The Boo Hoo Approach to Art

I find there to be no greater example of hyperbole than when aesthetes write about emotion and the arts. The visual arts, it is said, express emotion or should it be that they sometimes depict humans expressing emotion?  There is a significant difference between the former and latter statement. 

Inas Alkholy, in an essay published on the net, describes the types of things she believes emotions to be.

“Emotion is a vital force in all art forms.  We experience positive and negative

emotions like happiness, love, satisfaction, hate, sorry, sadness, reverence,        depression, vulnerability, disgust, fear, anxiety, surprise, threat, etc.  They are distinguished by different kinds of evaluations; some emotional responses

 involve a mixture of pleasure and displeasure, fear and joy.[i]

While I would take issue with some of the examples she lists (depression for example is a shutdown of emotion and anxiety is a neurochemical response) she has provided a sample large enough to generate a discussion.   If you haven’t already done so, I would request that you read my earlier blog titled Emotions vs. Feelings: Busting an Urban Myth.

For Alkholy it seems that the be all and end all of art is the expressing of emotion which then becomes the meaning a work is said to have.  She writes:

Art conveys meanings, reflects moods, motivates both feelings and actions, and engages the viewer into a vivid dialogue the art work.  Artists through the ages have been expressing deep feelings and sufferings. The expressiveness of figurative art moves the viewer, not only to admire the artist but to feel the expressed emotions themselves. (2)

Frankly, this is a load of hooey.  Is there not a difference between depicting emotion and expressing emotion?  Am I being too difficult?  Well here are some thoughts from another observer:

“Now perhaps even more importantly, what it draws attention to is that curiously, when we say that a work is expressive, say it's expressive of melancholy, above all if it's an expression of, say sadness or something, or gloom, it's not really that it makes us feel gloomy, it's a more complex, more interesting phenomenon. After all, if a work made you feel gloomy and really depressed or something, you wouldn't actually want to perhaps listen to it very much. Or if a painting was like that, if it expressed a certain kind of pathos or suffering, sorrow, you wouldn't want to get that into your life; it's not that you kind of long for more of that, rather it's something a bit different.”

John Armstrong, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, speaking on The Philosopher’s Zone Saturday 28 April 2007 1:35PM

When asked why their work presented itself as it did, my Directing students would respond with something like: “I want the audience to feel what the character is feeling.” Or “I want to make them angry”, “At this moment I want them to cry.”  Consequently I had to remind them that they couldn’t second guess an audience because they didn’t know what baggage the audience was bringing into the theatre with them.  Some audiences laugh when it is most inappropriate, others get angry and stomp out when they take offense at something on stage, still others are stoic when they expected to be laughing.  “Don’t try to manipulate your audience.” I would tell them.  “You do your thing and let the audience do theirs.  Directors direct for themselves and hope the audience will see what they see.”  I believe this is true for all artists.  But let us cut to the chase and see what it is Alkholy would describe as the expressing of emotion in an art work.

This is an alabaster Assyrian wall relief from Nineveh referred to as the Dying Lioness.  Alkholy describes it:  “It is a tragic scene full of energy and considered one of the earliest examples that represent emotional expression of pain.”  No doubt for twenty-first century viewers, who are aware of the need to protect our animal wild life, this is a disturbing image but pain is not an emotion.  It is a sensation and we can only correctly describe this relief as depicting a lion undergoing the sensation of pain.  No emotion is involved in the relief even if we anthropomorphize the lion.  I don’t think the artist anthropomorphized the lion but it is not unusual that some artist try to treat animals as if they were human.  Consider the painting below by Augustus Schenck.

                                                

This example is so obvious it is silly.  Here we have a sheep supposedly grieving over and protecting its dead lamb while a murder of crows, in the manner of Hitchcock’s The Birds, circle, waiting to pick over the remains. It is clearly a fantasy for any sheep rancher knows that sheep are the dumbest of animals (able to be herded by a rabbit (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9oPdqIqIns&feature=fvsr) and care little for their offspring once it has died.  Again, the artist is attempting to depict emotion, not express it.  No doubt some will view the image and exclaim: “Oh the poor mother.” projecting onto the sheep a human persona but there is no accounting for taste.

