Saturday, September 22, 2012

The Concept of Art Part 3.


It would seem sensible to suggest that a work of art can only exist if the processes that brought it about demonstrate the three aspects of the art form that identify it. In the case of Duchamp’s work the form, called ‘Ready-mades’, and the work of art came into being simultaneously as is the case with all new art forms.    The organizers of the 1917 New York art show did not recognize Duchamp’s Fountain as a work to be evaluated as art because they did not recognize its form.  Having an understanding of the concept of art which entails an art form is necessary to recognize new art forms.

One difficulty with the scandalous view that we can catalogue works of art into a hierarchy of species and subspecies such as Serious Art, Telic Art and Amusement Art (J. Passmore, Serious Art, Duckworth, London 1991) is that it tends to marginalize those works that are delegated to the subspecies and promotes the view that they are less worthy of the attention of studious art lovers.  It seems that such a cataloguing is deemed necessary because these so called subspecies of art provide less opportunity to exercise our ability to aesthetically admire them.  Of course if we remove the notion of aesthetic admiration from our pursuit of art appreciation and attend to form we can reinstate these works and enjoy them without fear of the subtle, and sometimes overt, ridicule that often accompanies them.  More importantly the opportunity to exercise our ability to discern the distinct parts of an art work promotes an acute intellect.

                              If we can accept the thesis that the creative act is a mental activity of seeing rather than merely a physical one of making we can understand how such things as child art, cat art, elephant art, etc. may all be equally worthy candidates for artistic appreciation.  We can also see why the argument that art must be man-made is a superfluous condition for art.  The failure to recognize animal art as authentic art inhibits attempts to come to terms with a concept of art.

Ten to twenty thousand years ago humans of the Paleolithic age painted wondrous pictures of bulls, horses and other animals onto the walls of caves in France and Spain.  There are conflicting theories concerning the purpose of these activities but one thing is sure.  These primitive humans had a very useful vocabulary and they delighted in the creative act of seeing with the mind’s eye.  We know that cave art exists in the deepest and darkest caverns but these paintings depend on light for their existence.  Imagine the shock of a newcomer when a torch is lifted and these wondrous paintings materialize before them.  The shock of recognition is one of the most pleasing and valuable insights we possess and works of art provide us with the opportunity to indulge in this marvelous experience.

What most theoreticians tend to miss is that our art forms are singularly unique categories.  There is no equivalent prosaic form to confuse them with.   The import of deferring to the art form of a work is that it shows us how and what aspects and parts we must use to appreciate or depreciate a work; how it may exist within a form but not display the necessary conditions to be called exemplary.  There is no need to create arbitrary conditions in order to distinguish between works that are members of an art form and, say, rocket engines, happenings, a new suit or a sunset because the art form does it for us.  Prosaic forms only have two aspects.  A failure to recognize this is in part why the noted philosopher and art critic Arthur Danto tied himself into knots trying to discover how it is that Warhol’s Brillo Boxes should be called works of art whereas actual Brillo boxes are not. “In all these cases one must seek the differences outside the juxtaposed and puzzling examples, and this is no less the case when seeking to account for the differences between works of art and mere real things which happen exactly to resemble them.”Danto, Arthur C Art Philosophy and the Philosopy of Art, Humanities Vol 4 No. 1 (February 1983)pp1-2


                        Arthur Danto viewing Warhol’s Brillo Boxes


Most people use the term ‘resemble’ when they know that two things are not the same.  Curiously, Danto tries to strengthen his argument by saying that two things ‘exactly’ resemble each other which is obviously different from saying they are ‘exactly the same’.  But there are very obvious differences between an actual Brillo box which is a shipping carton and Warhol’s work of the same name and we need not ‘seek outside’ these two examples to discover them.  Warhol made his cubes from plywood and silk screened the Brillo logo onto them and there are no flaps (common to cardboard boxes) on Warhol’s work.   A  Brillo box is a cardboard box with the logo machine printed on it and was made to package and ship twenty four smaller saleable boxes of Brillo pads. Warhol’s work has no ability to serve such a utilitarian purpose.  Is this difference significant?  You bet your sweet bippi it is.  Warhol’s work demonstrates a clear ‘manner of presentation’ which is significantly different from its medium of presentation and the object of presentation.  An actual Brillo box cannot demonstrate these three aspects of form. There is no way to distinguish between the manner of presentation and the medium of presentation of an actual Brillo box.  We can only discover two aspects of form which is true of most prosaic items. Recognition of the art form in our pursuit is the only distinction that need be made.   The question we need to ask is could an actual Brillo Box be a work of art.  The answer is yes if it were manipulated such as to show an obvious manner of presentation distinct from the medium of presentation.  No doubt it would be classed as a ready-made.

