The Great Art Debate

[thebish]

I already stated (more than once) that I find Rembrandt a great artist; not because anyone tells me to, but because I think so. Not a criteria that either looks for support from others, or makes me an art appreciater of renown.( If just agreeing with others is the criteria, then I never will be)

I think this sounds like a bit of a low blow. Nobody has accused you of liking art because anyone tells you too - so it reads like an insinuation that WtW is like that - when the evidence is quite to the contrary - he has dissed what is very popular and highly acclaimed art - the Pre-Raphaelites (the stuff we are henerally "told" to like) - and he took great care to say how and why Rembrandt moves him - I see no reason for such an insinuation.

Vetriano's painting (which I could probably make a quite passable copy of if I had to),

but wasn't the idea that "anyone" could make a pile of bricks part of your objection to the pile of bricks being great art? Now you say you could quite easily knock up a Ventriano - maybe you could - but then there must be another reason for your dislike of the bricks other than its easy knockupability...

You are entirely entitled to dislike the bricks - nobody will insist that you do - I'd just like to hear why - that's all.

[Prufrock]

I agree with you here TD. What is art? To me is beyond definition. Many have tried to force their perspective on others because of their own perceptions about what is and what isn't - it's a little similar to wine snobs and classical music afficionados.

To me, if it works for you then stick with it. No point trying to define and compartmentalise it because someone will always not agree.

So does the word not have any meaning, then?

Not one I've found yet, that has a precise definition, as an individual's view of it will always be different.

As Tango mentioned - I'm sure there's a definition of what Emin produces that is art - I wouldn't agree with it. I'm sure the OED has it's own view (1. the expression of creative skill through a visual medium such as painting or sculpture. 2 the product of such a process; paintings, drawings, and sculpture collectively). So that sort of covers all sins.

Does it define it - no, not really.

Mmmm....soz, Worthy, but I think that's a bit of a cop-out.

To say that there's no meaning to it is to say we can't talk about it - it'd be like if we tried to have a conversation about cats, but whenever I used the word "cat" I actually meant "antelope". And that's clearly not the case here - there is some common ground.

So what is it? I think everyone can agree there has to be aesthetically pleasing element to it.

I also (siding with da bish and WTW) think there's an emotional component to it - and one that is, if not universal, at least speaks to many people (I can, for example, think of pop songs which, by association with old relationships or whatever, have an emotional impact for me. I wouldn't call them art because the emotional impact is purely down to personal association).

Take what we can all surely agree on as the finest piece of art ever - that photo of the woman tennis player scratching her arse. What is it about that photo that makes it great? It's beautiful, of course, but I think it speaks to us all about the triumph and tragedy of the human race.

That, of course, doesn't mean that you have to agree on what constitutes art. The same things are not going to move different people. However, there's a definition that would capture what all participants mean by the word - and allow us to say that the set of "things that are art" is non-empty, and that you're judging them by some recognisable criteria.

We could indeed agree that there has to be an aesthetically pleasing element to it. We could go even further and say that it only has to have an aestehetically pleasing element to someone (not necessarily yourself). None of this would mean that your view of what is art meets my view of what is art. Tango's view of "I like it" would fall happily into that very definition, but doesn't meets the Bish's more stringent critera (although whether the Bish is arguing what constitutes a debate about art rather than what is art isn't clear (for not other reason than I don't think that was the question he was trying to answer)

You mention that there's a definition that would capture what all participants mean by the word - I'd be interested to hear it, because I don't believe all participants would agree.

I think Worthy is right in as far as not everyone would agree. I disagree it must be aesthetically pleasing. I think this approach is the main reason many reject modern art completely. Art to me is purely about emotions and humanity, Oscar Wilde in De Profundis said, "truth in art is the unity of a thing with itself: the outward rendered expressive of the inward: the soul made incarnate". Often aesthetic beauty moves us and itself becomes part of this, but to me it is not essential. Damien Hirst formaldehyding anything he can get his hands on is not art to me, as it says nothing to anyone. Perhaps the first one had a point, but now it is clearly just a money making factory for conning rich fools. Emin's tent, I do see, that has a soul.

