Field Theory by Hadyn Green

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Field Theory: A post about art (sort of)

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  • merc,

    Oh, my bad ;-0 participation is not my strong card.

    Since Dec 2006 • 2471 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Stowell,

    The biggest problem with whatever you call this theory, Paul, is that it seems to exclude possibly the vast majority- and certainly a great deal- of what we- 'average speakers of the language'- unquestioningly call art. So it's got a lot of splainin' to do...
    That's to say: anything produced before the Renaissance- or the 19th century, it seems we can choose :) - and anything produced outside of this peculiar (in the overall history of art-that-isn't-art -production) western art tradition- is out. Unless it survived and was deemed art by someone within that tradition.
    It's kind've nonsensical, and at least mildly paradoxical: 'that Ming plate; those Etruscan panels: they are art now but back in the day they weren't: they were simply fine decorative craft....'
    There's no reason to believe the notion of the aesthetic is either especially modern or eurocentric. As chris pointed out- and Davies argues- there are plenty of good reasons to believe otherwise.
    As you've pointed out, that group of notions itself- art vs craft, the artist as individual genius, tradition vs inspiration- are a product of 19th century romantics and the 'art-for-art's-sake' movement. Why should we throw ourselves back into that particular bonfire? :0

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel,

    Across the Universe, Urizen flies...
    It was the best of times when Bill Blake strode the earth again in the '60s as Jacob Kurtzberg
    and pictured the young Urizen here with his Demiurge (Galactus) urging him on...

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Stowell,

    Yeah, the statue manages to be both ugly and dull. But if you get the full symbolism- the undead rising from an uneasy sea to battle another host of the undead, both striving mightily to swat that golden ball to their side of the line-out- itself descending into a roiling maul: well, doesn't it just capture the essential futility of sporting glory?

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Litterick,

    Giovanni, I did not ignore your arguments; I refused to be browbeaten by you. It seems you think an argument is going nowhere when you are not winning it. I quoted Boardman directly, so I can hardly be accused of an arbitrary interpretation of him. I have also quoted Shiner and other authorities.

    Sacha, is that comment a tacit Godwin? In what way is my argument colonialist? I am arguing for plurality - for avoiding giving the name "art" to practices which were not carried out with artistic purposes in mind. Writers on Polynesian material culture, to take one example, are adamant that the objects made were not intended as art in the way we understand that term. It is also noticeable that contemporary Polynesians have adopted practices of the art world - making pictures, for example - that were unknown before contact.

    Merc, a good idea. One objection to the Weta proposal is that it looks rather too much like Fascist or Stalinist memorial sculpture. The design is clearly oblivious of contemporary public sculpture. However, it is not dissimilar to the styles of many sporting trophies, but these are mercifully smaller and usually confined to glass cabinets in club rooms.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1000 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    It's hardly a meaningful plurality if you get to decide what is and is not art, is it?

    Oh, and please explain carved kava bowls and suchlike. Decorative craft?

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    I have read Boardman too, and I disagree with your characterisation of his argument. But even supposing you're right, it still doesn't answer my question about the fame of Phidias and Praxiteles, and how their art could mean so much to their contemporaries, seeing as they couldn't possibly regard them as anything other than artisans.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Does artisan mean "without art?"

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Stowell,

    the objects made were not intended as art in the way we understand that term

    I think you mean in the way you understand that term.
    As in 'high Art' in the art-for-art's-sake tradition of romantic genius and art-museum-curator?
    I've never encountered a theory quite that limited before :) Davies really does cover this territory (I can't be arsed typing out relevant quotes- google books ain't text...) in (third time I've linked to it!)
    Non-western art and art's definition Most of what he says isn't especially controversial.
    Though maybe you'd disagree, Paul?

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    Does artisan mean "without art?"

    Heh. No, the root is "person who practices an art".

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Or even Mr Art, to be formal

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Litterick,

    Rob, I think a big part of the big Weta sculpture problem is that 'average speakers of the language' are prone to unquestioningly call things art. Mayor Prendergast (who has high stakes in this game) is trying to force this monstrosity upon us on the grounds that it is art. Excuse my cultural cringe, but I dread to think what the rest of the artistic world will think of us, in handing over public space to a reactionary sculpture made by a digital FX company. Mayor Prendergast is no Joe Stalin, but there is more than a whiff of demagoguery about all this.

    Perhaps we should be asking more questions about what constitutes art. Our visual environment would be the winner on the day. My institutional argument may seem counter-intuitive, but intuitions about art often ignore the realities of artistic production. Those cave paintings, for example: we know nothing about their original purpose but they have been appropriated as art, perhaps because they were discovered at a time (the late 19th Century) when impressionistic trends were dominant in art and when ideas about the Primitive abounded.

    I think a similar criticism might be levelled against Davies: he asks us to accept practices and objects as art on the grounds of their apparently manifesting aesthetic attitudes which are like those of what we call art, ignoring the doubts of the anthropologists. He could be right, but equally he could be wrong.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1000 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Litterick,

    But even supposing you're right, it still doesn't answer my question about the fame of Phidias and Praxiteles, and how their art could mean so much to their contemporaries, seeing as they couldn't possibly regard them as anything other than artisans.

