcome of the artist's self critique).

Also, the artist very often utilizes or uses feedback from his work's audience toward his ongoing creative processes.

Art work generally taps into the degree with which an audience is themselves creative - an audience's own creativity or potential creativity (the creativity to find their own story within a work - "it speaks to me").

The art form is a conversation between each of these two players.

As to the subject of 'the depth of (the artist's) soul' in his work, this too is as subjective as any other form of analysis as to levels of appreciation in an audience. For example, I happen to think Pollock's art is crap. So, to me, the 'depth of his soul' that I see in his paintings would be one of a shallow depth.

I am therefore not feeling much appreciation for an expression of a shallow depth of soul which I perceive to be the case in a painting by Pollock.

I agree with your points as stated. The artist is both audience (classically the first audience member) and artist. Thus the individual human artist is not excluded from being an extremely important member of the "viewing side". However they are unique in being the entirety of the "production side".

As long as their are individuals there are variables. Just as each audience member could have a completely different take on an art piece.

[Platos stepchild]

Art is the attempt to wrestle-the-clock, and to pluck a single moment out of the sequence of time, honing it into something timeless. Not all such attempts manage to become art; but, no attempt becomes art without the artist desperately wrestling the clock, taking it's hands in his and straining their gears into locked place. And while the inexorable tick of those gears is temporarily stymied, the artist hones his straining in open defiance of the terrible ticking, denying it a stolen moment, and calling it art.

[Grunth]

Art is the attempt to wrestle-the-clock, and to pluck a single moment out of the sequence of time, honing it into something timeless. Not all such attempts manage to become art; but, no attempt becomes art without the artist desperately wrestling the clock, taking it's hands in his and straining their gears into locked place. And while the inexorable tick of those gears is temporarily stymied, the artist hones his straining in open defiance of the terrible ticking, denying it a stolen moment, and calling it art.

That is a great image. I would like to see that in a physical form.

[LuckyR]

(Nested quote removed.)


I agree with your points as stated. The artist is both audience (classically the first audience member) and artist. Thus the individual human artist is not excluded from being an extremely important member of the "viewing side". However they are unique in being the entirety of the "production side".

As long as their are individuals there are variables. Just as each audience member could have a completely different take on an art piece.

Exactly, thus the answer to the OP varies by audience member.

[Spraticus]

The question raises a huge number of other questions. It asks for a definition but requires the use of words which themselves require definition; what is beauty, aesthetics, creativity, communication,etc., never mind all the greeting card waffle about souls and inner depths which require, not just definition but evidence for their existence.


As I see it, a large part of the problem has come about because of the malign influence of the Victorian romantics who changed the word from referring to artisans and artisanship, and attached a great cloud of vague emotional baggage to it. If we think of it as just covering the various skills in making things aimed at communicating ideas and feelings, we can then concentrate on how effectively the work does what it intends. Many people have problems with much of "modern art" because they don't understand what it is trying to communicate, or the methods it is using. This difficulty is added to by the undoubted fact that there is a lot of bad art around. (There always was but the old bad art has had time to disappear).


If you can listen in to artist talking among themselves, when the conversation isn't about beer or something else, you will find that much of the art talk is about how people have done things, and the kinds of ideas they are trying to convey; it won't be about agonies of the soul or any other Hollywood nonsense. Standing up close to works at the fabulous Edinburgh Festival show in 2016 I spent a lot of time looking at brush marks and wondering at how the artists had achieved their effects; as much time as I spent further back looking at the over-all picture. The subject matter, on the whole, was landscape, and therefore superficially easy to understand, but there was social comment in the choice of subject that you need art historical knowledge to get. The emotional/aesthetic response to the work is real but very hard to define and even harder to understand in terms of neuro-psychology. There have been attempts by experimental psychologists to examine aesthetics but so far they have achieved very little. The fact that a mathematical proof and a great work of art can produce the same response of elation and wonder suggests that it is a very generalised phenomenon and not simply limited to a few forms "creative art".