The idea that art should express emotion is an 18^th century idea that has had its day.  Nevertheless there are still many around who believe that not only does art express emotion it is required to do it and they will find emotion in all works if only to spite the doubters.

This work is Picasso’s Weeping Woman but it is not at all clear what emotion it is supposed to depict.  People weep for many different reasons (Peeling onions for instance).  But then, again, some hold it is the viewer that describes the emotion and what the viewer says goes.  If you should be fortunate enough to view the actual painting you would be amazed at how bright and crisp the colors were.  It is not a large work but it is one of Picasso’s best.  The bright, crisp colors remind you that here is an artist who attends to technique and design.  It is difficult to become involved with the work on an emotional level because we are challenged to think of it in terms of the choices Picasso has made.  We marvel at his ability to give us a contorted image that is bright and cheery.  People who see this as merely a sad or sorrowful work miss the artist’s thought process that is the signature of his better works.  Perhaps this idea will be easier to understand if we compare this work to the work of another famous artist.    

Here is another colorful weeping woman by Roy Lichenstein.  What was it Alkholy  said?  Oh yes, “The expressiveness of figurative art moves the viewer, not only to admire the artist but to feel the expressed emotions themselves.”  Admittedly, some may not wish to call Lichtenstein’s work art but they would be an eccentric minority.  Alkholy’s statement was all inclusive.  I would be amazed to discover an arts patron who on viewing this work felt ‘the expressed emotions themselves’ but I suppose it would not be impossible that someone should identify with the situation this painting presents.  No doubt some works fill us with delight which can be described as an emotional reward.  Such a work for me was this small painting by Vermeer.

A photograph does not do the work justice.  It literally sparkles, drawing viewer into the work, forcing them to see what the artist saw.  We almost paint the work again following the line of color which exposes the artist’s technique.  Am I being too emotional here?

Launt Thompson

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[i]Inas Alkholy, Is the Reception of Emotional Expression in Visual Art Global? Pp3.

Aesthetics Vs. Art

In 1735 the twenty one year old Alexander Baumgarten introduced to the art world the notion of the ‘aesthetic’ and proposed it to be a discipline that allowed the senses the priority place in the judgment of art.  Since that time all manner of books and essays have been written in an attempt to clarify and advance the ideas Baumgarten spawned. When a new field of knowledge evolves there is sure to be a ‘babble of disagreements’[i]among thoughtful scholars seeking to establish their credentials and aesthetics, as a result of its seeming adversity to rational thought, has provoked more than its fair share of scholarly angst.  

Aesthetics is said to be a discipline that seeks to explain how we may experience the ‘aesthetic object’ by taking up an ‘aesthetic attitude’ which is marked by a disinterested attention toward it.  In other words, we are only to consider that aspect of the object that moves us, all other considerations are pragmatic and inessential.  Though an aesthetic attitude is said to be a natural psychological phenomenon we must learn how to acquire or enhance it.  Initially aesthetics was concerned with ‘beauty’ and the many ways it was manifested in the aesthetic object but it was soon recognized that the term was too slippery for simple elucidation.  Attention shifted from what the aesthetic object was said to contain to what the viewer perceived in the object and how they described their perception. As perception is a subjective phenomenon the viewer was only required to point out what provoked their particular perception rather than demonstrate its objective validity.  

The problem is that a theory of aesthetics (or any theory for that matter) may be held reasonable only if it is true[ii] and theories that depend on subjective phenomena tend to defy truth tests.  Trevor Pateman reinforces the distinction between art and aesthetics:  “Aesthetic and artistic are different categories.  Aesthetic interest and relevance concern only what is available in the surface or structure of a work, even though in some cases that surface or structure may only be accessible to those with a quite definite knowledge.”[iii] This quite definite knowledge is thesural in scope for the landscape of adjectives and adverbs is the distinguishing tool of the aesthetician.  The aesthetician informs us of his perception of a work using terms like somber, graceful, garish (even gracefully garish), diminutive, flaccid, weakly, washed out, lanky, anaemic, wan and so forth.[iv]  Such terms are said to identify particular aesthetic qualities within a work.  Aestheticians defend the tendency to be verbose by hiding behind the mask of taste. 