[Lord Kangana]

Anyway, just flicking through the feedback thread, can porn ever count as art?

[Il Pirate]

Art is short for Arthur

[Puskas]

We could indeed agree that there has to be an aesthetically pleasing element to it. We could go even further and say that it only has to have an aestehetically pleasing element to someone (not necessarily yourself). None of this would mean that your view of what is art meets my view of what is art. Tango's view of "I like it" would fall happily into that very definition, but doesn't meets the Bish's more stringent critera (although whether the Bish is arguing what constitutes a debate about art rather than what is art isn't clear (for not other reason than I don't think that was the question he was trying to answer)

You mention that there's a definition that would capture what all participants mean by the word - I'd be interested to hear it, because I don't believe all participants would agree.

I think Worthy is right in as far as not everyone would agree. I disagree it must be aesthetically pleasing. I think this approach is the main reason many reject modern art completely. Art to me is purely about emotions and humanity, Oscar Wilde in De Profundis said, "truth in art is the unity of a thing with itself: the outward rendered expressive of the inward: the soul made incarnate". Often aesthetic beauty moves us and itself becomes part of this, but to me it is not essential. Damien Hirst formaldehyding anything he can get his hands on is not art to me, as it says nothing to anyone. Perhaps the first one had a point, but now it is clearly just a money making factory for conning rich fools. Emin's tent, I do see, that has a soul.

OK - so given that we can't even agree on what we mean when we use the word art, what exactly are we talking about here?

Is the word empirically empty - is there no such thing as art? Surely that's the only conclusion to come to if everyone can come up with their own, equally valid, definition?

Or are we dealing with something like Wittgenstein's beetle in a box - we're only talking about a range of observable behaviour, reactions and so on, and the actual "thing", whatever it may be, has no input to the meaning?

[thebish]

I disagree it must be aesthetically pleasing.

so do I. that was my category 2 (only I used the phrase "decorative appeal")

Guido Rocha's Tortured Christ sculpture is not aesthetically pleasing - and you wouldn't want it on your wall at home - but I consider it to be a great piece of modern art - because it challenges and moves.. (Rocha was jailed and repeatedly tortured for political activism in Brazil)

[Il Pirate]

The greatest painting ever has to be the original (cos he did a few versions) Jaque Louis David, The death of Marat,

just my opinion.

[thebish]

The greatest painting ever has to be the original (cos he did a few versions) Jaque Louis David, The death of Marat,

just my opinion.

why? (Munch did one with boobies in it )

[William the White]

Art is short for Arthur

The thread is the Great Arthur Debate?

[William the White]

Anyway, just flicking through the feedback thread, can porn ever count as art?

Erotica can

[Puskas]

Anyway, just flicking through the feedback thread, can porn ever count as art?

Erotica can

Which of course begs the question, "What's the difference?"

Other than one's for the middle-class, and the other's for the proles....

[Worthy4England]

We could indeed agree that there has to be an aesthetically pleasing element to it. We could go even further and say that it only has to have an aestehetically pleasing element to someone (not necessarily yourself). None of this would mean that your view of what is art meets my view of what is art. Tango's view of "I like it" would fall happily into that very definition, but doesn't meets the Bish's more stringent critera (although whether the Bish is arguing what constitutes a debate about art rather than what is art isn't clear (for not other reason than I don't think that was the question he was trying to answer)

You mention that there's a definition that would capture what all participants mean by the word - I'd be interested to hear it, because I don't believe all participants would agree.

I think Worthy is right in as far as not everyone would agree. I disagree it must be aesthetically pleasing. I think this approach is the main reason many reject modern art completely. Art to me is purely about emotions and humanity, Oscar Wilde in De Profundis said, "truth in art is the unity of a thing with itself: the outward rendered expressive of the inward: the soul made incarnate". Often aesthetic beauty moves us and itself becomes part of this, but to me it is not essential. Damien Hirst formaldehyding anything he can get his hands on is not art to me, as it says nothing to anyone. Perhaps the first one had a point, but now it is clearly just a money making factory for conning rich fools. Emin's tent, I do see, that has a soul.

OK - so given that we can't even agree on what we mean when we use the word art, what exactly are we talking about here?

