I must confess ... art sometimes confuses me

Terrencejones · 6 November 2009, 08:18 PM

My apologies for misqoating you Ricardo. You have some very interesting thoughts, please continue.

Cheers Terry

Ricardo Reis · 7 November 2009, 02:08 AM

No problem Terry... I like this conversation because it forces me to clarify my own thoughts. Or even realize that I can be wrong and re-structure the way I think.

I started thinking on Duchamps urinol. It's powerfull question, the ad nauseum "What is art?". If it tells you something it is art is intent, I think. Even 1 billion individuals recognize something as art what should I abide if it doesn't resonates with me? What makes their judgment better than mine? If this was physics I could do a reality check. Does the results predicted by theory conform to reality? But art plays on pure human reactions, ideas, emotions. What reality check can be done, then?

So I ask, is this thing someone calls "art" doing something to me? Does it moves me? Does it makes me think? Smile? What is it's purpose? I am the "reality check". If it doesn't touch me some way you can take it and call it art at will, for me is nothing, no harm done. It can say something to me tomorrow (I remind myself of a Sonic Youth concert I disliked one day. Two months later I was thinking "I should have been listening to that now, f***, it would be a great concert". Why? Because my perception of their music changed in those two months, I've re-listened their album with other years, in another contexts).

Those "artsy fartsy" you mention, saying "everything is art" got it wrong. Anything can be art, sure. But it takes someone to make it art. It takes someone to give it meaning. And without meaning, there's no art. But more powerful than that, art is not sacred and you don't need to bow to it and put it in a shrine. At least not just because someone put a label on it and said "behold, this is Art". Do you want me to pay for what you're doing, I ask? Then convince me to pay for it. That's the ultimate thing.

These are some thoughts I have on art. They are not written in stone, they are my perception on this subject right now.

You mentioned about pleasantness. I remember a piece (sorry, don't recall the artist name), it's a bunch of boots, empty, suspended from the ceiling, it looked they were marching. It brought to mind directly the image of military dictatorships. I saw photos of it, I could listen to the marching sounds on my mind just by looking at them. Was it pleasant? For me it surely wasn't. But it was powerful. It raised questions. It hammered it's message. It was an artistic work that resonated with me.

AAC Cadet Leader · 7 November 2009, 05:42 AM

Good illustration is a learned skill.
Good art comes from the soul.
Good illustration plus soul makes for good art. Usually.
Randomly, others get lucky.
Sometimes innocent children and adults with no illustration skills create something that touches other people’s souls. That’s good art, too.
But nothing happens without the soul.
Good illustration without soul just doesn’t cut it.

bristol scout · 7 November 2009, 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bristol scout

I suppose what it boils down to ---for me--is this,
I can see the beauty in a sunset, in a bird in flight, in the poets big heart, in the sweep of a Viking ship breasting the waves, in a mona lisa, in a Parthenon or any of the things like that---you know, what I mean.

Those things, and all the things like them are wonderous works of real and timeless beauty----they took immense skill and a superb 'eye' to accomplish and a beautiful 'soul' to imagine in the first place.

The rest---well, a baby let loose with some paints could do as much- wheres the 'humanity' in that--no skill, no wonder no 'soul' no magic....

OK OK i'll shut up

Dave.

Hi. cadet leader,

i am in total agreement--all real art--the stuff that uplifts us--makes us sometimes better than we really are, comes from the soul! but i should add that as an aethiest I don't mean that in a religious sense but in the innate wonder we share at the world around us and our unique place in it.

Dave. edit--don't know where my 'capitals' went !!!!

AAC Cadet Leader · 7 November 2009, 06:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bristol scout

Hi. cadet leader,

i am in total agreement--all real art--the stuff that uplifts us--makes us sometimes better than we really are, comes from the soul!

thanks dave, but i made no mention of uplifting or religion. sometimes good soulful art can drag you down, and make you very sad or angry, too.

Russell Smith · 7 November 2009, 06:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AAC Cadet Leader

Good illustration is a learned skill.
Good art comes from the soul.
Good illustration plus soul makes for good art. Usually.

Very true.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AAC Cadet Leader

But nothing happens without the soul.
Good illustration without soul just doesn’t cut it.

Also true, but for a moment think of good illustration as a language - good grammer, so to speak - i.e. something to be learned so that we may communicate our meanings intentions in a clear and concise manner so that the majority of people can understand us. If I am unable to express my meanings clearly, then I become like Jodie Foster in "Nell" - innocent and pure with my meaning, but speaking gibberish.

Put another way, I once read a profound quote (I wrote it down but I can't remember who said it). Replace the words "illustration" with "intellect" and "Soul" with "emotion":
Intellect is to emotion what clothes are to out bodies. Clothes without a body are useless, but we certainly can't walk around naked all the time

Quote:

Originally Posted by AAC Cadet Leader

Randomly, others get lucky.
Sometimes innocent children and adults with no illustration skills create something that touches other people’s souls. That’s good art, too.

Here's a rhetorical question: I saw a news report recently about a dog who could paint. Okay, we've all seen such things - animals with paintbrushes in their mouths spreading random color on a piece of paper. The dog is color blind and can't see many of the colors that its spreading around, but if it touches my soul, is it art?

Ricardo Reis · 7 November 2009, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Russell Smith

Here's a rhetorical question: I saw a news report recently about a dog who could paint. Okay, we've all seen such things - animals with paintbrushes in their mouths spreading random color on a piece of paper. The dog is color blind and can't see many of the colors that its spreading around, but if it touches my soul, is it art?

Per si? Right now I think there's no art without Intent, a Purpose. You could place the dogs paintings in a context where it would become art, just because a dog paints them isn't enough. Imagine the dog was owned by someome who instead of just saying "look what lovely doodles my dog can do", it would be by someone that used the dog action to convey a stand: to ask, for instance, what separates his action from humans. If he trained the dog to paint imperfect copies for instance of Mona Lisa? A dog painting such would be just a gimmick, someone using it on purpose to say something against copies (or pro copies) could be another thing.

And now you say, "bah, you're just doing pseudo-intelectual stuff ", and I ask, without someone to give meaning to a work, to assign it an Intent, what art can there be? It's the only communality I find in all works of art. The existence of Intent.

just a few thoughts...

AAC Cadet Leader · 7 November 2009, 08:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Russell Smith

Here's a rhetorical question: I saw a news report recently about a dog who could paint. Okay, we've all seen such things - animals with paintbrushes in their mouths spreading random color on a piece of paper. The dog is color blind and can't see many of the colors that its spreading around, but if it touches my soul, is it art?

but could the dog play a hand of poker?

add to my above list:

If it touches your funny bone, it might be art and the viewer does have a soul.