    If you have read Boardman, then you'll know the answer.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1000 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    Maybe I'm just stupid. But you're not, so why don't you enlighten me?

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Litterick,

    From Boardman's contribution to the Oxford History of Greece and the Classical World, pp358-59: "Indeed, no distinction was drawn in antiquity in favour of those whom we designate artists - it was all craft (techne). Only with Phidias, and then increasingly with his successors, did any special social status appear to have been accorded to successful artists, although they had been housed at the courts of the archaic tyrants, like musicians, entertainers and doctors."

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1000 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    So art is about status?

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Litterick,

    From the Oxford Illustrated History of Greece and the Classical World, p298: "It was for much later writers to dwell on the spiritual aspects of Phidias' Zeus at Olympia. In its day his Athena Parthenos seemed to have excited more concern over the accounting for her materials, and Pericles could point out to the Athenians that her gold was removable and could help pay for the war."

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1000 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    What a surprise that preserved records might tend towards accounting over aesthetics

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Litterick,

    Collingwood, The Principles of Art p5: "Ars in ancient Latin, like techne in Greek ... means a craft or a specialised form of skill, like carpentry or smithying or surgery. The Greeks and Romans had no conception of what we call art as something different from craft; what we call art they regarded merely as a group of crafts, such as the craft of poetry... which they conceived, no doubt with misgivings, as in principle just like carpentry and the rest, and differing from any one of these only in the sort of way in which any one of them differs from any other."

    p6 "If people have no word for a certain kind of thing, it is because they are not aware of it as a distinct kind. Admiring as we do the art of the ancient Greeks, we naturally suppose that they admired it in the same kind of spirit as ourselves. But we admire it as a kind of art, where the word 'art' carries with it all the subtle and elaborate implications of the modern European aesthetic consciousness. We can be perfectly certain that the Greeks did not admire it in any such way."

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1000 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Litterick,

    I could go on. My point is, if we are wrong about the Greeks, we could be wrong about the peoples of other cultures. I do not like disputing Stephen Davies, because he is right about most things and because he took me to lunch recently, but his argument - that there is some universal aesthetic consciousness - might be based on an incorrect reading of the material cultures of other peoples, one which sees art where none was intended.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1000 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    I could go on

    Oh, you have

    we could be wrong about the peoples of other cultures.

    Because it is our job to judge, being arbiters of truth and all

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • merc,

    Ancient Greek, Poet = to make. Is poetry art? /releases non-existent black cat/ A saying goes that poetry began when Adam started naming things...
    Rereading the original post, the word honouring was used in relation to American football. College football and baseball naming teams after Indian Tribe names...art as honour, complex. Then I thought of the Chief's rugby team and Maori carving their European gun stocks, and then I thought about moko...and then /head exploded/.
    What is the Weta statue for again? It's designated purpose? Some could say that anything commissioned that has a brief is a different form of art...advertising springs to mind, a black art?
    Perhaps there is no perfect definition for art, nothing is perfect, nothing is ever finished.
    So glad the discussion continues.

    Since Dec 2006 • 2471 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    Only with Phidias, and then increasingly with his successors, did any special social status appear to have been accorded to successful artists

    And why was that? Incidentally, his statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the original wonders of the ancient world. So we know they appreciated it enough to consider it a tourist destination, a landmark if you will. But I think you're stretching the conclusions of Boardman and Collingwood (I've not read the latter, but I've read many other arguments on what the word techne meant for the Greeks) far beyond their original intentions. This for instance, is worrying:

    I do not like disputing Stephen Davies, because he is right about most things and because he took me to lunch recently, but his argument - that there is some universal aesthetic consciousness - might be based on an incorrect reading of the material cultures of other peoples, one which sees art where none was intended.

    You are in fact ascribing aesthetic consciousness to the West alone, as if they had invented beauty. That's just insane. The architects or the many sculptors of the friezes of the Parthenon might have regarded themselves as craftsmen, but there is simply no way they had no appreciation of the pleasing aspects of form. Children understand that. The fact that those aspects are pretty much the only thing that we can appreciate of those objects - because all their other contingent contextual meanings have been stripped from them in the course of history - doesn't change things a jot. But the idea that people throughout the world produced objects which we post-Romantics consider beautiful by some sort of weird accident is not only nonsensical, it's also peculiarly unpleasant. "Seeing art were none was intended" would never, could never be the subtitle of Boardman's The World of Ancient Art. The West might have invented "art for its own sake" or pushed it beyond the limits of other cultures, but that doesn't mean we invented beauty.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel,

    So art is about status?

    ...and status quo

    are Masons artists, craftsmen, artisans,
    or just men in aprons?

    Mikey A aside, let's not forget the much
    overlooked Sistine Chapel floor

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • merc,

    Damn right the floor (tessellated tiles mmmm)! I read somewhere that things art got interesting when someone (name started with P?)...actually signed his utilitarian ceramic bowl with P____ facit.
    Lot a worlds in that signing thing.
    Let us consider the hand outline blow painted on the cave wall next to the nifty bison sketch...

    Since Dec 2006 • 2471 posts Report Reply

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