Is the word empirically empty - is there no such thing as art? Surely that's the only conclusion to come to if everyone can come up with their own, equally valid, definition?

Or are we dealing with something like Wittgenstein's beetle in a box - we're only talking about a range of observable behaviour, reactions and so on, and the actual "thing", whatever it may be, has no input to the meaning?

No it's not empirically empty. I can show you something that is "art" to me so within the universal set, it could be a collection of singleton sets, but the likelihood is that two or more people somewhere will agree that a particular piece is art in which case there will be sets with more than one and some sets in all probability that intersect.

The problem appears to be in defining the boundaries of the universal set if indeed there are any.

Hirst's work is art if people perceive it as such. Similar with Emin's tent. Neither work for me.

[thebish]

Anyway, just flicking through the feedback thread, can porn ever count as art?

Erotica can

Which of course begs the question, "What's the difference?"

Other than one's for the middle-class, and the other's for the proles....

the difference is usually down to lighting...

[thebish]

or...

Erotic if you get caught, Porn if you don't.

[Puskas]

No it's not empirically empty. I can show you something that is "art" to me so within the universal set, it could be a collection of singleton sets, but the likelihood is that two or more people somewhere will agree that a particular piece is art in which case there will be sets with more than one and some sets in all probability that intersect.

The problem appears to be in defining the boundaries of the universal set if indeed there are any.

Hirst's work is art if people perceive it as such. Similar with Emin's tent. Neither work for me.

Point is, though, if we're talking about the same thing there has to be a non-empty intersection (in set-theory terms...). And since it's used by all English speakers, if there's no common intersection, there's nothing they're all talking about that's the same (other than their reactions and so on).

Compare with my first example - if we were to talk about cats, but whenever I used the word cat, I meant "antelope". We wouldn't have a meaningful discussion. Over a "community" over English speakers, there has to be agreement over how a word is used for it to be meaningful. And if there's no agreement on the set of things that are the "domain" of that word (set theory, again...), then they can play no part in its meaning.

[Worthy4England]

No it's not empirically empty. I can show you something that is "art" to me so within the universal set, it could be a collection of singleton sets, but the likelihood is that two or more people somewhere will agree that a particular piece is art in which case there will be sets with more than one and some sets in all probability that intersect.

The problem appears to be in defining the boundaries of the universal set if indeed there are any.

Hirst's work is art if people perceive it as such. Similar with Emin's tent. Neither work for me.

Point is, though, if we're talking about the same thing there has to be a non-empty intersection (in set-theory terms...). And since it's used by all English speakers, if there's no common intersection, there's nothing they're all talking about that's the same (other than their reactions and so on).

Compare with my first example - if we were to talk about cats, but whenever I used the word cat, I meant "antelope". We wouldn't have a meaningful discussion. Over a "community" over English speakers, there has to be agreement over how a word is used for it to be meaningful. And if there's no agreement on the set of things that are the "domain" of that word (set theory, again...), then they can play no part in its meaning.

The problem isn't one of set theory, there are plenty of non-empty intersections. The problem is rolling it up into into a worded decription that describes the universal set and satisfies the requirements of all the intersects as some people will argue that some interesctions should be in a different universal set not called "Art".

Bricks on a floor to me should be in a universal set called "untidy building materials".

[Puskas]

No it's not empirically empty. I can show you something that is "art" to me so within the universal set, it could be a collection of singleton sets, but the likelihood is that two or more people somewhere will agree that a particular piece is art in which case there will be sets with more than one and some sets in all probability that intersect.

The problem appears to be in defining the boundaries of the universal set if indeed there are any.

Hirst's work is art if people perceive it as such. Similar with Emin's tent. Neither work for me.

Point is, though, if we're talking about the same thing there has to be a non-empty intersection (in set-theory terms...). And since it's used by all English speakers, if there's no common intersection, there's nothing they're all talking about that's the same (other than their reactions and so on).

Compare with my first example - if we were to talk about cats, but whenever I used the word cat, I meant "antelope". We wouldn't have a meaningful discussion. Over a "community" over English speakers, there has to be agreement over how a word is used for it to be meaningful. And if there's no agreement on the set of things that are the "domain" of that word (set theory, again...), then they can play no part in its meaning.