We expect each new work of art in an established art form to extend our understanding of both the work and the form in which it participates. We expect to ‘see’ a new experience of the form.  However it was displayed an actual Brillo box could not provide this experience whereas Warhol’s Brillo Box does.  New works that merely reiterate what we know of the form offer us no opportunity to undertake a creative act. We expect to see new uses of the medium of the form, new techniques and new ways of presenting the subject matter.  When confronting new art forms we see new materials used as the medium and new manners of presentation and even new subject matters.  Unfortunately when new art forms are created there is a tendency to subvert one or more of its aspects so that subject matter or manner of presentation is paramount thereby detracting from the integrity of the piece.  This is the distinct problem of Graffiti whereas Street Artists are often concerned with how their work is presented choosing appropriate spaces in an attempt to maintain the integrity of their work.
  
The fundamental criterion for deeming a work to be exemplary is the recognition of its integrity.  It must be said that integrity in an art form is not an aesthetic property.  Rather it is an artistic one.   Integrity functions much the same in an art form as it does when we consider respect for persons.  We wish all persons to have integrity; that what they say or promise matches their deeds.  We describe persons of integrity as unimpaired or undivided who demonstrate a quality of completeness.  This is a quality we hold in high esteem.

We can recognize the same quality in works we deem to be exemplary.  The artist, of course, is not pragmatic; he or she seeks out a challenge. He or she attempts to present us with a common subject in a not so common way or a not so common subject in a common way.  Sometimes they attempt to present us with an entirely new subject or new manner of presentation within the medium.   The integrity of their work is determined by how well they have seamlessly integrated their manner of presentation with their medium and subject matter of presentation; the unified control of all aspects and constituent parts of their work.  Of course there will be no perfect example of integrity.  The most we will be able to say of those finer works is ‘I can see no flaws.’ This forces us to have standards that allow us to recognize a flaw when we see one which is an ongoing educational pursuit.  An art form is an ever evolving category for the new works we value enhance the form offering us a greater understanding of the possibilities within it.

I think is clear that in fine works the various parts of a work will integrate with each other to the point where it takes an astute mind to separate them.  Not all of us can go to the production of a new play which we have never read and discern if the actor’s interpretation of the dialogue is valid or if the director has made a poor staging choice which detracts from the subject matter of the piece but some of us can.  The task is not difficult for those who have a long experience with theatre.  This is equally true of all the other art forms that exist.  Long established art forms have provided us with a wealth of knowledge by which we may evaluate new works within them.  This is one reason artists are often the first to recognize excellence in the work of others.  

One import of emphasizing that form has three different aspects is that it provides us with a means of recognizing a work that demonstrates an entirely new art form.  Too often new works (Duchamp’s Fountain is a classic example) are dismissed as being inept examples of an established form.  They are denigrated as mere novelty works but if we first ask ourselves ‘What is the medium of presentation?  What challenges are implicit as a result of choosing this medium?  If the artist chose to work in casein or egg tempera rather than oils or acrylics then different skills are needed to ensure success. Is the manner of presentation clear?  What tools and techniques were used to manipulate the medium of the artist?  Does the size of the work contribute to our appreciation of the work?  Is it large for the sake of largeness or is it large for the sake of understanding?   How are we to describe the subject matter of presentation?  Does the medium and manner of presentation complement the subject matter or does it merely define it?  By asking ourselves these types of questions we will have a way of seeing these works in the context of their own unique form.  We will also have a way of appreciating or depreciating them.

I mentioned earlier that the means we use to depreciate a work is the very same means we use to appreciate a work.  We must have some objective means of determining flaws in a work when they exist.  To do this we must be able to recognize a flaw when we see one.  The pursuit of aesthetics does not provide us with this ability for some works are not aesthetically pleasing by design.  We must have a way of showing how artists try but fail to make exemplary works.

