Defining Art

Aesthetics courtesy Mercedes Benz

Open Studios and Aesthetics:  

Artist versus Artisan

Have you ever gone to an art show or an open studio and been confused as to what is art and what is not, or as to who is an artist and who is merely doing craft projects?  If so, you are not alone.  While art might have been highly defined and organized at one point, it is no longer so.  Any definitions about art or as to what is art and what is not will be contradicted as quickly as they are established.

    Rather than worrying about defining art or even attempting to understand art, I find it more useful to consider developing one’s own aesthetic or appreciation of art and to then challenge oneself to find more and different types of art and artworks in which you become interested.

    For instance, I know that I really like the sculpture of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.  At first, I thought that the sculptures of Ancient Egypt were weird and silly but as I learned to appreciate the relationship between Ancient Greek art and that of Ancient Egypt, I began to fully appreciate them both.

    On one of my first trips to the Art Institute of Chicago, I was amazed at how real the faces of some of the sculptures were from India and how similar they were to Greek art.  After doing some reading, I learned that much art from Ancient Afghanistan and Pakistan was highly influenced by the Greek invasion under Alexander the Great.

    As I became more experienced, I learned to enjoy the differences as well as the similarities.  Viewing art is like any other activity – the more you do it, the better you become.  The better you become at viewing and interacting with art, the more you enjoy it.

    During this process, you will determine for yourself what is interesting and what is not.  This is your personal aesthetic.  

    Some people worry about whether or not there is a universal aesthetic that applies to everyone or if everyone has (or is even allowed) their own distinct, unique point of view.  I know that my father does not enjoy art at all.  He finds it meaningless.  On the other hand, my grandfather, who as a farmer in Eastern Montana, had very limited exposure to art galleries and museums during his life, greatly enjoyed visiting the Minneapolis sculpture garden – enjoying the abstract forms, and especially the work of Debra Butterfield.  So I tend to believe that art is both universal and subjective.

    The same holds true for most definitions in art.  Attending the 07 February First Thursday Open Studios at the Northrup King Building in Minneapolis, I was reminded at how little I tend to enjoy certain landscapes or above all, pretty pictures of flowers.  Argh.  I find them “pretty” but in the sense that I enjoy looking at Ralph Lauren sheets at Macy’s, not in a compelling artistic sense. 

    At the same time, I know that many others do in fact find floral still lifes to be quite artistic and interesting.  (I will admit that I am much more interested in photographs of plants and flowers – paintings of such just do not interest me.)

    One of the great debates that night and at other art fairs and open studios is how to distinguish between “art”, “design” and “crafts” or between the work of an “artist” versus the “artisan.”  People become upset very quickly if you compare their “art” to someone else’s “artisanal craft” or if you fail to appreciate the artistic qualities inherent within an accused artisan’s “craftsmanship.”  Truly, for most of us, unless you are purchasing something or a student, the differences between the two are, as my dad would say, “meaningless.”  It is far more important whether you find something interesting or beautiful, at least to start.

Northrup King Arts Building, courtesy UM Wiki

   In the United States and Canada, artists often tend to place “creative work” in one of three categories, being:  a) craft or production that is made for a purpose, such as a chair or a table, b) decorations such as the patterns in a quilt or the folk paintings on an old chest, or c) art, which is made for purely aesthetic reasons and has no other purpose (also called “pure art”).  Within these categories, everything is often up for grabs.  A lot of artists and art connoisseurs have forsaken relatively elite gatherings such as Uptown Arts Fair because they feel it is rather an expensive crafts show.  On the other hand, I recently read a review of internationally acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei that questioned if he was truly an artist or just a craftsman who depended on creative gimmicks.

    The French tend to be a bit more particular.  In Tours, one might visit La Musée des Beaux-Arts (the Museum of Beautiful Aesthetic Objects or Art), or the famous Musée du Compagnnange which houses centuries of works by craftsmen and artisans who had to demonstrate a mastery of their crafts before they were able to open their own studio or shop.  Many of the cakes, candy sculptures, woodworking projects, leather creations and etc. could easily be considered works of art in their own right.  It is somewhat like attending the state fair on creative steroids.  But these crafts objects are not considered to be art, merely examples of artisans working at the pinnacle of their craft.

    In many ways, I have settled on my own aesthetic, which has and will continue to change and evolve.  

   First, let me state that as a Mennonite, I champion items such as woodwork and quilting as very high quality forms of artisanship or folk art.  Secondly, as a half-Swede, I greatly admire the “Swedish” Aesthetic of the rural provinces and traditional Swedish folk art and find as much enjoyment in traditional bonadar, weavings and wall painting as I do viewing Monet’s Water Lilies at L’Orangerie in Paris, France.  So the distinction is not necessarily a value judgment and not at all pejorative.  But unlike most Americans, I have strong roots in two heritage traditions that still value handmade craftsmanship and the process of personal production and still share a common, ancient set of folk images and understandings.

