quote:

But avoiding the question...

No. You said, "Is it the medium or the message?" and I said that it was usually the message.

And, incidentally, even though a painting might be by a well-known artist, I don't necessarily consider it to be good art. Anyone is capable of producing rubbish - and many people do. Some people produce nothing but rubbish.

Damien Hirst's work "The Impossibility of Death in the Mind of the Living" is lauded by the art world as being "...one of the most important works of the past 50 years...". And what is the amazing work, doubtless said to be of incredible value - 30 or 40 million pounds at least? A 14 foot shark in a vitrine. I will leave it to others to say what they think of the merits of that classification; my own mind is already made up.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Richard English,

Sigh.
I clearly do not express myself as well as I thought I did.

Let me cast it in the form of an exam question for you.

Q.1a

Which, if any, of the following do you consider to be art? Justify your opinions.
Links to the works in question are given.

Femme à la resille by Picasso
crucifixion by Rembrandt
The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch
Venus Asleep by Paul Delvaux.

1b. As part of your answer consider whether each piece should still be labelled "art" were it created in other media (for example posed tableaux, photography, automata or video).

-------------

There, is that any clearer, now?

As today's Google logo has been Velazquezzed (image), I was reminded of two artists, whose works I enjoy, reinterpretations of his Las Meninas (image) and The Portrait of Innocent X (image): (1) Joel Peter Witkin (image and link) and (2) Francis Bacon (image and link). Artists have been copying one another and reinterpreting older works since at least classical times. Printing (a mere 500 years ago) and digital media (nowadays) have entered into the conversation of what is art. A good article (link) in this regard is Walter Benjamin's "Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit" ("The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"). I love to walk around in museums (e.g., the Louvre) and watch the student and amateur artists copying the paintings on the wall. It brings those spaces alive.

quote:

Let me cast it in the form of an exam question for you.

I will answer the question if you can give me a definition of art (other than the one that Tracey Emin apparently favours "it's art if I say it is").

But as I think we have agreed (if we've agreed on nothing else) no satisfactory definition of art exists and thus anyone can claim that anything is art in his or her eyes.

But I claim that something that would normally be labelled pornography of a particularly unpleasant kind doesn't become art simply because Tracey Emin claims it is and has selected it for display at the RA.

And as I have myself asked without receiving an answer, why is Emin's unmade bed, art, and anyone else's unmade bed simply an unmade bed? (Or any similar example one could cite from the hundreds extant).

Can someone other than Richard please help me out here. What exactly is unclear about the question

"Which, if any, of the following do you consider to be art?"

And Richard. I am trying very hard to understand your point of view here, but your flat refusal to answer the questions asked and your constant insistence on answering the questions YOU think I SHOULD have asked, by setting up an endless string of straw man arguments, isn't making it easy.

quote:

Which, if any, of the following do you consider to be art?

That question I could probably answer. But your question also had the common scholastic sting in the tail "Justify your opinions". Anyone can state a belief but justification needs facts. I don't have one important fact - a proper definition of art.

That is the basis for my refusal (or more properly inability) to answer your question. I am not setting up "straw man arguments".

And why has nobody answered mine?

As ever Richard, your perpetual refusal not only to see the point but to even acknowledge that the point exists, has worn me down.

Once again, I give up. Rational debate is clearly impossible.

Here's my definition of what is a work of art. It (the artifact) is the product of a person (the artist) which evokes an emotional response in the consumer of the work of art. At various times in the history of aesthetics (a branch of philosophy) what those emotions are have varied: e.g., pleasure, amusement, anger, surprise, sadness. Beauty is not a quality or property of the work of art. (In this way beauty is very much like meaning, which is not in the word but in the speaker's or hearer's mind.) It is a judgment made by the consumer to describe his or her pleasure. Mimesis (or representation) is not necessary characteristic either. Some arts are quite abstract: e.g., music.

Emin's My Bed is art, but in my judgment, just not very good or interesting. I like Robert Rauschenberg's Bed (link) or the bed which is part of Claes Oldenburg's Bedroom Ensemble (link), but that's a matter of my taste not a definition of what is art.

