I have started another thread on this topic.

What exactly are we expecting from art? Anish Kapoor produces his big pieces, or should I say directs the construction of his big pieces, that are really about spectacle and interaction on a larger than life scale. What should we expect from him?

I don't know the answers to these questions and perhaps it's not for me to answer, as I feel I am fading into art as it was in the past.

You seem to feel that he has nothing to do with art, that art is what you and others do, and that groups like communication and media giants should stay away. Because of what? Is their influence any different than the Pope over Michelangelo?

Not that, its rather a sense of sadness that it has come to this. Not that artists like me are fading into souvenir producers, or something like that. You know, like those Red Indian shows that tourists are taken to to give them a taste of what America was like before the white man. But rather what has happened to the art establishment.

What is it exactly that we expect from art?

Perhaps we should rescue it from the clutches of exploitation, an exploitation which devalues art aesthetically.

I will continue this in the new thread.

I think what distinguishes commercial art is that it’s done for purposes other than self expression, like advertising and branding, or producing art for the primary purpose of making money.

In recent times art has become appropriated by and merged with other forms of media and capitalised on by communications and media giants* seeking to control what the masses are exposed to for commercial gain. More recently with the polarisation of communities and countries by populism, media and politics are co opted and exploited in an identity culture. I fully expect the arts to follow suit. Perhaps this is already happening in the rapid developments in animated entertainment and interactive gaming. Digital images.

Perhaps we should be asking what will art be, where will it go, will it even be called art?

*For example the way in which Saatchi and Saatchi both backed and promoted Brit Art in the 90's. By inflating the status of those artists to the global stage, they re-established Britain as an important player in the art world. They were advertising and communication giants using a small group of art students to give the Saatchi organisation and brand a gold plated message of prestige. I was there at the time and saw the art as soulless. Myself as a viewer in the Sensations galleries as being manipulated. We have art superstars like Anish kapoor producing soulless works on a gigantic scale to impress.

Meanwhile while all this is going on in the mainstream, thousands of artists like me work in more traditional ways, in the shadows, ignored by the mainstream and widely considered by the establishment as not producing Art, but some sort of antequated craft producing twee pictures for twee people to hang on their walls.

What is art becoming?

Either you're an American, or you're a ..........

I enjoyed your posts very much and your humility. In my own humility I am also on a journey through art, which is the joy of it. Please don't think that I disagree with anything you have said, or want to change your position, you should cherish it as I do and all artists, with a few exceptions, would.

Just remember that with all the intellectualising which critics and historians do, they are only trying to explain something intangible and difficult to intellectualise. The art itself stands alone and can be seen and known by everyone who has an interest.

So humanity is constrained by consciousness. How odd then that that is what art has always looked at - for all of cultures, and for all of time?

All this analysing of art is a recent development which has sprung out of academia and the interplay of artists striving to find something intangible and critics striving for some kind of explanation of the intangible. It's true it can help someone educate themselves in "the arts" and become cultured and it can be used as a guide on a journey of understanding and appreciation.

But it is not art, art is the result of a physical process, except perhaps conceptual art. This physical process is undergone by a physical body, true the mind and the consciousness is present and plays a role in the controlling the hand, or foot. Some artists are engaged in an endeavour to remove the mind from the process, or even the consciousness, in its various states. And for the artist often these things and issues are more important than what kind of art it is judged to be, if it is art, if it is good art, what box it goes into, or commentary on the mind of the artist by others.

Cezanne is not an Impressionist he’s a Post Impressionist, as is Gauguin.

As is Van Gogh.

So they have been put in boxes, good for the archivists I suppose.

There is an issue with critical interpretation of art in which art is reduced or compartmentalised by commentators, perhaps lecturers through an academic intellectualisation, which I pointed out in my first post in the thread.

I am surprised that you appear to have removed Gauguin from the naive art bracket, his work is clearly naive. Indeed the only way in which Cezanne makes it out of that bracket is by more clearly falling into the impressionist bracket. Once in that bracket the world is your oyster.

I agree that naive art is interesting, indeed is in the ascendant, hence Van Gogh is regarded by many as the greatest painter for quite a while.

I'm not being critical of artists, or looking to restrict their freedom in any way. In my comment which you referenced I was commenting on criticism of art and that if one were to criticise it, one ought to know how the recent movements of modernism and post modernism broke apart the critique of art purely on artistic prowess.

It will be interesting once reality hits with the EU negotiations. I suspect we will hear very little as Johnson's way is to hide from the media and scrutiny. Interesting if they are expecting a change of president in the US. Javid might be tangling us in the US China trade war, over tech and internet commerce etc.

