Artists v. Artisans: A Flamewar on the Meaning of Art

[freemonkey]

many people try to pass off crafts as art, and, when they are friend or family, I find it hard to not make fun of them for it.

That reminds me of another thing I did to her. When she came to visit me last, I took her to a local little town to do some "touristy" shopping. She saw a little "Kinkade Gallery" TM and told me how much she just loves his work and I gave her a lecture right in front of the place. Of course, she's right to like whatever she wants. I'm so mean. :glare:

[LadyXoc]

Kinkade, as in that goofy shit with the cutesy thatched cottages and such? *pukes*

[beyelzu]

many people try to pass off crafts as art, and, when they are friend or family, I find it hard to not make fun of them for it.

That reminds me of another thing I did to her. When she came to visit me last, I took her to a local little town to do some "touristy" shopping. She saw a little "Kinkade Gallery" TM and told me how much she just loves his work and I gave her a lecture right in front of the place.
I didnt know who he was so I looked it up and now I know that he is like Bob Ross only with happy little buildings.

Of course, she's right to like whatever she wants. I'm so mean. :glare

it is thoughts likethese that enable people to buy the latest britny spears crap.

Just remember, when someone likes crap they dont have a right to their opinion, dont be an enabler. :D

[LadyShea]

HEY! That's The Painter of Light you are badmouthing there

:wink:

[godfry n. glad]

many people try to pass off crafts as art, and, when they are friend or family, I find it hard to not make fun of them for it.


Yeah... Like the The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, where the art is mostly crap and the crafts done by unnamed artisans is beauteous in comparison. 'Course, that's a personal opinion from a aesthetic philistine.

Since you seem to be able to distinguish art from crafts, might I ask, "What is 'art' and how do you distinguish it from 'crafts'"?

godfry

[beyelzu]

many people try to pass off crafts as art, and, when they are friend or family, I find it hard to not make fun of them for it.


Yeah... Like the The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, where the art is mostly crap and the crafts done by unnamed artisans is beauteous in comparison. 'Course, that's a personal opinion from a aesthetic philistine.

Since you seem to be able to distinguish art from crafts, might I ask, "What is 'art' and how do you distinguish it from 'crafts'"?

godfry
a craft involves repeated designs using the same materials over and over again.

crafts lack artistic interpetation, depth of meaning, mood, emotion and everything that is good in art.

there you go.

Ps. I am not really a big fan of post modern art. I dont like Jackson Pollock, I consider most of his work to be of a craft nature as well.

[godfry n. glad]

many people try to pass off crafts as art, and, when they are friend or family, I find it hard to not make fun of them for it.


Yeah... Like the The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, where the art is mostly crap and the crafts done by unnamed artisans is beauteous in comparison. 'Course, that's a personal opinion from a aesthetic philistine.

Since you seem to be able to distinguish art from crafts, might I ask, "What is 'art' and how do you distinguish it from 'crafts'"?

godfry


a craft involves repeated designs using the same materials over and over again.

So... a handknit sweater is only art if it is an original design that is a prototype? Once it's reproduced, it's craft?

Wouldn't mass production of "art prints" make them a craft product? Or even multiple prints of lithographs by the in the same run by the same artist?

crafts lack artistic interpetation, depth of meaning, mood, emotion and everything that is good in art.

Well, from my perspective, that's a great steaming heap...and I don't mean groat clusters, either. The parquet floors at the Hermitage have wondrous artistic interpretation, evoke both mood and emotion.....as for "depth of meaning", I'm not sure what you mean...Maybe that refers to all that biblical content in those dark, depressing Rembrandts that everybody else thought were so captivating?

there you go.

Ps. I am not really a big fan of post modern art. I dont like Jackson Pollock, I consider most of his work to be of a craft nature as well.

Still...It's better'n Rembrandt, in my opinion. If you ask me, it's nothing other than a cult of personality.

I think a lot of "art" is the pretention of the critic who proclaimed it "worthy" of being called "art". Nothing more.

But then, as noted, I'm an aesthetic philistine.

godfry

[livius drusus]

How about giving this thread (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=179) a bump, gentlemen, and letting this one here turn back into the sordid confessional it was meant to be?

[beyelzu]

many people try to pass off crafts as art, and, when they are friend or family, I find it hard to not make fun of them for it.


Yeah... Like the The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, where the art is mostly crap and the crafts done by unnamed artisans is beauteous in comparison. 'Course, that's a personal opinion from a aesthetic philistine.

Since you seem to be able to distinguish art from crafts, might I ask, "What is 'art' and how do you distinguish it from 'crafts'"?

godfry


a craft involves repeated designs using the same materials over and over again.

So... a handknit sweater is only art if it is an original design that is a prototype? Once it's reproduced, it's craft? I guess I fucked up my definition somewhere. If the so called artist uses repeated patterns and similar materials over and over it is not art. also if it has a use it is not art. textbooks are not art. novels are. sweaters are not art. a yarn picture you hang on the wall might be.

Wouldn't mass production of "art prints" make them a craft product? Or even multiple prints of lithographs by the in the same run by the same artist? see above. reproductions of art are still art more or less. if you copy it at home it is borderline.

crafts lack artistic interpetation, depth of meaning, mood, emotion and everything that is good in art.

Well, from my perspective, that's a great steaming heap...and I don't mean groat clusters, either. The parquet floors at the Hermitage have wondrous artistic interpretation, evoke both mood and emotion.....as for "depth of meaning", I'm not sure what you mean...Maybe that refers to all that biblical content in those dark, depressing Rembrandts that everybody else thought were so captivating? I dont like alot of classical work. we have photographs now. no need for photorealism for the most part, but that is my bias.

there you go.

Ps. I am not really a big fan of post modern art. I dont like Jackson Pollock, I consider most of his work to be of a craft nature as well.

Still...It's better'n Rembrandt, in my opinion. If you ask me, it's nothing other than a cult of personality.

I think a lot of "art" is the pretention of the critic who proclaimed it "worthy" of being called "art". Nothing more.

But then, as noted, I'm a aesthetic philistine.

godfry

somewhere in the definition of good art includes technical skill, and if you dont like emotion or depth of meaning in your art whats the point?

and blah isnt an emotion.
:D


liv can yall split this thread???

[livius drusus]

liv can yall split this thread???

If Ms. Pea has no objection, I'd be glad to.

[lisarea]

liv can yall split this thread???

If Ms. Pea has no objection, I'd be glad to.

Who, me? I ain't the boss of nobody. I think it's a little charming that some sordid thread got swept away into a flame war on the meaning of art, but the fact that it did is making me feel like a vulgarian.

Split away.

[livius drusus]

Split accomplish. Thank you all for your time.

Now, I submit to you that Stickley furniture is indeed art. Let the flames burn hot and true.

[godfry n. glad]

How about giving this thread (http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=179) a bump, gentlemen, and letting this one here turn back into the sordid confessional it was meant to be?

Aw...shucks.

Been there, bought the teeshirt. Indeed, I have a collection of teeshirts that I've purchased on my travels. It's what I where to work most days. (think: graybeard dweeb) I feel blest that I need not wear a noose...uh, leash...no, I mean: tie.

I have HIADD.

I also collect hats. Sorta.

I've gained 15 pounds since I got back from Asia in June, and I can't fit into most of my newest teeshirts.

I resent having to exercise.