Apropos art, I ran across this lovely quote today while reading a book on art:

quote:

The result of my life is simply nothing, a mood, a single color. My result is like the painting of the artist who was to paint a picture of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. To this end, he painted the whole wall red, explaining that the Israelites had already crossed over, and that the Egyptians were drowned. [Søren Kierkegaard, Danish satirist and aesthetic theorist.]

quote:

Can someone other than Richard please help me out here. What exactly is unclear about the question

"Which, if any, of the following do you consider to be art?"

I don't get it either, Bob. It is a clear question that might assist us with a more intellectual discussion. BTW, I think z quite effectively answered your question, Richard. Now it's your turn. I think it was a great question, Bob, and while I don't much like what I call "religious art," I'd have to call them all art.

quote:

I did write "...I will not comment on it other than to say that..."

Isn't that a bit disingenuous? In other words, you will comment on it...which is just fine. However, I found it odd that you said you wouldn't and then went on to comment.

quote:

Here's my definition of what is a work of art. It (the artifact) is the product of a person (the artist) which evokes an emotional response in the consumer of the work of art.

By ZM's definition then all the works we have recently discussed, including Emin's bed, are art, since all arouse emotions in me.

That the emotion is often fury or frustration matters not.

And Zm's definition also means that it often matters not what the artistic item is, since its situation will affect the issue. Emin's unmade bed is art because it arouses the emotion of extreme annoyance in me that she is so effectively making obscene amounts of money from such an item simply by calling it art; my unmade bed is not art because nobody who sees it will believe it is anything but an unmade bed.

I am not saying that I disagree with ZM's definition but I am saying that a comprehensive and accurate definition of art seems almost impossible to create.

I have never tried on these pages to define art but I have said that I believe that any work of art must satisfy certain criteria:

It must have taken talent to create; it must be capable of being recognised as art by a normally educated person without explanation; it must continue to be recognised as art by future generations. Whether or not Emin's bed meets that final criterion cannot be assessed until we are all dead and buried - but I do not believe it meets either of the other two.

Of course, there are many other things that meet these criteria - so please don't pick me up and say that mine is a poor definition of art; it is not supposed to be a definition of art.

quote:

Isn't that a bit disingenuous? In other words, you will comment on it...which is just fine. However, I found it odd that you said you wouldn't and then went on to comment.

Maybe that kind of construction is uncommon in the USA, but I use it often enough.

Expressions like, "I have nothing to say except..." are frequently used in the UK by politicians. It's not a double negative but it has the same kind of flavour and use.

Richard, thank you for providing your "criteria" for art, which I consider to be your definition. I'd never say yours is a "poor definition" because everyone is entitled to his or her own. Indeed, it is very helpful in understanding from where you are coming (pleasing those prescriptivists. )

quote:

it must be capable of being recognised as art by a normally educated person without explanation

Do you extend that criteria to literature? Many times those works of art absolutely need explanation.

quote:

It must have taken talent to create

And who defines "talent?" I am sure there are those who think Emin is talented.

I am not saying that I disagree with ZM's definition but I am saying that a comprehensive and accurate definition of art seems almost impossible to create.

Yes, you and I and most philosophers of art would agree with that. It's a damned difficult issue, and one that has engaged people (in the West) for the past 2500 years or so. To pretend that it's an easy or trivial definition is not a wise course of action to my mind.

One reason my definition is the way it is is that I include literature, painting, sculpture, photography, film, theatre, dance, music, etc., as arts. Also, there iss more than just fine arts. There are popular, kitsch, folk, craft, and conceptual arts.

That the emotion is often fury or frustration matters not.

Well, it depends. The emotions a work of art raises in different people may very well differ. Take poetry, for example, some people hate haiku and others love limericks. I have read a few haiku which moved me emotionally. I have read very few limericks that affected me (and most of those are 19th century examples by Edward Lear). I have read quit a few sonnets that have done nothing for me, and I've read quite a bit of free verse that has done nothing for me, yet I have read some sonnets and some free verse which affected me greatly. They're all poems, course, it would be ingenuous of me to say that a poem's poemhood depended on whether I liked them or not.

