Literature is Only "Loosely" Considered Art...

[MorpheusSandman]

It's probably silly of me to bring this here, but there's a conversation on the 2001: A Space Odyssey sub-forum on IMDb that's causing a good stir: HERE. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/board/flat/116992007?p=1) While it may be tough to sort through the usual crap that shows up on that board, I think it really starts around page 4 - mainly with this post:


That's a joke right? I replied to the claim that "'2001' is one of the highest, and most respectable works of art ever created." Does the bolding help, Serf?

Here you go - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/03/08/ba50works108.xml

Notice there is no mention of "2001: ASO" on there; in fact, there is no mention of any movie on there. Movies are only considered "art" in the loosest sense of the word.


And then this:

Hard Nose Critic: "Is painting an art? Is theater an art? Is literature an art? Is music an art? Is photography an art?"

Maximum Recoil: "Yes; loosely; loosely; yes; loosely."

This is where I (Eva Yojimbo on there) jump in and challenge him to define his assertions, to which he comes up with a "general consensus" of what art is. While I'd like to dismiss him as an ignorant troll I can't yet, because I think I get what he's referring to, and I tried to build a bridge to the extent of it seems he's referring to the general consensus of "art" being associated with the visual arts. Thus far I've failed to convince him that art is also a general term that is used to apply to all arts.

Any thoughts? Particularly when it comes to "general consensus" of what the hell qualifies as legitimate art.

[kelby_lake]

An art is really anything that involves creative skill and discipline. That's why I hate modern art.

[PeterL]

Loosely speaking, art is anything produced by humans that is not a natural product of the body. In addition to the fine arts: painting, literature, etc., there are the mechanical arts.

The definition of art is a fine way to waste time, but it doesns't produce any results that anyone can enjoy or apply to anything else.

[MorpheusSandman]

Well, more relevant to this conversation is whether we can separate the aesthetic-centric created arts (literature, music, film, visual arts, etc.) from the other "arts" that one would place under that label.

[PeterL]

Well, more relevant to this conversation is whether we can separate the aesthetic-centric created arts (literature, music, film, visual arts, etc.) from the other "arts" that one would place under that label.

That is a good question, and I think that the answers to it would vary widely. I think that it would come to a matter of definitions. One of the matters that is sometimes used in such definitions is utility.

[stlukesguild]

I won't even think about attempting a definition of art. At its most basic I would think that "ART" largely encompasses any human creation that goes beyond the mere practical or utilitarian. In other words, there is building (utilitarian) and the is architecture (ART). Literature is clearly ART. Certainly there is writing which is not art... the labels of a prescription bottle, the instruction booklet for putting that latest electronic toy together, Harry Potter:D... Film is certainly ART as well... no "loosely" about it. how good or bad something is as ART is another question altogether and can only be answered on a one-to-one basis. I would be interested in the arguments put forth against film as an art form. The argument sounds ignorant at best to me.

An art is really anything that involves creative skill and discipline. That's why I hate modern art.

Because it often demands that the audience be capable of creative thinking and disciplined enough to put forth the effort needed to understand it?

[DapperDrake]

Art is something man made that can be appreciated aesthetically beyond its practical definition (and is usually created specifically for that purpose). Art is also primarily human, it reveals or reflects something human.

Well that's the best definition I can come up with anyway, of course there is the stereotype of "Art" as painting or sculpture, that's probably the sort of thing that pops into peoples minds most readily when you use the word "art". none the less, a stereotype does not invalidate non-stereotypical answers to a question so I think all art forms should be equally considered as "Art".

My definition is pretty subjective of course.

[Mortis Anarchy]

I think stlukesguild put it rather nicely. I also think that art comes from what the emotions that the maker is feeling. What brought the inspiration forth and if the piece be it a film, book, painting etc. is able to deliver the message or at least create a thought about its meaning/background etc.

I enjoy modern art. To go beyone the seemingly simplicity of modern art and see what the emotions/intelligence or even the story behind the painting is fascinating to me. My uncle is a modern artist and everytime we visit my brother always say "Why should I like your art when it looks like a 3yr old could do it." My uncle always responds with, "Because a three year old couldn't have painted this the way I do...which is with every bit of emotion in every stroke and every breath."

I don't understand why anyone would not consider film to be an art? Or literature...*sigh*

[Etienne]

I like your post StLukes, however: "Because it often demands that the audience be capable of creative thinking and disciplined enough to put forth the effort needed to understand it?"

It is true only for a certain part of what is considered Modern Art, the misconception about modern art (and I'm talking more specifically about modern visual arts) is that they take this reasoning and pass anything as art. I went to a modern art exhibition where I live, I remember a couple of nice things, but the rest was just appalling, for example (and far from being the worse, very far), a video of something immobile, someone kissing a statue. This could claim some originality, but the thing is that it was not unique at all, the concept was used by many different artists, what is the point then?