But for some, aestheticians do not serve their discipline that well.  “Aesthetics fails to illuminate, often enough, because the aesthetician wants to retain “mystery”, rather than dispel it, to conceal his subject rather than to reveal it.  He wants to treat art instrumentally, as a “clue to reality”; his aesthetics is a spring-board to transcendental metaphysics.”[v]

Art critics and, in some instances, art historians borrowed generously from the vocabulary and practice of aestheticians to enhance their special disciplines.  It has come to pass that the critic who is most notable is usually the one who is most articulately verbose and maintains an eclectic vocabulary to capture the interest of his or her readers. Critics are, perhaps, the persons most responsible for passing on excerpts of aesthetic practice to the general public.  

For the most part, however, aesthetics is a practice that is much misunderstood and abused.  Carolyn Korsmeyer argues that “...philosophers will continue to be beset with theoretical difficulties concerning the concept of the aesthetic until a distinction is acknowledged between the aesthetic and the artistic.”[vi]   Korsmeyer’s concern is even more relevant when new developments in art are considered.  Conceptual art which is a reaction against notions of aesthetic experience and the role of perception provides no handle for the aesthetician to grasp.  Conceptual art is a major movement in the art world.  The 2001 winner of the prestigious Turner Prize was a work by Martin Creed titled The Lights Going On and Off. Creed merely used a bare room at the Tate and manipulated the lighting by a timer. 

                                                  

Aesthetic practice displaced the need to discern the integrity of the form that contains the work of art but conceptual art reminds us that attending to form is a necessity.  Conceptual art is not merely a passing aberration.  Rather it is the child of Duchamp’s ready-mades; the evolution of an idea spawned by the Dada movement.  For conceptual artists the process of undertaking the work is their reward.  The work itself is little more than a grin without a cat.

The appreciation of works for their artistic achievement requires attention to objective criteria and is subject to truth tests which many members of the general public believe is a rigor that leaves them open to embarrassing  failure.  No such possibility exists in the practice of aesthetic appreciation.[vii]  The most that can be attributed to an inarticulate viewer is a lesser description of their experience.  To this end, aestheticians sought to promote a wider use of an aesthetic vocabulary which was believed to enhance the experience of viewers.  To be sure, aesthetics has had its detractors[viii] but it has, nevertheless, maintained a prominent position in discussions about art.

The answer to the question ‘What is Art?’ has proven to be even more illusive to scholars, academics and the general public than the question ‘What is Aesthetics?’, though artists tend to find no challenge in the former and dismiss the latter as outside of their domain.  For aestheticians a work of art is an aesthetic object that is man made but for many past and emerging artist works of art need be neither man made nor an aesthetic object.

For many there seems to be no unity of purpose among artists.  Artists are forever challenging accepted norms and so they should but it is not at all clear that artists always know what they are doing or always succeed at the artistic enterprise.  An artistic enterprise is that activity that results in a work of art but there is no specific or particular activity that guarantees a positive result.  There has yet to be proposed a universally accepted answer to the question ‘What is art?’ that sets out  definitive criteria that provide sufficient grounds for describing a work as a work of art.  This is particularly amazing when we realize that so many millions of art works have been produced and artists of all kinds seem to have little difficulty discerning between the failures and the successes of their fellow artists.  That this is so should lead us to suspect they are using criteria that they find difficult to express even should they have the unusual desire to do so.  After all, artists are doers, not theorists.

There are, of course, many different kinds of artists, some of whom use language as the medium of their artistic work.  For this type of artist theoretical musing is not a strange pastime.  Indeed, a number have entered the debate setting out their personal views.  Unfortunately they most often demonstrate a bias toward their own particular approach to art.  They seem to overlook the point that definitive criteria that provide sufficient grounds for describing a work as a work of art must be applicable to all the various art forms that have been and will be created.  For most artists and scholars devising such criteria is a fool’s enterprise. The problem, in part, comes about because the practice of aesthetics tend to fog the lenses of those seeking to find  all embracing criteria which may be used to describe our art forms and their works.