  In obvious examples of failure the cause is usually the result of a lack of skill but with accomplished artists it is more often the result of a misjudgment of one kind or another.  The two most common flaws in art can be presented diagrammatically like this:

 

Diagram 1. represents a situation where one aspect of a work’s form dominates the other two aspects consequently the integrity of the work has been sacrificed.  In theatre such a corruption most often comes about when the subject matter of the piece rules.  Brecht’s propaganda plays (he describes them as learning plays) are a case in point; the message is the author’s concern.  The manner of the production, set, costume and lighting are minimal and the language (medium) should not be such that it impresses us more than the message.   We see a similar situation with paintings that seek to make a political statement or indulge in social commentary.

There are also times when the script of a piece is weak (medium) and the subject matter is so banal that directors emphasize the manner of presentation (staging, set, costume, lights and special effects) in an effort the elicit audience interest as in nineteenth century Melodrama.  Many contemporary films suffer a similar malady. 

In the Louvre there are paintings nearly fifty feet long and twenty feet high. They are narrative works illustrating imagined historical events.  The paintings are so long that a person cannot stand back far enough to view the painting as a whole. (When I was last there they were hung in a walkway.)  Rather it must be searched in parts. In such paintings the technique of the artists are nothing to marvel at for the manner of presentation dominates.  The work is a mere illustration of an imagined and possibly, imaginary, event.   It is unusual as a result of its size which is what makes it collectable for such a famous art museum but there is little that is exemplary about such works. It is little more than billboard art.  It doesn’t extend our understanding of the art form as the manner of presentation dominates the work.  Political and feminist artist of the seventies often used their canvas to paint slogans that served their particular political stance.  In such cases the subject matter of the works dominates the other two aspects which are merely utilitarian; they are subservient to the subject matter. The integrity of their work was sacrificed for ideology.

    Fundamentally such works are dissatisfying because they are little more than illustrations and we recognize that something has gone wrong.  Such works are intent on broadcasting a thesis rather that capturing our interest with intrinsic themes and ideas.  We expect a work to be concerned with the particular and not merely the general. 

Perhaps the exception to this argument is Diego Rivera, the Trotskyite Mexican muralist who sought to inspire a sense of pride in a Nationalist and Socialist identity. Undoubtedly Rivera was a didactic illustrator but his giant frescos also provide a learning experience about the nature of frescos and the emotion they are capable of inciting in a predominately illiterate population. Political and social commentary is necessarily illustrative as the work of George Grosz demonstrates. Grosz was often commenting of the plight of the poor in post war Berlin.

The thesis I have been supporting is that political and social commentary in art (if it is obvious) presents us with a work that lacks integrity. What I mean by this is that the message or subject matter dominates; the manner of presentation and the medium used are subordinate aspects rather than being seamlessly integrated as part of the whole.  

Diagram 2. represents a situation where one or more of the constituent parts of an aspect draws attention to itself as a result of its ineptness.  Many otherwise fine theatre productions have been let down by a poor choice of costumes, inadequate set, lighting, staging or venue.  I remember seeing a touring production of Dracula in New Haven, Conn in 1985 with the fine actor Martin Landau.  Though the play was intended as a suspense piece the canvas touring set wobbled and shook whenever actors made an entrance or exit and when Landau as Count Dracula was supposed to disappear he was clearly seen crawling on hands and knees through a flap cut into the lower portion of a canvas flat.  The audience responded by giggling throughout the production.  The production broke the first rule of the theatre; don’t show the audience what you don’t want them to know, they can’t ignore it.  Works that are performed are more prone to such flaws for there is seldom the opportunity to correct them in a live performance.

In the visual arts we sometimes find paintings which show one of the constituent parts of the manner of presentation corrupting the totality of the work.  Visit a large museum such as the Louvre or the Musee d’Orsay and you will see large and wondrous Renaissance, Baroque and Neo Classical paintings with even larger elaborate ornate frames which do not always serve the works for which they were commissioned.  Frame making was once considered an art form itself and the wood carver and gilder often had little idea of the painting for which the frame was commissioned.  They were concerned with their own craft and the only relationship between the frame and the painting was size.  Recognizing the role played by a frame, some artists painted a frame around their work directly onto the canvas or panel.  Others such as Van Gogh and Georges Seurat sometimes painted their frames in the manner of their works.  Seurat painted with a technique called ‘Pointillism’; small dots of pure color were used to paint a work designed to be viewed at a distance.  Seurat continued the dots of color onto the wooden frame of some of his works. Commercially painted frames age differently from the paintings they are intended to compliment.  Modern artists tend to hang their works without frames.

