Skill, craft, technique in art
I am not an artist. The closest thing I do that could be called art is non-fiction, non-poetry writing. So this is a bit of a fishing expedition. I want to talk about skill, craft, technique and how much it matters in art. When I say art, I mean all kinds of art; painting, sculpture, music, poetry, conceptual art, literature, etc. And I dont want this to turn into a discussion of what is and isnt art. Im going to try to keep my examples to instances that people in general will agree on.
This subject came to mind as I was driving listening to Pandora. Missing Vassar by Ricky Skaggs came on. What a great instrumental. Thats one of the things I love about bluegrass - great musicians playing as if each song were a conversation. Heres a link:
That brought up the question in my mind. How much of my enjoyment of the song came from the skill of the musicians? What else matters? I am not a sophisticated musical listener, so I dont know much about the technical aspects, but Ive listened to a fair amount of amateur acoustic music and I can tell the difference and the difference matters.
This brings to mind modern or conceptual art. People say Anyone could do that. I have a certain amount of sympathy for that position. But it also makes me think of what they call primitive or outsider art, which may make up in feeling and vision what it misses in technical skill. Or folk music:
This is from The Principles of Art by R.G. Collingwood.
In order to clear up the ambiguities attaching to the word art, we must look to its history. The aesthetic sense of the word, the sense which here concerns us, is very recent in origin. Ars in ancient Latin, like ????? [techn?] in Greek, means something quite different. It means a craft or specialized form of skill, like carpentry or smithying or surgery. The Greeks and Romans had no conception of what we call art as something different from craft; what we call art they regarded merely as a group of crafts, such as the craft of poetry (???????? ?????, ars poetica), which they conceived, sometimes no doubt with misgivings, as in principle just like carpentry and the rest, and differing from any one of these only in the sort of way in which any one of them differs from any other.
And this brings to mind what Robert Pirsig wrote in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Art is high quality endeavor. Again, I dont want to talk about what is art and what isnt. Weve had that discussion before.
There are a lot of people here on the forum much more knowledgeable about art than I am. Id like to hear what they have to say about this.
This subject came to mind as I was driving listening to Pandora. Missing Vassar by Ricky Skaggs came on. What a great instrumental. Thats one of the things I love about bluegrass - great musicians playing as if each song were a conversation. Heres a link:
That brought up the question in my mind. How much of my enjoyment of the song came from the skill of the musicians? What else matters? I am not a sophisticated musical listener, so I dont know much about the technical aspects, but Ive listened to a fair amount of amateur acoustic music and I can tell the difference and the difference matters.
This brings to mind modern or conceptual art. People say Anyone could do that. I have a certain amount of sympathy for that position. But it also makes me think of what they call primitive or outsider art, which may make up in feeling and vision what it misses in technical skill. Or folk music:
This is from The Principles of Art by R.G. Collingwood.
In order to clear up the ambiguities attaching to the word art, we must look to its history. The aesthetic sense of the word, the sense which here concerns us, is very recent in origin. Ars in ancient Latin, like ????? [techn?] in Greek, means something quite different. It means a craft or specialized form of skill, like carpentry or smithying or surgery. The Greeks and Romans had no conception of what we call art as something different from craft; what we call art they regarded merely as a group of crafts, such as the craft of poetry (???????? ?????, ars poetica), which they conceived, sometimes no doubt with misgivings, as in principle just like carpentry and the rest, and differing from any one of these only in the sort of way in which any one of them differs from any other.
And this brings to mind what Robert Pirsig wrote in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Art is high quality endeavor. Again, I dont want to talk about what is art and what isnt. Weve had that discussion before.
There are a lot of people here on the forum much more knowledgeable about art than I am. Id like to hear what they have to say about this.
Comments (231)
Anyone can be a philosopher, right? "I think the world was created by God." Doesn't make you a philosopher. Equally, "I can splash paint on a canvas," does not make you an artist.
On the other hand:
Quoting Smithsonian American Art Museum
I find this beautiful and moving.
As an artist, skill, craft and technique are crucial to what I do. Skill helps me realize what I want to create. Craft is a bit of a vague word to me, but technique is an aspect of skill. They're all very important. This is true across mediums and skill levels; to say that these things are important in making good art doesn't mean that only artists with an advanced level of knowledge and experience are good.
A professional pianist commented that Haydn's piano scores are more polished than Mozart's. Of course: Haydn had tenure in the Esterhazy court; Mozart had to get out and hustle to maintain an income stream. Plus, Haydn died at 77; Mozart died at 35. I'd be hard pressed to say which one made a bigger splash.
In the first place, there is talent. I could practice till doomsday and would not be asked to perform on so much as a kazoo.
I hear about "fast fashion" (fast turnaround clothing design); It's not haute couture, not that I know much about that either, other than a lot of it looks like ready-made trash. Art might help fashion, but fashion doesn't help art so much.
As for this Collinwood ("the best known neglected thinker of our time"), I tend to be suspicious of statements like "The Greeks and Romans had no conception of what we call art as something different from craft." Perhaps, but what the Greeks valued as "craft" was pretty damn great. Collingwood is to classics the very opposite of what I am to quantum mechanics [zero] but still, there are not many extended texts from the classical era. Generalizations tend to be supported on slim pillars. Besides, we go round and round trying to decide what we will call art.
Thanks for the Animal House snippet.
Art is not a painting, nor a song, but somewhere between both and neither.
Art does take skill(to make), technique(for originality) and craft(to make at-all), but above all, skill, as technique is a skill controller and craft is a skill disc.
What one learns in Buddhism is akin to art.
Picture looking around, art is the heat of that moment if, you, the looker, is thinking creatively; so what I ask is the art of looking around?(it can be different).
Yes, I'm sure skill is important to you as an artist, but is there art you would call good for which not much skill is needed? I point back to my post on visionary art.
Expert artists and connoisseurs are not the only or the primary audiences for most art. Technically perfect art without vision and feeling are sterile. Collingwood again:
[i]What is meant by saying that the painter records in his picture the experience which he had in painting it? With this question we come to the subject of the audience, for the audience consists of anybody and everybody to whom such records are significant.
It means that the picture, when seen by some one else or by the painter himself subsequently, produces in him (we need not ask how) sensuous-emotional or psychical experiences which, when raised from impressions to ideas by the activity of the spectators consciousness, are transmuted into a total imaginative experience identical with that of the painter. This experience of the spectators does not repeat the comparatively poor experience of a person who merely looks at the subject; it repeats the richer and more highly organized experience of a person who has not only looked at it but has painted it as well.[/i]
I agree with Collingwood on this. I think art tries to convey one person's experience to another. I guess good art succeeds in that effort. To make good art, you have to have an experience worth conveying.
Quoting Bitter Crank
For what it's worth, Collingwood was a philosopher as well as a practicing historian and archeologist. Skeptical or not, I think what he says is worth listening to.
As indicated in the OP, I don't intend this to be a discussion of the definition of art.
I don't understand.
Quoting Varde
I have ideas all the time. I'm pretty good at putting them into words, but normally I could not express them musically or visually. Even when what is in my mind is visual I can express it better in words than in images.
I don't think so. Hampton's "Throne" looks very skillfully made to me (I was unaware of it by the way, thanks for turning me on to it). I get frustrated by the notion that it's possible to make good art without a lot of skill; why don't we apply this idea to other fields? Can a carpenter be good without much skill? Can an engineer be good without much skill? An electrical engineer maybe?
I think people apply this fantasy to art because they don't understand art or the creative process. If they did, they wouldn't make the mistake. People like myself have put thousands of hours of work into what we do; years and years of work. This week alone I've spent probably around 12 hours total notating a solo piano piece that's five minutes long. I'm not done yet and this is just the first draft. I'll probably spend at least 5 hours fine tuning it and redoing parts of it. I'm not even sure how readable it is; I plan on sending it to my brother for feedback, and my guess is he's going to say it needs work. This is just the musical notation, not a performance of the piece. Anyway, I hope you get the idea of my point here.
Anyway, the point I was going to make before I went on a rant is that I think even art that appears to not require much skill requires more than you think. Simplicity is often harder to pull off than complexity. Simplicity requires a different skill set.
Here's a close-up of one part of the sculpture.
I don't mean this as criticism at all, but it doesn't look skillful to me. Beautiful, yes.
Quoting Noble Dust
As I noted in the OP, my thinking was set off by an example of what I consider a very skillful piece of music. In "Missing Vassar" my pleasure would not have been nearly as strong if it were played poorly. On the other hand, I find this much less polished performance very moving.
What are your thoughts on the Woody Guthrie video?