I imagine painting bunnies could be, although a bunny would be an odd choice of subject matter for plein-air painting.

The genre is of local landscapes and scenery, including wildlife and pastoral subjects. The fact that it includes a lot of plein air painting is incidental. Yes, if there is a bunny it is usually a composition, as they run quite fast.

In regard to plein-air painting, of which I done a good amount, I would say that an impressionistic effect is primary rather than a decorative one.

Yes, when it's bunny's it's usually a decorative composition. When I say decorative, that does include decorative impressionist themes and techniques.

On a positive note, in the foreground the photorealism is impressive. :up:

I take it your response here is for me. Thanks for your praise, however the "clumsy" effect was meant to be like that. I use a technique in which I purposefully work in a slapdash way as part of the effect. Also, the hare ( bunny) is done quickly and slightly slapdash. I can work to a higher degree of photo realism, but I am not interested in that kind of precision, it is rather dull.

You see I am working within a genre local to me in which there is a lot of plein air painting done of landscapes and a tradition of painting hares for example. This work is done quickly with the overall decorative effect being primary.

I asked you what lifted it above an amateur in the eyes of the people who had seen it and liked it. They told me that it was the background which made it and particularly the willow twigs which are partially in focus.The ambiguity here gave the immediate sense of depth of view. As such it had merit in the eye of these people. At a guess, about 50 people, so you are outnumber 50 to 1.

Somehow I feel your criticism doesn't take into consideration the artists intent and the culture in which the artist is immersed. Likewise with Van Gogh.

Now it's your turn, can you provide a work and identify what in the work gives it merit?

It is the way I made parts of the picture appear to be out of focus. This was actually very easy to do, but it required a creative vision when conceiving the piece before making it.

So the merit of a work is not necessarily determined by how well it is depicted, but often subtle qualities of the composition, novel techniques, even approaches which seem counterintuitive. Van Gogh has achieved this in a number of ways, which give his work merit. His skill as a painter is irrelevant to this, also as an impressionist, he was not trying to give an accomplished rendition, but rather an impression experienced personally by himself.

Nice post about creativity, I would say that there are artists who choose not to seek recognition for their work because it would become an unwanted pressure on their work, a pressure causing them wanting to please others in how they do their work. The work of these people may be discovered after their death or long after they made them and be regarded to have great creative merit by the art world in their absence.

Also in movements in art, there are groups who work together in some way and push forward as a group effort, such as surrealism and cubism.

I'm not sure of the artistic merit of this thread so far, but touch wood it might shine through at some point.

P.s. You can edit, when you click on the tree dots at the bottom of your post, you will see a pencil, click on that and you can then edit your post.

let's start again and then come back to the issues.

This is a work I did last year, many people have said how they like it. What do you think lifts it above an average rendition of a hare by an amateur?



(A clue, it wasn't how well I depicted the hare.)

You won't get any argument from me( tongue in cheek).

I was referring to the piece above and the Einojuhani Rautavaara piece.
Thanks again.

I will respond to your posts later as I am out at the moment. But have you had a few drinks or something? You keep asking people to restate what they stated in the previous post, or the one before that.

I feel your pain.

P.s. thanks for bringing me to some great pieces of music.

I think I've gotten to the point where I don't think art can be defined or fully described philosophically.

I agree, the immersion in the art world as an artist and a viewer is what is fulfilling for me.

Are you put off by the level of debate, or is it the lack of discussion of music?

The art world moved on from such naive interpretation a long time ago.
— Punshhh

Brett,
What's naive about it?

The developments in art during the 20th Century broke the critical perspectives in art in which art could not be appreciated unless the artist was displaying traditionally accepted artist prowess. This allowed naive artists to be appreciated and artists exploring other and novel approaches.

Presumably you would be educated in such developments before criticising Van Gogh on a platform like this. I don't wish to sensure you, but you should expect commentators who have many years of understanding and contemplation on all these issues to be found here and it will be pointed out.

Which is?

I did write this in reply to you yesterday.

"There is within the world of the critic and the connoisseur of art a narrative about this, which does include the international art market. Which does rate artists to a degree and in terms of 19th and 20th Century art Van Gogh is possibly in the lead currently, or perhaps head to head with Picasso"

'It's currently under debate whether Gauguin should be celebrated/displayed anywhere, because (contrary to the Lolita example) he was actually erotically displaying underage girls that he apparently molested/raped in real life....

It probably says more about the level of sensure in the country in which the gallery considering this is to be found. In the UK, I think the repulsion of sensure would not allow someone like Gauguin to be sensured. Whereas artists clearly breaking the law in this way at home in the recent past are vilified, for example Garry Glitter, Michael Jackson, Jimmy Saville.

some of his works I do find moving and deeply meaningful.
— Punshhh

Brett
What exactly does this mean?