Universal acceptance for sufficient definitive criteria for works of art will never be possible until it is recognized that they have always been in the public domain but have seldom been delineated.  Such criteria are known to scholars as public criteria[ix] which are logically implicit in what we say and the way we behave.  The term ‘public’ means that such criteria are not hidden but open to discovery by anyone who cares to undertake the pursuit.  Be that as it may, ‘public criteria’ are not always matters of public agreement.  (There are still some among us who are prepared to accept as true the hypothesis that the world is flat.)  Rather, ‘public criteria’ establishes that the tests for truth are publicly determined.   It is important that we clarify the foundational concepts of art if we wish to both ‘see’ art and demonstrate how they strengthen our answer to the question ‘What is Art?’. 

Works of art invite us to read them.  We cannot think an artist spends his time and energy producing something he believes to be of worth so that we can choose what to concentrate on.   The playwright wants us to notice the script, the scenographer wants us to notice the set, the costume designer wants us to notice the costumes, the lighting designer wants us to notice the use of the lights, the actor wants us to notice the script’s interpretation, the director wants us to notice his or her treatment and staging.  Painters want us to notice the medium they are using, the pigments they have chosen and the techniques they have applied and in what light or environment it is presented to us.  They want us to appreciate the work in its entirety.

 

Unlike aesthetic appreciation, art appreciation requires that we attend to all aspects and parts of the work. Perhaps most important, art enthusiast  by analysis will quickly discover what it is they don’t know about a particular work and how to go about filling the gaps in their art knowledge.

Launt Thompson

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?field-keywords=Launt+Thompson&url=search-alias%3Daps&x=16&y=9

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^[i]See Sparshot, F.E. ’The Structure of Aesthetics’, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1963.

^[ii]Sparshott, op. cit. pp13

^[iii]Pateman, Trevor, Key Concepts A Guide to Aesthetics, Criticism and the Arts in Education, The Falmer Press, London, 1991. pp136.

^[iv] See Sibley, Frank, Aesthetic Concepts, Philosophical Review, Vol. 68.1959

^[v]Passmore, J.A., The Dreariness of Aesthetics, Mind, 1951.pp324.

^[vi]Korsmeyer, Carolyn, On Distinguishing “Aesthetic” from “Artistic”, Journal of Aesthetic Education , 1977pp.46

^[vii] “Hence aesthetic description need not have truth conditions in the strong sense, and to justify them may be to justify an experience and not a belief.” Scruton, Roger, Art and Imagination, Methuen & Co.Ltd., London 1974 pp55.

^[viii]  See Passmore, J.A. “ The Dreariness of Aesthetics” in Mind 1951pp318 also in Elton, William, ed: “Aesthetics and Language”, Blackwell, Oxford, 1954

^[ix]See Wittgenstein, L., op. cit.

Ignorance Is No Bliss

No doubt there has been a time when each of us has discovered we have been indulging our ignorance.  We license ourselves with a ticket of leave that proclaims: ‘what we don’t know won’t hurt us’.   There might be a smidgen of truth in such an axiom that amours the innocent but few of us are innocent.  Ignorance is no excuse before the law nor is it grounds for promoting a fallacy because we’ve been unable to persuade an opponent to accept the correctness of our position.  

What I’m on about is that question begging inanity so often used as an escape clause when two opposing poles are stubbornly confrontational and each unwilling to cede to the other.   I’m sure you’ve witnessed such an event followed by the proclamation “Well, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.”  Though a classic example of intellectual palsy, I’m sure there will be a number of protesters among my readers ready to defend it but let’s look at the logic of the phrase.