My blood pressure and diabetes are under control, but my cholesterol count came back as 321...ouch. Goodbye, corn dogs.

Cellphones annoy me. Cellphone users annoy me more. A lot, in fact.

I like bagpipe music.

godfry

There, happy?

[livius drusus]

Sweet Jesu I can't believe you just posted on-topic in the new thread where it's not the topic anymore! What is it, beat the hell out of liv's anality day? And don't you dare answer that the way I know you're thiking of answering it, Mr. glad.

:slap:

[godfry n. glad]

Split accomplish. Thank you all for your time.

Now, I submit to you that Stickley furniture is indeed art. Let the flames burn hot and true.

It went...where? :blink:

[beyelzu]

Sweet Jesu I can't believe you just posted on-topic in the new thread where it's not the topic anymore! What is it, beat the hell out of liv's anality day? And don't you dare answer that the way I know you're thiking of answering it, Mr. glad.

:slap:
hate to offer godfry support when I am about to destroy him in a what is art debate.

but I imagine he keyed off of your request

How about giving this thread a bump, gentlemen, and letting this one here turn back into the sordid confessional it was meant to be?


if you are having trouble finding this post look about 7 posts up /\
:innocent2: :innocent:

[beyelzu]

Split accomplish. Thank you all for your time.

Now, I submit to you that Stickley furniture is indeed art. Let the flames burn hot and true.
art?

seriously. from the pics I saw online stickley is ulta utilitarian without adornment.


a white wall aint art.

[Farren]

I read an interesting article about Pollock. A group of mathematicians used a computer program to analyse his paintings at higher and higher resolutions and concluded that they have a partially fractal nature. i.e. The broader form of the image is repeated at multiple levels of magnification.

As a control they analysed "Pollock-like" (as in, "reported to look like Pollock by casual observers") work and determined that it lacked the fractal recursion of form.

So there's definitely a quality in the work of Pollock that make it distinctly Pollock, rather than just any old canvas with random splatters of paint. The human eye is trained to recognise the fractalness of patterns subconsiously because most natural patterns have a fractal appearance.

Of course, all this means is that Pollock did large, sweeping splatters with a general form, then smaller and smaller splatters with a similar form and so on. Since the same technque was repeated for painting after painting, would this constitute craft?

[beyelzu]

I read an interesting article about Pollock. A group of mathematicians used a computer program to analyse his paintings at higher and higher resolutions and concluded that they have a partially fractal nature. i.e. The broader form of the image is repeated at multiple levels of magnification.

As a control they analysed "Pollock-like" (as in, "reported to look like Pollock by casual observers") work and determined that it lacked the fractal recursion of form.

So there's definitely a quality in the work of Pollock that make it distinctly Pollock, rather than just any old canvas with random splatters of paint. The human eye is trained to recognise the fractalness of patterns subconsiously because most natural patterns have a fractal appearance.

Of course, all this means is that Pollock did large, sweeping splatters with a general form, then smaller and smaller splatters with a similar form and so on. Since the same technque was repeated for painting after painting, would this constitute craft?


definitely,

he just decided just made fractals before comps.

so he did it the hard way.

although I am really interested by pollock having a fractal quality.

[godfry n. glad]

Am I in Kansas yet?

Damn... I think got lost there.

Hey...beyelzu got it right. That's what I did, alright.

"Destroy" me in an "art debate"? Well, okay, sure. I'm just a hick.

Hey... I didn't know I was in a "debate", I just had some questions about why some things get to be considered "art" and others are demeaned as "craft"? Why does "art" have any claim to superiority over "craft"? My point is that all of those attributes you outlined, except for the "depth of meaning", for which I asked for a definition before including it, I experienced upon viewing the artisanship of the building...the floors, the architectual details, cornices, trim, columns...all "craft". The artisans who created these works are unknown, because they were ordinary "craftsmen". Yet, a experimenting artist working in oil on canvas plays with representations of light on his subjects and becomes one of the luminaries of "art"....why? Why this disparity? Who determines that one is an aesthetic elite to be obsequiesly fawned over, while the other is an ordinary workman who can be ignored and forgotten?

I'm just curious...because, you see, I'm a rude, crude, lewd and unsophisticated philistine.

And, I think that Stickley furniture is indeed art. I think craft underpins art; good art. The art, for me, is not in the factor of its reproducability, but of it's inspiration and what it evokes from those enjoying it. Stickleys, and much of the Arts & Crafts works, are art you can sit in. The art shines through the craft, yet the crafting was necessary for the art to shine at all. I don't think you can easily separate art from craft or craft from art.

[freemonkey]

I'll try to participate in this thread, even though I still haven't fully climbed out of the deep, black pit of existential depression I fell into the last time godfrey asked "what is art?".

And, I think that Stickley furniture is indeed art. I think craft underpins art; good art. The art, for me, is not in the factor of its reproducability, but of it's inspiration and what it evokes from those enjoying it. Stickleys, and much of the Arts & Crafts works, are art you can sit in. The art shines through the craft, yet the crafting was necessary for the art to shine at all. I don't think you can easily separate art from craft or craft from art.
I agree with this.

Fuck. I'm trying to say what I think, but I just can't find the right words/thoughts. So please bear with me as I muddle my way through this.

:chin:

When I think of Craft, I think of an artform other than painting, photography or sculpture that requires a great deal of talent, skill and dedication. This would include woodworking, guitarmaking, jewelry making, quilting and all sorts of other things. So what if its utilitarian? So what if there are several, almost identical pieces? I still call it Art.

Most painters/photographers/sculptors have spent years perfecting their craft, and there are usually many not-art pieces that no one ever sees.

This is not to be confused with "crafts" as in doily dolly toilet paper cozys, popsicle stick refrigerator magnets and Bob Ross style oval shaped oil paintings made by my neighbor with Bob Ross canvas, Bob Ross brushes, Bob Ross paints and Bob Ross lessons she got at Michaels.

a craft involves repeated designs using the same materials over and over again.
Many artists I know like to take the time to explore an idea, and make many similar images in their medium of choice, known as a series

crafts lack artistic interpetation, depth of meaning, mood, emotion and everything that is good in art.
I know what you're getting at here, and mostly I agree, in theory. But taste is subjective. I may be utterly moved by something you see as garbage. Hell, I've made pieces art that got such differing comments as: "that looks like roadkill on a stick" to "wow, that's just breathtaking" (in a good way).

I still think that Thomas Kinkade and his ilk are art hacks of the worst kind

although I am really interested by pollock having a fractal quality.

why is that?

[Adora]

a craft involves repeated designs using the same materials over and over again.
crafts lack artistic interpetation, depth of meaning, mood, emotion and everything that is good in art.

By that definition, MC Escher's works could be classified as "craft".

As well as Pollock's, and a lot of the postmodern art movement.

Just because you don't like a certain genre of something, doesn't mean it isn't art.

For the record, I stick to the definition of art I have already outlined in previous threads. If a craftsman wishes to put purposiveness into their work, then to me the craft simply becomes another form of art. I do not think craft and art are opposites at all.

[godfry n. glad]

Okay... I am not a Michael's fan at all. That outlet and its ilk are a travesty to the word that they've misappropriated. In their case, I inform people that it's one of those tricky English words where, when combined with the word "store", the "ft" in "craft" is pronounced as a "p".