You know your favourite piece of music, an emotionally evocative piece. Well it's like that in relation to a painting.

That’s because it is pedestrian. Mid year high school kids paint like that, which is Van Gogh’s level, everything so literal, so clumsy and flat footed.

Edit: just an interesting note. Are we allowed to say Van Gogh’s no good?

Of course you're allowed to not like his work, but if you claim he's no good and say why on a Philosophy of art forum, you are going to get shot down. Principally because you are implying that either the world of art appreciation (which I described a couple of posts back) is wrong, or that their position is in line with your personal opinion.

You say his work is "pedestrian, everything is literal, so clumsy and flat footed". These aspects of his work are irrelevant for those who appreciate his work. Have you not taken on board the hard won freedoms in artistic expression won by the modernists and post modernists? The art world moved on from such naive interpretation a long time ago.

I’ve always loved his work and think it’s brilliant. It’s just that we should probably acknowledge that the value we place on art is often fictional, like money or rare gems (that aren’t actually so rare]

Yes, I agree, Van Gogh is popular at the moment, that will change. In my reply to Brett, I qualified my comments about Van Gogh, by saying that in the end it comes down to personal likes and dislikes. It took me a long time to get Van Gogh's work, like many other artists. But my approach is that I am on a journey and at no point do I dismiss any work and always go back and reassess artists and their work. I adopt a position of humility and give the artist the benefit of the doubt. I have always struggled with Matisse, I continually fail to see any merit in his work, but perhaps one day I will see the light.

I don't prefer Picasso over Van Gogh, although I see him as a close second. I was talking of who was preferred by the public, or art world. Personally, I am not a big fan of Cubism, although I do like Picasso's interpretation of Cubism and some of his works I do find moving and deeply meaningful. For me Van Gogh equals this, with an unparalleled vibrancy and immediacy as well. I think he achieves something which many artists struggle with, imparting the vibrancy and depth of light and intensity of colour which we all experience in the world. I struggle with this in my work and it is devilishly difficult to achieve. He literally invented his own method of painting, which is unique and achieved this without falling into the various traps in which artists fail, or over compensate for this in paintings.

Here is one of my favourites, I haven't seen another painting of a sunset with so much depth.

I have to agree with you about Van Gogh, unparalleled, except possibly by Picasso.

I think you'll find that Van Gogh is head and shoulders above Cezanne and Gaugan amongst connoisseurs of art. I can explain why tomorrow. More importantly and in line with this discussion, you know how it is not so easy to define art, or establish its meaning as we have found in this thread. Well it is equally so when it comes to establishing who is better an artist than someone else. The best we can do is say who we prefer. There is within the world of the critic and the connoisseur of art a narrative about this, which does include the international art market. Which does rate artists to a degree and in terms of 19th and 20th Century art Van Gogh is possibly in the lead currently, or perhaps head to head with Picasso. Cezanne, would be in the following group, which is hotly debated. Personally Degas, Dali, Toulouse Lautrec, are ahead of Cezanne for me, having established that Van Gogh and Picasso are way out in the lead.

is a bacteria conscious?
— Punshhh

You have already asked me that - no, I don't see any good evidence that bacteria are conscious.

You didn't answer it, you said bacteria don't have minds. But now it seems that a mind is something associated with a brain and bacteria don't appear to have a brain( although you don't think a mind requires neurons), therefore a bacteria can't be conscious by definition.

As scientists admit that they don't know what consciousness is, or how, or where it is produced, we can't therefore assume that organisms like bacteria aren't conscious.

So what is required for a thing to have a mind?

You keep bringing up the conflation thing and you also did in another context with Brett, I don't see the relevance and am not confused about it, I am well aware of the difference between states and objects, or things.

Pop,
Why did Van Gogh paint as he did?

Brett,
Because he couldn’t paint and had no idea what he was doing.


pop,
How could they be popularly perceived as ugly when no one knew about them?

Van Gogh, could paint, but he was trying to develop his own unique style and he was so successful that his works hold some of the highest values in the art market.

Thanks, I don't see what Greta has for her to be optimistic about. I thought she was calling them out for inaction.

Well, my only slight alteration would be that the artist can't just point and call something art. S/he has to engage in some act of creation.

Surely the act of saying something is art is the alteration.

I am not disagreeing with you, I am largely in agreement, there is only a nuance of difference, I think.

Yes I view the whole word aesthetically. It is rather like a realisation I had years ago, I have a very broad sense of humour, in fact I reached a point where everything became funny, at that moment I started laughing, it wasn't quite uncontrollable, but I did have to control it, or I would have got cramp in my cheek muscles. An equivalent thing happened with seeing everything as art.