The problem isn't one of set theory, there are plenty of non-empty intersections. The problem is rolling it up into into a worded decription that describes the universal set and satisfies the requirements of all the intersects as some people will argue that some interesctions should be in a different universal set not called "Art".

I know there are plenty of non-empty intersections - if you take small subsets of people.
If you take the great mass of people, though, would there be a non-empty intersection? That's the point. And if there isn't, how can the stuff that allegedly makes up art have any bearing on its meaning?

[Worthy4England]

No it's not empirically empty. I can show you something that is "art" to me so within the universal set, it could be a collection of singleton sets, but the likelihood is that two or more people somewhere will agree that a particular piece is art in which case there will be sets with more than one and some sets in all probability that intersect.

The problem appears to be in defining the boundaries of the universal set if indeed there are any.

Hirst's work is art if people perceive it as such. Similar with Emin's tent. Neither work for me.

Point is, though, if we're talking about the same thing there has to be a non-empty intersection (in set-theory terms...). And since it's used by all English speakers, if there's no common intersection, there's nothing they're all talking about that's the same (other than their reactions and so on).

Compare with my first example - if we were to talk about cats, but whenever I used the word cat, I meant "antelope". We wouldn't have a meaningful discussion. Over a "community" over English speakers, there has to be agreement over how a word is used for it to be meaningful. And if there's no agreement on the set of things that are the "domain" of that word (set theory, again...), then they can play no part in its meaning.

The problem isn't one of set theory, there are plenty of non-empty intersections. The problem is rolling it up into into a worded decription that describes the universal set and satisfies the requirements of all the intersects as some people will argue that some interesctions should be in a different universal set not called "Art".

I know there are plenty of non-empty intersections - if you take small subsets of people.
If you take the great mass of people, though, would there be a non-empty intersection? That's the point. And if there isn't, how can the stuff that allegedly makes up art have any bearing on its meaning?

The great mass of people is neither finite nor are it's opinions constant - so it's difficult to tell really.

[TANGODANCER]

Bottom line of all debate is one side trying to win, to convince the other side they are wrong. Is that not just sheer opinionism where art is concerned? There are no logical arguments where human felings are concerned.

Trying to get people to throw up coconuts so the they can knocked down by a supposedly superior view isn't debate, that's opinionism. If one person's premise is that something he sees as great art (because he claims it attacks his emotions and moves him, says something to him) then why is anothers less viable or valuable because he prefers different artists? Art is but somebody's creation of their own ideas after all. Gee Bish, I can't remember knocking your views anywhere, but they're yours, not mine.

Van Gogh spent a life of frustration and poverty because he couldn't get people of his time to see his views. He committed suicide and died penniless. Now he's regarded as one off the world's greatest artists. Quite probably,a lot of very rich private collectors own his works because of his name and value rather than anything at all to do with art. If public opinion suddenly shifted and agreed with those who claim he painted "daubs" you'd be seeing his paintings on flea markets. Why is saying you like something so wrong? Isn't that because there's something about it that makes you like it, something that appeals to you even though it does nothing for others? Do you have to do a soul search to ask why? Me, I don't. Shallow chap me.

At the end of the day, what is an art critic and why are his views any better than those who disagree with him. Art is more about supply and demand than anything else today. It's why most of it is in the homes of the rich and poweful.



Would you not walk past this on your local tip without a second glance?
Oh, but it's by David Hockney so suddenly it's worth a fortune. Is this a great painting? Another by Hockney. See, I know my hearing isn't what it was, but I can't hear either saying a thing to me, but if others want to hear deep resonance of pure emotion, well, er carry on.

[Hoboh]

No point trying to define and compartmentalise it because someone will always not agree.

I don't really agree.

The case for the defence rests.

my contention isn't that controversial - that is, that in a thread dedicated to a debate about "art", people having been invited to post what they consider to be great art - then a mere resorting to "I like it therefore I think it is great art and you like what you like so that must be great art too" is an utterly pointless waste of time!

I thought a great art debate was arguing the pro's for your favoured artist's work when considered against the crafts work and emotion from one of a different ilk.