[Bups-dis] Defining art

[djf500 at york.ac.uk]

Forgive my omission of David's good grammar - 'why it *is* that'.

On Jan 30 2007, djf500 at york.ac.uk wrote:

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> David says that '[we] must [...] explain why it that we call these things 
> 'art' in the first place.' I have to wonder whether this is right - 
> perhaps it is, but it seems to ignore the possibility that although 'art' 
> truly divides things into positive and negative classes (art/not-art), 
> there is no further statable principle of selection for that arrangement.
>
>An account of the art-concept that denied a further principle of selection 
>might say simply that 'art' is what people who have the art-concept judge 
>to be art.
>
>That is not to say that I want to preclude somebody's finding such a 
>principle, just that what David says does not address the possibility that 
>there is not one.
>
>(My own view is that 'art' is a fairly useless concept and that we could 
>get along with books and paintings and poems and music perfectly well 
>without it. I have never had need to say to myself 'this is excellent art' 
>when reading or listening or observing, just 'this is excellent 
>music'[etc]. I don't know if this means i'm a cultural dunderhead - though 
>I have read, seen and listened to enough to think not - but for me 'art' 
>just drops out as being anything that I am supposed to think, feel or do. 
>This leads me, though clearly not directly, to endorse a 'no-principle' 
>view of 'art' like I gestured toward above.)
>
>Daniel 
>
>On Jan 30 2007, David Mitchell wrote:
>
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>> 
>>  I agree that most people don't really question they mean by 'art', but 
>> rather in practice employ the term as a vague reference point to a 
>> particular set of, socially designated and established, cultural objects 
>> [Shakespeare plays, Byron poetry etc.]. Of course any effective 
>> definition must go beyond this, simply pointing to a collection of 
>> objects and saying 'that is art', and must instead explain why it is 
>> that we call these things 'art' in the first place.
>>   
>>  Of the possible 'definitions' of art it should be evident that: 
>> 'something accepted/endorsed by the art world' is inadequate, since 
>> logically speaking the 'art world' could anoint virtually anything as 
>> art. However the idea of art as 'something chosen, selected or thought 
>> of by the artist' is equally insufficient. Setting aside the obvious 
>> objection that 'artists' don't necessarily always produce 'art'; we are 
>> left with the problem of how to go about defining an 'artist'. Isn't 
>> such a person merely someone who produces, or has produced, 'works of 
>> art'? If so, this means to identify 'artists' we must be able to say 
>> what constitutes a 'work of art', [otherwise how would we know if a 
>> person has produced one, and qualifies as an artist] but then we're 
>> simply back where we started. As such unless we accept the idea that 
>> 'anything can be art' [in which case why bother calling it 'art', since 
>> there would be nothing to distinguish 'art' from anything else] neither 
>> of these definitions gets us very far.
>>   
>>  My suggestion then would be that, instead of focusing on the 
>> intentions of the artist or some process of 'legitimisation' by the art 
>> world, we should look towards art itself, our relationship with it , and 
>> the role it plays in human life and culture in general. One useful, 
>> though by no means necessary, starting point along these lines would be 
>> to ask what separates a piece of art from the typical products of mass 
>> culture. For example why do we want to say that an episode of 
>> East-enders or Celebrity big brother is not art, whereas a Euripides or 
>> Dario Fo play might be? Further we might ask why human beings seek to 
>> experience, or produce, art at all, especially given that it can be 
>> difficult and disturbing [a point connected to the earlier discussion 
>> about 'negative emotions']. And why is it that some value 'art' so 
>> highly, to the extent that it often regarded as mans greatest 
>> achievement and his most noble pursuit? In short, to understand art, and 
>> move towards an idea of how we go about defining it, [which is a 
>> movement towards the same thing] we must place art back within its 
>> proper evaluative context in human life and experience. Hopefully by 
>> doing this we can cast light on the nature of art, as well as the role 
>> that suffering and 'negative emotions' play within it.
>>   
>>  David
>>   
>>
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