As artists are continually experimenting with new forms it should not be surprising to discover that some works become self-referential; meaning that the medium of an art form can also be presented as its object or subject matter.  The medium of theatre is performed language (Aristotle called it embellished language).  Peter Handke’s piece titled The Ride Across Lake Constance brings before us the issue of language and its conventions in performance.  In The Bald Prima Donna Eugene Ionesco raises the issue of the triteness of the social use of language and its failure to impart understanding.  Abstract painters such as Karel Appel, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko (to name but three of many) have all experimented with pigments and their adhesives as the object of their works (They also differ in their manner of presentation).  Artists in other art forms such as Dance and Music have equally offered us works where their particular medium was their subject. 

The medium of a work is one of the defining characteristics of its form.  The manner (styles, techniques, tools, skills, etc.) by which it is presented, while many, are finite (one of the reasons artists seek out new forms).   When artists innovate and combine or enjoin one medium with another medium such as combining paints with collage materials an entirely new art form emerges and this new form requires different techniques, skills and tools.   Indeed, some artists incorporate chance as a means of producing their works.  Karel Appel’s action painting by throwing blobs of paint onto a canvas is a case in point.  Of course the results of chance activities such as this are selected by the artist for their seeming appropriateness; how they encourage us to use our creative sensibility.   Works deemed unsuccessful are redone.  Nevertheless the fact that chance plays a role in a number of works should show us how it is that such works as cat art and elephant art have a rightful claim as serious art forms.  Cats and elephants each have individual techniques and styles, work on a number of different surfaces and given the opportunity have been known to favor or choose particular colors (though they are said to be color blind).  I have already argued that the creative act takes place in the mind of the viewer so we do not have to attribute less or more to the works of cats and elephants than we do to the works of other modern artists.  We can still value the work in terms of its medium of presentation, manner of presentation and object of presentation.

Noël Carroll in summing up his formidable work on the philosophy of art writes; “The question of how we go about identifying artworks is an imperative one for philosophers of art.  For without some way to identify artworks, we do not know how to respond to them appropriately.  For example, we respond to Ulysses by interpreting it, whereas we do not interpret our toaster ovens.   How do we know that Ulysses belongs to a category that warrants interpreting, while our toaster ovens do not?  This is motivation for the question of how we go about identifying artworks.”Carroll,Noël ibid, pp.265.

Denis Dutton questions how it is we come to know new works can be recognized as art “…if we didn’t have some principle of application which validates bringing new objects and performances under it?  There must be some stable elements in its meaning; to deny this entails that we go about arbitrarily calling anything art.”Dutton, Denis, But They Don’t Have Our Concept of Art, in ed. Noël Carroll, Theories of Art Today, University of Wisconsin  Press, Madison Wisconsin (2000)pp231.
                                                     
I have shown that the means of identifying artworks is by attending to their art form; seeking out a work’s three aspects and constituent parts.   Only in this way can we both depreciate and appreciate artworks.  Only in this way can we present verifiable grounds to show why and how some works presented to us are not artworks (I attend to this in a later post). Also we can show why and how some works deemed mere novelty are actually sincere, valuable artworks.   While I have emphasized form it should be understood that what I have presented is not a historically formalist approach which places an emphasis on the shapes and volumes and their relationships within a work.  In its place I have insisted that traditionally the term ‘art form’ denotes a species of art; a system of categorizing works of a kind as a result of the medium used.  I have emphasized that we determine the integrity of a work by assessing how seamlessly the three aspects and constituent parts integrate; how they complement one another rather than be shown to dominate.  While integrity is the only value I have placed on a work the opportunity to exercise our creative abilities when engaged with a work may further enhance the work as a candidate for appreciation.
                                                     
Launt Thompson 

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Friday, September 21, 2012

The Concept of Art Part 2.