Quoting Noble Dust
Sure. That's sort of my point, or at least my question. How much does vision and creativity make up for lack of technical skill
I like that song, but I don't feel any need to listen to it for my own pleasure (I listened to it just now of course). It's a culturally significant song. As a younger person it has more historical interest to me than anything. I think he was skilled, but more in a creative way. He was also in the right place at the right time, which is a significant part of success in art.
Quoting Clarky
I don't know how to quantify how much. I like the simplicity of Coldplay:
Ultimately I think vision and creativity are more important because they tend to be what drives the emotional impact of a work, which is ultimately what art does; communicates things emotionally and intuitively in ways that nothing else can. But of course a base level of skill is still required; Woody can play guitar decently. Chris Martin has a nice singing voice. Their drummer can play the drums.
This art took a lot of skill and an amount of luck.
One of the issues of art and skill is to do with social position and culture. Some people go to art schools to learn techniques and where one has studied may be as important too. The outsider art movement was important because it was about people who would in usual circumstances be excluded. However, it was only a fairly small movement, as folk art and it does seem that visual art is still elitist in many ways.
With other arts it is so variable with different segments. For example, someone trained in classical music may look down on the music of Oasis or Ed Sheeran, for example, but some may not. There is popular culture and so many genres and it is likely that each have different criteria for evaluating skills. It may be about guitar solos or songwriting, and also fashions within genres change so much. For example, there was the whole trend of English singers putting on an American accent, and the rough and ready aspects of punk and many music subcultures.
Even with fiction books there are so many different ways of thinking about skill and technique, with the tension between popular, the many specialist genres, as well as classical fiction and literary fiction. There may be a change in emphasis on technique and skill as more people are publishing their own work online.
But with the various arts techniques are bound up with different aspects of culture and with marketing. Some of it may be about techniques and some of it as snobbery value as well. Sometimes this may miss the creative processes and it is likely that many creative people never get well known. Then, there is the other extreme of Van Gogh, who was became an enigma after his death, like some musicians too, such as Hendrix. There is also what Todd Rundegrun called ' The Popular Tortured Artist Effect', and apart from art as creative expression there is also the arts therapies which focus more on the psychotherapeutic potential of art more than skill and technique.
Skill is just the means to make the work. But you have to know what to make.
Quite so. But they have expert music teachers (for musical performance).
Quoting Clarky
I'm not sure what "technically perfect art" looks or sounds like. Or that perfection leads to blind sterility. Here's a demo of Isaac Stern teaching students in China (1979) how to get vision and feeling from their violins.
Quoting Clarky
The unexamined life isn't worth painting.
Quoting Clarky
Quoting Clarky
Quite so. It's not Collinwood's fault that the Greeks and Romans used media that rotted in dampness instead of baked clay tablets. Our civilization's output will vanish in the entropy of magnetic storage, as well as from our libraries turning into fungal farms. Who will save a fragment of our thought? The Mall of America's hulking big boxiness will remain, but without the great art it inspired (he said sarcastically).
Good thread!
Guthrie sang the homespun virtues of the common folk. "He captured the heart of hard economic times and war while struggling with poverty and personal demons." He wasn't famous for his voice not in the way that Pete Seeger was. Malvina Reynolds wrote some memorable songs -- among them "Little Boxes" Her voice is even less attractive than Woody Guthrie. Reynolds was a PhD in English / Communist / protest song composer / wife / mother.
One of her songs was used for a charming Kodak commercial back in the 60s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKOPwEk6m4w
I've thought about this. The only real skill I have is writing, but not the kind of writing that would typically be called artistic. I am not particularly self-conscious about where the words, spoken or written, come from. I feel them coming out. I reread them and see if they make sense and edit if necessary. I don't think there's much examining going on when most artists create. From what I've seen in interviews, many of them are not particularly articulate about the process.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I have more confidence in Collingwood's understanding of classical art than I do in yours.
As an artist (sorry, I feel like such an asshole when I say that sort of thing), I do a lot of examination of life (I joined this philosophy forum after all), but yes, when I'm creating a work, I'm not examining. I think that's an important distinction. The unexamined life may not be worth dancing about, but that doesn't mean the dancer isn't examining first and then dancing intuitively.
What we do have is a much larger body of what we call art, what they called craft - sculpture, friezes, mosaics, painting (Pompeii, for instance). The dining room wall decoration from a Pompeii house is likely to end up in an art museum, but we'd likely agree -- this is craft, not art. It's decor, like wallpaper. It is thought that Greco-Roman sculpture was painted--shocking! What? The Winged Victory of Samothrace a painted lady! Much of what survives are copies--very good copies, but still.
As far as the unexamined life goes, our good fortune is that Hogarth found the lives of louts worth examining in pencil and paint.
'
Woah you just set off a bomb in my brain. Something for another thread.
Let's see. The guy sitting in the middle back with the big wig is clearly Trump. The guy standing over him with his glass raised is Giuliani. The guy on the floor in front is Jeffrey Clark. Not sure who the rest are. I guess I don't recognize them because they all plead the 5th and didn't show up in the videos. I think this is the meeting when they were all asking for a pardon.
The 'flow' of creativity is best not interrupted.
I think so.
Good question. Quick brain dump with some opining. We tend to enjoy the things we already appreciate. Why do we like them? Because we like things like them. So if craft is important to you, it's probably because you already like well executed things. Some artforms are all about the craft (classical music) but sometimes really accomplished performers can sound slightly soulless. I can't explain this but for me technical skill is pointless without something more - perhaps it is emotion.
I have had a side hustle as a writer (TV and journalism and speech writing) this is definitely a craft. But when done with sufficient inspiration could be an artform. For me, however, great writing almost always seems like craft - even Nabokov or Edith Wharton.
My favourite singers are not great vocalists - Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen - but they have something more - what is it? Buggered if I know, but it matters to me. Doesn't hurt that their songs are brilliantly written and make the most of their range, such as it is.
True, but in classical music, for example, interpretation is so key. Especially in what I consider the golden age, the late romantic to early modern period; the music of that era is so malleable that interpretation becomes everything. A lot of the music from that era is so damn hard to play that a faithful interpretation is just rare. Pogorelich is an example of a master who, in my opinion, played Ravel properly and was able to coax out the emotional content while also being a virtuoso and able to play impossible music properly.
Quoting Tom Storm
Perhaps!?
Quoting Tom Storm
Can you define "craft"? I still don't understand this word.
Quoting Tom Storm
You're feeling feelings Tommy boy! Embrace it!
For me craft focuses on skill - a work is loosely or strictly based upon a pattern or formula (eg, song writing, journalism, ship building, making a table). Making a pair of boots is a craft - there is a pattern to follow. Some craftspeople go a step or two further and can make a pair of boots a thing of beauty. Perhaps this is high craft, some might even call it art at that level. But none of this is exact and this is only my working definition.
I worked briefly for an antiquities/art dealer in the 1980's who sometimes sold 'important' paintings. In discussing the work they would often separate out art from craft and talk about the work's emotional impact, capacity to surprise, etc (art) as opposed to the extent to which the artists was a competent draftsperson (craft).
Maybe a soulless technical performance is just one without much of an interpretation or 'personality'. I have to say the more I think about it the less any of this seems to matter to me. There's just what I like and everyone else has pisspoor taste. :wink:
Quoting Noble Dust
I don't think it is emotion - that doesn't generally work for me, it has to have something more. It's a visceral thing.
Quoting Noble Dust
I love bridges. Well-built stone structures - Machu Picchu is the most beautiful thing in the world. 2000 year old Roman aqueducts. New England is a good place for that. I like things that are like stone walls - arguments laid out like bricks to build a wall of evidence. That's one of the reasons I loved "Origin of species." When I write non-fiction, I try to write like that. I love houses. Small towns. Big cities. Things made with workmanlike economy for practical purposes without cutting corners. Structures that grow organically and fit in with their neighbors. Things that are beautiful because they are well-made. I guess that's what craft means to me. I think this is what Pirsig meant when he said art is high-quality endeavor.
Quoting Tom Storm
This gets to the heart of it for me. If you believe, as I do, that art is anything made to be judged aesthetically, how do you classify things that are made to be useful, comfortable, and reliable for which aesthetics is secondary at most?
Classical music was one of the main things I was thinking about when I started this thread. It seems like the place where skill and art come as close as possible. I don't have much to say because it isn't my music. The most I can say is "Me like. Sound purty." I was hoping someone would bring it up.
What you do you mean by "aesthetics?"
"Of or concerning the appreciation of beauty."
Oh. Why do you think art is only about beauty?
I don't think that's all there is to it, but I think the definition I gave makes sense. Lot's of others don't agree. We've had long discussions of that in the past.
So, you don't care. ok.
There you go, being all grouchy and sarcastic and dismissive and stuff.
Sorry, I forgot to agree with everything you say.
