And to geek out a bit, I’ve definitely created some Excel spreadsheets that were bloody works of art in every sense in my time haha
(maybe taking things a bit too far?)
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I think you are not quite taking my attempted definition of art into account. I said, to start with, that there is an emotional/psychophysical response, which might perhaps be called aesthetic sensibility, and which produces the feeling that something is beautiful. Then there are human activities and artifacts that endeavor deliberately to produce that response, and indeed to heighten it. If doing so is the primary function of a cultural artifact, that is what I think defines art; if it has some other primary function, whether proving a mathematical result, or killing an enemy, or providing a certain kind of amusement (which I don’t feel able to define precisely at this point), then it’s a different thing—mathematics, or technology, or a game. It may still trigger aesthetic sensibility, at least in certain people. (I don’t rule out the possibility that some things may have more than one primary function.)
Whether something is meant to trigger aesthetic sensibility as its primary function seems to me to be an objective question. Whether it appeals to your personal sensibility is a personal reaction of yours. The emotional reaction to which you refer is what I am calling aesthetic sensibility, and it can inspire you to say that something is beautiful—but its beauty may not be what was intended in its creation; it may be a byproduct of some other intent, or it may occur without “intent,” in the song of a bird or the form of a snake or the colors of a sunset. Those things may be beautiful without being art.
At least as far back as the ancient Greek sophists, philosophy has attracted people who have an abnormally high level of pleasure in defining things in painstaking detail.
This being key. Not sure that would be a fun normal
Society relies on the variety of the people living in it to function. A little of everything’s good, too much of anything isn’t.
(bit of a gross oversimplification, I know, but I’m sure you get my point)
Art can be accidental, so intention isn’t relevant.
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Your ability to convey precise language doesn’t impress me. Since we’re all about “impressing” here, (apparently that’s what it’s come to?), I also read philosophy for pleasure, and somehow manage not to rub it in people’s faces. Your writing simply doesn’t stack up to the standards you set for others. You denounce the stated definition out-of-hand, and then offer no alternative.
So yes, a definition of art should take conventional art into account. That’s just obvious. However, “a conceptual work that provides an emotional response” still includes all the things you listed, and excludes things like tools and mathematics, since these do not commonly evoke strong emotion. The definition already took into account what is considered art, and while it is not a perfect definition (nor was it intended to be) you fail to provide any alternative, and just criticize in order to preen your own feathers.
Ironically, I also don’t accept the more relativistic views of art, so as far as I can tell we probably agree, but because all your efforts so far have been criticism rather than discussion, you can’t accept it. So for all your pride in your own intelligence, you have yet to even make an argument.
P.S. I guess we squeezed one out of you…
But what I mean by art is things that are made by human beings with the primary purpose not merely of having aesthetic merit, but of producing awareness of aesthetic merit and of stimulating the emotional response of appreciation of aesthetic merit.
Honestly, I basically agree with this, just not the arrogant tone with which you belittle everyone around you.
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The problem I have with “intent” is that there are plenty of artifacts for which we have no idea if it was intended to activate “aesthetic sensibility,” which I do not think is a requirement for art. One does not have to perceive something as beautiful for it to be art or create emotional resonance. The grotesque can do the same without being beautiful. Some of my favorite works of art are my favorite works specifically for the discomfort it forces me to reflect on and not a sense of aesthetic beauty.
I know painters who don’t feel animation is art, regardless of intent, and I know classical musicians who don’t view hip-hop as art because there is no theory behind it, also regardless of intent. Who is wrong in each of those cases? Our perception of art varies greatly based on our own identity and experience. Plenty of people think Picasso is garbage but marvel at mass-produced prints of football players. I don’t think you can tell any of those people that what they see as art is “wrong” because it doesn’t meet some standard determined by philosophical/semantic inquiry and elitism. It means something to them. It is art to them.
2:45 on this video seems relevant to this discussion.
A good example that any argument depends on it’s terms of reference, because of course six times nine does equal forty-two, if of course your counting in Base13.
But of course I wasn’t doing so, because you and I both live in a culture that counts in base 10.
As I am wont to do.
Have I talked recently about the elegance of the dozenal system?
Some thoughts:
Logic is not subjective because it is not something that humans invented - it is something we describe as we discover it. It was true before we understood it. It is universally true. You can hate that 3 doesn’t evenly divide into 10 (I very much do), but my discomfort doesn’t change reality.
However, art is subjective because it is something humans invented. Beauty and aesthetics exist naturally, but humans create art. As our creation, we can choose to define it however we wish - it has no meaning until we give it meaning. It’s a category of works that we defined. We could decide that ‘art’ is a useless concept altogether and just say ‘pretty things are good’, cutting down the arbitrary seperation between the sunset and the acrylic interpretation.
I’d say that buttoning down a useful definition of art would be great if we could agree on it. Too bad that’s not likely. Definitions that are too rigid exclude things that many humans already value as art. Definitions that are too broad are considered too vague to exclude that which most humans do not consider art.
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There’s a difference between saying that something is “art,” meaning that it has artistic merit, and saying something is “art,” meaning that it’s a certain kind of thing. If classical musicians think hip-hop is bad art, or hip-hop musicians think classical music is bad art, that certainly reflects their perceptions—though I think it would be more honest in either case to say “I can’t judge that,” which is what I say about jazz, for the most part. But if they are saying that “music” is not the kind of thing it is, I think either one would be objectively wrong. Bad music is bad music.
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So the answer is 42?
Give me 5 million years and I’ll find out what the question was.
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We agree here, but you would be surprised (or maybe not) how much “THAT IS NOT ART” is thrown around in a community that features a major music school and a large art department. It’s not just by students either. I’ve been told that my art isn’t art specifically because I don’t create it to sell it and because I didn’t go to school for it, which are evidently important aspects of the definition of art to some.
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I would point out that what I said was this:
I’m a professional copy editor, AND I read philosophy for pleasure; both have given me a very strong attachment to high precision in the use of language, and a very strong sense of the errors in thinking that can result from its careless use. That’s where I’m coming from in this.
There is in this no claim to authority or prestige. Rather, I’m describing the distinctive elements in my life history that have shaped my motivation in certain ways. I didn’t even suggest “and therefore you must believe that what I say is correct.” I was explaining why I care about certain things.
I really don’t think that there is any such thing as authority in intellectual matters. There’s only logic and evidence.
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Conversely, long ago, I was a tutor at a community college. Among other things, I tutored English courses. And one day one of the instructors came in and sounded off about how terrible science fiction was, and how it didn’t count as literature because people just wrote it for money; apparently making money made something not count as art.
(I asked him how he felt about Dostoyevski frantically scribbling novels to stay ahead of his gambling debts. As you see, my affection for striking counterexamples goes way back.)
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What??! Whaaaat??!!! These people are entitled to their opinion, but dang that’s some gatekeeping right there if I ever saw it.
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I think I would have hated all of them.
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