I lived for twenty years with a woman who spun wool and knit it. Her sweaters are one of a kind, considering that she always started with a pattern and always changed it to suit her needs. I think of her as an artistic craftswoman (which is somehow better than a crafty artist). Is anyone here familiar with Sasha Kagan? Is he an artist or a craftsman? Before my wife, I roomed with an art student who graduated with his MFA during the time we shared a domicile. From what I can tell, the process is much the same, but the "artist" does a "spin job" on their work...the creator sells it as "art", usually with some cockamamie story of influence and inspiration. The craftsperson does the job. Well. Then, if someone likes it, they'll make more. No bullshit.

Could it be that a craftsperson creates something that has a "utilitarian" function, rather than being "only" an "art" piece?

I still somehow think art infuses our lives. It's much more than what is presented to us as "art", i.e., paintings, sculpture, photography, performance, music. It appears throughout our daily existence.

You see...my dirty little secret is that I don't know what art is, but I talk about it none the less. I'm no better at expressing it than are you, freemonkey. I just get the impression that there are others who determine what's art and what's not and who gets to be the big flapadoodle two to four hundred years down the line. Who are those artibiters? Its seems kinda, I dunno, "clubby" or exclusive.

So... I'm waiting to be "destroyed".

godfry

[Farren]

How do you all feel about art that's devoid of craft, like Marcel Duchamp's presentation of a mass-manufactured toilet, Yoko Ono's exhibition of stuff that had simply been sawed in half, or an exhibition I saw a few years back called "Boycott - Name withheld" where the "artwork" was an empty gallery?

[godfry n. glad]

How do you all feel about art that's devoid of craft, like Marcel Duchamp's presentation of a mass-manufactured toilet, Yoko Ono's exhibition of stuff that had simply been sawed in half, or an exhibition I saw a few years back called "Boycott - Name withheld" where the "artwork" was an empty gallery?

I think it's the big joke. It's not art and those claiming it is art don't think it's art, but they've noticed that art is what some people say it is, so they're trying to be the people who say what it is. What makes it art is that the people who created the "pieces" say they are artists and that those particular situations or circumstances, are "art". It's a bald assertion attempting to conciously claim that which it most certainly is not, to draw attention to the circumstance that allows it to do so.

How's that for a stab in the dark?

I saw tonnes of this stuff in Quebec. It's trash transmorgified into something sacred. It's a con job being run on the pretended aesthetic elite.

My quote, earlier:

I don't think you can easily separate art from craft or craft from art.


What do you think?

godfry

[Farren]

Godfrey I have mixed feelings. On the one hand the artist behind "Boycott - Name Withheld" (his name escaped me right now) is a pretentious intellectual prat who's artistic talent seems to consist mainly of convincing rich blue-rinse grannies that they should shell out cash for a mass-manufactured toilet roll holder because of its inspired contextual positioning.

Yoko Ono strikes me as being the same kind of pretentious charlatan. No doubt both Yoko and the aforementioned prat believe their own bullshit but I don't

Duchamp, on the other hand, was responsible for some geniunely startling, original and pleasing art, such as "Nude descending a staircase", an enchanting painting of a nude in motion that uses the rather obvious device of overlaying consecutve time slices of the motion but does it in such a way that it really captures the dynamism of the subject, making in feel like the picture itself is in motion. He certainly demonstrated that he had an expert's grasp of both craft and art, by most definitions.

Which obviously makes me think: If the guy evidently has the eye and hand of a master artist even to the unschooled eye in some of his work, is there not perhaps reason to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that I'm missing something in viewing his other efforts?

I lived with an art teacher for a year who insisted I read several books on Dada and Duchamp in particular after some particularly acrimonious arguments. What clouded the issue for me was that Duchamp said one thing, then another. First his intent was this, then that, then it was hermetic, a special knowledge that could not be articulated. On the issue of the toilet (that I mentioned in my previous post) he was particularly coy. The work was actually submitted anonymously, IIRC, but everyone knew it was Duchamp. For years he first slyly hinted that it was in fact his work, then denied it. This is all reading from long ago so my memory may be faulty.

In any event, from all I've read there's an overwhelming impression that he really wasn't certain what he was trying to say. It was just a collection of impulses, a vague idea that art is everywhere around us, that its context and presentation that makes it art, that art takes itself too seriously, that ... I don't know, the guy said a lot of things and then said a lot of other, contradictory things. After reading a fair amount about Duchamp and the Dada movement I got a feeling that one can have excesses of asthetic talent but it doesn't necessarily imply conceptual or analytical genius.

My art teacher friend was keen to educate me on the finer points of modern art which I found controversial. He's a bright chap and a competent artist but unfortunately when it came to "explaining" a lot of PoMo and Dada stuff the explanations led round in circles to their own premises. Like, someone wrote a lot of waffle with a small kernel of truth in it, then someone wrote more waffle, using the previous waffle as authority, then someone wrote more waffle based on this waffle, then someone defended the first piece of waffle from a broadside by using the authority of its grandchild, the more contemporary waffle. So you have to navigate this vast edifice of waffle in order to assertain that it is, in fact, waffle, and half of the premises are the conclusions.

Adora said earlier that, by Beyelzu's definition, the work of Escher would be considered craft, not art. Certainly, his work is carefully planned and draws on a knowledge of geometry and the technical craft of drawing and perspective. The "meaning" of his work, too, is mainly centred around "hard" scientific and philosophical themes, like recursion. There's a very methodical feel to his drawings and etchings.

Yet he does, I think, also have a good eye for subtler asthetic considerations that lie outside of intellectual concept and visual illusion. His "Three Balls" etching is appealing to the eye before the conceptual details start to dawn on you.

It certainly isn't craft in the sense of taking commonly used methods and simply applying them meticulously for a good effect that is independent of the talent of the producer, even if it is executed in a workmanlike fashion.

... bleh I kind of lost my train of thought, but I'll let the above stand in case you can guess at it and remind me.

I don't know, I don't think there is a clear boundary between art, craft, and conceptual waffle. I certainly wonder about the utility of arguing about definitions for any other purpose than grouping subjects together in academic environments. It strikes me that ordinary commerce can sort out the details of where people focus their energy, admiration and cash.

I think issues like "Is it pleasing to the eye?", "Is it evocative?", "Is it clever?" and "Does it go with my dining room suite?" are more meaningful issues than "Is it art?"

[livius drusus]

Hey...beyelzu got it right. That's what I did, alright.

Oh dear. So it's all my fault then. Damn my repetition use of "this" with no clear antecendents! Ms. Fields would have kicked my ass in 5th grade for that transgression. :deepsigh:

I'll post on the art issue in more detail later, but just as a quickie, I basically agree with Farren's comment:

I think issues like "Is it pleasing to the eye?", "Is it evocative?", "Is it clever?" and "Does it go with my dining room suite?" are more meaningful issues than "Is it art?"

[beyelzu]

a craft involves repeated designs using the same materials over and over again.
crafts lack artistic interpetation, depth of meaning, mood, emotion and everything that is good in art.

By that definition, MC Escher's works could be classified as "craft".

As well as Pollock's, and a lot of the postmodern art movement.

Just because you don't like a certain genre of something, doesn't mean it isn't art.

