What Could You Possibly KNOW About Art?

[Lightning Rod]

How could you possibly KNOW anything about music? Or Art?

for instance let's consider why Cb and B# aren't the same note the same way that C# and Db are the same note. A Cb is not a B#. A B# is a C and a Cb is a B. My high school band director enjoyed quoting the old musical saw: "If you don't C sharp, you'll B flat." Which is absurd of course because a C# is not a Bb, it's a Db.

So what can you possibly know about music? Sure, you can learn the names of the notes and the names of the chords and how they are constructed and how to read a score. But that's all grammar, tools of the craft. Many music teachers know all of these things but they couldn't move your soul with music if their lives depended on it. Which is what distinguishes art from craft.

Almost anyone with a modicum of intelligence and sufficient effort and application can become a craftsman at almost anything, music, painting, writing, carpentry, etc. But being an artist at any of these disciplines is another story. I don't think it is something that can be either learned or taught. And I don't think that the best artists are born prodigies either. The great artists aren't just born that way, they must BECOME artists by virtue of what they learn and endure in their lives. The essence of art is transformation. If a piece of art doesn't take you from wherever you are to someplace else, then it is simply noise or random splashes of color or words that have no meaning.

But what do I know?

"You can learn technique, but you can't learn attitude."--Jaco Patorias

If writing about music is like dancing about architecture, do you think that you can KNOW anything about music or art and what do you think about the relationship between art and craft?

[Doreen Peri]

I know nothing except for how to feel it. All art is pure emotion. Many would debate this probably but I know it's true. That's all there is to know about it.

[Doreen Peri]

I need to amend my statement.

There is CRAFT associated with art, also. Artists study their craft and hone their skills continually and though art is pure emotion when it is performed and created, without the skills, without the craft, it is not really art.

So it is both.... craft/skills and pure emotion.

That said, not everyone can learn to be an artist. Artists are born. And then made through the studying of their craft.

[eugeneherman]

OK, strugglers with semantics! Here is the point as i consider it to be. Can we define the differential elements between an artist, a craftsman or woman, and an artisan? I will clarify my view if anyone cannot delineate this dynamic!

[Lightning Rod]

"Can we define the differential elements between an artist, a craftsman or woman, and an artisan?"

Please delineate the elements. What does 'woman' have to do with this?

[eugeneherman]

The realm of art is subjective (i.e.), the imagination. The realm of craft is objective (i.e.), the learned physical character of a material and it's tensile physics. The realm of the artisan is also objective (i.e.), the skilled, aquired talents involved in a SKILLED craft. Emotions while certainly a reaction to some art, are not the tool of crafting an artwork, with the exception i guess of a grudge sculpture?

[eugeneherman]

Well Lrod, some politically correct folks have an attitude about this 'mailMAN', 'craftsMAN' semantic.

[Doreen Peri]

The realm of art is subjective (i.e.), the imagination. The realm of craft is objective (i.e.), the learned physical character of a material and it's tensile physics. The realm of the artisan is also objective (i.e.), the skilled, aquired talents involved in a SKILLED craft. Emotions while certainly a reaction to some art, are not the tool of crafting an artwork, with the exception i guess of a grudge sculpture?

Exactly! Perfectly stated.

[Lightning Rod]

Christo is a fine example of what I am talking about.
I think Christo is an artist.

He conceives the concept of the work. Then he gets graduate students in art schools to do the work--the craft--of producing the piece.

His art is in the conception of the piece. Another part of his art is to convince corporate and private sponsors to finance such whacky projects as wrapping an island in plastic or putting giant umbrellas across the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

And anyway, Charley Parker say,
"First learn your instrument, then learn music. Then fergit all that shit and play."

[Arcadia]

no idea... I´m not an artist-artist!! I feel sometimes creative and for me is enough, I have other things to do, jaja!!!.
I tend to name art to something? that makes me feel I don´t have enough words to talk about it and when the possible craft fits so wow that an analisis is really not necessary at all (difficult sometimes when you have to write something like an academic text about literature you like..).
and about all the math-like music notation...!! it´s a total mistery for me!!

[mtmynd]

"How could you possibly KNOW anything about music? Or Art?"

... or writing? or breathing? or seeing?

WTF are you writing about, L'Rod?

Is there no such person as a musicologist? or is that just a sham?

Is there no such person as an art historian? or is that another sham?

how does anyone know that they know? ((puzzled))

[eugeneherman]

mtmynd, musicologist?...historian?...Both are kinda shams OR just NON-participating observers or critics of something they do not do but pontificate about! You know when you know...when you get that feeling that explains more than words can say, but you try, or not, as pleases you.I believe Lrod was trying to get a discussion going about things that matter to him. What matters to yourself?

[Doreen Peri]

eugeneherman said

Emotions while certainly a reaction to some art, are not the tool of crafting an artwork, with the exception i guess of a grudge sculpture?

Of course I was only kidding when I said I agreed with this part. Thus the little green smiley face in my previous post.

Emotions are DEFINITELY a tool for crafting an artwork.

[eugeneherman]

Well Doreen, This being an open discussion, please discuss or explain to me WHY you feel emotions ARE a tool of craftwork rather than just blithely declaring that they are! What is your rationale dear? Do you have any reasoning behind your statement other than "That's just the way it is!' I believe emotions are merely rosey-coloured glasses that one wears to admire one's knitting! What do you THINK about this?, rather than, 'What do you FEEL about this?' Hmmm? Be DEFINITIVE rather than your usual insistent! I mean 'Hey', if you are going to disagree with a statement just back it up rather than merely pontificating you're own position!

[Doreen Peri]

I can't do that. I would have to express my emotions artistically to show you what I mean. It's impossible to explain in words. Unless I write a poem. Maybe I'll do that. I'll be back.

There is no rationale, by the way. It's pure emotion. Pure art. Nothing rational about it.