Emin's unmade bed is art because it arouses the emotion of extreme annoyance in me that she is so effectively making obscene amounts of money from such an item simply by calling it art; my unmade bed is not art because nobody who sees it will believe it is anything but an unmade bed.

Now we're getting somewhere, as I knew we would if we'd try to define what art is rather than (the both of us simply) ranting about it. Obviously, Emin's piece, My Bed, aroused different emotions in different people, so that it annoyed you is beside the point, but what is interesting is that the reason it annoyed you has nothing to do with it's being art or not, it has to do with two things: (1) you feel that your unmade bed is art, too, but that folks would disagree with you, and (2) you do not feel that My Bed was worth what was paid for it.

The first of these is really the interesting part. Your unmade bed as it sits in your house is not a work of art because you have not represented it as such or gotten other people to buy into. How can you do this? Like anything worth while it takes time and money. I'd start out small and choose as a subject something you enjoy, maybe some watercolors of beer bottles or casks. You might also find it profitable to go to art school. It's not an easy path and many never make it. But it usually has nothing to do with whether they are making art, but whether they're making art that moves other people emotionally. Whether they sell well or people value them is besides the point. Van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime, and that was to his brother Theo who bought it out of sympathy. Yet, I and most everybody would feel nervous saying that his work is not art, whether I like it or not (and I do). I find it obscene that somebody would pay huge sums of money for a Porsche or a Rolls Royce. That does not mean that they are not cars. What people do with their money or the money in their care is little consequence to me. My government is pouring trillions of dollars down a rathole in the Middle East for no rational reason. Tough for me. (Personally, I'd rather they upped the 50 million or whatever it is and paid artist to make art than killing people for hundreds of thousands of times the amount of money, even if it only went to art I didn't personally like.) Another problem is that say one week down the line or ten years you take your unmade bed art piece and exhibit it somewhere with the hopes (I guess) that somebody will say something nice about it or btter yet buy it for obscene amounts of money. Somebody will probably look at it and say: pff, been done before, mate, do something else. Cruel but real. If I paint a copy of the Mona Lisa, no matter how good a copy it is, I doubt very much that it's going to move anybody (who was familiar with the original in the Louvre) or that anybody is going to pay me much for it. It's a painting; it's a copy of a famous painting; it's a work of art, just not a very good (or original) one.

quote:

Richard, thank you for providing your "criteria" for art, which I consider to be your definition.

As I have said previously, my criteria are criteria; they do not define. Anyone who read these criteria with the word "art" removed would not know what it is they define. Just as if I were to say that my criteria for an item were that it has to be portable, easy to unpack and cheap to buy. You would have no idea what it was unless I told you.

Zm's definition is a good one and he, too, has now put in a criterion as well - or that's what I infer when he says "...It's a painting; it's a copy of a famous painting; it's a work of art, just not a very good (or original) one...." In other words, I believe he is suggesting that a copy can't be a work of art; a work of art must be original.

Incidentally, in "The Times" last week there was an item about some new artists whose works had been bought by Charles Saatchi for a reasonable of money (although small change for him). 13 paintings by Carla Busuttil (the images don't seem to appear in this link) look for all the world as if they had been painted by a normally talented 5-year old - nothing more that daubs of paint for features and matchstick bodies. Here's what David Lee says about them "...Busuttil's pictures are infant-like daubs of faces and figures. By any known yardstick for evaluating figurative painting they are atrocious - indeed they are unworthy of any academy and one wonders what criteria might have been used to award her a degree at all, let alone a postgraduate one..."

See here for the article about Saatchi's purchases http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_ent...s/article4116649.ece But of course, she, and the others whose works have been bought, will suddenly become "great artists" and their work will become sought after and its price will soar. Then Saatchi will quietly sell his holdings and pocket a few more millions in profit. This kind of thing has just about nothing to do with art and everything to do with profiteering from the gullible. See here for David Lee's article, also in "The Times", which expresses, better than I could, my feelings about this modern art phenomenon. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gue...s/article4122500.ece