What is art?

[Fnord]

... Do you feel anything off it?

A sense of serenity within the midst of chaos, as the smiling Chines girl makes her way through the sheltering mulberry grove during a windstorm.

How's that?

 

[BillyJoe]

Yeah. Ugly art.

You are referring to the Jackson Pollock?

Considering that it looks like a 3 year-old threw a bunch of paint buckets on a canvas, I'm not sure how you can feel anything off it.

I defy you to randomly throw buckets of paint onto a canvas to achieve a result similar to the Jackson Pollock.
Some people are taken in by art hoaxes.
But some people are taken in by those who've mistaken the real thing for a hoax.

How about this:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_60804cd3e34a28ddb.jpg
I made that with MSPaint in about 2 minutes. Do you feel anything off it ?

The reds are too finely distributed and the blues over-represented. Worse still are the curved pink lines. They are clearly unbalanced. And that white slash is absolute rubbish.

 

[BillyJoe]

I would say that Art is any imitation of nature that provokes an emotional reaction in the viewers.

There is also art that can be appreciated on the intellectual level.

Look Billy, I understand you really don't like the idea of Cage's work being art and personally, I find that one work of his is a load of BS too, but of course it's been performed many times!
I'm not sure the impact is lost after the punch line is revealed. But regardless, I think that your attempt at diminishing other people's experience with that work (or other works you don't like) by claiming it is inferior to a Mona Lisa is nothing else but projection on your part. The raw truth is you simply hate the idea that a work like that can be considered art. I however think that Cage was at least smart enough to maybe push the line and see if people would appreciate a work that consists in nothing but a big tacet (which means silence). If you watch Cage interviews you will see he's not kidding when he asserts that silence and street noises are sounds that to him are as musical and even more musical than a Beethoven Symphony. I personally don't agree with this feeling and I'm sure neither do you, but it is as valid to him as my personal feelings are to me. So I don't go around and say "That is not art". No. What I say is "That art is not for me". And you should try that too.

This sounds dangerously close to post-modernism to me.
Let's get real here:
There is no comparison between 4:33 and the Mona Lisa.
There is no comparison between street noises and A Beethoven symphony.

 

[jiggeryqua]

There is no comparison between 4:33 and the Mona Lisa.

Indeed. Cage's work is a realisation of the impossibility of silence, a high concept piece of deceptive simplicity that places the audience at the heart of the work. The Mona Lisa is an unremarkable portrait by a competent dauber. There is a comparison between the Mona Lisa and a velvet elvis.

There is no comparison between street noises and A Beethoven symphony.

Quite so. Street noises are live, vibrant, ever-changing, the language of life, the beauty of being and the poetry of the population. A Beethoven symphony is a manipulation of emotion, a laboured appeal to primitive responses. There is a comparison between a Beethoven symphony and a cola advert.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Well, then, it seems that pretty well anything can be considered art.

The only proviso seems to be that it must elicit a response. Any response, be emotional or intellectual. And it only needs to elicit a response in one person. However, there does not need to be intent. So even accidental art is acceptable. Any scene in nature can be art. Any accidental object can be art.

So I guess what we are really asking is: By what criteria does the art community determine what art deserves special praise by being displayed in art houses and museums? And, for that matter, what crtieria defines an art community.

Now you're asking the pertinent questions. And these questions are complex and hard to address. they require deep studies of the social psychology of communities, how they evolve and how their culture dictates what constitutes beauty and what doesn't. These values are constantly changing. Just to mention an example, there used to be a time when chubby girls were considered "hot" in the Christina Aguilera sense. It was only centuries later that women were considered hot if they were slim, and the thinner the better. But there are paintings dating from centuries ago (I don't know exactly when) where the women were portrayed fat, because that was the esthetical value of the time.

Also, there used to be a time when men who danced wore tights and this is how they were portrayed (Such as the Sun King). While back then, this image projected virility and style, today the same image would be considered gay and non masculine.

But also, your question stresses what I said before: That while it is true and valid that there is an individual art appreciation which is unique to each individual person, that art is ultimately a cultural phenomenon in the same lines as fashion and religion, and that their memes are shaped by social psychology. The psychology of the masses.