What does an agreement entail?  It does not follow that two people who merely spout the same conclusion are in agreement.  For example we cannot agree with a person who adds 2 and 5 and gets 6; we cannot agree to a mistake.  If we earnestly hold that a person who adds 2 + 5 and gets 6 is correct then we are merely condescending to the person.  We are both ignorant of how our numbers system works.  However, if I should hold that 2+5 equals 7 and I cannot convince you that I am correct I cannot agree that we are merely in disagreement.  Your conclusion is no answer at all.  I cannot agree to your mistake; I cannot agree that your answer is as credible as mine.  By the same token you must believe that I am mistaken, consequently you cannot agree to my believed-to-be mistake or in my credulity.  We cannot agree to disagree on this issue for the collusion would be either fraudulent or the result of ignorance or both in which case there is no actual agreement.  We would be merely blowing smoke.

Let’s approach the problem from a different angle; what does it mean to disagree?  Should one person hold that 2+5 equals 7 and another hold that 2+5 equals 6, because in their system whenever a 2 appears you deduct 1, we cannot argue they disagree for they are working in different systems.  In other words, in order to disagree with another’s argument you must be holding the same premises.  We often confront contrary views that are not actually disagreements.  Contrary views cannot agree by definition.  The best that can happen is that each condescends to allow the other their position whereas it must be possible to resolve a disagreement (if only in principle); there must always be the possibility of agreement.  And what is true of disagreements is true of agreements.  In order to agree with someone you must be holding the same premises otherwise you merely hold either a complimentary or a contrary view.

There is probably no greater example in which contradictory views exist than in discussions concerning how we should describe a work as art.

                                                                           

Nevertheless there is little disagreement in these discussions because art enthusiasts very rarely appreciate art using an acknowledged principle or holding shared premises.  Conversely there is also very little agreement about what constitutes art; how we should describe an object as art.  It seems that everybody and his brother has a valid point of view and it also seems that this state of affairs is the preferred way of art enthusiasts and many artists.  Why this should be so is anybody’s guess but mine is that it relieves the enthusiast of the burden of holding a view based on a principle that might be shown to be wanting.  Consequently they are not obliged to defend why one wood pile is a work of art and another is not.  (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOmeV8CXwo8)

                                                                                                               

 I can only think of one reason we would want to call this pile of wood a work of art and that would be to sell it for a huge profit to a guileless art collector who has more money than sense.

Launt Thompson
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The Hard Case of Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’

 

Fountain A.Stieglitz photo 1917

Aestheticians are a fractured lot.  A patient  survey of the many thousands of papers and books published on aesthetics will confront the reader with a cacophony of ideas from philosophers who are described as Functionalists or Proceduralists or Institutionalists and even Expressionalists and Representationalists; each earnestly seeking to offer the penultimate word on the question ‘What is Art?’  I say penultimate because philosophers recognize they are only human and subject to error.  They offer their ideas so that they may be extended and advanced by others of a like mind. 

Nevertheless, aesthetics which was once simply defined as the exercise of taste and the appreciation of beauty has been kneaded, twisted, turned, flailed and even sautéed in an effort to cook up a theory of aesthetics that will account for all the many permutations of art that contemporary artists produce. Of course some traditional aestheticians merely deny that many of the oddities offered as art actually are examples of art. In this way they maintain the efficacy of their personal theories.  It seems that in such cases it is the artist who is at fault rather than the theory that attempts to explain art.  No doubt there are many attempts to make new art forms that fail (the ‘Happenings’ of the 60s are an example) but aestheticians can take no credit for their failure.  

The esoteric nature of most aesthetic theories prevent them from being absorbed and understood by the art going public who have little interest in philosophy.  For their part, they merely desire a pleasant afternoon perusing the exhibitions of their local gallery.  For most it is an opportunity to discover what it is everyone is talking about but few are concerned with why such talk is taking place.  While many may hold a tacit theory about what counts as art, which they feel is sufficient to distinguish works of interest from works of no importance, they would not desire their theory to be exposed or publicly tested and understandably so.  Though some may read in newspapers and magazines the wisdom of art critics or listen attentively to gallery tour guides, art appreciation still tends to be a private activity.