For the record, I stick to the definition of art I have already outlined in previous threads. If a craftsman wishes to put purposiveness into their work, then to me the craft simply becomes another form of art. I do not think craft and art are opposites at all.


you must have missed the part where I said that pollock and most postmodern art is just pseudointellectual shit pretending to be art. I dont have to like an art form for it to be art. Crafts are either not art or not good art.

also, I never said that art is the opposite of craft.


hammers arent art.

screwdrivers arent art

guns arent art, although some are really quite beautiful.

chairs arent art.

from dictionary.com

The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.

if you are trying to make a chair/hammer/screwdriver/gun aesthetic values are going to be secondary to purpose.

and art shouldnt be bound by utilitarian concepts. it makes for blah, boring art.

as to escher, I think it is interesting that you think he lacks meaning and artistic interpetation.

cuz that is in my definition of art.

[beyelzu]

although I am really interested by pollock having a fractal quality.

why is that?

because it's unusual and it wasnt done with a computer. and as Farren mentioned it is something found in nature. and he almost certainly didnt do it on purpose, but if he did, I wonder why.

[beyelzu]

I think issues like "Is it pleasing to the eye?", "Is it evocative?", "Is it clever?" and "Does it go with my dining room suite?" are more meaningful issues than "Is it art?"
quite simply, I dont find a knitted scarf to be pleasing to the eye, evocative or clever, and I could care fuck all what goes with my dining room suite.

What bothers me about people referring to crafts as art is that I think it cheapens art. Art should make us examine our preconceptions, move us emotinally, strike a chord, make us feel pain/wonder/melancholy/isolation/etc. And people ooohing and ahhhing over bob ross as some sort of art standard is the antithesis of all that is good and hoy about art.

artists make art because they have a need for self expression.

artisans make crafts because they need a chair/a scarf/ something to do with their time/etc.


the thing is no one makes a free standing sculpture and then adds some legs and a seat to it and says shit its a chair now.

the chair comes first and regardless of the intent of the craftsman that makes it, utility trumps expression.

[beyelzu]

Could it be that a craftsperson creates something that has a "utilitarian" function, rather than being "only" an "art" piece?
pretty much

I still somehow think art infuses our lives. It's much more than what is presented to us as "art", i.e., paintings, sculpture, photography, performance, music. It appears throughout our daily existence. beauty sure, art not really. my highschool art teacher, I took art like for about half of my classes junior year and 67 percent of my classes senior year, was fond of saying," art is anything manmade that doesnt have a purpose." Of course that wasnt the definition of good art, just art in general.


You see...my dirty little secret is that I don't know what art is, but I talk about it none the less. I'm no better at expressing it than are you, freemonkey. I just get the impression that there are others who determine what's art and what's not and who gets to be the big flapadoodle two to four hundred years down the line. Who are those artibiters? Its seems kinda, I dunno, "clubby" or exclusive.

So... I'm waiting to be "destroyed".

godfry

have faith I am working on the destruction presently, but you have allies.

I dont like spin by the artist. Art should/must speak for itself, otherwise it isnt good art.

[beyelzu]

How do you all feel about art that's devoid of craft, like Marcel Duchamp's presentation of a mass-manufactured toilet, Yoko Ono's exhibition of stuff that had simply been sawed in half, or an exhibition I saw a few years back called "Boycott - Name withheld" where the "artwork" was an empty gallery?

I think it's the big joke. It's not art and those claiming it is art don't think it's art, but they've noticed that art is what some people say it is, so they're trying to be the people who say what it is. What makes it art is that the people who created the "pieces" say they are artists and that those particular situations or circumstances, are "art". It's a bald assertion attempting to conciously claim that which it most certainly is not, to draw attention to the circumstance that allows it to do so. I disagree. It is art, just shitty art. Art can be bad after all.

I saw tonnes of this stuff in Quebec. It's trash transmorgified into something sacred. It's a con job being run on the pretended aesthetic elite. I agree but it is still art.

[godfry n. glad]

What bothers me about people referring to crafts as art is that I think it cheapens art. Art should make us examine our preconceptions, move us emotinally, strike a chord, make us feel pain/wonder/melancholy/isolation/etc. And people ooohing and ahhhing over bob ross as some sort of art standard is the antithesis of all that is good and hoy about art.

I dunno. I think there are times when craft ennobles art. And, it does all those things you ascribe to "art". I have a leather mission chair that does all those things for me. I think it's art, but you would pass it off as "merely craft work" unworthy of the arbitrary appellation of "art"....is that fair?

artists make art because they have a need for self expression.

artisans make crafts because they need a chair/a scarf/ something to do with their time/etc.

So... artists are narcissists?

I think artisans make crafts because they think they can infuse everyday objects with art....make the mundane sublime and sacred.


the thing is no one makes a free standing sculpture and then adds some legs and a seat to it and says shit its a chair now.

Watch out, you're defining new frontiers in "art".

the chair comes first and regardless of the intent of the craftsman that makes it, utility trumps expression.

And thus crafts should trump arts, in that they are utilitarian and incorporate the sense of the sublime that is art. Right?

godfry

[livius drusus]

artists make art because they have a need for self expression.

artisans make crafts because they need a chair/a scarf/ something to do with their time/etc.

Huh? Artisans seek to create beauty too. The idea that something that has a function can't be art strikes me as very odd, to say the least. For one thing, doesn't that eliminate all architecture from the art roster? Can a building be art?

I mentioned Stickley before because the Arts & Crafts movement he was a large part of had a very strong aesthetic perspective. His furniture was most definitely an expression of self and the entire A&C approach was about finding elemental beauty instead of covering it up under layers of Victorian preciousness. He believed art should be of and for the people, most of whom couldn't afford useless ornamentation but could find both beauty and use in table or chair or headboard. Utlitarianism was a philosophical underpinning of his aesthetic, not a lack of one.

[godfry n. glad]

Godfrey I have mixed feelings. On the one hand the artist behind "Boycott - Name Withheld" (his name escaped me right now) is a pretentious intellectual prat who's artistic talent seems to consist mainly of convincing rich blue-rinse grannies that they should shell out cash for a mass-manufactured toilet roll holder because of its inspired contextual positioning.

Agreed.

Yoko Ono strikes me as being the same kind of pretentious charlatan. No doubt both Yoko and the aforementioned prat believe their own bullshit but I don't

Possible. I think they both may be operating with the delusion that they are arbiters of "art".

Duchamp, on the other hand, was responsible for some geniunely startling, original and pleasing art, such as "Nude descending a staircase", an enchanting painting of a nude in motion that uses the rather obvious device of overlaying consecutve time slices of the motion but does it in such a way that it really captures the dynamism of the subject, making in feel like the picture itself is in motion. He certainly demonstrated that he had an expert's grasp of both craft and art, by most definitions.

Which obviously makes me think: If the guy evidently has the eye and hand of a master artist even to the unschooled eye in some of his work, is there not perhaps reason to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that I'm missing something in viewing his other efforts?

I lived with an art teacher for a year who insisted I read several books on Dada and Duchamp in particular after some particularly acrimonious arguments. What clouded the issue for me was that Duchamp said one thing, then another. First his intent was this, then that, then it was hermetic, a special knowledge that could not be articulated. On the issue of the toilet (that I mentioned in my previous post) he was particularly coy. The work was actually submitted anonymously, IIRC, but everyone knew it was Duchamp. For years he first slyly hinted that it was in fact his work, then denied it. This is all reading from long ago so my memory may be faulty.