I guess it's the asnwers to those questions that can never be agreed upon.

The answers to the questions can be agreed upon. What can't be agreed upon is the individual tastes. In other words, we can all agree that art ranges very different tastes. What we can't agree upon is the tastes themselves as each one of us perceives them (You will still like certain art forms and hate others, while other people will feel differently)

There is also art that can be appreciated on the intellectual level.

Yes, agreed.

This sounds dangerously close to post-modernism to me.
Let's get real here:
There is no comparison between 4:33 and the Mona Lisa.
There is no comparison between street noises and A Beethoven symphony.

What exactly do you mean by "no comparison" though? Of course they are very different things. That's not what I'm arguing. What I'm arguing is your insistence on claiming that one is superior to the other, which is only your individual, subjective perception.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Indeed. Cage's work is a realisation of the impossibility of silence, a high concept piece of deceptive simplicity that places the audience at the heart of the work. The Mona Lisa is an unremarkable portrait by a competent dauber. There is a comparison between the Mona Lisa and a velvet elvis.



Quite so. Street noises are live, vibrant, ever-changing, the language of life, the beauty of being and the poetry of the population. A Beethoven symphony is a manipulation of emotion, a laboured appeal to primitive responses. There is a comparison between a Beethoven symphony and a cola advert.

You've just proven that any description of art as a body of knowledge or meaningful intellectual pursuit is fully vacuous. It's ridiculous that anyone would want to give their life to such offal.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Considering that it looks like a 3 year-old threw a bunch of paint buckets on a canvas, I'm not sure how you can feel anything off it.

(Again the personal opinion used as if other people's opinions didn't also count)

That you personally can't see how someone would feel anything for it, doesn't change the fact that other people do feel things for it.

In other words, do you realize that what you said can be said verbatim by someone else regarding a piece of art that you have very strong feelings about?

How about this:

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_60804cd3e34a28ddb.jpg[/qimg]

I made that with MSPaint in about 2 minutes. Do you feel anything off it ?

For your argument to be taken seriously, we would first need to take your painting and ask every single human being in the world if any of them feels anything about it.

Now, lets assume that we do that and that there isn't a single soul in the surface of the planet who feels anything for your work (Which you should be glad to know it is highly unlikely. But for the sake of the argument, lets assume that that happens)

What does that prove about other Pollock's work or other people's work in similar styles? Nothing. Because yes, your work may be somehow "similar" to the Pollock example... but it's not Pollock. You may have very personal feelings about the fact that to you it looks like some 3 year old threw a bunch of paintings randomly, but that's not what happened. It was not a 3 year old who just randomly threw a bunch of colors on a canvas, and thus the result isn't the same. Regardless of all, your personal example is no proof against Pollock's work and it doesn't change the fact that a lot of people are moved by Pollock and that Pollock has an audience that considers his works art, in the same way that you belong to an audience of people who consider other people's works art (insert any example of anything Belz considers art)

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

That's because the museum is interested in storing aesthetic objects, not just art objects. An object may not have been conceived as art, but the curator sees that the object has beauty (or some other aesthetic) and wants to exhibit that item. The curator's selection and exhibition of the object is itself art, but the original object is not.

Go to a museum and ask them if they made that differentiation you just made up. Ask them if they have cataloged/separated their art works by "Art" and "Strong aesthetic objects".

And let me know what they tell you.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Go to a museum and ask them if they made that differentiation you just made up. Ask them if they have cataloged/separated their art works by "Art" and "Strong aesthetic objects".

Saying "your definition of art is not in all circumstances identical with the way the term is used today" would have been quicker, and I would have agreed with you.
Art museums aren't displaying art; they're displaying aesthetic objects. There's simply a significant overlap between the two.

 

[jiggeryqua]

You've just proven that any description of art as a body of knowledge or meaningful intellectual pursuit is fully vacuous.

It was a proof? Show my workings. Not that I'm aware of anyone claiming it was a body of knowledge, or that being aware of art is a meaningful intellectual pursuit (though the study of art is and the making of it may be, insomuch as any intellectual pursuit is 'meaningful'). Oh, and what do you have against vacuity?

It's ridiculous that anyone would want to give their life to such offal.