Duchamp with his ready-made art made some kind of joke and took people off-guard, I respect him for that, he didn't take himself seriously. But some people just emulated him, but such thing cannot be emulated as it is not art per se, but should be seen more like a surprise or almost a joke. Repeat it 2 or 3 times, it's already boring. The value of Duchamp's ready-made art were not the piece of art in itself. This is what many modern artists have not understood. I'll give an example of something I've seen exposed: take a sheet of paper draw a face with crayons in the same way as what untalented 3 years old kids would do (just a couple of crayon hits), then put it on your face to it takes a loose shape of a face. Now make 100 like those, and expose them. Where is the interest? Another example: take 6x6 Pink Floyd's The Wall vinyl album covers, form a square with them on the floor. The write a sign to explain your piece of art starting with: "The artist exploits the notions of horizontality and verticality,...". And then expose this in a very serious museum.

Now what is loosely described as modern art is not limited to that, of course, but that's often what people have in mind when they think about this, and not, say Joyce or Dali or other artists who create beautiful things.

[DapperDrake]

This is the trouble of defining art I suppose, it is subjective, "if I appreciate it, then it is art" so some people who have a much narrower capacity to appreciate art will allow fewer things to be art.

[Etienne]

This is the trouble of defining art I suppose, it is subjective, "if I appreciate it, then it is art" so some people who have a much narrower capacity to appreciate art will allow fewer things to be art.

I did not say that art I don't like is not art, as I think it still fits in StLukes definition which I agree with (I had already come across this definition, who was it from?), only there is crappy art and good art. Modern art is simply often thought of so dimly because talentless artists will not try to produce realism, when modern art, which they probably don't understand much themselves looks more accessible to them. In fact modern art should be the most difficult for the artist.

I know some so-called artists who "break the rules" of art with modern art, but cannot draw a decent apple. There is this saying that says: "You have to learn the rules before you break them." And this is true to much extent, the better you "know the rules" the better will be the "breaking of the rules". Notice how great modern artists were very competent in more traditional aspect of their art. Be it Joyce in Dubliners, Dali in his earlier works, Duchamp, etc. Too many artists think they can skip this part of learning the rules, and it produces mediocre art.

[mercymyqueen]

I think that nearly anything crafted, that is to say, anything artificially created, can be, but is not necessarily, an art. Art, as opposed to craft, expresses an essence about human life, a truth, as well as showing extreme skill and diligence. That's why ideas about art are so broad, and what can be, or is, art, can be so loosely interpreted. The idea about 'art' only referring to the visual arts comes from a simple play on words, from a desire to shorten the term 'the visual arts' to simply 'art.' Essentially, I'm saying to pay no heed to him.


As for movies: simply because the vast, vast majority of films are idiocy that would not be considered art by anyone with the full or partial use of their cerebrum, does not mean that film cannot and will not eventually become an art form on par with other visual arts, or even with literature. ;)

[JBI]

I think the problem with modern art is not that it is bad, or lacks aesthetics, or is too simple, it is the fact that people aren't taught anything about art (well most people) and as a result, cannot understand it. It's like trying to read the Wasteland as your first poem; good luck. The thing with literature though, is to understand things, it is far cheaper than with visual arts, and about equal with legally acquired music. Art books, and actual visits to art works cost megabucks, as StLukes can tell you better than me, and in truth, contemporary art is, for many people, available, but not seen, because it is not understood.

I recently went to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, and for the most part, I couldn't piece together what was going on. The art goes beyond modernism, into a realm that combines multiple movie screens, with multiple sounds, to give a jarring form. Good luck being a 12 year old on a school trip and making sense of it.

Art is like philosophy, one long work that argues within itself. One of my professors in university, described poetry as being "a conversation about what it means to be creative", and to all be answering that one question. It fits with Pound's statement on the Wasteland being "the longest poem ever written" when it is just over 400 lines. For someone to jump into the middle of the conversation, of course things are going to be strange, and somewhat unintelligible. If someone jumps into the new developments in the conversation, then perhaps they will be completely baffled, because they know nothing about what comes before.

In truth I have a relatively limited scope on art - I know mostly Western works, primarily literature, and more specifically poetry, but everything else in minimal amounts or not at all. I know enough about music to appreciate listening to it, and I know enough about visual art to pick up the audio guide when I get to the museum, and not much on anything outside of the West. It is a problem; people lack time, and schools lack discipline in the humanities.

Movies are perhaps the most accessible, or one of them anyway, art forms in existence. The reason is because they are a new art form. Give it 100 years though, and people will view Kubrick as a classic, and only view him in classrooms in film studies.