I've pondered this for some years. My imperfect answer is that such objects are craft works, not art works. One area where this gets tricky is in what is often called 'art of the ancient world'. Two items spring to mind - an Egyptian sarcophagus made of cartonage, painted, colourful and decorative; and an Athenian painted vase vase. They are both objects primarily designed to have a function - a coffin and a jug respectively. They they are now admired solely for the art they reveal. Are they everyday crafted objects which have transcended their status is some way? Or are do they embody a kind of dualism of purpose - equally both art and craft?
I have been an artist about 35 years. Crafts people get angry when you say it is not art. I don't see the problem. Art is not about beauty, it is about making objects which convey meaning.
As I said, reducing aesthetics to beauty is wrong.
I don't think it is wrong. It's just not my definition. I generally prefer not to make totalizing statements when it comes to aesthetics. Someone could come along and explain what beauty means in a much fuller, richer intergrated way that I can have imagined. Just saying...
We are different. I actually have studied those claims about beauty. They are wrong. Every opinion is not correct because one opines.
bye
Art for arts sake is not art then? That cant be right, can it?
Not sure what you're saying. Art for art's sake was a motto for decorative art.
I brought Collingwood into this discussion because of the distinction between art and craft he made and because he writes that ancient Greeks didn't think about art the way we do. That makes me think of some ancient Chinese writing where they look to skilled butchers and other craftsmen as embodying spiritual values. Since the subject of this thread is the role of skill in art, the question that comes to mind is what, beyond skill, makes craft.
Forgive me for utilizing my common sense but wouldnt that be art for the sake of decoration?
Where did you hear that phrase, Art for art's sake?
Then tell me what it means to you.
You can make any word mean anything you want it to mean by waving your hand at it. Generally, though, when you use a word it makes sense to use it as it is commonly understood. Otherwise you're just talking to yourself.
Quoting Wikipedia
Quoting IEP
Quoting Merriam-Webster
Sorry, but I ignore people who think dictionaries and wiki are philosophical arguments.
You keep saying you're not going to pay attention to me any more, but then you keep sticking your $0.02 in.
I never said that, do not lie.
Quoting Jackson
Personal aesthetic expression, to put it broadly.
What does making objects which convey meaning mean to you? Dictionarys are objects made to convey meaning, for instance, and you dont seem to like those objects much.
My advice is to contribute more than a sentence at a time. You're clearly well-read, but your post quality is extremely low. Most of us here are posting in good faith, so investing time and effort will go a long way. If you don't do that, as you haven't, then you'll reap what you've sown. As you have. Best of luck.
Get lost.
That doesn't work either. In your own words, "Bye".
Interesting; I like this. So a soulless technical performance is just playing "the right notes" (sorry, hard for me to get outside of music in these discussions) without a creative interpretation that elevates the piece (or the dance, or whatever).
Quoting Tom Storm
Interesting as well. I equivocate visceral with emotional. What is something visceral that doesn't hit you emotionally?
Ok, I think I'm starting to get a sense of "craft". Craft seems separate from artistic. For instance, this mid-2015 macbook pro I'm typing on is generally considered the "best" macbook pro build of all time; the ones that came after were prone to all sorts of defects. This machine is considered the best of its "craft"; i.e. it's ergonomic, the hardware and software play well together (with a proven track record) and the thing is just built to last, unlike some models. Is that craft? I'm asking you.
I guess I classify useful things by how useful they are. But I'm also not an aesthete when it comes to practical stuff; I know people that love beautiful glassware, cabinetry, motorcycles, etc. People who love useful things that are also aesthetic. I'm not the type of person who appreciates that; I've been a musician since I was a kid, so my appreciation of aesthetics tends to be pretty heavily focused on art for arts sake. But I want to be able to have an aesthetic appreciation for useful objects that are also aesthetic; I just don't seem to have it in me. I guess I do like good glassware. But when I break a piece, I'm annoyed for a day or two, and then I forget it existed. Especially if I find a replacement.
I'm just reaching for words to convey some idea that it's more ineffable. You are probably right that visceral is the wrong word. Now the reason I say it isn't just about emotion is that I can listen to 100 pop songs and none will hit target. But a Waits song will. There is something about how it is done that is central to its impact. Maybe the 'how', the presentation is the emotion? Anyway apart from old school blues (Muddy Waters, Little Walter, etc) I generally don't listen to any music with voice, certainly no folk, rock or pop.
Ah, but Waits is a big baby boy, right? I love him to death, but he's an emotional creature; that's why his music is so important. From my view, his way of getting at emotion works for you, so he gets you from A to B.
I wouldn't' say that the "how" is the emotion, but rather that the how can elicit specific emotions, so the how will touch some people emotionally but not others.
Quoting Tom Storm
Haha, you are so hard core, which I respect. Love old school blues.
I think Collingwood's point is that there are people who don't see them as separate. Or maybe who think there is no art and only craft. Or for whom the distinction never crosses their mind. And while it's easy for me to think of something not skillfully made as art, it's hard for me to think of something that isn't as craft.
Quoting Noble Dust
I love what they call the "decorative arts." I always loved that section of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Furniture, silver, stained glass, clothing.
Is that art? That's the question at hand. If we use my criteria - art is something presented to be judged aesthetically - maybe not. But that brings us back to my original question - how important is skill to art? I'm confused. This is fun. Just what I wanted to talk about.
Quoting Noble Dust
@Tom Storm wrote earlier he sees good writing as craft. I agree. Can't the same can be said for music?
Quoting Noble Dust
For me, one of the best things about glassware is that it's breakable. In order to love it, you have to be ready to let it go. I made a Christmas tree ornament for my daughter. It's a small cardboard box. Inside is a broken glass ornament. If you shake it you can hear the pieces jangle. On the cover is a label that says "Is this art?" When I gave it to her I gave her a picture of what was inside. Now, whether or not that is art, I think it is clearly not craft, except maybe in the sense we mean it when kindergarteners make napkin rings from old cardboard toilet paper tubes.
Love Waits. My favorite:
Sorry it took me so long to reply.
I think many people can separate what they like from what they respect. There's music I don't especially enjoy listening to - jazz, rap, some classical - but I can still see that it has value and the musicians have skill and talent. Clearly many popular musicians are very skilled, e.g. the Ricky Scaggs song I played.
Quoting Jack Cummins
I often will say that something is well-written but when I step back, I can't really say why. That goes for my own writing. I know when I'm satisfied with what I've written, but I can't tell you why. My own reading is usually genre fiction. In terms of skill, story, and heart, I'll put John LeCarre's George Smiley books up against any modern literary writer.
Good point and one some people forget - if they don't like it, it's because 'it ain't no good'. There are many things I admire that I want no part of because I don't enjoy them - most long form TV series - e.g., Breaking Bad, The Wire; most opera; Shakespeare plays; graphic novels; stand up comedy. I wonder if this is because I appreciate the craft, but don't respond emotionally to the art.
I think the prime example for me is jazz. I used to listen to it quite a bit because there were people where I worked who liked it. I could tell it was good from listening - complex rhythms and melodies and very skilled musicians. People I like and respect love it. Also, jazz DJs are just about the best around. I enjoyed hearing them talk about it more than I did listening to it.
Haha, I always skip that type of section in museums.
Quoting T Clark
Nice silverware and cups are not art, no. Craft appears to be judged more on it's use; art on it's aesthetic appeal. Again, I'm contending that skill is key to art, but skill doesn't just mean technical ability.
Quoting T Clark
I think that depends on one's temperament. Some schools of thought would agree with you that well written music is craft. I'm not of that persuasion. Music is so malleable. I love ambient music and collage music, sample-based music (the whole world of sampling is a philosophical question unto it's own), noise music. Ultimately, in a grand sense, there are no rules in music, whereas something like writing has to adhere to or at least be aware of the rules of grammar. I guess you can argue that in music you need to adhere to or at least be aware of the rules of harmony and rhythm, but I would even call that into question, personally. Music has the potential for reinventing itself way outside of the lines of its usual definition, I think.
Quoting T Clark
Cool story. I like the idea of being willing to let good glassware go. The transience and it's relation to your aesthetic appreciation of it; your emotional tie to it...the transience of the emotional tie. Interesting. I need to think about it.
Technique: A way of painting, sculpting, writing, composing music, etc.
Skill: Mastery of a technique, sometimes adding a personal touch, a signature move, etc.
Craft: Inter alia a profession involving producing certain products of artistic cum commercial value e.g. smithing, pottery, tailoring, etc.
To craft an item one hasta know a technique and be skilfull as well.
Quoting Noble Dust
Nuthin'. Thanks for your concern.
I'm not concerned, I'm wondering why you made some latin joke about "no offense" in regards to Jackson telling me to get lost, and then it and my response to it disappeared.
If it has disappeared, good that it has. Let's close this chapter.