That seems an indication of a couple of things. One, it's not a surety that the toliet is his work. Two, if it is, he could be playing with the audience over contextual issues...a joke on the rest of the artistic community. Why is it somehow beyond these artists (who "has the eye and hand of a master artist even to the unschooled eye in some of [their] work") to toy with their audience?

In any event, from all I've read there's an overwhelming impression that he really wasn't certain what he was trying to say. It was just a collection of impulses, a vague idea that art is everywhere around us, that its context and presentation that makes it art, that art takes itself too seriously, that ... I don't know, the guy said a lot of things and then said a lot of other, contradictory things. After reading a fair amount about Duchamp and the Dada movement I got a feeling that one can have excesses of asthetic talent but it doesn't necessarily imply conceptual or analytical genius.

Hmmm.... Then the artists are those who experiment at the edge of contextual impressions, creating new means to interpret their world for their audiences? While an artisan merely copies the conceptual work of artists and attempts to infuse that in everyday objects?

My art teacher friend was keen to educate me on the finer points of modern art which I found controversial. He's a bright chap and a competent artist but unfortunately when it came to "explaining" a lot of PoMo and Dada stuff the explanations led round in circles to their own premises. Like, someone wrote a lot of waffle with a small kernel of truth in it, then someone wrote more waffle, using the previous waffle as authority, then someone wrote more waffle based on this waffle, then someone defended the first piece of waffle from a broadside by using the authority of its grandchild, the more contemporary waffle. So you have to navigate this vast edifice of waffle in order to assertain that it is, in fact, waffle, and half of the premises are the conclusions.

I agree wholeheartedly.

I think issues like "Is it pleasing to the eye?", "Is it evocative?", "Is it clever?" and "Does it go with my dining room suite?" are more meaningful issues than "Is it art?"

I suspect as much as well.

godfry

[freemonkey]

quite simply, I dont find a knitted scarf to be pleasing to the eye, evocative or clever, nd I could care fuck all what goes with my dining room suite.[
Of course, not all knitted scarves are at the level of becing called Art, but there are many, many textile/fiber artists who are visionary, skilled and hold Fine Arts degrees.

What bothers me about people referring to crafts as art is that I think it cheapens art. Art should make us examine our preconceptions, move us emotinally, strike a chord, make us feel pain/wonder/melancholy/isolation/etc. And people ooohing and ahhhing over bob ross as some sort of art standard is the antithesis of all that is good and hoy about art.
I don't disagree with this, I just think that its impossible to draw the distinction between the two (and all the shades in between) to the satisfaction of everyone.

artists make art because they have a need for self expression.

artisans make crafts because they need a chair/a scarf/ something to do with their time/etc.

I don't think its a simple as this.

the thing is no one makes a free standing sculpture and then adds some legs and a seat to it and says shit its a chair now.

the chair comes first and regardless of the intent of the craftsman that makes it, utility trumps expression.
Funny you bring up this example. Years ago I was playing with papier mache & conceived of a big chair I might make (I never did, because I had no space to work on it). I never once thought of it as utilitarian except that it might enfold and comfort the person who sat in it. Would it have been art? Some might have "got it", but others might have said "oh, a chair". :indifferent:

[freemonkey]

beauty sure, art not really. my highschool art teacher, I took art like for about half of my classes junior year and 67 percent of my classes senior year, was fond of saying," art is anything manmade that doesnt have a purpose." Of course that wasnt the definition of good art, just art in general.
OMG, if I believed everything my high school art teachers said........ :giggle:

I dont like spin by the artist. Art should/must speak for itself, otherwise it isnt good art.
I don't like it either. And yes, art should speak for itself, but its not always possible to be silent. People want to know what the artist is thinking, feeling, what his/her motivation is. Sometimes they just make shit up so people will leave them alone. And sometimes, when the art is left to speak for itself, plenty of people still aren't listening.

[godfry n. glad]

artists make art because they have a need for self expression.

artisans make crafts because they need a chair/a scarf/ something to do with their time/etc.

Huh? Artisans seek to create beauty too. The idea that something that has a function can't be art strikes me as very odd, to say the least. For one thing, doesn't that eliminate all architecture from the art roster? Can a building be art?

I mentioned Stickley before because the Arts & Crafts movement he was a large part of had a very strong aesthetic perspective. His furniture was most definitely an expression of self and the entire A&C approach was about finding elemental beauty instead of covering it up under layers of Victorian preciousness. He believed art should be of and for the people, most of whom couldn't afford useless ornamentation but could find both beauty and use in table or chair or headboard. Utlitarianism was a philosophical underpinning of his aesthetic, not a lack of one.

And did not Stickley and the A&C movement have their connections to the "fine arts" via the likes of McIntosh and Wm. Morris? Links to the aesthetic sensibilities of the Pre-Raphaelites of the late Victorian period? Of course, there are those art critics who think of the Pre-Raphaelites as "hack artists" producing tripe.

godfry

[Farren]

Huh? Artisans seek to create beauty too. The idea that something that has a function can't be art strikes me as very odd, to say the least. For one thing, doesn't that eliminate all architecture from the art roster? Can a building be art?


Christ I hope so because if I was to do a gut-response pigeonholing of things into "art" and "non-art craft", any Gaudi building would end up in the "art" category.

[livius drusus]

And did not Stickley and the A&C movement have their connections to the "fine arts" via the likes of McIntosh and Wm. Morris? Links to the aesthetic sensibilities of the Pre-Raphaelites of the late Victorian period? Of course, there are those art critics who think of the Pre-Raphaelites as "hack artists" producing tripe.

Yes indeed, Stickley was very much influenced by Morris et al. Morris did everything from textiles to furniture to stained glass. His own society (http://www.morrissociety.org/) calls him a craftsman on the front page. Does that mean all designers and makers of stained glass are craftsmen, not artists? That just boggles my mind. The same exact thing done in oil on canvas by the right person would be encased in bullet-proof glass in the Louvre.

[godfry n. glad]

And did not Stickley and the A&C movement have their connections to the "fine arts" via the likes of McIntosh and Wm. Morris? Links to the aesthetic sensibilities of the Pre-Raphaelites of the late Victorian period? Of course, there are those art critics who think of the Pre-Raphaelites as "hack artists" producing tripe.

Yes indeed, Stickley was very much influenced by Morris et al. Morris did everything from textiles to furniture to stained glass. His own society (http://www.morrissociety.org/) calls him a craftsman on the front page. Does that mean all designers and makers of stained glass are craftsmen, not artists? That just boggles my mind. The same exact thing done in oil on canvas by the right person would be encased in bullet-proof glass in the Louvre.

And...Was not Morris a friend of Edward Bourne-Jones, artist and student of Dante Gabriel Rossetti? Art theorist John Ruskin fits into the whole scheme as well...if I remember correctly. Anybody know anything about Ruskin?

Adora, too, has a Pre-Raphaelite product for an avatar. Frederic, Lord Leighton, I believe. The sensibilities which inspired and illumined that work is the same which inspired the works of Stickley and Mission furniture. Is that not art? Why does it matter where it manifests itself?

