What Could You Possibly KNOW About Art?

[Artguy]

OK folks let me weigh in here...first if you want to know what art is you have to know what an artist is...He/She is a person with the innate and overpowering WILL to create ...but what to do with that will...the artist must develop what is mistakingly called talent in order to create to full potential...I would like to erase the word talent and replace it with skill...something I am always fighting with....It use to be that an artist was like any other trade...one did an apprenticeship and would eventually be called a journeyman, then a master...to a certain degree I agree with this process...except that I am such a head strong stubborn fool I have taken it upon myself to train myself...So then what is art?...but the product of a person with the will to create who has developed the prerequisite skills to do so....

[Doreen Peri]

Artguy, I feel what you posted here is right on target. I agree with you.

__________

I had to come back to this thread because I need to reply to eugeneherman again since I have read and re-read his post to me and I find it to be a little condescending. Maybe I'm reading it wrong? I hope so! But I feel I should reply again to eugene.

___________

eugeneherman, I'm not being insistent. I don't know why you said "Be DEFINITIVE rather than your usual insistent." How am I usually insistent? I don't understand.

I'm simply expressing my opinion. I'm not insisting my opinion is correct. Who cares if I'm right or wrong? I don't. I feel what I feel about it. AND I not only THINK what I think about it, I know what I think is my opinon. *smile*

Also, I wasn't disagreeing with your statement, you were disagreeing with mine. I posted to this thread first. You posted after me. And I am not here to debate or argue. Discussion is a different thing than debate. I was always terrible at formal debate in school and I never do well with arguments. I just walk away from them.

According to the dictionary, other than the religious definition of "pontificate," the only other definition is "talk in a dogmatic and pompous manner." Pardon me, sir? Am I being pompous? I think not! I'm never pompous. Pompous means "puffed up with vanity." Me? No sir! I have nothing to be vain about.

I will be back to post a poem to this thread which illuminates why I feel that emotions and FEELING the art we create is one of the tools in our toolbox for crafting artwork whether it be music, visual arts, photography, dance, poetry, acting.... any art and all art. But I do not feel compelled to argue about it so when I get to the point of FEELING the poem I am on the verge of being inspired to write, I will FEEL it and write it and post it. Until then, you will have to simply take my word that in my OPINION, expressing emotions plays a part in creating art.

[Lightning Rod]

I think that's a good breakdown, kurt

Skill and Will


and cecil,
musicologists and art historians aren't involved in the process of creating art
unless they also happen to be musicians or artists
you could know everything in wikipedia about the history of art and not be able to draw your own hand.



Here's where I got the image. I'm stealing someone else's bandwidth to post it.
http://oneparticularwave.files.wordpres ... escher.gif

[izeveryboyin]

I don't presume to know anything about art or music in general. I know what I like with regards to art and music, but anything else is all speculation. Art has a different definition for every person. Sure, we can all give a general view that sounds the same, but dig deeper and everyone has their separate ideas. No one can agree on what music and art means b/c the meaning is conditional on each individual person. No one really knos anything about art or music except with direct regards to how it relates to them. At least, that's how I see it. But then, what do I know?

--k

[hester_prynne]

Art is like eternity, you can't define it, begin it, end it. So shut up! Heh, no just kiddin....

It's like blood, you can't live without it, but you can live and not appreciate it, or notice it.

It's a magnet for some more than others, this is may be due to the individual's random upbringing which could cause some lacking in consciousness of it.

"Art" is something I don't really think about much, except as a daunting word.

I don't know what makes me sing for example or why I can carry a tune, but I have been able to do it since I was a little kid. My mother tells me that I sang my first words..........

We also sang alot as a family when times got tough, which was often. It used to make me feel really safe and on top of things......

Sometimes I can't believe that for the last 37 years singing has been my most consistent form of work, and definitely the least foolish. I guess there is some will in that, and the only way to learn when you're a singer is to get out and do it.
H

[mtmynd]

e-herman: "musicologist?...historian?...Both are kinda shams OR just NON-participating observers or critics of something they do not do but pontificate about!"

Both are 'kinda' shams..? They either are or are not. I disagree with the line, "art is subjective (i.e.), the imagination" and "craft is objective (i.e.), the learned physical character of a material and it's tensile physics." it's ridiculous to put art in a box, as i'm sure you'd agree with. The Japanese art of flower arranging..? The Zen art of the Tea Ceremony..? to name a couple of arts.

e-h: "Emotions while certainly a reaction to some art, are not the tool of crafting an artwork..."

Emotions drive the tools. Jackson Pollack was certainly emotive when making his paintings (as was/is any person expressing his emotions thru their senses). Whether or not a viewer picks up on the emotions within a creation does not negate the emotional need to express thru the senses.

then you continued: "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."

This 'you' that knows when 'you' know could indeed be a musicologist or historian. Their studies/observations pleases them and encompass much more of 'music' (art) than the vast majority of musicians or any other artist. Do you not agree that writing is an art?

When does craft become an art? would be the reasonable question, imho. to which i would answer "when it becomes emotional for both the initiator and a receiver."

[Doreen Peri]

Well said, Cecil!

Charlie Chaplin said, "Stanislavky's book, An Actor Prepares, helps all people to reach out for big dramatic art. It tells what an actor needs to rouse the inspiration he requires for expressing profound emotions."

