The Arts (also known as “aesthetics”)

What does art do? Imagine we get an impromptu visit from some kind, peaceful aliens, who have flown from galaxies away, and who are interested in human civilization. We go through the math and science stuff, and they love it. We talk about all of our amazing inventions and theories. The even find our history interesting. But then we take them to an art gallery. They’re bewildered. “What’s all this stuff for?” they say.

Well? Well, most people think art is important, whether as a diversion, as a means of inspiration, as a way of getting in touch with oneself, and as a way of understanding and reflecting on the human condition. But the aliens just don’t get it. They listen to Bach, but to them it might as well be traffic noise. They read Othello and ask if it’s “true.” You explain that art is not necessarily directly concerned with truth. Their question is simple: if you want to know about human beings, why not just study history, psychology and anthropology?

Every human culture that has ever existed appears to have had the drive to create aesthetic objects. Cave paintings are from over 20,000 years ago. It is thought that rhythm (and so music) predates speech. And we still feel this drive. The aliens might not get it, but this drive seems to be deeply rooted in human culture (along with tool-making, language and self- awareness). In fact many people would say that the ability to create or appreciate art is the highest attribute of humanity.

Some Questions. 1. What is art? What isn’t art? 2. Are aesthetic judgments objective or subjective? 3. How do the arts help us understand the world? I.e., what is the relationship between art and reality? 4. What are the similarities and differences between the arts and the sciences/mathematics?

What is art? This might be a more important question than it seems. It might be worth noting here that every national culture, every organized government, support national art in some way. Every country has a national gallery, every country has gala performances for its leaders, and every country sponsors its own national artists in some way.

Let’s look at three criteria in terms of what makes art art. – 1. the intentions of the artist – 2. the quality of the work – 3. the response of the spectators

The Intentions of the Artist According this criterion, something is a work of art if it is “made by someone with the intention of evoking an aesthetic response in the audience” (van de Lagemaat 331). (“Aesthetics” is a branch of philosophy that deals with how we define beauty.) This criterion brings up an important point, which is that a work of art has to be made: a sunset or a spider’s web may be beautiful, but it is not art, because it was not made deliberately for that purpose. (All sorts of awesome religious/Truman Show implications here, but we can discuss those later…)

Another implication is that things are designed with exclusively practical purposes in mind are not art. You would not describe a manufacturer of pots and pans as an artist because his intention is not to please and provoke, but to make kitchenware. They may be beautiful pots and pans, but they were not created solely for their aesthetic value.

To sum up this point: – 1. works of art differ from natural objects in that they are made with an intention, and – 2. works of art differ from everyday objects in that they are made with the specific intention of pleasing or provoking rather than to some practical end. (“All art is quite useless.” – Oscar Wilde)

Counter-claims 1. Why should the maker intending it to be art make it art? If I put my desk on display in an art gallery just as it is now and call it “Teacher’s Desk III,” does it become art? “My Bed” By Tracy Emin

2. Also, what if it’s just bad? In Holland the government set up a fund to buy the works of contemporary Dutch artists, and ended up purchasing the work of 8000 Dutch artists (the only criterion was that you had to be Dutch and you had to be alive). Now they can’t give it away. In sum, maybe this criterion isn’t that good a criterion after all…

Quality of the Work This criterion is connected to how “good” a work is. This idea is connected to the idea if skill, meaning that the artist generally needs to have a high level of technical competence in order to be a good artist. This is another way of saying that a work of art should be beautiful. Of course something can be beautiful in terms of form as well as content, so traditionally a work of art is a balance of the two.

Content is what the work of art depicts: the thing the painting is of, the words in a song, what a play or novel or short story is about. Form is the way a work of art is put together: unity, order, rhythm, symmetry, balance, proportion, harmony. A lot of modern art seems to be less concerned with producing beautiful things and more concerned with challenging or shocking the viewer.

This brings up a number of questions… Are there universal standards of beauty, or do they vary from country to country? Can art make something beautiful that was not previously beautiful? Can something be a great work of art and be ugly or disgusting?

Counter-claims 1 What about art that is technically proficient but lacks originality or meaning? “Kitsch.” Here one thinks of the artists who make greeting cards, the music you hear in the elevator, tv soap operas and so on. Also, what about forgeries? Why is the original better than the forgery?

Counter-claims 2 On the other hand, what about art that is original, but which requires little technical skill?

To summarize, quality and skill seem to be neither a necessary or sufficient condition for something to be a work of art.

Response of Spectators It would seem that a work of art need someone besides the artist to appreciate it (sort of like how a joke is not a good joke if no one laughs). An increasingly important question for artists is which spectators they want to appeal to. The general public usually prefers the familiar to the strange, at least initially (Pirandello, Stravinsky, Picasso).

At the same time, many artists are interested in being on the “fringe” and pushing the boundaries of art. As above, lots of great artists were considered to be crap when they initially produced. In terms of determining quality, we also can rely on expert opinion. The argument against this idea is that art is ultimately a matter of taste. But you can also learn more about a work/learn to appreciate it by speaking to an expert.

Conclusion There are lots of problems with the above criteria. Maybe the correct definition of art is “what is found in a gallery (or equivalent) and treated by experts as art.” In the early 20 th century a number of people started experimenting with this idea. Marcel Duchamp, for example, experimented with what he called “readymades,” emphasizing the aesthetic qualities of everyday objects.

Does this mean that everything is art? Maybe. But instead of saying that everything is art, maybe it’s more useful to say that everything can be looked at from an aesthetic perspective. Looking at an unmade bed in my room probably does not inspire reflection. Seeing it in glass in a museum might thought. Or it might not – maybe it just depends on the person!

Conclusion A final theory I’ll throw at you is that maybe art is what some critics call “inexhaustible.” This means that every time you come back to it you find something new. A related idea is that true art outlives its context and can speak across generations and nationalities. Sophocles is considered to be powerful today. In this sense maybe time is the only judge of true art.

But then again there have been whole schools of art that try to negate this. The Italian Futurists (F. T. Marinetti) believed that art should be contemporary: that all museums and libraries should be burned down every few years. And later in the 20 th century artists began to comment on consumerism and make art that was purposely mass-producible and tied to a specific cultural moment (see Andy Warhol).

For next class… We will be talking about how we judge art, as well as about how art relates to other areas of knowledge, like math and science. ASSIGNMENT: find a piece of modern art that you think would be interesting to discuss. This could be an installation piece, a painting, a song, a novel or play, a piece of performance art, etc… JUST FIND IT. We’ll discuss next time what I want you to do with it.

References Van de Lagemaat, Richard. Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,