And liv...some of these things are under glass cases in fine museums. The Armory in the Kremlin being an excellent example. The works of artisans: goblets, jewel-encrusted bibles, weaponry, crown jewels, gowns, carriages...all the works of largely unknown craftsmen from around the world. On display as artifacts and as art...in the archeological and historical sense. And that's why they are there, because of their historical value. But because of that, utilitarian items (with excessive ornamentation, for sure) have become objects of art; never used for what they were ostensibly designed for.

But I do understand your frustration...I wonder, too, at the almost arbitrary distinctions being so "important". I wonder at the inlaid hardwood floors and the hematite-clad columns in The Hermitage. I wonder at the beauty and serene majesty of the tiled facades of Registan. I stood in awe in the interior of the Amur Gor'i, surrounded by Qu'ran verses done in gold-leafed Arabic script running a 10" band around the entire vaulted and domed structure at eye level, along with the most amazing mosaic and Islamic design motifs filling every square inch of the entire interior surface above and below that band. I thrilled at a cast bronze and once gold-leafed Chinese bell, simply hung with leather thongs and rung with a horizontially suspended timber. I admired the blue Persian tiles on the exterior walls of the Dome of the Rock. This is all art done by craftsmen...usually unknown and unnamed craftsmen. At least, to me, these are all "art".

Or, are they "mere craft"?

Ah, art...always a good one for amorphous ambiguity, eh?

godfry

[freemonkey]

I wonder at the inlaid hardwood floors and the hematite-clad columns in The Hermitage. I wonder at the beauty and serene majesty of the tiled facades of Registan. I stood in awe in the interior of the Amur Gor'i, surrounded by Qu'ran verses done in gold-leafed Arabic script running a 10" band around the entire vaulted and domed structure at eye level, along with the most amazing mosaic and Islamic design motifs filling every square inch of the entire interior surface above and below that band. I thrilled at a cast bronze and once gold-leafed Chinese bell, simply hung with leather thongs and rung with a horizontially suspended timber. I admired the blue Persian tiles on the exterior walls of the Dome of the Rock. This is all art done by craftsmen...usually unknown and unnamed craftsmen. At least, to me, these are all "art".
Ooo, you're giving me chills.

[beyelzu]

beauty sure, art not really. my highschool art teacher, I took art like for about half of my classes junior year and 67 percent of my classes senior year, was fond of saying," art is anything manmade that doesnt have a purpose." Of course that wasnt the definition of good art, just art in general.
OMG, if I believed everything my high school art teachers said........ :giggle: yeah, but my high school art teacher was a hell of an artist.

I dont like spin by the artist. Art should/must speak for itself, otherwise it isnt good art.
I don't like it either. And yes, art should speak for itself, but its not always possible to be silent. People want to know what the artist is thinking, feeling, what his/her motivation is. Sometimes they just make shit up so people will leave them alone. And sometimes, when the art is left to speak for itself, plenty of people still aren't listening.
indeed.

[beyelzu]

artists make art because they have a need for self expression.

artisans make crafts because they need a chair/a scarf/ something to do with their time/etc.

Huh? Artisans seek to create beauty too. The idea that something that has a function can't be art strikes me as very odd, to say the least. For one thing, doesn't that eliminate all architecture from the art roster? Can a building be art? the above quote doesnt mention beauty at all. I really think art is all about expression. The better the expression, the better the art.


I mentioned Stickley before because the Arts & Crafts movement he was a large part of had a very strong aesthetic perspective. His furniture was most definitely an expression of self and the entire A&C approach was about finding elemental beauty instead of covering it up under layers of Victorian preciousness. He believed art should be of and for the people, most of whom couldn't afford useless ornamentation but could find both beauty and use in table or chair or headboard. Utlitarianism was a philosophical underpinning of his aesthetic, not a lack of one.

Maybe it all comes down to, I want my art to be free of hindrances to expression. Function certainly hinders expression.

[Corona688]

Function certainly hinders expression. How?

[beyelzu]

Function certainly hinders expression. How?
much as rhyming schemes hinder expression in poetry.

Its not that I dont like rhymes, but when one is worried about rigid rules expression has to be sacrificed to some degree.

for example a chair must have a place to sit on it, and thus can not be as expressive as a free form sculture.

[beyelzu]

btw,

Arent we being awfully civilized for a flamewar.


FF style flamewars are a friendly afair.







edited so liv's eyes wouldnt bleed.

[Adora]

you must have missed the part where I said that pollock and most postmodern art is just pseudointellectual shit pretending to be art.

And you must have missed the part where I said, "Just because you don't like a certain genre of something, doesn't mean it isn't art."

The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.

Well, for one, if you're arguing semantics from dictionary.com, you need to work on the form of a fucking argument better.

But onto more serious issues, how does this address art that is deemed to be not-beautiful, or even plain-old ugly? This is a disgustingly narrow and flawed definition of art because it relies on people's subjective views of beauty, but also on the shallow definition of sensual beauty.

as to escher, I think it is interesting that you think he lacks meaning and artistic interpetation.

When did I say that? I never outlined in my post what I think he lacks/contains, nor that any opinions expressed towards Escher were my own.

artists make art because they have a need for self expression.
artisans make crafts because they need a chair/a scarf/ something to do with their time/etc.

And are you speaking from experience or just opinion?

Because, speaking from experience, I can tell you that's a load of shit.

And...Was not Morris a friend of Edward Bourne-Jones, artist and student of Dante Gabriel Rossetti? Art theorist John Ruskin fits into the whole scheme as well...if I remember correctly. Anybody know anything about Ruskin?

The Pre-Raph movement was very incestuous and intermixed. The "Brotherhood" was Hunt, Millais, Rossetti, Collinson, Stephens, and Deverell. From these forerunners came the "movement" which encompassed everyone from Hughes to Birckdale to Burne-Jones and my favourite, Leighton.

Morris and Rossetti were friends for a time, but obviously fell out when Rossetti and Morris' wife (Jane) had an affair. Jane is the model for many of Rossetti's paintings at the time, such as Prosperine and La Pia de Tolomei. The red-head that turns up in many of the Pre-Raph paintings is Elizabeth Siddal, who shagged & modeled around a lot as well. She met a tragic end during the creation of Ophelia by Millais, because whilst posing in a bathtub for the painting, the candles went out under the water which was keeping it warm and she was too professional to complain, so her tuberculosis and neuralgia got severe and killed her. Millais and Ruskin were friends until Millais stole Effie (Ruskin's wife) from him during the painting of Ruskin's portrait by Millais.

I can't remember the rest of it off the top of them off the top of my head though, sorry.

FF style flamewars are a friendly afair.

Screw that shite.

For fucks sake, can you learn to read, use the shift key and/or and edit button, instead of being a wanker who thinks he's Cummings just to try and get your post count up?

[JoeP]

Function certainly hinders expression. How?
much as rhyming schemes hinder expression in poetry.

Its not that I dont like rhymes, but when one is worried about rigid rules expression has to be sacrificed to some degree.

for example a chair must have a place to sit on it, and thus can not be as expressive as a free form sculture.
This is one thread where I have really not given much time to thinking of my replies (I know there are some thoughts bubbling beneath the structured linguistic level of my consciousness ... but I've got an ointment for that).

Here's one I have an instant reaction to. The limitations placed by function have a similar effects to the limitations placed by medium (be it stone, oil on canvas, miro wood or Ultrafractal software): exploring and working with and challenging (using without working against) the limitations actually produces better art than without. Total freedom of expression (even if it was possible) would produce something banal, quite possibly with meaning only to the artist. Masturbation, in other words. The limitations give a framework and a language by which the audience can relate better to it. It's more about communicating ideas that ultimate freedom of expression, after all - even though there are probably pompous artists who disagree.

