What's your Definition of Art?

ruilourosa · May 29, 2010

ops!

hey ralph you do good technical books, i´ve got one from you

seems everything here is personal opinion and nobody have one or two references

an answer with a question: what is art or when is art?

i serious doubt that "fountain" from R. Mutt was nothing but an industrial object before it was reversed and signed!

Q.G. · May 29, 2010

RalphLambrecht said:
There is no essential difference between art and craft.

We already went through this in another thread.

We have indeed.

And i believe the outcome was that you thought that, while i thought the difference was indeed an essential one?

So still undecided. Enough so at least to make saying "there is" a bit of a stretch.

RalphLambrecht · May 29, 2010

tlitody said:
You'll have to work on it if you want to pad it out to give the appearance of being something more than it is. I can show you the path but you must walk it yourself unless you want to be led by the nose.

I've done my part. I like to see you how you came up with yours. I'm not asking you to teach me. I'm asking you to share with all of us.

RalphLambrecht · May 29, 2010

tlitody said:
Well maybe you came up with the wrong answer.

I really recommend, you'll read the other thread first.

RalphLambrecht · May 29, 2010

Ian Grant said:
Out of context that's a meaningless question.
...

The question was neither out of context nor is it meaningless.

You said:

Great art often comes from the sub-conscience, with no prior conscious thought or planning.

In photography often the best images are those taken instinctively.

Ian

You talked about 'great art' and followed up with 'best images'. Please answer the question. It helps me to understand what you mean by art.

Are good images art in your opinion?

RalphLambrecht · May 29, 2010

Q.G. said:
We have indeed.

And i believe the outcome was that you thought that, while i thought the difference was indeed an essential one?

So still undecided. Enough so at least to make saying "there is" a bit of a stretch.

'There is no essential difference between art and craft.'

is a quote by Walter Gropius, the founder of Bauhaus, and you know that. So, me using the quote is not a stretch, it's a quote. Some people buy into it, some don't. I do, you obviously don't. That's OK.

Q.G. · May 29, 2010

RalphLambrecht said:
'There is no essential difference between art and craft.'

is a quote by Walter Gropius, the founder of Bauhaus, and you know that. So, me using the quote is not a stretch, it's a quote. Some people buy into it, some don't. I do, you obviously don't. That's OK.

It's not a stretch to say it is a quote, no.
(You didn't say that it was where i took the quote of you saying this from)

It is a stretch to say or imply that what it says is correct.

We do agree that people disagree on whether it is correct or not.

RalphLambrecht · May 29, 2010

Q.G. said:
...
(You didn't say that it was where i took the quote of you saying this from) ...

Come on, we communicated about this quote several times over the last few days. Of course you knew it was a quote.

Anyway, it's not a stretch to say it's true, unless it's also a stretch to say that is isn't.

Q.G. · May 29, 2010

RalphLambrecht said:
Come on, we communicated about this quote several times over the last few days. Of course you knew it was a quote.

Anyway, it's not a stretch to say it's true, unless it's also a stretch to say that is isn't.

Indeed.

That's why i didn't say that it isn't.

RalphLambrecht · May 29, 2010

Q.G. said:
Indeed.

That's why i didn't say that it isn't.

I lost you, but I'm sure you knew it was a quote.

Q.G. · May 29, 2010

RalphLambrecht said:
I lost you, but I'm sure you knew it was a quote.

My apologies.

What i was trying to say was that i agree that it would also be a stretch to imply certainty about it not being so.
Hence i didn't "say that it isn't".

tkamiya · May 29, 2010

Answering the original question....

To me, an ART is something that evokes emotions. PERIOD.

Sometimes I see art in natural objects. Sometimes I see art in someone's purposeful creations. Sometimes art is created quite by accident or by random changes. Sometimes, it isn't an object at all. Sometimes ART evokes positive emotions and sometimes negative. I could say, an art is something that evoke emotion in some people but somehow, I think that isn't right.

That's MY definition.

RalphLambrecht · May 29, 2010

I guess that's it. Thanks you all for participating. I'm moving on to other things. It was fun.

Larry Bullis · May 29, 2010

tkamiya said:
Answering the original question....

To me, an ART is something that evokes emotions. PERIOD.

Sometimes I see art in natural objects. Sometimes I see art in someone's purposeful creations. Sometimes art is created quite by accident or by random changes. Sometimes, it isn't an object at all. Sometimes ART evokes positive emotions and sometimes negative. I could say, an art is something that evoke emotion in some people but somehow, I think that isn't right.

That's MY definition.

You would have been right at home in 1830.

tkamiya · May 29, 2010

bowzart said:
You would have been right at home in 1830.

Congratulations! You've just wasted a perfectly good joke/insult/whatever on me. I don't get it. I wasn't called Mr. Spock for nothing!

Larry Bullis · May 30, 2010

tkamiya said:
Congratulations! You've just wasted a perfectly good joke/insult/whatever on me. I don't get it. I wasn't called Mr. Spock for nothing!

So take an art history course.

tkamiya · May 30, 2010

Nah... I don't like history. By the way, I was called "Mr. Spock" during my days in college (decades ago) because someone says something and he/she'll have to explain it. Anyway, that was just a comment. No deeper meaning of any kind.

Larry Bullis · May 30, 2010

tkamiya said:
Nah... I don't like history. By the way, I was called "Mr. Spock" during my days in college (decades ago) because someone says something and he/she'll have to explain it. Anyway, that was just a comment. No deeper meaning of any kind.

OK

Q.G. · May 30, 2010

tkamiya said:
Answering the original question....

To me, an ART is something that evokes emotions. PERIOD.

Sometimes I see art in natural objects. Sometimes I see art in someone's purposeful creations. Sometimes art is created quite by accident or by random changes. Sometimes, it isn't an object at all. Sometimes ART evokes positive emotions and sometimes negative. I could say, an art is something that evoke emotion in some people but somehow, I think that isn't right.

That's MY definition.

How about, say, your dog dying?

Q.G. · May 30, 2010

RalphLambrecht said:
I guess that's it. Thanks you all for participating. I'm moving on to other things. It was fun.

Before you leave, please do tell us if this discussion has given you reason to change anything in your initial definition of art, and if so, what.

luxikon · May 30, 2010

Read Ernst Cassirer, Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, and you'll know better what art is about. But he does not give any definitions.

benjiboy · May 30, 2010

Art is what other people do.

ruilourosa · May 30, 2010

the original question would have been right a few years ago

jovo · May 30, 2010

Though the statement "I don't know what art is, but I know it when I see it." sounds glib, it's true for me. I see what some call art, and put in galleries, collect, celebrate, hang on walls etc. that I think represent work that fails as art, and is instead, self indulgent, self conscious, dishonest, inauthentic and forgettable trash. So, it ends up being, for me, extremely personal and indefinable...but when I recognize it, it absolutely stirs me and "works".

benjiboy · May 30, 2010

I think the quotation should be "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like"

What's your Definition of Art?

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