No, it would be ridiculous if you did that - you think it's offal. Mostly we're in it for the girls, by the way.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Saying "your definition of art is not in all circumstances identical with the way the term is used today" would have been quicker, and I would have agreed with you.
Art museums aren't displaying art; they're displaying aesthetic objects. There's simply a significant overlap between the two.

You're basically disagreeing that some of the things that museums display as art, is art. On this, some people will agree with you and others won't. But this isn't news. Art is not an objective construct and thus it is never seen identically by two people. What you qualify as "not art" other's don't and viceversa.

Going back to the original topic, you personally believe that all art has to have an intent for it to be art. But that doesn't change the fact that many artists create art with no specific purpose (In fact, the purposes for which one creates art can be many). And that for someone to feel moved by an object, it is irrelevant whether such creation had an intent behind or if the artist was "just venting".

 

[BillyJoe]

I'm having difficulty finding time to keep responding to this thread but, Ron, I'm beginning to understand where you're coming from.

 

[Belz...]

A sense of serenity within the midst of chaos, as the smiling Chines girl makes her way through the sheltering mulberry grove during a windstorm.

How's that?

Made up.

 

[Belz...]

I defy you to randomly throw buckets of paint onto a canvas to achieve a result similar to the Jackson Pollock.

Did you not see the MSPaint picture I linked ? Pretty much the same style of stuff. Yeah, art, but ugly art that represents nothing at all.

The reds are too finely distributed and the blues over-represented. Worse still are the curved pink lines. They are clearly unbalanced. And that white slash is absolute rubbish.

Oh, you did see it. Odd.

Anyway, maybe the distribution of the colours IS the point of the picture I linked !!

That's why I hate abstract art. It means nothing except what you make up as you go along. In my opinion, art should represent something.

 

[Belz...]

(Again the personal opinion used as if other people's opinions didn't also count)

That's funny. Where did I say or imply this ?

That you personally can't see how someone would feel anything for it, doesn't change the fact that other people do feel things for it.

In other words, do you realize that what you said can be said verbatim by someone else regarding a piece of art that you have very strong feelings about?

Ah, but in your post you highlight a very subtle distinction between what was said and what you're answering to. "Feeling off" and "feeling FOR" are very different. You can feel strongly for pretty much anything. But a bunch of random lines doesn't communicate much emotion, per se. It's all in the interpretation.

For your argument to be taken seriously

...it would first have to be an argument, yes.

we would first need to take your painting and ask every single human being in the world if any of them feels anything about it.

No. I'm simply illustrating that such a work of "art" has no intrinsic emotional value. You have to make it up as you go. It's easier to make a case for emotional value if something represents, for instance, a real thing.

It was not a 3 year old who just randomly threw a bunch of colors on a canvas, and thus the result isn't the same.

Actually, it looks very similar to me. If a 3 year old produced that crap I wouldn't encourage him/her to continue down that path. That an adult produced this and decided it was a finished piece of art is... troubling. Hey, whatever works for him !

Regardless of all, your personal example is no proof against Pollock's work

Proof against Pollock's work... that makes no sense, whatsoever. How can you disprove a work of art ?

and it doesn't change the fact that a lot of people are moved by Pollock and that Pollock has an audience that considers his works art, in the same way that you belong to an audience of people who consider other people's works art (insert any example of anything Belz considers art)

Indeed, and they are quite justified in feeling whatever they are feeling. And I am justified at being completely mystified by the fact that they feel anything towards it.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

That's funny. Where did I say or imply this ?

Read on, as you continuously continue to imply this:

Ah, but in your post you highlight a very subtle distinction between what was said and what you're answering to. "Feeling off" and "feeling FOR" are very different. You can feel strongly for pretty much anything. But a bunch of random lines doesn't communicate much emotion, per se. It's all in the interpretation.

Per se???

Oh no, Belz. You realize you're using Southwind type of rhetoric now?

Of course it's all in the interpretation! That's what art is all about! Interpretation. You interpret Pollock as crap. Other people don't. Your personal feelings about a work of art are not more "valid" or "objective" than anyone else's. And yet you seem to imply there's something inherently "bad" about Pollock's art, just because you don't like it. Now you claim it is not art "per se"? I can expect this from Southwind but you?...