In this thesis, working with the limitations of a medium or product is a craft, and it is used in the service of art.

Now back to your regularly scheduled silence.

[JoeP]

FF style flamewars are a friendly afair.

Screw that shite.

For fucks sake, can you learn to read, use the shift key and/or and edit button, instead of being a wanker who thinks he's Cummings just to try and get your post count up?
It's cummings, you pedant.

[livius drusus]

much as rhyming schemes hinder expression in poetry.

Its not that I dont like rhymes, but when one is worried about rigid rules expression has to be sacrificed to some degree.

Okay now you're just talking crazy. There is a whole other kind of freedom to be found in structure. Michelangelo liberated his slaves from the marble, but he used a grid system like the ancient Greeks did to help create the sense of musculature in movement that his creativity and genius saw in blocks of stone.

Pope was not hindered by constraints of the epic genre when he wrote "The Rape of the Lock". On the contrary, it's what gives the poem its of satirical bite. Heroic rhyming couplets about the foolishness of a vain and overwrought society work on so many levels. Free verse would have kneecapped Pope's expression, not bettered it.

for example a chair must have a place to sit on it, and thus can not be as expressive as a free form sculture.

What about a sculpture which is also structural? The Slaves were meant to be load-bearing, you know.

[Corona688]

Function certainly hinders expression. How?
much as rhyming schemes hinder expression in poetry. Therefore, by this logic, rhyming poetry is not art. You'll have to do better than that.

[godfry n. glad]

Keeping in mind that every face is unique, what about the 10,000 terra cotta warriors unearthed at the Tomb of the First Emperor in Xi'an in China?

Art or craft?

godfry

[JoeP]

much as rhyming schemes hinder expression in poetry.

Its not that I dont like rhymes, but when one is worried about rigid rules expression has to be sacrificed to some degree.

Okay now you're just talking crazy. There is a whole other kind of freedom to be found in structure. Michelangelo liberated his slaves from the marble, but he used a grid system like the ancient Greeks did to help create the sense of musculature in movement that his creativity and genius saw in blocks of stone.

Pope was not hindered by constraints of the epic genre when he wrote "The Rape of the Lock". On the contrary, it's what gives the poem its of satirical bite. Heroic rhyming couplets about the foolishness of a vain and overwrought society work on so many levels. Free verse would have kneecapped Pope's expression, not bettered it.

for example a chair must have a place to sit on it, and thus can not be as expressive as a free form sculture.

What about a sculpture which is also structural? The Slaves were meant to be load-bearing, you know.
Thank you. Exactly what I was saying!

[beyelzu]

much as rhyming schemes hinder expression in poetry.

Its not that I dont like rhymes, but when one is worried about rigid rules expression has to be sacrificed to some degree.

Okay now you're just talking crazy. There is a whole other kind of freedom to be found in structure. Michelangelo liberated his slaves from the marble, but he used a grid system like the ancient Greeks did to help create the sense of musculature in movement that his creativity and genius saw in blocks of stone.

Pope was not hindered by constraints of the epic genre when he wrote "The Rape of the Lock". On the contrary, it's what gives the poem its of satirical bite. Heroic rhyming couplets about the foolishness of a vain and overwrought society work on so many levels. Free verse would have kneecapped Pope's expression, not bettered it. I lean towards free verse pretty obviously I suppose. The most expressive poems I have ever read were free verse. Sharon Old's sex without love and The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock. I really like shakespear. Btw, are there any other kinds of heroic couplets besides rhyming ones, oh captain anality??????

Honestly I hadnt considered using a particular form in that way.

maybe I am just talking crazy talk.

for example a chair must have a place to sit on it, and thus can not be as expressive as a free form sculture.

What about a sculpture which is also structural? The Slaves were meant to be load-bearing, you know.
damn you for attacking my soft underbelly. :yup:

you know I like the slaves and I did not know that they were meant to be load bearing.


I think I am going to have to face the fact that having seen many people oohing and awing over some "craft" has given me a bias.

[beyelzu]

Keeping in mind that every face is unique, what about the 10,000 terra cotta warriors unearthed at the Tomb of the First Emperor in Xi'an in China?

Art or craft?

godfry
art.

[beyelzu]

Function certainly hinders expression. How?
much as rhyming schemes hinder expression in poetry. Therefore, by this logic, rhyming poetry is not art. You'll have to do better than that.
analogy


analogy


analogy


this public service announcement brought to you by people who understand analogies.

[beyelzu]

you must have missed the part where I said that pollock and most postmodern art is just pseudointellectual shit pretending to be art.

And you must have missed the part where I said, "Just because you don't like a certain genre of something, doesn't mean it isn't art."

The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.

Well, for one, if you're arguing semantics from dictionary.com, you need to work on the form of a fucking argument better.
well, thank you for that bit of constructive fucking criticism.


But onto more serious issues, how does this address art that is deemed to be not-beautiful, or even plain-old ugly? This is a disgustingly narrow and flawed definition of art because it relies on people's subjective views of beauty, but also on the shallow definition of sensual beauty.actually, I agree that it is a shitty definition of art. I didnt really think about it when I posted.

oh fucking well


as to escher, I think it is interesting that you think he lacks meaning and artistic interpetation.

When did I say that? I never outlined in my post what I think he lacks/contains, nor that any opinions expressed towards Escher were my own.

I am going to assume for the sake of argument that you arent being deliberately obtuse. You applied my defintion and said that by it Escher isnt art, I was trying to point out that by my definition he is art indeed.
artists make art because they have a need for self expression.
artisans make crafts because they need a chair/a scarf/ something to do with their time/etc.

And are you speaking from experience or just opinion?

Because, speaking from experience, I can tell you that's a load of shit.

experience. I paint, write poetry and sculpt. Not so much anymore. Also, the artists that I have known who I have respected had a need for self expression.
FF style flamewars are a friendly afair.

Screw that shite.

For fucks sake, can you learn to read, use the shift key and/or and edit button, instead of being a wanker who thinks he's Cummings just to try and get your post count up?thank you for making it a real flame war you fucking troll. :) :wink:

[beyelzu]

I have been thinking about this thread all day and have come to realize that my definition of art is pretty narrow.

thanks joep, liv, godfry, adora, et al.

I gots lots of stuff to think about.

[beyelzu]

much as rhyming schemes hinder expression in poetry.

Its not that I dont like rhymes, but when one is worried about rigid rules expression has to be sacrificed to some degree.

Okay now you're just talking crazy. There is a whole other kind of freedom to be found in structure. Michelangelo liberated his slaves from the marble, but he used a grid system like the ancient Greeks did to help create the sense of musculature in movement that his creativity and genius saw in blocks of stone.

Pope was not hindered by constraints of the epic genre when he wrote "The Rape of the Lock". On the contrary, it's what gives the poem its of satirical bite. Heroic rhyming couplets about the foolishness of a vain and overwrought society work on so many levels. Free verse would have kneecapped Pope's expression, not bettered it.

for example a chair must have a place to sit on it, and thus can not be as expressive as a free form sculture.