The point I am trying to bring to the fore is that it is not aestheticians, critics or informed tour guides that are most responsible for the longevity of our art works.  Rather, it is artists and the tacit opinions of the art going public that ensure the endurance of art.  Before institutional public exhibitions of art works became commonplace, artists’ studios were turned into galleries and were often visited by those who could not afford or did not desire to buy art.  Visiting works on show in outdoor galleries is still a popular pastime.

So does philosophical aesthetics really have a place where it can stand or is it merely whistling in the dark, alone and fearful of its irrelevance?  I vote for the latter and the topsie turvy arguments of recent aestheticians tend to strengthen this view.  For example the notion of an ‘aesthetic experience’ is no longer the product of ‘disinterested attention’ allowing for an emotional response to a work of art.  Rather, as the New Zealand aesthetician Stephen Davies argues, an aesthetic experience is fundamentally cognitive.[i]  It entails understanding and the ‘grasping of connections’ and the only reason it is described as aesthetic is because it is applied to art works. In other words an aesthetic experience is no different from any other contemplative experience. What is different is the reward obtained.

This is a long way from the Psychical Distance theory of Edward Bullough or the Institutional theory of George Dickie.   But while Davies is on solid ground with his view of aesthetic experience his ground is actually an island, afloat in the unpredictable, swirling sea of aesthetic theorizing; a sea awash with the flotsam and jetsam of ideas that were once held to be the flagships of aesthetic philosophy. Nevertheless, sincere aestheticians continue with their studious search for the essence of aesthetics without realizing, as Trevor Pateman argues, that their subject matter has little to do with their subject.[ii]

The subject is art and its works and it is to the fundamentals of art making we must look if we wish to philosophically unpack the ‘hard cases’ that tend to sink aestheticians.  A philosophy of art must tell us what objects may be called art and why.  It is the task of critics to pick up where philosophers leave off and tell us if the object in question is worthy or not... and why.

 Aestheticians tend to confuse and merge the practice of philosophy with the practice of criticism. They demonstrate their arguments with exemplary cases that have years of public certification rather than with works such as Duchamp’s Fountain, Warhol’s Brillo Boxes, Damien  Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Dying in the Mind of Someone Living or Tomoko Takahaski’s Rubbish.  To be sure some aestheticians have contrived convoluted theories in an attempt to include such works in their philosophy but the esoteric nature of their arguments subverts their intelligibility for all but a patient few.

 

There is a better way. But before this way is demonstrated we must unpack the three great fallacies of aesthetics.  The three are interdependent and to demonstrate the fallacy of one will show the weakness of the other two.

The first fallacy is that art works possess or contain the quality or property called ‘creativity’ and is most often expressed by the statement that ‘works of art are creative.’  (At the moment I am considering the Visual Arts but my comments are equally valid for all our art forms.)

Creativity is not a making activity, it is a thinking activity.  This is one reason artists have experimented with works that are described as ‘concept art’. 

While it may be hard for some to swallow, creativity no more exists in a painting than color exists in a painting.  Color exists in light and is measured by wave lengths and the pigments in paintings merely reflect particular wave lengths which the eye allows the mind to see as the color that is in the light.  So too, the creative act takes place in the mind of the viewer and is often accompanied by the shock of recognition. This is why I find no objection to Davies’ insistence that appreciating art is fundamentally the cognitive act of grasping connections.

When someone describes a work as creative they are saying something about themselves and perhaps the artist.  This may also be true when a work is described as lacking creativity.   But who could recognize creativity if they did not have the capacity to think creatively?  Given time ten thousand monkeys pounding on a key board may be able to write one of Shakespeare’s sonnets but if this should be so, who is it that recognizes the deed?

Philosophically, creativity is not a defining condition for categorizing a work as art though it may play a role in the criticism of particular works; it may be used to describe some works as good and some works as bad.  If the efficacy of my argument has been persuasive then the second fallacy will be seen to be superfluous. 