Craft, as an activity separate from art, aims to produce useful objects, which are more or less fit for purpose and more or less beautiful. Art aims to produce objects solely for aesthetic appreciation (which are therefore more difficult to judge).
Craft, as a part of art, is the application of traditional skills that the artist has been trained in. Or more loosely, it is the skill or technique involved in making a work of art. How important is it? I'd say very important, but it's more complicated than a linear scale of skillfulness.
They say that Van Gogh was not as accomplished a painter as Picasso, but I don't think we can say that he was an inferior artist. I suppose we might say that because Picasso had mastered the traditional artistic skills, he was more able to revolutionize art in the way he did. Things seemed to come easy for him; was that because of technical mastery?
Similarly, there have been many more technically able guitarists than Frank Zappa or Robert Fripp, but the music of, say, Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai leaves me cold. Could this be because Zappa and Fripp had other skills, not particularly involved in guitar technique, that they brought to bear on their guitar playing (harmonic awareness, note choices, etc., that they got from being composers and having a natural all-round musical knowledge and musicality)? Or do we in this case want to reach for the arty stuff to explain it: conceptual vision, emotional investment, or imagination?
Some painters are terrible at painting hands but great at other things. Can we only say they are great once they've finally managed to master hands?
It becomes apparent that craft, skill, and technique are not the same thing, or can at least encompass a range of different and overlapping kinds of abilities. One answer is that craft (and possibly technique) is the set of traditional techniques that are handed down by training, whereas skill seems to be something wider or more general.
I wouldn't want to say that art = [craft, skill, and technique] + [vision, emotional investment, imagination], because it seems simplistic and reductive, but it might be a way of looking at it. For instance, some conceptual artists have the second addend, and the first is applied by the employees of the artist. And what does this say about conceptual art?
I'd rather understand the chapter because I don't. I don't particularly like your little :snicker: comments that happen from time to time, often directed at me. Please elaborate and don't attempt to deflect. Speak to me plainly.
Alright. Sorry for assuming otherwise, @Agent Smith. From my perspective it just looked fishy.
[quote=Ranjeet]A thousand apologies.[/quote]
I should've minded my own business. Lesson learned. Danke and au revoir monsieur.
Muchas gracias señor Jamal. G'day.
Dont worry about it. Sometimes I get butt hurt too quickly, apologies.
:up:
Many restaurants and homes have what I consider to be badly designed forks. I was in an Italian restaurant yesterday and ordered tagliatelle, but was shocked (shocked!) to see that my fork had short tines. Some might say that it was beautiful to look at, but if a tool is not fit for purpose, any beauty it might have is empty. Its eye-pleasing shape was superficial; for any tool, an important element in its beauty must be its functionality (and how it feels in the hand etc).
I sometimes stop to wonder why this is my favourite mug or t-shirt or sword.
Answering myself here...
What it might say is that conceptual art is a mistaken or ill-conceived separation of the two, that it's the exemplar of a belief in the false equation, art = [craft, skill, and technique] + [vision, emotional investment, imagination]. And this belief could be the result of the inflated status of the artist as creator, which is an ecomonic and sociological phenomenon.
What is an alternative role for the artist if she's not a creator?
I didn't want to suggest that an artist is not, or should not be, a creator. Rather, I meant that artists might have been artificially elevated as practitioners of pure creativity, meaning something higher than a creativity tied to the physical aspects of making a work of art.
I don't understand.
Ok, I think we're probably on the same page about this.
Quoting Jamal
Any names?
Damien Hirst. Now, I know he has changed over the years but some time around 10 or 15 years ago he was asked (I can't find it online so I'm going from memory here) if skill was important to art, and his answer was something like, "no, because otherwise you might as well be doing macramé", and I remember being irritated by this dismissive attitude to skill. This and the fact that many of his works were (are?) actually produced by his employees.
As I say, he may have changed. I do know, for instance, that he does or has done his own paintings.
I recall reading about a study which claims that people think, to some degree, that aesthetically pleasing tools work better, even though they may actually be inferior in function to ugly tools.
Quoting Jamal
I wouldnt call this separation ill-conceived, I would simply tend to regard the result as commercial art, or art produced with the intent of making money, promoting some cause, or whatever. The conceptual artist in this case is the capitalist or boss and in this way does hold a higher status position, and reaps the lion-share of profits. Its not just artistic concepts though, like any business its having access to resources that the talent lacks.
You're just craft snobs
I didnt say anything about craft, did I?
On second look, no.
Yes, I agree. I suppose I meant rather that the separation is not the way it has to be.
Quoting Jamal
I don't necessarily disagree with either of you, at least broadly, but the Collingwood quote I put in the OP set me thinking. According to him, some of the greatest art ever made isn't art at all, or at least was not considered such by those who made it. Here's more from Collingwood:
If people have no word for a certain kind of thing, it is because they are not aware of it as a distinct kind. Admiring as we do the art of the ancient Greeks, we naturally suppose that they admired it in the same kind of spirit as ourselves. But we admire it as a kind of art, where the word art carries with it all the subtle and elaborate implications of the modern European aesthetic consciousness. We can be perfectly certain that the Greeks did not admire it in any such way.
The bold is mine. So how does that change things. Perhaps it doesn't for you, but I think it at least puts some strain on Jamal's distinction between craft as work product and craft as skill.
The distinction you are making between literature and music as art or as craft don't make much sense to me. All music has rules. Maybe different types of music have different rules, but still... If it doesn't, I think it just becomes conceptual art, which to me is like the liar's sentence of art.
Quoting Noble Dust
Sometime I'll tell you my aesthetic theory of Christmas tree ornaments.
I think that's right. That's why I included all three because I don't think any one addressed everything I wanted to question.
Quoting Jamal
Yes, this is where I came in. My question is can you have good art without good skill, craft, technique. Or maybe which matters more.
I have a fairly intense reaction to some daily objects, e.g. those glasses I showed. I think they look beautiful. The pastel colors go well with the thinness of the glass. I love the way they feel in my hand and they way they feel when I lift them to my mouth. I love the way I can feel their weight and balance when I only look at them. Just writing about them here I can feel how the glass feels on my tongue as the cool lemonade goes in my mouth. I can taste the lemons. I love that they are easily breakable.
And then there's my New England Patriots sweatshirt which I love because my son gave it to me when he was 15.
Quoting Jamal
Conceptual art can be fun and interesting. Some can even be moving and intellectually disorienting. But much, most, of it feels sterile to me. Lots of head but no heart.
Whether or not that's true, I think we are getting at in important issue here.
I was thinking some more about this. This from Collingwood:
That way of seeing art makes sense to me. Although this is an over-simplification, perhaps the distinction we're trying to make is between the quality of the artist's effort to share the experience as opposed to the quality of the experience itself.
That was meant light heartedly. Where's the light hearted emoji?
So much to unpack isn't there? I am indifferent to most works by Van Gogh and Picasso - but I would say Picasso has the greater imaginative power and seems to be more inspired (more of that later) owing to his prodigious and seemingly ceaseless diversity. The term technical mastery is just another way to say talent, isn't it? But that word sticks out in today's culture. Is 'talent' just the application of great skill, or is it more inspired? I hold to a more unjustifiable and romantic view of the arts and think of some artists as inspired in some way - and I can't really account for or explain this except in the subjective experience of the work. So it's useless to others.
I find Zappa's stuff to be glib and empty cleverness, but I agree with you about Steve Vai who I see as the acme of soulless masturbatory technique. I often cite Vai as an example of how technique means little. I tend to reach for arty stuff in my appreciation of music - I like qualities: imagination, surprise, emotion, flaws, vitality, intimacy, intensity. All pretty vague and personal.
:rofl:
I used to love short stories. When I was young, there were many books of science fiction stories that I liked. Somewhere along the line I stopped reading them. Not sure why, but I don't find them satisfying now.
I really enjoy choral and some orchestral music. The interplay of all those voices, human and otherwise, can be engrossing and moving. When you have large groups of singers and musicians performing together, what is most important for the quality and enjoyability of the experience? Does the skill of individuals matter or is it only the way everyone plays in the group? Assuming there are no unskilled participants, does only the average quality matter? Can you hear the difference a single singer or musician makes? Or is it mostly in the direction by the conductor?
Thanks.
Just responding to everyone and no one in particular.
I think at the heart of the craft/skill/art discussion is meaning. There isnt, or at least doesnt seem to be, much personal meaning in craft items like chairs or pencils, whereas artworks typically are designed with personal touches. Artists intentionally choose certain colors, sounds, shapes, etc. beyond strictly what is needed for the item to be functional/useful. These choices metaphorically instill a part of the person into the item. They create meaning beyond the items functionality.
So, if you just make a wooden chair because wood is all you have available and size it so that it seats comfortably, and dont add any decorative details, then it is a craft work. Now, that isnt to say that others wont find your chair aesthetically pleasing, but that isnt what makes something an artwork.
Its also possible to make a purely aesthetic chair that is not functional at all. This would be considered art, imo.
Theres also the possibility to have a mixture of both; a functional chair that also contains embellishments meant to please the eye. This is more of a gray area, and is probably determined by how it is marketed or used/displayed.
Wow. I knew I was missing something, and now I know what I was missing. The chords/rhythms/textures I choose when I make music are in fact very personal to me, without me even trying to make them so. They just are. We artists choose these things because they mean something to us; they take us beyond what they intrinsically are into a private world.
I don't necessarily interpret his point in that way. If art seems lofty it's only because of its emotional intensity. "Lofty" to you might mean "emotionally accurate" to me.
The way something is framed may influence how we see it of course, however, I think its possible to see anything aesthetically and we shouldnt always rely on others, thought leaders or whatever, to direct our perception.
Quoting Noble Dust
I'm stealing some images from "Beautiful Things," still one of my favorite threads after all these years.
This doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong, but I think it shows your view is too narrow.
Which brings us back to the original question - how much does skill matter in art? If personal meaning is the standard by which art should be judged, then it doesn't seem like skill would matter much.
Quoting Pinprick
Quoting Pinprick
This is a picture of furniture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for one of his houses.
For me, this furniture is not "embellished."
I'll come back to this - I don't really disagree with what you're getting at, but I think you're oversimplifying.
I agree. I think in these gray areas how an item should be judged should be determined by the creator. They more than likely had an idea/vision for what purpose the item should primarily serve; functionality or aesthetics.
Quoting T Clark
Im not sure what these images are supposed to demonstrate. I can see how beauty can be found in them, but that alone doesnt make it art.
Quoting T Clark
Well, what is skill? Has anyone defined that term yet? It could be that skill is the ability for the artist/craftsman to match their ideal concept of what the items purpose is. If the item is intended to be functional, then the final product should be functional and can be judged on qualities like durability or comfort or whatever. If the item is intended to be aesthetically pleasing, then it should be judged on qualities like creativity, emotional impact, etc.
So, a skilled craftsman is someone who makes very functional items, and a skilled artist is someone who makes very meaningful items.
And if thats the case, then skill matters a lot. If Im trying to make a song sound angry, but it ends up sounding happy then Im not very skilled at making angry songs. And I think that would come across in the music. I think theres a sort of inauthenticity that would be felt.
Quoting T Clark
Yeah, I think one thing this theory doesnt account for is spontaneity/improvisation. Performance arts like freestyle interpretative dance dont really fit.
Id say context matters too. For instance, consider Hendrixs Star Spangled Banner. If you were to hear it without having the background context of Vietnam and the counterculture, then all the, ahem wrong notes just seem like mistakes instead of a statement about Vietnam and America. A lot of the meaning gets lost.
You wrote:
Quoting Pinprick
To say the examples I showed, which you call craft, don't have much personal meaning seems clearly wrong to me.
Quoting Pinprick
Clearly the examples I showed are intended to be both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
Quoting Pinprick
Again, I think that's an oversimplification.
I generally think 'skill' refers to a core competency in a craft or creative process, which can pretty much be measured. In the case of painting, draftsmanship would be a skill. In the case of guitar, mastery of the instrument would be a skill and you could break that down into micro skills, such as strumming and finger picking. All this is also known as technique. But these are words that are rarely used in any strictly codified sense and don't have precision.
For my taste this is getting too instrumental and narrow. Skill generally refers to expertise in an activity undertaken. We can choose that activity at random and then measure a person's skill in achieve it. For instance, some people are skilled at not taking responsibility. Some people are skilled at marketing their art, but are not great artists. When we say an artist is skilled, we can apply this word to a wide criterion of value. Are they skilled in technique? (Goya) Are they skilled in shocking their audience? (Damien Hirst) Are they skilled in publicity. (Jeff Koons) Are they skilled in most areas? (Picasso)
A skilled craftsman for me would be someone who makes beautiful craft items. These are sometimes not as useful as less beautiful objects. I have a fantastic, hand crafted leather carry bag that sucks as a bag, but is an exceptional testament to the maker's craft and shows off every skill going. My father, a practical man, would have said that since it doesn't work as a bag very well, the craftsman failed. This depends upon what you chose to privilege as the criterion of value. Of course the ultimate skills would produce a bag that was usable and beautiful.
But isn't Collingwood saying that we admire a work product as art precisely because we are so far removed from the practical use of the object?
In any case, I think it's wrong to break it down in the way that @Pinprick has done. As you've shown with your examples, and as I mentioned in passing myself, it's often precisely the perfect functionality of an object that makes it aesthetically pleasing. This distinction between function and prettiness is, to me, obviously a fruitless way of looking at it.
Quoting T Clark
I think maybe you sort of can, when the originality or beauty of a work outweighs the techincal flaws. I'd put this into two categories, (a) works by great artists who were nevertheless technically bad in some ways, and (b) accidentally good or interesting art made by people who are entirely unskilled and talentless.
(a) Don Quixote is full of mistakes, inconsistencies, continuity errors, boring bits, and yet it's been massively influential and loved by millions. Similarly, Henri Rousseau was a self-taught painter, clearly lacking in technical training, but was quickly considered a great and original artist by others in the art world. And his paintings are great. Crucially though, there is some kind of skill, craft, and technique going on here, just different.
(b) Outsider music is not always made by unskilled people, but the Shaggs surely is. The girls were pretty much forced to do it by their father. But the thing about this sort of thing is that, precisely because there is no conventional skill on show, it can sound refreshing, sonically interesting and arresting, etc., and it can be influential, meaning that it has a place in the world of art.
The question raised by (a) is what makes these great artists great, if it's not total technical competence? I wouldn't say it's meaning, though I wouldn't rule that out. Off the top of my head I think there can be great artistry in following a path of one's own, because doing so can produce unconventional, fascinating, and beautiful things--things that would not be the same if the artist possessed an all-round competence. So I think it comes down to a single-minded creativity and confidence in certain, sometimes narrow, directions.
If we discount (b) for the moment, maybe the proper answer is no, you can't have good art without some kind of technique, craft, or skill.
Or maybe put it like this: technique or craft is almost always required, but not necessarily the technique and craft that is traditionally handed down in formal training; certain individuals invent their own technique because they don't know any better. I just thought of another example: Ornette Coleman, the free jazz saxophonist, learned to play based on a total misconception of the notes he was playing, and his music is brilliant no doubt partly because of this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/arts/music/ornette-coleman-jazz-saxophonist-dies-at-85-obituary.html
The way he freely shifts key in the solo starting at 1:46 is likely not something he'd have come up with if his training had gone more smoothly.
I don't think that's what he's saying. To be clear, Collingwood isn't denying that there is a difference between art and craft. He's just saying that it isn't a distinction that was made before the 1600s. He says that Da Vinci and Michelangelo considered themselves craftsmen. They did not consider what they did art in the sense we do today. We've just sprayed on an aesthetic coating to bring what they did in line with how we see things now.
Quoting Jamal
Agreed.
Quoting Jamal
I don't think this covers Hampton's "The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly."
Quoting Jamal
I'm still not sure where I come down on this.
Ah, I see what you meant now. Im not sure how many of the images Id call craft. It would entirely depend on whoever created them.
Quoting T Clark
Sure. Thats probably the vast majority of anything ever created. But the point is that the creator likely focused most on one or the other. For example, would the architect that created the bridge have sacrificed the bridges functionality for the sake of its beauty?
Quoting Tom Storm
I get it, but my issue is how subjective skill/expertise is. It almost becomes a useless term because its impossible to judge across genres of a particular medium like painting. What counts as skill in Cubism is very different than what counts as skill in Realism. To me the common thread connecting all art across mediums or genres is meaning. All art means something above and beyond any functionality the item may possess.
Quoting Tom Storm
Yeah, its the same with me. I happen to like knives, swords, axes, etc. Some I have are strictly for aesthetic purposes and would fall apart in any sort of combat situation, and others would probably hold up ok. I value each type, but for different reasons, and I consider the makers of each type to be skilled, just in different areas. But I also consider the functional ones to be something closer to a tool than art/decorative, and vice versa. The gray area cases where both functionality and beauty are combined pretty equally are too difficult to determine as an observer without knowing how the creator intended them to be viewed.
Quoting Jamal
But just because something is aesthetically pleasing doesnt mean its art. Sunsets are aesthetically pleasing, but that doesnt mean nature is an artist. The intention of the creator matters.
We've probably taken this as far as we're going to.
I think this is reasonable. Personally I would take a different approach. Cubism skill can be judged in relation to Cubism and skills in Realism in relation to Realism. So there's that. Also, if you think skill is subjective, I would venture that what counts as meaning is probably even more subjective. :wink:
I would throw another wrench in here and amend the term "meaning" in this context to "intention". The intention of cubism is different than the intention of realism, so the perennial question of aesthetic evaluation is to what extent a cubist has executed their intention, and to what extent a realist has done so. So rather than the problem of the subjectivity of meaning, we have the subjectivity of skill in relation to specific intention.
Sorry, I was out of the loop on this thread so I'm just sort of jumping in on random points. I agree with this, and I think it's essentially the same point I was making by saying that creativity is a skill. Without getting too woo, when a person is truly inspired to create art, they will do it regardless of their environment, with or without training. Why this is the case I certainly don't know. I say this from experience as an observer of peers and as an artist. I guess I have skin in the game, since I received some formal musical training, but none in composition, which is what I do primarily.
By the way, Ornette's harsh tone has always been a stumbling block for me, but I didn't know about his background, so that illuminating. Always ready to give anyone another shot.
He certainly made the most of the tone of the Grafton plastic sax, and I can understand why people dislike it. I really hated it myself when I first heard his music (hated everything about it actually), but he won me over in the end.
I would define it as a highly developed ability for craftmanship - to apply particular techniques with more or less virtuosity. It is something conditioned and developed through practice, in contrast to talent, which is the raw/natural ability to apply particular techniques that don't involve any intentional craftmanship.
For artists, one of the primary goals is to be recognized for their skill by their artistic peers. I would venture to say that art is something quite different for the artist than it is for nonartists.
:fire:
Probably the thrust of most my posts in Phil of Art threads.
The most lucrative industry for artists is the entertainment industry, mainly video games and movies. The most elite art schools in the world are all geared towards producing artists for this industry. They are all based in classical training, which has its main emphasis in realism and design. Only the most skilled artists in the world make it through this program.
Regarding varying genres and styles, there are universal design principles that can be found as a common thread in all great works of art (regardless of genre or style), so we do indeed have a criterion upon which we can judge genres against each other. Of course, realism, in comparison to other genres, holds the potential to include the greatest variety of design techniques in a single work, which is why I believe it is the genre requiring the greatest skill.
"Lucrative" and "elite" are certainly the right buzzwords, but they say nothing about what I'm provisionally, at the moment, referring to as "intention"; see above. There are many lucrative fields and many elite cliques.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
What are concrete examples?
Is there an analog in non-representational art forms like music?
Intention is directly related to skill level in my opinion. It is much easier for a nonartist to judge the intention of a realist work, versus a cubist work. This is becuase the margin of error in realism is much smaller, so mistakes are much more obvious in realism. To avoid mistakes in realism then requires a greater skillset.
Quoting Noble Dust
Some are focal points, rhythm, readability, proportion and balance.
I do not have an adequate music vocabulary, but absolutely.
One problem here is that realism does in fact require the existence of "mistakes", whereas cubism (and countless other art forms across mediums) do not. Again, this ties in to my concept of intention; there are no rules in art, except, arguably in realism. So this posits a problem for realism inherently. Intention is not tied to anything in particular except within realism. That's its weakness. Questions of what does or does not require more skill as you're implicitly defining it here don't even factor in within my provisional concept as outlined. Hope I'm making sense and not being a dick.
Quoting Noble Dust
And what are concrete examples of how these principles are found in all great works of art?
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
I do, and I don't see it. Didn't mean it as a "gotcha", but was wondering.
No question - I guess I would have thought that was a given - just as philosophy is quite different to the philosopher than it is for nonphilosophers. And symphonic music something quite different for the instrumentalist than it is for nonmusicians, etc.
Maybe it is a given and I'm just wasting my breath, but I doubt it. Not even sure my contributions are useful for this crowd, but I'm not mad about it either way.
You may be right. Although the fact remains for me that some highly skilled work comes off as 'dead'. Like the aforementioned Steve Vai's masturbatory guitar technique. I am not always drawn to skill as such as a criterion of value in art, but I do appreciate it in craftworks.
Not at all, I enjoy your observations. We're just sifting through the strands of thought and experience here.
:pray:
Sifting is the proper word, I think. Excellent.
I like this, but how does it apply to art?
Art is just another thing we do!
Hmmm, I disagree. I don't count art as being on the same level of other things we do, assuming that includes basically everything, given the triteness of your response. Maybe it's similar to other things, I don't know (provisionally), but it's not just "another activity" in my mind.
I'm talking about art proper, stuff like painting, sculpting, etc., and not art in the sense found in the art of deduction or the art of experiment, etc.
Ok, so art proper is "just another thing we do" right?
:blush:
Unless something is screwy, an artist's primary audience is not other artists. I would say the significance of an artist is not his impact on them. Perhaps what's different about how artists see other artists work and how a regular person does is like wine tasting. When you taste the wine do you tell people about the traces of plum and rosemary with an aftertaste of licorice and pomegranate or do you say "That's a really nice wine?" If you need some sort of special education to appreciate a work of art, it's useless.
Sorry, @Noble Dust, I don't mean this as a swipe at your second profession.
No, happens all the time. Like dumb people who looked at Picasso and thought a child could do it.
It would be helpful if you can give some examples of the universal design principles.
Edit - I see you provided some examples previously. Thanks.
I know non-artists, non-art aficionados, just regular old people who, the first time they saw a cubist painting were completely blown away. That says more for an artist than if another artist or an art critic likes it.
What is "'Artsy Fartsy?"
I already edited that. I'm trying to be a kinder, gentler philosopher.
Okay. So you never heard of someone ridiculing a modern artist? Good to know.
Very true. However, when it comes to judging an artist's skill, the opinion of nonartist matters little to none.
Quoting T Clark
You do not need a special education to appreciate art, but you do need one to truly appreciate the skill it takes to produce a high quality artwork.
Um, ok.
@Noble Dust
Intention probably is a better word to use. I would perhaps say skill is the ability to communicate ones intentions? And perhaps meaning is found when that is done successfully? There is something to understanding a work of art. Im not sure if you could say that you can even properly interpret a work of art without first understanding it I dont know.
Quoting Noble Dust
To start with, if art is truly an act of self-expression, then it really is a need the person feels. Just like how we all feel the need to communicate our thoughts or feelings.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Im not understanding the difference, or how you could determine the difference, between skill and talent. For example, could you explain the difference between a talented guitarist with little skill, and a skilled guitarist with little talent? It seems circular somehow. You cant know if you have the talent to perform a particular guitar technique (tremolo picking, for example), until youve learned what that technique is and know how to do it.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Im not sure. Cant ones intention be to seem unskilled? Something like intentionally playing out of rhythm, or all dissonant notes/chords?
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
I don't think either of these is true.
True, there are no rules in art. As the master vilppu said there are no rules, only tools. Yet there are rules for the tools, and these relate directly to intention and skill. Take linear perspective, an essential tool for creating the illusion of space, and a very difficult skill to acquire. Now if you want to draw a car, it is certainly possible without the use of perspective, but it will never take on the likeness a car as it would in perspective. If you saw an expressive or abstract painting of a car, it may be an amazing work (I guarantee its visual appeal could be traced directly to how skillfully fundamental design principles have been applied), but because it does not employ specific tools like perspective, errors like perspective mistakes would be irrelevant, making it very difficult to determine the intention of the artist. Perhaps the artist is not interested in mastering skills, but wants to get rich, or get a pat on the ass.
Mistakes are an interesting thing in art. Very advanced artists are capable of breaking rules of the tools while still pulling off amazing shit. Whereas when a less skilled artist trangresses the rules of the tools, it is an error and almost always looks like shit. Experts can bend and manipulate the rules of perspective to create amazing effects. See MC Escher's work.
And don't worry, your are cool. It's all a thought experiment, just exploring ideas, and in that spirit we should always challenge each other when the opportunity arises.
It's hard to put into words, easier to show. But let me try.
Take focal points. These are areas that the eye is supposed to rest on. The eye is attracted by areas of high contrast, so the eye can be led around the canvas by playing with areas of high contrast, for primary/secondary/tertiary reads.
The areas between focal points are practically invisible and contain minimal detail in relation to focal points, although they play a very important role in controlling the eye of the viewer. Focal points are the only areas that include any substantial detail. And a primary focal point will include much more detail, up to fourth and fifth level details, whereas a secondary FP will probably need no greater than third level details.
I am pretty ignorant when it comes to music. I always thought there were fundamental music principles, many which were popularized in classical and jazz. All music is simply manipulating sound to create an appealing illusion for the ears, just like art is manipulating shapes and values to create an appealing illusion for the eyes. I imagine that there are universal principles that are common to all good music like in art. But I could be wrong, it's a terrible tragedy.
Are you an artist?
I am. Having a hard time understanding the purpose of the thread. Everything requires skill. What is the point?