Your assertion that "a bunch of random lines doesn't communicate much emotion per se" is your individual perception. It's irrelevant since different people have completely different perceptions and the same bunch of lines are not random to them and they do communicate stuff to them.

No. I'm simply illustrating that such a work of "art" has no intrinsic emotional value. You have to make it up as you go. It's easier to make a case for emotional value if something represents, for instance, a real thing.

Again, that's your personal interpretation. Go tell that to the people who feel differently about Pollock's art. Then maybe you will also have someone tell you that the art that does move you, has no intrinsic emotional value to them.

Just because some works of art don't move you, doesn't make your assertion valid that such works have no intrinsic emotional value, which is a general, broad statement meant to include everyone else. This is what I'm arguing with you.

Actually, it looks very similar to me. If a 3 year old produced that crap I wouldn't encourage him/her to continue down that path. That an adult produced this and decided it was a finished piece of art is... troubling. Hey, whatever works for him !

See the parts I bolded?
Lets review once again:
Just because some works of art don't move you, doesn't make your assertion valid that such works have no intrinsic emotional value, which is a general, broad statement meant to include everyone else. This is what I'm arguing with you.

Indeed, and they are quite justified in feeling whatever they are feeling. And I am justified at being completely mystified by the fact that they feel anything towards it.

Yes. You seem to be getting it now. You're perfectly entitled to your opinion about what art moves you and what art doesn't move you. But you're not the ultimate authority on what is art. Nobody is. Anyone deciding to claim that the works of art they individually don't like, are not art, is being simply put arrogant and deluded. Individual tastes are, as the word says, individual.

 

[BillyJoe]

Did you not see the MSPaint picture I linked ? Pretty much the same style of stuff.

YOu are a legend in your own mind.

Anyway, maybe the distribution of the colours IS the point of the picture I linked !!

Then it wasn't random - as you implied of the Pollock you were allegedly mimicking.
So, fail.

That's why I hate abstract art. It means nothing except what you make up as you go along. In my opinion, art should represent something.

Well, I'll let Ron answer that one since he's already crtiicised me for the same error.
(edit: Oops, I see he already has)

 

[AvalonXQ]

Oh, and what do you have against vacuity?

My family was tragically killed by a rabid vacuum. Hence I join nature in abhoring them.

No, it would be ridiculous if you did that - you think it's offal. Mostly we're in it for the girls, by the way.

In that case, carry on.

 

[BillyJoe]

Your assertion that "a bunch of random lines doesn't communicate much emotion per se" is your individual perception. It's irrelevant since different people have completely different perceptions and the same bunch of lines are not random to them and they do communicate stuff to them.

The question of whether the Pollock is "a bunch of random lines" is not an matter of individual opinion. It is either a fact or it is not. Again I challenge Belz to produce something similar by randomly splashing paint onto canvas. It simply cannot be done.

 

[Belz...]

Oh no, Belz. You realize you're using Southwind type of rhetoric now?

!! NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course it's all in the interpretation! That's what art is all about!

Therefore my comment couldn't possibly be a statement of fact.

You interpret Pollock as crap.

I interpret it as bad art, actually.

Your personal feelings about a work of art are not more "valid" or "objective" than anyone else's.

I believe I just said this. Perhaps you simply misunderstood my original post entirely.

And yet you seem to imply there's something inherently "bad" about Pollock's art

You'll have to find a quote that indicates this, because I can't remember saying something so idiotic. But, since I DO say idiotic things sometimes, I suppose it's possible.

My interpretation is that it's bad. And my opinion is that it's quite inept, as my similar-but-not-quite-the-same picture illustrates.

Your assertion that "a bunch of random lines doesn't communicate much emotion per se" is your individual perception.

No sure I agree here, however. I find it very difficult to understand how random lines which do not represent any real object can carry any emotional meaning. But since people see Jesus in toasts, I suppose anything's possible.

See the parts I bolded?

Since I typed them myself, your "oh gee, look what I found hidden in your sentence" is a bit silly.

Yes. You seem to be getting it now.

I always "got" it. It's you who has extrapolated from my post. Quite unjustifiably, I may add.