[stlukesguild]

I'm largely going to have to agree with JBI. This is not to say that there is not more than a fair share of crap being passed off as serious art (probably no less than exists in literature), but rather it is to say that I largely suspect that a great many who criticize Modern/Contemporary art do so out of a position of ignorance... and would probably heap a great deal of Modern/Contemporary art of great merit along with the trash due to an inability to discern one from the other. In this manner I imagine it is not unlike those with little understanding of Modern/Contemporary literature who would dismiss Joyce, Eliot, Faulkner, Pynchon, etc... along with the majority of hacks whose work is equally incomprehensible.

Eliot may be the perfect example for it was Eliot who made clear the notion that art (literature specifically) was a form of dialog... a dialog with the past as well as the present. To walk into the middle of the conversation, as it were, surely leaves one baffled. It is not as simple as the suggestion that older art was more universal or less esoteric. While the average person not educated in art might have appreciated the craft skills involved in a painting by Rubens or Michelangelo, I greatly doubt they might have understood the work in a fuller sense. Today, Impressionism is perhaps the single most popular era of art with the general public... but this was not always so. In the 1860s and 1870s Impressionism was dismissed... laughed at... at crude, incomplete, and ugly. The manner in which Renoir suggested the effects of dappled light streaming through the trees upon a figure was compared to the gangrenous appearance of rotting meat. Degas ballerinas and bathers were called awkward and ugly. Today, the most casual member of the art audience can easily appreciate Impressionism (if not fully understand it and its intentions and implications) because its language has been absorbed into the larger culture. Even Picasso ( excepting, perhaps, Cubism) and Matisse are generally accepted. But not Abstract Expressionism... Minimalism... Color Field... Neo-Expressionism, etc... which have yet to be fully absorbed.

There are certainly any number of artists of minimal ability that show up regularly in galleries and museums... and to go into the problems with the current system of art education and art marketing would take far too long to go into here. On the other hand... there are more than a few artists of real merit producing today. I could toss some names off (Andrew Wyeth, Lucian Freud, Avigdor Arikha, Chuck Close, Gerhard Richter, Andy Goldsworthy, Sean Scully, Anselm Kiefer...) but this would probably be meaningless without some discussion of their work. Perhaps later this week I will have the time to post such.

The fact is that those who dismiss film as ART fall into the same category as those who dismiss the whole of that art which they don't understand (without attempting to understand it) and which goes against their concepts of what art is (a painting... a picture of something illusionistically rendered). I might throw out there the idea that the theater in time of Shakespeare was not taken seriously as ART either (part of the reason Shakespeare never published), but was rather barely a step above bear baiting... perhaps closer in the level of respect to television than film. The reality is that the latest technology and the latest genres or art forms have long fascinated artists in any field because they are capable of infusing a new life into an art that has grown stagnant.

[MorpheusSandman]

As for movies: simply because the vast, vast majority of films are idiocy that would not be considered art by anyone with the full or partial use of their cerebrum, does not mean that film cannot and will not eventually become an art form on par with other visual arts, or even with literature. ;)I don't know what films you're watching, but the majority that I watch I would consider art (and usually very good art).

[JCamilo]

There is art of low quality and movies can be art - but not all movies as not all texts are art. Do not focus the definition of art on the object (a book, a movie, a necklace, a car, a plate, a song) rather on the process of creation which must be filled with aesthetic intentitons and the impact on society and individuals which must produce that thing people can call awe, enchantment and mostly, more and more Art.
Now, I do not know why to waste time discussing with someone who cannt tell if Dante was an artist or not, even More in IMDB forums, very annoying place to follow any discussion.

[JBI]

There is art of low quality and movies can be art - but not all movies as not all texts are art. Do not focus the definition of art on the object (a book, a movie, a necklace, a car, a plate, a song) rather on the process of creation which must be filled with aesthetic intentitons and the impact on society and individuals which must produce that thing people can call awe, enchantment and mostly, more and more Art.
Now, I do not know why to waste time discussing with someone who cannt tell if Dante was an artist or not, even More in IMDB forums, very annoying place to follow any discussion.

Yeah, it's about the same as reading the reviews on youtube, or Amazon.ca

[kiki1982]

Well, I understand what he's getting at, but I don't agree...

Painting he thinks is an art because it is beautiful, most times, anyway, although modern painting not always can be called just beautiful, but we'll give it the benefit of the doubt.
Theater he doesn't know because obviously it is not something that you can touch, and that is static like a ainting you hang on the wall. Yet it is not useful, like has been defined as 'unarty'. Ask him what he finds that theater is then, if not art. What can he call it but art?
Literature he doesn't know either because it's not static either. What else but art is it? I can see what other people mean by sometimes it being useful, but then it isn't called 'literature'. One wouldn't call a manual 'literature', would he? Literature is not useful, writing is maybe sometimes, but literature is definitely not. What is 'loosly' art in it?
Music is art, because it is beautiful, that is clear to him.
Photography is loosely art because? Yet it is static and beautiful.