Absolutely. Picasso was classically trained but chose the explore expressive art, and his classic training had an obvious influence in that endeavor.
I'm a writer.
The question right now is whether it requires some kind of skill to be an artist, or if there is no criterion to what constitutes and artist.
I agree with you, most things require a skill of some type, including art. The problem is that nonartists are ignorant of what artistic skills actually are, and think anything can be art. I might concede...maybe it can be art, but definitely not good or skilled art.
Ok, well I am a painter, a visual artist--that's what I know about.
Anything can be art. Now try to sell it or get a gallery to show your work. Same with basketball. Are you good enough to play in the NBA? Compete.
Example of a specious argument:
1) You need to be an artist to understand art.
2) I disagree.
3) Well, but you're not an artist so you wouldn't understand.
That is not what he said.
I assume you mean creative writing.
Have you ever watched a realtime artist demo on youtube, or taken a figure drawing or design class to get a direct window into the training of an artist?
I have never done that with creative writing, although I assume that there is much training that goes into becoming a good writer. (Or can anything be considered good writing if the person claims to be a creative writer?)
I can appreciate good writing, but I have no idea what it takes to make good writing, and that alone makes me incapable of appreciating the skills of the writer. But I do know he is skilled if he writes good.
It's exactly what he said.
I'll just repeat myself:
Quoting T Clark
Thank you
:pray:
Doesn't quite resonate with me but, I hear you. I think there are people with prodigious natural skill that is instinctive. I know a person with an intellectual disability who sometimes takes photos with her phone. In almost every instance those photos are extraordinarily well composed and impactful. She has what was unfashionably known once as 'the eye'. But all she does is point and shoot with no reflection or deliberation or communicative intent. It's an instinctive skill - capturing light and angle and composition like a pro.
Quoting Pinprick
Apart from whether this is true or not, the other question is your assumption that there is a proper interpretation. Not convinced this is right.
Quoting Pinprick
I wouldn't say art is 'truly an act of self-expression' - and I am not sure what 'truly' is doing there. I think art always emerges from a context, as well as from an individual. A well trained artist from a particular school will produce works that reflect their creativity but often be beholden to conventions set by others. Artists often try to encapsulate an established artistic vernacular they have not created.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
I think that is true in one sense, but only if you take a panoptic overview of art as a subject. Given the diversity of the history of artistic expression, it looks like there are no rules. But if you are talking about expressions of particular art forms; Athenian vase painting or Japanese art or 19th century realism, or pop art, there were very strict conventions that must be observed.
Except that it is what you said.
Yes this is all true, but also see our sporadic discussion here about outsider art. This is why the older I get, the less strict I am on definitions and rules within art. The more you go down the rabbit hole, the less you see the distinction of rules. I do go back and forth on it though.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Yeah, I mean it depends on how fundamental you want to get. Obviously there has been a profound sense in which decunstructionism has altered the fundamentals of what constitutes music, but of course it's a contentious issue. The fundamentals of pitch, rhythm, harmony, etc., have been manipulated into unrecognizable forms in different eras and styles. I don't know, it can get pretty bewildering. A couple of years ago I made an album by manipulating recordings of an old out of tune spinet piano I made with my iPhone. You wouldn't be able to tell. Is it "good"? I was pretty happy with it, and anyone who's into relaxing ambient music would have a pretty decent chance of liking it.
Can anything be basketball? I feel like we can call anything basketball if there is an object that scores when it goes through a ring. But to play in the nba, you must be able to actually play basketball in the proper setting and under the proper restrictions, and with very specific equipment. Alhough I play basketball all day when I throw balls of paper into the trashcan, one thing I can guarantee, no one is interested in watching trashcan basketball.
Its the same with art I suppose. Some of it is skilled, most of it garbage.
Thanks for being forthright. I do not think most art is garbage.
A skilled guitarist with no talent will probably take longer to acquire his skills than the talented one. The talented one is talented because he can mimic techniques without acually knowing what is involved in doing it. It is very common to see talented artists think they are creating new techniques when they are simply reinventing the wheel. The bottom line is that skill can instruct and improve talent, whereas talent is whatever artistic merit you start with.
There is also the case when a person is so talented, that their work is indistinguishable from those with advanced skill. These people are very rare.
Your welcome.
Just look at any art forum on the interwebs, 99% shit. Even artstation, with all its quality control, is 99% shit.
I consider this talented guitar playing; it doesn't require that much skill though. It's probably my favorite style of guitar playing.
Where are the quotations?
I assume you know how to read, so you obviously did not understand what I said? If you ask nicely I will directly quote myself to clarify for you.
"beauty is the Idea made real in the sensuous and actual world" Hegel, Lectures on Art.
How I think of art. An idea made material.
Nice jam.
But it requires some skills doesn't it? I definitely dont have the talent or skill to do that. If it is a style, then there are probably a few techniques for making that style. Did you possess all those techniques from the start, or did you have to develop certain skills to achieve them?
Love me some Hegel. For me, i consider the "idea made material" to be aesthetic in nature (philosophically speaking), but I wouldn't classify every "idea made material" as art. I personally do not consider trashcan basketball as true basketball, even though they are identical in all the right ways.
It's the idea made sensuous. That is what art is. Skill is the means by which something is made material.
I agree with you. Just read the next line I wrote. Like basketball, their are many versions, (like trashcan basketball,) and the conventions for each are more or less specific. The call oneself highly skilled means to have mastered the conventions.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Quoting Jackson
The idea made actual/concrete/sensual is what I equate to "becoming". It is part of the dialectical process of the aesthetic. But art requires more than simply making the idea actual. It also involves apprehending and assimilating the actuality back into thought as an idea.
And that is where intention and skill come into play with art. It requires skill to make an intentional idea as actual, and then to have an independent audience recieve the idea though the actuality alone... this is art...or at least art done with skill.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
No, that is what it is. The production of an artwork.
I had the idea of a shit. I took a dump and it became actual and sensuous. Is it art?
Now you're getting it. Someone besides you has to care.
And who that someone is, is very important, wouldn't you agree? I mean a colorblind person would not be the best judge of impressionism.
Correct.
Yeah sure, of course it requires skill, but the skill is just the prerequisite to the talent, the creativity, the emotional sensibility to come up with a guitar part like this. I eluded to this earlier, but simple music is often harder to write well than complex music.
You need a basic skill set to play subtle, simple guitar parts, yes, but to me that's almost not even interesting to talk about. Of course you need some skills. That's a given, and it's not a big deal. I'm more interested in the intention, the mindset, of an artist like Mark Hollis, who wrote that song and played the guitar. Guitar is a goofy instrument, and I find it's ubiquity somewhat ironic; it's not particularly fun to play. It's a pain in the ass and very uneconomical. Guitar parts like the one in that song I think are brilliant because they circumvent the awkwardness of the instrument and get to the heart of how it operates. It's intuitive playing.
Although oddly, on the other end of the spectrum, we have Ravel, who is notorious for writing some of the most technically difficult piano music, but it sounds "pianistic", meaning it sounds very natural, but it's anything but. A true master I suppose.
On the skill vs. talent debate, I guess I think anyone can learn a skill. Guitar, painting, writing, whatever. Anyone can learn a set of rules that produce a desired result. But I think this idea of "talent" isn't so much a result of some vague concept of being "born with it", but more a product of one's environment, and one's psychological makeup. I've always been terrible at drawing and painting, but how much of that was just a feedback loop of feeling inadequate in art class, and how much of it was an actual inability somehow programmed into my genes at birth? If I had had a more positive experience in art class, maybe I would be a painter. But I've been surrounded by music and musicians since birth, so I naturally took that path. I'm a product of my environment.
I can agree with that. Environment and predisposition are exactly what comprise talent. I know that in art, the "great masters" all followed certain rules (more or less), and it is those rules that the greatest art teachers in the world today use to teach what sometimes come to be the greatest artists in the world today. Only in the advent of postmodernist and modernist art did those classical rules become obsolete. So, now, in our generation, art requires no skill or training, everyone is an artist and everything is art.
Yes - if it's put on display and exhibited as such. Imagine the throngs who would clog up a gallery to sneek a glimpse of Picasso poo.
The real question with such an example is not whether it is art, but whether it's any good, subject to whatever criteria you wish to apply.
:lol:
Quoting Tom Storm
Criteria is the key. It definitely relates to the notion of intention. When a person uses no criterion to establish his artistic intention, we can say the intention was to not follow any criterion, and then we can pass off anything this person does, with zero skill, as art.
I have no issue with such a person making a fortune off of such a charade, but let's not fool ourselves into believing that this person is an actual artist who creates actual art.
I see how you might argue this and I am not saying you are wrong. I just feel uneasy about saying what is and what is not art - it's a thin line from this to the Nazi's Degenerate Art exhibition (1937). For me it is generally just a matter of do I like it?