Obviously talk about art could be a valuable interest adding exercise if the discourse was straight forward, easy to grasp and promoted a vocabulary that allowed us the ability to use what  we have gleaned from our previous experiences with art to extend our understanding.  The object is to provide shared experiences based on a point of reference that all would understand.  Aesthetics does not seem to offer us such a means.  As George Dickey points out “The attempt to discover a core for aesthetics is an attempt to provide stability and organization for what is by common agreement an untidy discipline.” Dickey, George, Aesthetics, Pegasus, Indianapolis, (1971) pp 109

Referring back to Carroll’s claim concerning statues that - “…it is immensely implausible to suppose that these works are designed with any intention to exhibit significant form.” – we can say without hesitation that their form is significant in that they share three aspects with all other art works though they have different constituent parts.  The medium of a statue may be bronze or nickel or it may be carved in wood or made from welded pieces of metal.   A cast statue would require a mold to be made from a likeness in wood, plaster, clay or wax which would be part of the manner of presentation.   Most often the subject matter of a statue will be clear if it is not an abstract piece.  By attending to form we are able to show how newer (and perhaps outlandish) art works maintain continuity with past artworks.  Those who are concerned that there should be consideration for how an artwork relates to its predecessors need only to recognize the form of the work.  The understanding of form as I have presented it in part 1 avoids the difficulties philosophers conjure up when discussing what they call first art and mid-life art.  Stephen Davies puts the argument this way:


First art should be distinguished from two things with which it could be confused: (a) it must be distinct from the progenitors from which it sprang.  The first art-making practices probably arose from others with which they were historically and culturally continuous, rather than appearing from thin air, but these other practices could not have been art-making ones, whatever similarities they shared with those generating first art. (b) First art should be distinguished from mid- life art.  Items that were not art when they were created might have art status conferred on them retrospectively.  That is, from the perspective of an art tradition established long after the creation of certain pieces, we might decide that those pieces merit art status and treat them accordingly. Stephen Davies, Philosophical Perspectives on Art, Oxford University Press, (2007) pp 69



We have to remember that Davies is an aesthetician.  Works that cannot be said to have aesthetic properties cannot be art, first or otherwise.  Scratch marks on a cave wall cannot be said to be primitive art. They are not art because they lack the form we identify as art.  (We will discuss this further in a later post.) Scratch marks on a cave wall would be one of the progenitors of first art that Davies speaks of.  But hand prints on a cave wall do, however, have form as art and while they may fail the aesthetician’s requirements in that they lack aesthetic properties they are unquestionably works of art.  The hand print has a medium (usually ochre using saliva as a binder).  It has a manner of presentation (blown from the mouth or tube over the hand onto a cave wall that enhances its appearance) and an obvious subject matter.  The hand print qualifies as first art.  A number of caves show a series of fist size dots in different colors and in rows which were either brushed or blown onto the ceilings. Because their medium and subject matter are indistinguishable they also fail to qualify as first art. 

It is clear from Davies’ argument that he sees mid-life art as something that has merit conferred upon it when he states “…we might decide that those pieces merit art status and treat them accordingly.’  What Davies is thinking about here is something like African Bakongo Nkisi Nail  fetish statues from the Congo (Figure 9.) whereby nails are driven into a carved wooden doll.  In some tribes they have been used to settle disputes and in others they are used to seek a spirit’s protection.  Several Art Museums have acquired these dolls displaying them as artworks though they were never intended as such.  Consequently Davies calls them mid-life art; objects that didn’t start out as art but became art once their aesthetic qualities were recognized. 

                                                    African Bakongo Nkisi Nail fetish statue. 


Actually, recognition is not an aesthetician’s preferred description. Rather, conferred as art is how many aestheticians promote the activity.  The reason being is that we cannot recognize mid-life art unless we have a concept that we apply to it.  But it seems we can look at an artifact and describe it in aesthetic terms thereby conferring art on it without being able to describe a concept of art.

As Davies’ concept of art involves meritorious accomplishment there can be no such thing as bad art.  If a work has no discernible aesthetic properties it cannot be called art.  Davies description of mid-life art demonstrates David Lewis-Williams’ claim that an aesthetic sense comes after the appearance of art which demonstrates the two uses of the term ‘art’.  For Davies the term art is evaluative (meritorious) whereas for Lewis-Williams it is classificatory (belonging to a class of objects regardless of merit).  What this means for Lewis-Williams is that a work of art need not have any aesthetic properties.  By the same token it is quite possible that a work will have meritorious (aesthetic) elements but lack integrity as a work of art though Davies may find such a situation disconcerting.   Unfortunately there are artists today that seek to create aesthetic works without consideration of form.  Fantasy art where subject matter and technique overwhelms medium and manner of presentation is a case in point.

Noël Carroll comes closest to an understanding of form when he discusses Artistic Form but his thesis is contaminated by his previous discussion of the neoformalist’s form/content argument. Carroll proposes: “Perhaps the most common way of thinking of artistic form is to conceive of it as one half of a distinction – the distinction between form and content.”(137)  He discusses the many items that may make up a painting and confronts a dilemma.  “The problem is that, at various times and in various contexts, any of these things or combinations thereof can be and have been identified as the content of such paintings.  But that renders the distinction between form and content unstable.” (138) As it has been shown, form is constituted by recognizing that it has three aspects that allow us to distinguish how the different parts of an art work contribute to the whole.  Carroll confuses form with shape and is stuck with a form/content dilemma and seems unable extract himself.

Wisely Carroll forgoes the attempt to describe artistic form by linking it with content.   Artistic form, he decides is composed of unified parts.  “Parts and relations then are the basic ingredients of artistic form.”(140)  Carroll is close but he doesn’t get a cigar.  He fails to understand that Artistic form is a factor in all art works.  He misses the forest for the trees.  Recognizing that he is unable to offer a definition of art that will provide us with a concept of art he asks: “If we were possessed of such a definition, why would it be so difficult to extract?”(266)   My view is that aesthetics gets in the way but Carroll has asked the necessary question.  Why would we wish to call a work ‘art’ in any sense of the term when an art form is absent?  No doubt such a question plagued the organizers of the New York art show in 1917 when they received a submission from Marcel Duchamp.  Duchamp purchased a urinal from a plumbing supply store titled it ‘Fountain’ and signed it R. Mutt and submitted it in the open sculpture section.

It caused uproar in the art world, was refused entry and mysteriously disappeared.  Duchamp subsequently remade the work for several galleries. Since, it has become clear that Fountain’ is not only a clear demonstration of its art form; it has proved to be the flag ship of a major movement in art. Of course there are still some scholars who insist that it should be placed in a subspecies of non-serious art such as Amusement Art.    

                                            Duchamp's Fountain (Copy 1964)     


There is a long joke that has circulated among artist concerning the painter Pablo Picasso.  It seems he was sought out by an admirer who had inherited an unsigned painting and the admirer’s deceased ancestor had insisted he had watched Picasso paint the work.  When the earnest admirer confronted Picasso with the painting to ensure its authenticity Picasso gave it a quick glance and declared it to be junk.  The admirer protested and informed Picasso that his deceased ancestor had actually watched him paint the work to which Picasso replied “I paint a lot of junk!”
 
The point of this abbreviated story is to bring to the fore the understanding that very accomplished artists make a lot of works that are not exemplary.  After all artists are not superhuman beings, they sometimes, unknowingly, make mistakes, misjudgments and careless works much the same as those of us who are not artists. Of course they do not have to display works they think are lacking.  But how are we to describe such works?  An equally probing question would be “Can a work be appreciated as an aesthetic piece and yet not be an exemplary work?”  Some aestheticians would offer a flat ‘no’ to the question.    If we accept the thesis that the perception of an aesthetic quality is the defining condition for a work of art, we are still left without an understanding of a concept of art.  We are obliged to accept the possibility that the perception of an aesthetic quality is not fundamental to describing a work as art.  This would mean that we could have works of art in which no aesthetic quality was perceived.  While aestheticians may well consider such a state of affairs tantamount to heresy the statement is, nevertheless, in some sense true. Some may wish to argue that a work that provides the opportunity for the creative act has by definition an aesthetic quality but then they would have to abandon a number of their aesthetic principles.

The concept ‘form’ has been in public usage for over two thousand years.  Plato is perhaps the first philosopher to establish the concept’s credentials.  Commonly, English writers translate Plato’s use of the term to mean ‘idea’ but the Greek sense of the word included how a thing looks.  In Latin documents we find the word ‘species’ substituting for the term ‘form’ and we extrapolate the term form to be ‘a kind of thing’.  This is surely what is meant when we use the term ‘art form’.  Our art forms are categories that contain things of a kind some of which are exemplary works while others are merely examples of the form. 

To be continued…


     
Launt Thompson 

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