Ok, if that's the definition you're using it makes more sense.

So the definition of a mind, is that which hosts a conscious state. This confirms what I was suggesting, that you appear to be calling mind consciousness and consciousness mind. Are you saying a mind has consciousness by definition. And consciousness only occurs in minds by definition?

Just a few more questions to clarify, is a bacteria conscious? Does a mind require neurons? What do you call the self aware consciousness found in a human?

I'm open to other intelligent beings creating art and kinds of proto-art. But we should be clear that being "artistic" as in, having art-like qualities, is different from, though overlapping category with "art."

Yes, perhaps these are two categories which can be considered when defining art. I have often thought of the artistry in a spider's web. Or the lack of artistry in many pieces produced in the Brit Art movement.

Movements like Brit Art were pushing the boundaries of art, but in an art world in which in theory, anything was art provided an artist said it was Art. I put artist in italics because in that world 'artist' meant a person who had gone to certain colleges and been adopted by certain patrons.

So anything could be art, but only certain people could be artists.

However, this is just too much to go along with. If everything is art then there is no art.

You are free to find this to much to go along with, I am further along the spectrum than this, the end where far more can be considered for artistic merit. My opinion on this is that organisms by their nature can perform actions equating to the actions of intelligent artists, like the Bower bird, or a spider spinning a web.

Edit: and the discussion has to be about more than opinion, don’t you think?

I don't think it can be answered in a definitive way other than by reference to the idea that it is a phenomena of humans activity emergent from human culture. But this is a vague definition and doesn't answer many questions about art.

When I was a student I went to great lengths to find out and understand the meaning of art. I came away with little more than that it came down to personal opinion and preference. I then followed the path of exploring my own journey in art, which included becoming one myself.

I would point out, as I did in my first post on this thread that the art movements of modernism, post modernism and post post modernism, exploded the theory of art and what art is

Sorry, I didn’t mean you personally. I was a bit casual about wording my post.

No worries, my response came out more as a rebuttal than was intended.

Edit: what I meant was that if someone’s perception of art is from a mystical point of view then there’s nowhere to go after that, because it can’t be proved or disproved.

You will only find me raising mystical viewpoints when I am specifically discussing metaphysics. It does'nt apply here.

Either you're an American or you're a Democrat, oh well you might be a profit of doom, I suppose.

No, it is because they don't have a brain and minds seem to be associated with brains, not mere cells. For example there seems to be precisely one mind - my mind - associated with this body - my body. Yet my body is composed of many, many cells. It has one brain, but lots and lots of cells. And doing things to my brain clearly affects what goes on in my mind. Thus the evidence is fairly overwhelming that minds are associated with brains. Trees and bacteria do not possess these things, and thus it is unreasonable to attribute minds to them.

And they don't produce art, do they?

I didn't attribute minds to trees and bacteria. I said they may be conscious and that they produce art.

The reason I asked you these questions about animals and plants was to determine what you mean by the word mind. You seem to be saying that mind is some kind of self awareness and includes all the nervous activity in the brain associated with the functioning of the body and intellect. That is a very broad use of the word and explains the confusion.

You are attributing mind to certain states and functions in the body which are not normally associated with the human mind. States of what I would describe as consciousness. The problem with this definition is that it sets an arbritary definition of what organisms are conscious by conflating consciousness with mind and claiming that organisms which don't have a brain, or something equating to a brain cannot be conscious, I would suggest this is rather naive. Surely a tree is conscious of its environment in some way, because it reacts is subtle and sophisticated ways to its environment as a responsive living organism, indeed in ways which are very artistic. I have a slice across the trunk of a tree highly polished hanging on my wall, in my opinion, it is equally as artistic as the Picasso on the wall next to it.

If your position is that it can’t be understood, then that’s fine, but it means you have nothing to offer.

I have by definition offered something relevant, or meaningful to the discussion, I have pasted a work I produced only a couple of days ago. So if my intellectual contribution turns out to be meaningless, or irrelevant to the discussion, is now irrelevant. I along with Qwex have produced the most real, concrete contribution to the thread, a work of art.

Is that your position, that what defines an artist changes over time? That someone like Michelangelo is no artist because we no longer regard him as an artist?

Yes, but it's more complicated than that because there is a spectrum of opinion within the culture as to what constitutes art. So whether a person regards Michelangelo as an artist depends on who you ask along that spectrum, as well as where the evolution of art is at that moment within the culture.

They are part of the universal mind, 'spirits' probably use trees.

I agree, art is what is produced by things with 'spirits', 'consciousness', things which are alive and this includes the entire biosphere.