As long as you are not a bigoted piece of shit, you can be as critical about art as you want. No reason to feel uneasy.
I agree with the Nazi's about the inferiority of modernism. Broken clocks, you know? But where they attribute the inferiority to an incursion of undesirable cultures, I attribute the inferiority of modernism to a lack of artistic skill in the work itself (based on the criterion of the classical tradition).
Skill: Synonymous with proficiency i.e. how familiar one is with the tools/instruments (of art). Requires practice, has to be learned that is and is generic.
:snicker:
Sure. I mention the Nazi's just as an example of egregious stupidity in judgement. But I find there are a lot of people who dislike any art they don't understand. 'My 7 year-old could do better!' There are lots of things I don't understand. For me the trick is not to dismiss the stuff I don't get as a defensive reflex action. I like much modernist art and most abstract art. To come back to the OP - I am not overly interested in the quality of draftsmanship or demonstration of skills when it comes to painting or sculpture. Skills here don't really move me.
Aha, so as I thought, you don't like this stuff. In some ways I'm partial.
However. What sets the classical laws of art in place? The philosophy of the time in which they were born sets them in place. Are we philosophically living in the age of the enlightenment where all of those rules comes from? No. So why should we keep those old rules in place?
One could argue that these laws are universal laws proved by art itself. That's an intriguing perspective, but how do you measure universality?
You don't. There is no universal aesthetic law. Art functions in tandem with culture. What is good art is a function of what is good culture. It changes. The rules change. There is nothing universal in art, other than it's expression of the human person. Humanity is evolving, so necessarily art evolves with it. When we get old, we don't like the new art because we don't understand it because we don't understand how our constantly changing (and increasingly globalized) culture led us to the place we're in. That says nothing about art. It only speaks of our old age and our perennial inability to grasp the constant evolution of humanity, of which we are part and parcel.
You are always wise
Quoting Noble Dust
I don't dislike all modernism, such as plein air and impressionism, but these genres draw heavily from classical technique. I also really appreciate graffiti.
I am very interested in the quality of draftsmanship and demonstration of skills when it comes to painting or sculpture. The criterion established in classical art gives a standard by which the artist can be judged for his skill in drawing, painting, and/or sculpture.
Most expressive and abstract artists produce no work that demonstrates that they have developed complex skillsets (like anatomy and perpective). Such work is indistinguishable from the most amateurish work of children and rookies in classical art training. I will admit that some of that work is exceptional, but I can only attribute that to raw talent, which is not very impressive compared to the talentless artist that develops the essential skills to repeatedly produce successful artwork, and not by accident.
This is what I find most intriguing. There are 2 kindsa artists, oui? One has inborn talent and the other has to, well, trudge through art school. Can you name some artists of both types?
Between skill and technique which of the two, perhaps both, can be congenital? It's quite fascinating to see a child paint on par with an adult who's spent thousands of dollar-hours learning how to paint.
Yes, history and tradition. Those are precisely what modernism rebelled against, and I cannot agree that they discovered something superior. We should keep the classical rules in place for the simple fact that it produces superior artists that can transcend any genre. The problem with artists that rely entirely on talent is that they are stuck in their tiny sphere of expertise. It is really obvious how classical training expands the horizons of an artist.
Very interesting. I never thought of it that way, but It would describe my predisposition exactly.
As for measuring universality, it would be the principles and techniques that comprise the classical school. I wonder, what are some of the key principles of modern art that differ from classical art which might lend to its superiority? My theory is that modernism diminishes the tools with which the artist has to work with, and produces an overall inferior quality of artwork.
I can't say I know of any master artist, no matter how talented, that did not have to acquire skills in perspective and anatomy before their work was considered masterful. But I don't know the story of every master artist, so there may be some exceptions. Design skill seems to be the most apparent in talented artists with little to no training.
Absolutely, technique. A talented artist with no training can pull off the most masterful techniques. In my opinion, it is pathetic. There is no reason a trained adult (even with shitty technique) should not be able to paint circles around the most talented child . But many, if not most, artschools are scams and do not train in any classical art whatsoever. And they mostly produce artists that cannot outpaint talented children. This is the state of art in our generation.
I wonder how we could explain talent/gift without resorting to woo-woo like reincarnation/metempyschosis (the child prodigy simply recalls lessons he took in his/her previous life)?
A 5 year old playing the piano like as if he's been practising for 20 years! :brow: [math]5 - 20 = -15[/math] (time not accounted for). If said child was born in 2017 according to birth records, then the child was actually born in 1997 (20 years of practice since the child turned 5). Weird!
Shared minds?! Possession! :snicker: I couldn't help it! Sorry.
@Noble Dust already suggested that it is a product of environment and psychological predisposition. I agree. But then again, some of the stuff that is created by the most talented artists with masterful skills, you will keep room for the woo-woo explanations. They are otherworldy.
I have often entertained the idea of metempsychosis in geniuses. I don't puch much weight in speculative theories, but it is a potential explanation for why certain individuals are so much better than everyone else.
I see. Can't rule out metempsychosis now, can we?
Danke! Please carry on with your discussion with other posters.
It seems more efficient for the universe to recycle souls than to create a new one for every individual. But, of course, that is assuming that the universe is meant to be efficient in some way or another.
I like the discordian idea that everything is simply chaos. Doesn't matter to me either way.
[quote=Ms. Marple]Most interesting.[/quote]
:up:
How is their superiority measured?
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
How can you demonstrate the universality of those principles and techniques?
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
From your classical view of what is superior, nothing. I'm happy to talk about what excites me about "modern" art if you're interested in listening.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
It's not that modern art diminished the tools of artists, it's that modern life diminished the life of society so that modern artists had to follow suit in order to express the zeitgeist of modernity. A loaded concept, I know (edited).
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
This picture was generated by artificial intelligence and won a fine art competition. Here's a link to an article I thought was interesting.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-art-wins-competition-angering-artists-2022-9
So, by what definition is this art?
The article says he won first place for digital art. AI is definitely a digital tool. I see no problem.
From the article:
If he'd submitted the first iteration, unedited, would he have won? We can't know.
I don't know the first thing about AI, but you do have to set parameters. What's involved in those 900 iterations? Just hitting refresh until you get something you like? Looking at the result and deciding what parameters to tinker with?
In any case, I like the picture. I like the colours and the composition. I'm not fond of the... 3D effect? I can't seem to get into that (even in modern movies). The figures stand out too much, almost as if they're not in the picture. I don't know anything about art, so I can't explain properly. But it's a minor quibble anyway.
Anyway, if some people are better at getting favourable results using AI than others, using AI is a skill, too. I'd agree with the artist in saying that AI is a tool, too. If using it isn't your thing, don't use it. It's not a vital tool.
I don't have strong feelings one way or the other. I just thought it was interesting.
If it winning an art competition is a concern at all, it's because the notion of an art competition is absurd, not because of the image.
What makes the new breed of A.I. tools different, some critics believe, is not just that theyre capable of producing beautiful works of art with minimal effort. Its how they work. Apps like DALL-E 2 and Midjourney are built by scraping millions of images from the open web, then teaching algorithms to recognize patterns and relationships in those images and generate new ones in the same style. That means that artists who upload their works to the internet may be unwittingly helping to train their algorithmic competitors. (NYT)
Good point.
No real view on whether this is art, but to me it looks like the kind of kitsch, heavily derivative, CGI fantasy design you might find in a Marvel movie like a Doctor Strange.
Personally Im done trying to define art. My only interest is in whether a piece stirs something in me, makes me think differently, or makes me feel an emotion that i dont feel every day. This piece did none of those things.
:clap: :100:
Quoting T Clark
As Noble Dust explained previously, it is necessary to makes us feel an emotion that we don't usually feel. After seeing the paint I don't feel anything. To be honest, when I saw I thought: "it looks like an old video game"
In the other hand, it is also true that the basic concept of art has changed so much that is even blurred. It is difficult to consider what is art in nowadays...
Thanks for the compliments, but I have to mention here that all I said was that it's necessary for me to feel a unique emotion in order to be moved, and to feel that something is art. I didn't mean that as any rubric for anyone else. When I said that I'm done "trying to define art" I was suggesting that I'm avoiding any attempt at objectivity these days. Art is lost to the vice grip of perception.
Enjoy your retreat, friend. Art can only be understood in loneliness. :flower:
May this song follow you, how you well taught me! :sparkle:
One of my thoughts is that it would make a good cover for a science fiction novel.
Agreed. Even though I said this:
Quoting T Clark
I'm pretty comfortable with my understanding of what is and isn't art. Again, I just thought it was an interesting perspective.
Well, that's not my definition of art, but, as I told ND, that wasn't really what I was after anyway.