Is he maybe confused because he doesn't know how to define art to himself? The old idea of art being beautiful is oldfashioned, because nowadays even a man's toiet can be art.

I would define art as the expression of an idea in something else than factual language, without really explaining it. In that, you have literature that does it through stories, theater also through stories, paintings through scenes on a backround, photography in scenes on paper (mostly), music through notes and emotions, installations through movement/colour/..., film through a combination of scenes/music/image/angles/...
Like this you exclude meaningless films that are there for the story only and all the trash on tv and you include things that are thought about.
Although, these days art touches usefulness as well in designer bowls/brushes/lamps/chairs/etc. (Alessi is a good example). Some argue 'fashion' is art, but I don't really see the point of that. I like dresses of Valentino, but I wouldn't call it art, not because it is not beautiful, but bzecause fashion in itself has limitations, namely the fact that that 'art' needs to be worn, otherwise it is pointless. There are weird designers that touch the borders of that, but still, they make clothes that are able to be worn by their models. On the other hand, in art, there is no limit. Therefore it should be possible for a clothes designer to have naked models, but then he goes the way of an artist who makes instalations, and not fashion.

That being said, I suppose that art is the expression of deep ideas not explained but put into a shell to be decifered by the public that has to think.

[SirJazzHands]

I haven't read the rest of this topic, but I'd like to add one thing in general:

Anyone who is close-minded and says that literature is more artistic than anything else, or that other things such as music or film CAN'T be artistic, are wrong. Just because they're newer doesn't really mean they can't be analyzed, deep, good messages, etc etc. Books aren't inherently "smarter" than anything else. Don't get me wrong, reading is a passion of mine, but hell, even video games have the potential to be very artistic. Literature is only held in such high esteem because, obviously, it's been around FAR longer. In a century or two (hopefully in less time than that), maybe film and video games will be considered just as valuable as literature. Faulkner, Dostoevsky, and Joyce aren't the only big boys.

I'd say Kubrick, Begman, Kurosawa for film, and Miyamoto, Kojima, and a few others for video games are a good start for defining who is important to their respective mediums. Especially the video games: Games are a great way of exercising the brain in preparation for the real world. You need that logic and pattern recognition and etc. I wish there were more studies on the benefits of gaming, because if used correctly, they could do a lot for people. Not to mention just how Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid, for example, tell stories in ways that movies or books just can't do. It's a blending of storytelling, music, visuals, AND interaction.

Thoughts?

[DapperDrake]

I did not say that art I don't like is not art, as I think it still fits in StLukes definition which I agree with (I had already come across this definition, who was it from?), only there is crappy art and good art. Modern art is simply often thought of so dimly because talentless artists will not try to produce realism, when modern art, which they probably don't understand much themselves looks more accessible to them. In fact modern art should be the most difficult for the artist.


I didn't mean to suggest you were saying that, I was making more of a general observation in relation to the OP actually. I would like to draw a distinction between liking and appreciating though: this is the definition of appreciate that I was using "to be fully conscious of; be aware of; detect: to appreciate the dangers of a situation.".
So I wasn't saying that what people like defines what they allow to be art but that simply what they have the capacity to see in the work is the limiting factor on wether they will allow it to be art or not. i.e. that the definition of art itself is subjective and so naturally the will be disagreement on what is and isn't art. Also i'm not suggesting that lacking appreciation is necessarily always a bad thing, at one extreme you could allow anything to be art which obviously isn't helpful, so we have to draw the line somewhere.

[hhc]

Let's resort to some dictionary definitions.
My English dictionary says: "The creation or production of painting, sculpture, poetry, or music. [...]"
My Greek dictionary says: "Specialty in the execution of a manual task; professional skill [...]"
My encyclopaedia says: "A continuum of means, procedures, rules that regulate an activity or a profession [...]"

I don't agree with any of these definitions. I believe that art is something subjective, therefore even its definition has to be considered subjective. Some of you might think an ice sculpture is art, some might not. For example, I always admire good book bindings as works of art; something that others find quite anorthodox.

My opinion is that art is everything that is well done, demands talent, skill, inspiration and the love of its creator.

[JCamilo]

Dictionary is not a very good place to look, since the word art have a hundred of uses, not all of them can be applied here. (And dictionaries definitions are usually those not complicated enough to suit the masses, so you have to quickly move away from this)


Yeah, it's about the same as reading the reviews on youtube, or Amazon.ca

Yeap they are as good as an discussion about literature between Paulo Coelho and Dan Brown.

[SirJazzHands]

"My opinion is that art is everything that is well done, demands talent, skill, inspiration and the love of its creator."

How about instead art is just anything that can be thoroughly analyzed? How are we to know positively that the creator was loving, talented, skilled, or inspired?