Everyone I know has a different definition. I think that we all agree that like pornography we know it when we see it. The Art that I practice is called painting. My definition is the practice of communicating using smears of pigment on a surface. From the concept through the execution of the final product the Art is made by the artist. I do not consider retouched photography capital A art, rather I see photography as a craft.
Before every photographer jumps on me, including my beautiful wife, there is Art in photography, I'm not a practitioner. Photographs have tremendous impact, consider their use in social media and their dominance in modern teaching. Photographs are used by painters. Some mount their tablet or monitor so it can be used while painting. I do that. When some artists project the photo on to the canvas and paint the canvas using the projection as a template, I think that's cheating. Penn and Teller produced a wonderful movie, Tim's Vermer. Tim researched Vermeer and recreated Vermeer's camera obscura. Still, it's cheating.
My Art teacher in college taught me to take a visual concept and define it emphasizing its essence, visual hook. He then asked us to create a representation of that concept. Once recorded, at that point in my life sketched on the canvas with charcoal, I could begin abstracting the piece. His assignment was to go through seven iterations of abstraction, completing each iteration and having a common thread. Consider George Braques' cubist Still life with bottles and glasses. The initial concept could be a realistic depicting the still life, the first iteration flattening the forefront of the concept, the next iteration flattening the next dimension and so forth until completing the assignment.
This copy of George Braque still life, named above, is from Wikimedia Commons.
Art, capital A art is a product created by the artist from concept to conclusion. Capital A art is recognized by taste makers as Art. More on this idea in a later post, read Kurt Vonnegut. Small a art is the craft version. With both versions, the artist names the process Art, it's art because I say it's art. Finally, there is a a second measure of the product the expertise or adroitness of construction. While cruising around the Internet, I read a discussion of Warhol's construction methods for his exhibit of the Brillo boxes. Warhol exceeded the quality of the original box. It is this expertise, attention to detail (OK OCD) that is another measure of the Art. Illustrators excel at the technical details and their mastery of materials is breathtaking.
No comments:
Post a Comment