(my poem is in the works)

[eugeneherman]

Has anyone heard, 'put a frame around it and you call it art'? Historians and glossary collators ARE kinda/sorta shams, kinda/sorta like critics and all of that ilk. Imagination is the strongest and best tool to create any unique work. I like Artguy's simple breakdown on things here. Emotion is a reactive response. That is how i relegate it's importance in a creative process. With a clear mind and a blank page, a blank canvas or a silent piano, one has nothing to be emotional about. Certainly writing is an art if perfomed as such, or writing can be craft only, if there is no inspiration or imagination! (Think critics or historians here!)

[Doreen Peri]

Listen to it here -
>>> If it ain't got passion, if it ain't got heart! <<<
Lrod on bass and piano, my poem, me on vocals

If it ain't got passion, if it ain't got heart...
by doreen peri

You could study oil painting for decades,
perfect techniques of blends and fades,
be a student instructed personally
by a master as adept as Van Gogh,
work diligently to hone your skills
but have nothing at all to show
but what appears to be
paint-by-numbers
not good enough to sell at K-Mart –
if when you paint, you don't paint
with your heart.

You could push yourself to the max
at the barre, a thousand plies a week
practice jetes across a newly-waxed
sprung floor 12 hours a day and seek
out the most celebrated master classes,
perfect your technique for many years,
but when the curtain goes up and it's time to perform,
the audience will be bored to tears
no matter your poise or costume fashion –
if when you dance, you don't dance
with passion.

If it ain't got passion, if it ain't got heart,
then baby, I'm tellin' ya, it just ain't art.

You could learn the Stanislovsky method,
study under Hoffman, Pacino, Spacey, and Penn,
work with the stars again and again
as they train you in inflections –
you could take the prize from the local summer stock show
for being there at every rehearsal curtain,
but one thing's for sure, one thing's for certain,
when it's time for opening night,
if you want the show to be appealing –
It's a fact, if you want to act,
your performance needs to have feeling!

Whether you speak English, Japanese or French,
whether you live on this side ...or that side of the ocean,
the making of art is all about emotion.

If it ain't got passion, if it ain't got heart,
then baby, I'm tellin' ya, it just ain't art.

[hester_prynne]

Art is a reactive response as well.
What kind of reactive response is moot.
Any artist knows that dissecting what "art" is, is foolish. So come on you guys, take it easy.
Or maybe "pontificating about art" is something we do when we aren't feeling very artistic.......then maybe we get into the "skill" word.
Anyone can get the formula and write a symphony, or draw a copy of a famous painter's work.
Art comes from another dimension and all of you have been there. Just leave it at that.
H

[mtmynd]

e-herman: "Certainly writing is an art if perfomed as such, or writing can be craft only, if there is no inspiration or imagination! (Think critics or historians here!)"

I reckon I'm in the extreme but I see history or critics (throw in the sciences while I'm at it!) as being inspired and imaginative when writing about their subjects.

I'm reminded of Ken Burns, a fellow that wrote (first) the Civil War which became a fine film piece for PBS. He also did a history of jazz for PBS. I find it foolish to say this wasn't inspired or even imaginative.

Edward Abbey and his travel writings. Imaginative. Inspired.

I'm sure you could add to the list of writers that were/are not novelists but are just as inspired to put into words their perceptions, theories or philosophies. It's just as imaginative.

((okay, Hes'... I'm done. ))

[WIREMAN]

hey all check out Samuel Charters....Poetry of the Blues.....and god bless Alan Lomax.......John Fahey was an incredible guitar player and musicologist...........

[stilltrucking]

Check out his wife too. Ann Charters

She wrote a biography of Jack that reads like a novel. It was one of the best birthday gifts I have ever got. My copy has disintegrated I have read it so many times. I carried it around for over thirty years and a million million miles or more.

"This biography becomes almost a novel in itself. The darkly intense, handsome young man, the gypsy wanderer, hero and prophet to everyone but himself...Written with a beautiful combination of toughness and love, of daring insight and honesty, it is a worthy monument to a troubled man."--The Los Angeles Times

I wonder how many people know Kerouac never learned to drive. Is that irony?

She has (2001) a collection of his letters that I hope I can get my hands on.
Here is an excerpt from an interview with her about that book

A Life in Letters:
Ann Charters on Jack Kerouac


ANN CHARTERS: Right. This is an attempt to select his letters from all that were available to me and to create, on the page, with my commentaries to help you get the story straight, a life in letters, letting Kerouac tell the story in his own words to a whole cast of characters who are in his novels but who are also his very close friends and the people to whom he spoke most openly and frequently about his aims as a writer
http://www.poetryflash.org/archive.288.Foley.html

Emotionless art? I watched a PBS show about Rothko last night.

“I am interested only in expressing basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom,” Mark Rothko
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/powerofart/

I don't get it. but it catches my eyes. It resonates on some level beneath my consciouness.


http://www.orangejeep.org/pics/rothko_no14.jpg

[mtmynd]

wired: "John Fahey was an incredible guitar player and musicologist..."

brought back some memories with that, wired... good ones.

[jimboloco]

artist crafts alliance
composed dal·li·ance
a line here
a stubble there
form and shadow
negative spaces
woven thread gilded
harmonized sharps and flatz
dicsordant bluez
on a stolen chair
upholstered with stealth
now a prop
in a studio
uptown

stolen durer
turned to beige then wrangled into shades
anti-art