What about a sculpture which is also structural? The Slaves were meant to be load-bearing, you know.
Thank you. Exactly what I was saying!


sure it was. :)

[livius drusus]

I have been thinking about this thread all day and have come to realize that my definition of art is pretty narrow.

thanks joep, liv, godfry, adora, et al.

I gots lots of stuff to think about.

I so knew you were going to say something like that. It's my favorite thing about you. That, and your joie de flambé as showcased in your response to Adora.

Thank you for a lovely flamewar. :flamed:

[copiae]

But onto more serious issues, how does this address art that is deemed to be not-beautiful, or even plain-old ugly? This is a disgustingly narrow and flawed definition of art because it relies on people's subjective views of beauty, but also on the shallow definition of sensual beauty.


I personally define art as stuff that I find to be 'beautiful'. The beauty may stem from aesthetical brilliance, or how thought-provoking it is, or from many other reasons.

It is an inherently subjective definition, but it suits me, as I view it valid for one subject (i.e. me). Is my definition "disgustingly narrow and flawed"?

[godfry n. glad]

I really like shakespear.

maybe I am just talking crazy talk.


Yep.... Most of Shakespeare has been placed, by the playwriter, into the poetic straight-jacket of iambic pentameter. Some is "free verse", but most is structured.

Trust me, I did seven years of Shakespeare-in-the-Parks.

godfry

[livius drusus]

Poetic straight-jacket is right. When I had to write an iambic pentameter poem in 10th grade English all I could do is make lists of monosyllabic nouns: "the sky, the trees, the earth, the moon, the stars". I suck at poetry.

[JoeP]

much as rhyming schemes hinder expression in poetry...Okay now you're just talking crazy...Thank you. Exactly what I was saying!sure it was. :)
Do I detect a note of sarcasm here? I know you're smart enough to relate what liv is saying to what I said earlier, so I'll confine myself to a casual No fuck you, you huge dick!

[JoeP]

I really like shakespear.

maybe I am just talking crazy talk.


Yep.... Most of Shakespeare has been placed, by the playwriter, into the poetic straight-jacket of iambic pentameter. Some is "free verse", but most is structured.

Trust me, I did seven years of Shakespeare-in-the-Parks.

godfry
Guys, it's strait-jacket. In a crossover to the beta speling thread, I am making a blow for not introducing incorrect spellings that are more complicated than the correct ones!

[JoeP]

I lean towards free verse pretty obviously I suppose. The most expressive poems I have ever read were free verse. Sharon Old's sex without love and The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock.
Pah. Not as unstructured as you've been making out earlier in this thread. Expressive though, grant you that.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Observe the rhymes and the metre. Fuck you! (I'm starting to enjoy this :flamed: thread a lot.)

The practice of poets who write in free verse was well described by Ezra Pound, who wrote: "As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome." Pound's friend T. S. Eliot wrote: "No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job." Many formalist poets find free verse to be aesthetically useless, or, at the least, less capable of expression. One such poet, Robert Frost, said that writing free verse was like "playing tennis without a net".

And while we're speaking of MichelangeloEliot, what do you make of his dedication in The Waste Land: For Ezra Pound, 'Il miglior fabbro' (the better craftsman)?

Good art uses, very often, good craft. :welder:

[godfry n. glad]

I really like shakespear.

maybe I am just talking crazy talk.


Yep.... Most of Shakespeare has been placed, by the playwriter, into the poetic straight-jacket of iambic pentameter. Some is "free verse", but most is structured.

Trust me, I did seven years of Shakespeare-in-the-Parks.

godfry
Guys, it's strait-jacket. In a crossover to the beta speling thread, I am making a blow for not introducing incorrect spellings that are more complicated than the correct ones!

Hey, Joe... My dictionary (Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, 1994) shows either spelling to be acceptable.

:P

godfry

[JoeP]

Yep.... Most of Shakespeare has been placed, by the playwriter, into the poetic straight-jacket of iambic pentameter.
Guys, it's strait-jacket. In a crossover to the beta speling thread, I am making a blow for not introducing incorrect spellings that are more complicated than the correct ones!

Hey, Joe... My dictionary (Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, 1994) shows either spelling to be acceptable.

:P

godfry
Oh ... :bigeyes: you're :shocking: right ... :explode2:
Damn you, godfry, for being right.
Can I quote you on that?

[godfry n. glad]

And while we're speaking of MichelangeloEliot, what do you make of his dedication in The Waste Land: For Ezra Pound, 'Il miglior fabbro' (the better craftsman)?

Good art uses, very often, good craft. :welder:

Agreed. I think I'd at least alluded to that earlier in this thread.

And your statement only shows that we need something better than that paltry welder smilie. We need a flame-thrower smilie...or a "laying down a carpet of napalm" smilie. Something that at least places the remainder of the line in flames, instead of that puny little flatus of flame.

liv?

godfry

[JoeP]

It shows that, but it doesn't only show that. Hey, you're not always right. :D

[godfry n. glad]

It shows that, but it doesn't only show that. Hey, you're not always right. :D

Indeed. I sit corrected.

:yawn:

godfry

[beyelzu]

I lean towards free verse pretty obviously I suppose. The most expressive poems I have ever read were free verse. Sharon Old's sex without love and The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock.
Pah. Not as unstructured as you've been making out earlier in this thread. Expressive though, grant you that. yeah, but eliot picked his own stucture, bitch :).

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Observe the rhymes and the metre. Fuck you! (I'm starting to enjoy this :flamed: thread a lot.) I know the whole poem word for word, no need to quote it to me.

[beyelzu]

I have been thinking about this thread a good bit and I think I need to alter my classificatins of art.


I can accept that some crafts are art and that art and function arent opposed values.


but crappy silk flower arrangements from a craft store is crap. indeed if you purchased all your art supplies at walmart you probably arent making art at all. exceptions shall be made if you picked up very basic supplies and not a do it yourself type kit.


and bob ross sucks ass.

I dont see knitting as an art form, not enough expression in my not so humble opinion.


this is my new working definition.

[beyelzu]

Oh ... :bigeyes: you're :shocking: right ... :explode2:


liv, I thought we were avoiding stobing smilies?

[Godless Wonder]

I'm reminded of something Eddie Van Halen once said about music: "If it sounds good, it is good."

[godfry n. glad]

I have been thinking about this thread a good bit and I think I need to alter my classificatins of art.


I can accept that some crafts are art and that art and function arent opposed values.

That's a step in the right direction.


but crappy silk flower arrangements from a craft store is crap. indeed if you purchased all your art supplies at walmart you probably arent making art at all. exceptions shall be made if you picked up very basic supplies and not a do it yourself type kit.

Remember....Not all art is good art, but I mostly agree.

and bob ross sucks ass.

I don't know him. Is he responsible for the velvet Elvis or the big-eyed raggamuffins with a tear?

I dont see knitting as an art form, not enough expression in my not so humble opinion.

Well, talk to Kaffe Fasset (http://janhaag.com/oskf.htm) about it.

this is my new working definition.

Hmmm... You're not working hard enough. You managed to unjam the door to your mind...now just push it open.

godfry

[JoeP]

Oh ... :bigeyes: you're :shocking: right ... :explode2:


liv, I thought we were avoiding stobing smilies?
I'm so out of it. :deepsigh: What kind of rave / drug culture/ sexual activity is stobing? And who do you do it to? :sheepshag: