There’s no one ultimate definition of art, especially in our times. And here I’d like to challenge all those people for whom Art is Art because it’s Art. It makes no sense, doesn’t it? Really? Let’s see. Claiming that art is all about emotion and makes artist an artist because the object he produced, he – the artist called “work of art” is naïve and shows lack of knowledge. It’s result of XIX century aesthetic philosophy. It’s understandable if it’s said by an average Joe passing the gallery, but not by someone who claims they studied art or history of art, or generally someone whose sense of aesthetics is above the average. Of course, one does not has to study art or history of art to appreciate good art or scold and criticise “bad art”. But it seems, in our culture, many people lack courage and balls (both critics, art historians and art viewers) to publically say that something is just bad when it’s bad. Where does it come from? They don’t won’t make fools of themselves that they don’t understand this “art”? They don’t want to be against the élite that dictates trends and promoted this or that artist to the position of not only a star but a golden eggs giving duck? Probably all of these plus more.
THE HISTORY IN THREE PARAGRAPHS, BECAUSE SADISM OF ART-HISTORIANS HAS NO BOUNDARIES
Now, a little bit of history… it’s not really strange that definitions of art and artworks are intertwined. It’s rather common knowledge and most people agree with it that art is not for everybody, there are people who are completely immune to either aesthetic or intellectual aspects of it. Claiming that something is art only if it awakes any sort of emotions or is created from emotions, or when it’s done according to certain technical and aesthetic rules (different in every époque) are incomplete. It’s like putting Easter above Christmas. I may not find something appealing to my personal aesthetic taste but I acknowledge and appreciate its form of aesthetism as well as concept. But to be able to do it, one needs basic knowledge of all those artistic processes and artistic doctrines formed themselves through the century. And this is what The History of Art is, it’s the map of all those artistic doctrines and processes that had its place through the centuries with its objects, “afterimages” and artists. The History of Art basically teaches about how people perceived Beauty and Ugliness and their roles, what found aesthetically appealing and when it was intellectual or religious, why they created “objects” (which hardly ever had any useful purposes) and why they gave an intellectual or spiritual value to them. It’s the history, the timeline of the human creative activity and its artefacts. Finally, through the past understanding of Art, and according to the theory of Hegel, the Art of the History helps to notice certain artistic culture patterns that can be found in our modern culture. And finally though Hegel’s theory we can , more or less, talk about the “evolution” of Art which wouldn’t have its place because going through the history of Art and its doctrines, “evolution” would be a little too far-fetched observation when we have in mind al those side styles which seemed to develop separately from the mainstream or styles to were continued. (Hmm, in fact the term “continuation” is much more fitting)
Many people tried to “catch” Art and verbalise its definition through either intuition or logic. This intuitive approach represents Schopenhauer when he says that Art is the house of contemplation and contemplation is the domain of Art, but it must be noted that he specifically emphasised both the intellectual and sensual experience of Art, Experience or maybe rather pursuit of understanding Art. B. Croche stands that Art is all about intuition and artist’s tools are expression and emotions as the visual transfiguration of inner illumination, truth and artist’s vision. There was also J. Conrad for whom Art was the grand Eye and Ear of the World, its purpose is to see and hear, Art should be a reminder, the mirror… and last but not least, the conscience of the world. The modern “sensing” of Art, so to speak, is representing by H. Read form whom the aesthetic experience which is mainly the basis for Art is built on forms and harmonies through selections and searching for an order, escape from chaos, and forms that are pleasing to an eye. According to him Art itself is abstract and sort of condensation, and Artist is a synthesiser. Artists, while synthesising forms, must choose and select. So, Art discards lesser and chooses better values. <u>And finally, to use Tatarkiewicz’s definition of Art, we could say that Art is the conscious creative human activity and artwork would be the conscious product of man, where most important word would be “conscious”!!!!</u>
In the Ancient Greek and Rome as well as in the Middle Ages, Art was the ability/craft to produce (usually) material objects according to the certain rules and technique ( here you’ve got the latin noun “ars”) but it must be noted that Art was not understood the way we understand this phenomenon now! Art basically was seen as good craft and artist was an artisan! Sculpture as well as Painting were not de facto Art but “physical work” and not the domain of Intellect. This attitude changed in Renaissance where theoretic works of artists such as Leonardo and later Alberti basically changed the status of not only Art, by “marrying” it with Poetry, Science and Philosophy, but Artist as well and changed him from a mere artisan into “a priest of art” and a noble man. The Model of Ideal Beauty created using math and geometry was very popular in the Ancient times, which had the strong influence of the later Renaissance and Baroque perception of Art, gave birth to the certain canon of female beauty (Venus from Milo for instance) which aftermath is still present in our times, to which we’re enslaved. The History of Art shows that there were exceptions from this rule such as Gothic Madonnas. This canon was very admired in XVIII century but dropped later in XIX, it was understood that Beauty does not only lie in the Classic Aesthetic Canon. It was then when the idea of aesthetic of Ugliness came to the spotlight, although it was also noticed earlier (works of Hieronymus Bosch for instance). It could be said that, more or less, Art oscillated between emulating Nature and Reality or being the Mirror of these two.
THE PROBLEMS WITH THE MODERN DEFINITION OF ART AND ARTIST.
The radical changes in views on Art had their place in the first decade of XXth century, when the idea that Art is in fact Form itself (free form meaning or purpose, in other words, immanent) – shape (the Idea of Pure Form) started to haunt artists minds. It was no longer important what artwork presented but how it presented as well as it wasn’t important how it was done but what was done. It was the birth of Cubism and later Dadaism, etc. Artists rejected mimetism for totalimagining and creation of abstract things, it can be clearly noticed in works of Modrian, Kandinsky or Malewicz. Art became totally subjective and artist could stylise and manipulate reality to show his own vision of the world or just himself. His main goal became not to express emotions but in fact trigger them by shock or scandal (Artists as a scandalist), and it became also the definition of Art.
Dorota Nieznalska: "Passion", 2002, Gdansk, Progress Gallery.
Eugeniusz Get-Stankiewicz: "Do it yourself", 1986, Wroclaw National Museum.
Another noticeable change in the perception of Art in XXth century was the notion that Good Art should be innovative as well as Art is something that carries Originality within. There’s this human thing called “human individuality” hence each artist wants to be perceived as the creator of new avant-garde, and this is how the cult of artist was born. Paradoxically, this everlasting chase and search for originality and innovation become boring and utterly unoriginal in the end.
Studying Modern Art, we can’t determine no more without feeling exhausted what and what’s not work of art. We live in the times where Art subverted itself many times with sometimes good and sometimes bad aftermath. Art mocks Art. Art also turned reality into art and art into reality. We no longer, and maybe don’t want to, know when it’s art and when it’s just life. The language of symbols used by Art got terribly simplified to the role of mere pictograms and ready-made objects. Modern Art devalued object itself and glorified the very intellectual or emotional (read: creative) process which produced the object. Some art historians as well art lovers don’t consider Modern Art art at all, and it’s an incorrect attitude, so to speak. The first step to understand Modern Art is to stop looking at it or judging it through the past centuries sense of aesthetics and technique standards. It’s hard, because most of universities forcefully put this “glasses of the past” on students’s noses which results in a complete misunderstanding of all sorts of modern artistic attempts that happen around. Needless to say, that our society grew on the notion that all what’s beautiful, eye-pleasing or awakes certain emotions and put us in awe, is art. Well, I could be cynical and say that looking at cute little puppies puts us in “awe” too.
Modern Art developed its own language which is different to the one from the past, and both art historians and art lovers must learn it if they want to both appreciate art as well be able to distinguish art from nonentity, so to speak. It does not mean of course, that everything produced now is art. It isn’t , like not everything in the past got the status of art piece. This what we lack here now is the code, the language. The revolution that had begun with Duchamp’s Fountain basically dethroned basic artist’s tools such as brushes and paints, canvas, stone or architectural modules. Duchamp’s revolution allowed artists to use any medium they fancied, beginning with so called “ready made objects”, through performances to modern visual media such as video or sound… to convey their artistic message. Stll though the message - and its clarity – expressed in/through the object, also known as “concept” (different though to Renaissance “concetto”), was the gist of it all, the core. If there was no “core”, the object was not art but just a lavatory seat. Duchamp opened the door for brilliant ideas (such as Visual Poetry, Concrete Poetry, all First Avangarde styles) but also let all cheap ones in (such As “art works of one season” all those things which main purpose was to rise sensationalism and promote the man rather that its artist). The question now is, how to distinguish potential, an artist from a hmm, let me use an “economic” term for a new rich, from an upstart parvenu?
If I were a cynic I’d say, let them draw an academic nude and scenery and lets see if they can do it. I’ve got much more respect for an artist, who having some sort of solid craft background, <b>consciously</b> choose his/her artistic path rather than someone who feeds on the brilliance of others, or just this modern hunger for sensationalism. Having said that, I also have more respect for an artist who is simply honest with what they do and don’t attach some kind of fake ideology to it without which their art won’t defend itself. And we’ve got plenty of artists of this kind.
The normative definition of art/artwork states that two things determine whether something is considered work of art; their artistic and aesthetic values; The artistic values would be the mastery of craft and technique, also, so called skills (also known as “gift” or “talent”) and the element of originality/innovation; whether artist copy styles or add some new element to it. The aesthetic values are those of the subjective nature (the relative/subjective definition of art aka “this is art because I, Artist, made it”), if we like the thing or if we don’t. About whether artwork is beautiful or not, anyone can stand, because each one of us have their own perception of what is aesthetically appealing. But if you want to judge the art work for its artistic values, you’ve got to have the knowledge about it, simple as that. You don’t need to be in some mysterious circles, no grey eminences autocratically proclaim if this or that is art, it’s knowledge and study. It’s same with any discipline and profession.
MODERN ART IS RELIGION AND ARTIST THE MODERN PROMETHEUS OR FALSE PROPHETTHE FALSE NOTION THAT ART/IST IS SACRED AND UNTOUCHABLE SWEET-DAMNED-HEART
Art is not Sacred Cow and is subjected to criticism, judgement and revising like any other discipline from the group of sciences known proudly as the Human Arts.
The boundaries (not meant in the sense if there’s boundaries of idea or creativity though) of Art in its theoretical sense determine and can give the answer to question what is and what isn’t Art. This question is subjected to be answered by the competent entourage. Another question that arises would be who is competent enough to judge what could be considered work of art while something else would be rejected. The pursuit for an answer is the job for those for whom Art is the subject of study or passion, simple as that; it would be art historians, artists, art critics, marchands, art admires and last but not least, the public opinion as well as Time – the most sever and inevitable critic of all! There’s truth in the saying that if work of art survives the trial of Time, by it I mean, it defends itself better than the opinions of the public or fashion, it gains the status of art-piece and sometimes becomes a cultural icon. If we however state that no one is to judge or determine whether this or that is work of art, and no one but artist can call an object artwork, then we give art the status of religion and artist become an untouchable priest! And this borders with hypocrisy because while Art and Artist reserve the right for themselves to explore and subject all aspects of the human life (such us religion, religious iconography etc) – with no compromise or respect in the name of truth and all those beautiful values – to this “Artistic Judgement” and filter it through the Art’s Eye, it denies the viewers or critics the same right to criticise Art or its creation. In other words, it’s right for Artists to have people or the world reflect in their Art mirror, sometimes mocking the reflection, but Art-ist won’t dare to look at their own reflection in the mirror which are the public or art critics. So, yes, I am not afraid to say aloud that this or that is “shit”. I am entitled to it, both as a mere art admirer AND as an art-historian. Someone has to have the guts to say “The emperor is naked” when he clearly is!