The second fallacy is that works we call art must be artifacts; they must be man made.  Paintings by cats, elephants, monkeys and found objects are excluded.  If we can accept that creativity exists in the mind of the viewer (remembering that artists don’t paint what they see, rather, they see what they paint) we can understand how it is that it need not be the case that art must be man made. This postulate is coveted by aestheticians to honor the supremacy of human activity.  But the supremacy of human activity is a cognitive activity and it is not lessened or devalued by appreciating works that are not man made.

                                     Blue Flowers by eight year old elephant Wanpen                                                   

The third fallacy is that art must have a point expressed by Benjamin Tilghman as ‘what is the point of art?’[iii]  For aestheticians the point of art is to satisfy some aesthetic function and if a work has no aesthetic function then it is by definition not a work of art. But the point of art is that it is art and while this may sound circular I hope in the following to show the contrary.

The term ‘art’ can be used in a number of different ways; each with a different meaning or sense.  Some may use the term honorifically as, when viewing a painting, they exclaim: “Now that’s what I call Art!” But it may also be used ironically or metaphorically.  Most, however, tend to use the term in its classificatory sense meaning that all art works or art forms are classified under one heading.  In discussions about art it is easy to, unknowingly, jump from the classificatory sense to the honorific sense of the term when presenting an argument.  For this reason I shall be using the term ‘art’ in it’s classificatory sense.

 

In its classificatory sense the term ‘art’ is shorthand for the term ‘art form’ or ‘art forms’. An art form is a category term that gathers works together based on the medium used and the manner of application.  Theatre is an art form as is oil painting, stone sculpture, dance, literature, etc. Art forms also contain subheadings which distinguish particular works as belonging to a genre, style or school of presentation.

As categorial designators art forms are sui generis; they are unique and have no counterpart in any other non-art categorial system.  Aristotle was the first to recognize this point 2500 years ago. Aristotle insisted that all works of art have a Medium of presentation, a Manner of presentation and an Object (now often call subject Matter) of presentation.  These three aspects of a work allow us to determine its form; the category of art in which it is placed.  This is one reason why we seldom confuse everyday items with works of art.

                                                      

 

We distinguish one art form from another by attending to the constituent parts of each of its three aspects.  For example, an oil painting and a water color are different art forms.  While each may present the same subject or object, each have a different medium which require different methods of application; different manners of presentation.  The medium of a work is most often our means of identifying its form.

Given this brief description of form we are now ready to unpack one of those ‘hard cases’ that plague aestheticians.   When Marcel Duchamp entered his Fountain, a urinal, in the 1917 Armory Art Show it was placed in the open sculpture section and as a result regulated to a back room.  It outraged many and was widely ridiculed.  Critics and patrons did not recognize its art form but today it is considered the flagship of the art form known as ‘ready-mades’.  

Duchamp was rebelling against the practice of aestheticians of the day and chose an item that was easily identifiable.  The medium of ready-mades is usually an object or objects that have been manufactured but are divorced from their utilitarian role.  In this instance the artist has used a porcelain urinal.  But the artist has up ended the work and presented it in a manner to which we are unaccustomed and the water inlet is facing us.

Could anyone have made it? It is doubtful.  Duchamp was the thinking man’s artist. He was a philosopher of art who chose to open the artistic version of Pandora’s Box to show us that experimenting with new forms was as reputable as experimenting with established forms.  The shock of recognition lies in our ability to see that the artist was right.

 With this work Duchamp is turning a pun into art (he published two books on puns); ‘taking the piss’ out of those who held that art had to be aesthetically pleasing. The catchment area showing the holes that drain the urinal is upright facing us. In this position the opening is shaped as a drop of water, reflecting its title.  Clearly the artist was presenting us with an uncommon view. We are not expected to see it as a functional item.  The artist is telling us that this item has another aspect.

The signature, R Mutt and the date 1917 serve a dual purpose. Mutt is a slang term (short for mutton-head) and became part of the American vernacular around 1901. Duchamp was mimicking the artist’s tradition of signing and dating his or her works.  He was also implying that any mutton-head could make a work of art.