[Spraticus]

This says something about the relationship between the artist, the audience and the work, but it says nothing about the question asked; what is art?

[Spraticus]

(Nested quote removed.)

As long as their are individuals there are variables. Just as each audience member could have a completely different take on an art piece.

Exactly, thus the answer to the OP varies by audience member.

This still does not answer the question,"what is art", it just describes some relationships that some people have with it.

[Grunth]

what is art?

Art is an exercise in subjectivity.

[Spraticus]

what is art?

Art is an exercise in subjectivity.

Everything is subjective, in the solipsistic sense; all opinions, feelings, expressions of ideas, views of the world, etc., so we are not any further forward. The concept of art that we are asked to define needs to have some sort of existence outside of the individual or it's not worth discussing. There need to be some features of the phenomenon that allow us to identify it, which is why so many of the effusions so far are pointless. I prefer to go back to what art was when the idea first appeared, artisanship; an artist was an artisan. The romantic nonsense of tortured souls came much later with the Victorians and then Hollywood. (Some artists have obviously been troubled people but most haven't)

Think in terms of how well the artisan is creating their object or event and all the rest becomes superfluous. Ask what they are trying to achieve, where it fits into the world and how well it is done or how beautiful it is. Each of these questions will of course raise others, but the result will be an understanding of what art is.

[LuckyR]

(Nested quote removed.)



Exactly, thus the answer to the OP varies by audience member.

This still does not answer the question,"what is art", it just describes some relationships that some people have with it.

It does in the sense that to me, art is in the eye of the beholder. Each of us get to (legitimately) make our own definition. This definition can be a common one that others may agree with or it can be avant garde and confusing to all but the individual who dreamt it up.

[Spraticus]

That empties the word of all meaning. I prefer not to think that words mean whatever I want. I prefer to think it is a good thing that the person I am talking to has a chance of understanding me.

Meaning is obviously a highly debated subject in it's own right, but using the word in the common everyday sense, it should be possible to have a meaning for the word "art" that people can agree on. It doesn't mean the noise a horse makes when it eats, or the colour of an object; it refers to a specific set of human behaviours, and as far as I can see the question is asking us to attempt to define those behaviours.

[Spraticus]

As a second thought it seems to me that what you are talking about is individual schools of art, rather than art in general?

[Grunth]

(Nested quote removed.)

Art is an exercise in subjectivity.

Everything is subjective, in the solipsistic sense; all opinions, feelings, expressions of ideas, views of the world, etc., so we are not any further forward. The concept of art that we are asked to define needs to have some sort of existence outside of the individual or it's not worth discussing. There need to be some features of the phenomenon that allow us to identify it, which is why so many of the effusions so far are pointless. I prefer to go back to what art was when the idea first appeared, artisanship; an artist was an artisan. The romantic nonsense of tortured souls came much later with the Victorians and then Hollywood. (Some artists have obviously been troubled people but most haven't)

Think in terms of how well the artisan is creating their object or event and all the rest becomes superfluous. Ask what they are trying to achieve, where it fits into the world and how well it is done or how beautiful it is. Each of these questions will of course raise others, but the result will be an understanding of what art is.

Not any further forward from........conversation?

Art, being a practice in subjectivity, makes it therefore a conversation. Some may consider it a 'high' form of conversation, but of course, that too being subjective, merely continues the conversation.

The furthermost one may get from conversation is, I suppose, isolation. So, in effect, we are 'not any further forward' towards isolation.......which is probably ok.

[LuckyR]

As a second thought it seems to me that what you are talking about is individual schools of art, rather than art in general?

I guess you may be right. I admit I wasn't thinking of it that way though. If I am the very first punk rocker or the first rapper, I may be dismissed by the authorities of the day as not-art. Yet 5 years later I may be a gold record holder.