    To my mind, there are four distinctions, being art or fine art, graphics and design, artisanal craftsmanship and folk art.  Inside each category, a piece or example might be “good” or “bad”, but being a piece of “good” craftsmanship does not makes something “art” just as folk art is not merely “bad fine art.”  Obviously, the boundaries between my categories are porous and I find many exceptions but here’s my best try:

Fine Art from Cape Town, ZA, courtesy PACE

a)      Art or fine art is conceptual or idealistic and has little to do with design, decorating or even the market place.  A piece of art should be original and reflect the creator’s personality and marks of production.  A piece of art should be idealistic rather than factual.  Even a photograph should challenge how one sees the subject or seek to explore a new facet or angle of the subject, including a person.  In a sense, I think that art should be challenging – making you feel as though you had just “read” an inspirational poem or listened intently to a challenging piece of music.  If one attends an art exhibit or an art museum, one should leave emotionally, intellectually and perhaps even physically exhausted, like one had just read an engrossing or even exhausting book.

Everyone has different ideals, but to me, art that is constructed to conform too closely to a set of instructions or for a particular utilitarian reason, such as to bring out the red in the living room couch, borders on graphic design or artisanship and is not specifically art.  A lot of commercial art would be artisanal.*  A lot of early Renaissance art, to the extent that it is dictated and formulaic, might be an early form of graphic design rather than true art.  These are just my personal ideas.

*A commission such as four studies of the color “red” could be art if they are left up to the artist’s creative inspiration.  The same as a dozen sketches of a lake.  But I get uneasy if the commission is directed to a greater extent than that and would definitely call the purchaser out on needing to hire a designer for their purpose rather than an artist, though admittedly, no boundary could be more blurred.

b)      Graphics and Design are the most difficult for me to define because I enjoy good design so much.  To my mind, graphics and design are more mechanical.  They convey utilitarian objects or essential information in new and sometimes challenging ways, but are created for a purpose and most often mass produced in numerous series of identical objects – this would extend to fashion design, furniture design, architecture, printing and traditional media.  Versace and Gucci, Ikea and Target, Albrecht Dürer and Saatchi, Vogue, How Magazine and Marvel Comics would all be examples of design.  Obviously, I am including Dürer, who many would categorize as an artist.  One-of-a-kind, hand-created costuming or haute couture such as in the Paris fashion shows, might easily be considered art rather than design, or perhaps artisanal.  Mikos, who often arranges thousands of identical objects in compelling patterns and places would sneak out of design and into art solely by the fact that his objects are individually and purposefully placed and created specifically for that unique occasion in order to explore a concept or ideal.

c)      Artisanship or craft:      Again, I do not find this category pejorative but rather informative as to its intent, its content and its production.  Many pieces of artisanship are often of higher quality and greater beauty than pieces of art.  But that is a key difference.  Art does not have to be beautiful, but rather compelling.  Much “art” is actually artisanal in that it is produced solely to be “pretty” or produced specifically to fit into a specific color or design scheme.  So I would relegate any art that is produced for purposes other than to communicate abstract, conceptual ideals as artisanal.  In photography, a photograph of a person that is technically superior and beautiful but does not challenge how you see the person, would be artisanal rather than artistic.

On the other hand, production of woodcraft, leatherwork, book binding, etc., would not be artistic, no matter how well done they are for their excellence and value are in the perfection of the method used to produce the item, not in the concept conveyed by the item.  A couch that is designed ultimately to be a couch, is artisanal, no matter how well done or how abstract, or beautiful.  I would agree that Ai Weiwie’s Is it a table or a chair? is an example of artisanal design rather than art, though clearly on the border between the two, regardless of how conceptual it is because it ultimately is a piece of furniture.  On the other hand, one of Duchamp’s artistically redefined urinal sculptures or bicycle wheels is art rather than artisanship because it is conceptual rather than decorative and can serve no other purpose as placed other than to communicate an ideal (you cannot use it as a urinal or a wheel unless you remove it from its artistic setting and replace it into a bathroom or onto a bike).

d)      Folk art often is another touchy category.  This is a shame because in music, for instance, or often in architecture, the designation as a folk object is one of honor and admiration.  Folk musicians often play in orchestra halls with no sense of irony and work with classical musicians and pop musicians. 

To me, folk art is primarily decorative in that it is attached to an object that has a real purpose, such as a spoon, a clock or a piece of furniture.  Folk art differs from design and graphic design in that it is uniquely applied, it references commonly shared patterns and forms and is often hand-applied or constructed.  Folk art might be deeper, but most often is meant to represent only that which it pictures or appears to be, i.e. a flower is a flower, a pretty girl is a pretty girl.  Any deeper meaning is unconscious and incidental, though probably quite real.

Obviously, one will find many, many objects that could fit into this category, or art or design – but in that a lot of artists are purposefully challenging definitions and even one’s ability to apply definitions to their work, this normal, interesting, and sometimes, even a bit exciting.

    Obviously, my definitions are no better than are those of anyone else.  In the end, you need to make up and refine your own definitions, but perhaps it will help you to enjoy art shows with more confidence and encourage you to think about your own ideas after having read some of mine.  After all, that is what being a pedestrian art critic is all about, eh?

 ~ PACE