Fountain was offered as a humorous work with serious implications.  The title acts as a trigger allowing us the freedom to laugh with the artist.  Humor in art often requires of us as much intellectual rigor as non-humorous works.

It is not important to our understanding of art that Duchamp did not make his notorious work.  Many great artists of the past (including Michelangelo, Rembrandt and da Vinci) employed other artists who contributed to their works. The artist who initiates the work is the one credited for it.

In Aristotle’s terms the medium is obvious. It is a porcelain urinal.  The manner of presentation is clear; the urinal is up ended and placed on a pedestal; presenting us with a new perspective and painted with a mock signature. Its object or subject matter is clear; as a fountain can be a urinal so can a urinal be a fountain.  The work is an articulate exposition of itself as art reminding us that the enjoyment of art is lost when we become too pompous.

No doubt some of you will be quietly saying to yourself: “This fellow has drawn a very long Bow!”  I would ask you to take note of the fact that we do not preserve works merely because they are great works of art.  In this instance the work foreshadows several major movements in art.  It is of seminal importance and as valuable to art as that first prehistoric rendering of a hand print on a cave wall. 

         

Launt Thompson

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?field-keywords=Launt+Thompson&url=search-alias%3Daps&x=16&y=9

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[i] Davies, Stephen, Definitions of Art, Cornell University Press Ithica and London 1991 (paperback edition pp 59.

[ii] See Pateman, Trevor, KEY CONCEPTS A Guide to Aesthetics, Criticism and the Arts, The Falmer Press, London, 1991.

[iii] Tilghman,  Benjamin  R. But is it Art?, Blackwell, Oxford 1984

Monkey Business

First, here’s a little tidbit to worry you.  If you don’t own or look after an animal you may be a latent or overt speciesist. Yes, you heard me right, I said speciesist.  A speciesist practices speciesism which is a prejudice against nonhuman animals.  How do you like them bananas?

I bet you think I made that word up.  Well, I didn’t. (http://www.richardryder.co.uk/speciesism.html) I ran into it in an essay on animal art which I downloaded from the internet.  It was a pretty silly essay to my mind but it clearly illustrates the idea that however incredible, some people will believe anything they can think.

Now, I’m all for letting people believe what they will but I find it disconcerting when they try to get me to believe that what they say is true.  Let me give you an example.

The essay informs us that: “From December 16, 1997 to January 10, 1998 a most unusual art exhibit was on display at the Terrain Gallery in San Francisco. What was unusual about the art is that it was the expressions of life as seen through the eyes, emotions and imaginations of two lowland gorillas. The artwork on display included a number of paintings representing a favorite creative and emotional outlet for gorillas Koko and Michael. The two gorillas, because they have learned to communicate with humans through the use of sign language, have brought into serious doubt that human beings are the only species that understand abstract concepts."(http://www.koko.org/news/121697.html)

Well, saying so, don’t make it so but if you’re a doubting Thomas like me then the author has a painful sounding epithet to abuse you with.  You’re a speciesist.  How serious such an accusation is depends on how popular the idea becomes.  I doubt if it will gain much currency because unlike terms such as racist and sexist, it is difficult to say. 

I have no problems with those who take what has come to be known as ‘monkey art’ seriously.  Indeed, that gorillas, elephants and cats have produced art works promotes the argument that art criticism need not be harnessed to anthropomorphic concerns.  A work of art is not intended to be a pictorial diary of an artist’s psyche or emotional stability though some may desire to interpret it as such. 

I suspect, however, the stated essayist and others of a like mind have a different agenda.  Art is not their priority. Rather, their goal is to promote an extreme form of animal rights. But maybe I’m wrong, you tell me?  The essay argues that the ghost of speciesism will surely haunt us even if the ideas are shown to be fancifully presented.  It then goes on to point out that “Dr. Francine Patterson and Wendy Gordon use the art of the gorillas to help make a case for the personhood of gorillas.”  Who’s making a monkey of whom? 

Launt Thompson
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?field-keywords=Launt+Thompson&url=search-alias%3Daps&x=16&y=9