On art

This being the third post so far prompted by reading the book at reference 1, now dignified with its own group search key, as is to be found below. This particular is one prompted by Bloom's musings on what exactly art is, to be found in the third chapter entitled 'Anxious Objects'. Musings which, inter alia, remind one how hard it is to tie down what we mean by the word.

A matter in which my father took some considerable interest, which included a selection from the extensive work of R. H. Wilenksi, who did not, it seems this morning, write a book called 'What is art?', as I had thought, but he did write one called 'The Study of Art'. While I have made more use of a selection from the extensive work of E. H. Gombrich, born in Vienna rather than Paddington, some twenty years later, in 1909.

However, this morning I start with OED, where art gets a substantial entry. Starting with art in the sense of skill or craft, the art of humans as opposed to the work of nature. But we get a bit closer with the sixth meaning listed: 'the application of skill to the arts of imitation and design, Painting, Engraving, Sculpture and Architecture; the cultivation of these in its principles, practise and results; the skilful production of the beautiful in visible form'. The entry goes on for several more columns, but this seems to me to be a good place to start, despite the possible circularity around art and beautiful. Very much the sort of thing which the first Michelangelo did for a living.

So this art has to be crafted, to be made, with skill, care, content and intent. Chucking paint (or anything else) at a canvas does not qualify. It has to be visible and it has to be more or less permanent. A performance - perhaps the washing away of a sand castle by the incoming tide - does not qualify. A lot of what does qualify might be classified as being ornamental or decorative, rather than as functional. A lot if it, in the beginning, was produced to ornament buildings which did have some other purpose, perhaps the glorification of the Lord or of whoever paid for it. Some of it was instructional, perhaps reminding the faithful of the last days of our Lord, as in the Stations of the Cross to be found in Catholic churches, for example those noticed at reference 5 and illustrated above. I also include the elaborate inscriptions to be found on the lintels of Mayan temples. Some of it is portable and can be bought by more or less ordinary people to ornament their own homes.

It need not be representational, so the Jack the Dripper qualifies, but I do insist on skill, care, content and intent. And intent to extract money out of me while not disqualifying, must be accompanied by some less venal intent. While intent to shock is disqualifying: to shock might well be educational - perhaps in the context of an atrocity - but it is not, to my mind, art.

And I might say in passing that I do not care to eat off plates which are also pictures. Plates should be reasonably plain, perhaps with a pattern but not with a picture. And I certainly do not want to eat off the picture of a person, whether or not I like that person. People are allowed in paintings, where they get a bit of respect, but not in the furnishings, where they get sat on.

While the enterprising chap in New York who made a good living out of lumps of rock blown out of a quarry back in the late 1960's is very disqualified. He didn't bother with actually handling the stuff at all. He just picked up the phone and told the quarry to send a lump of some suitable size along to his plinth maker. The plinth maker fixed the lump onto a nice wooden plinth and sent it along to the customer, along with a bill. The customer sent a nice fat cheque back to the enterpriser. The enterpriser sent modest cuts to the quarry and the plinth maker, thus closing the circle.

Literary, poetical, musical and dramatic arts put aside.

Another put aside is the debate which Canady opens with at reference 6. That is to say what business do we have worrying about the life and times of the artist, rather than looking at his art? When I was young, I was rather dismissive of the former activity, only allowing the latter. Now I am more relaxed, and spend quite a lot of time reading about novelists and other artists, at the expense of consumption of their work. Canady seems to have made the same journey.

I turn now to what Bloom has to say, that is to say art from the point of view of a psychologist with a special interest in children; in the pictures they make and in their reactions to the pictures of others.

After posing various tricky questions, he seems to come to something along the lines that art is artefacts which their makers intended to be looked at, to be attended to, as works of art. That is to say, rather than as something to be used, like a shovel or a potato peeler. While as those lookers, as consumers, we want to be able to think of this making as a serious performance, rather in the way that playing, say, a Schubert piano sonata is a serious performance. And we are quite reasonably cross if we are deceived about the identity and purpose of the artist. So forgeries don’t count, even if identical to the real thing. Which may be a bit silly, but this is how it is. In the course of which he introduces us to the interesting example of the Vermeer forgery called ‘Supper at Emmaus’. See, for example, reference 11.

A definition which overlaps with mine, but I suspect that Bloom is much more open to what I regard as expensive rubbish than I am. Or putting it more rudely, he is more taken with the emperor's new clothes than I am, on which last I offer the potpourri of reference 14. And for our consideration he lists a dozen or so works which are all, for me, either disqualified or or well on the way. Some of which cost a great deal of money. And from where I associated to the Hiram Butler gallery of reference 12, a gallery still advertising on a regular basis in the NYRB.

And while art is not supposed to be used as a shovel or a potato peeler, it is often used as a marker of status. Something which the owner can boast about or can otherwise show off about to his guests. Perhaps a vehicle for him to show off his erudition, his acumen or his success. So it is useful in that way.

And some of this works with other peoples' art. I don't need to own something in order to be able to use it to show off my erudition, my acumen or my success - although I grant that actual ownership does add some piquancy.

Along the way he also introduces us to the Rothko Chapel, of references 7, 8 and 9. A painter whom I had previously dismissed as being without interest, but whose chapel I would now be glad to visit, should I ever make it to Houston. This despite it looking rather like a second world war bunker from the outside. Maybe I will be able to take in the grill at reference 10 while I am at it.

All good stuff.

References

Reference 1: Descarte's baby: how the science of child development explains what makes us human - Paul Bloom – 2004.

Reference 2: The Study of Art - R. H. Wilenski - 1934. Born in Paddington in 1887 with an apparently Polish name.

Reference 3: The Story of Art - E. H. Gombrich - 1950. With my own copy having been presented to Miss. Esther Foster in 1951 in token of appreciation for her services to the Twickenham Teachers' Association.

Reference 4: A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles - Murray and others - 1888. Volume I, Part A. Otherwise OED.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/05/cheese.html.

Reference 6: The lives of the painters – John Canaday – 1969. Thames & Hudson, four volumes. With my own copy formerly the property of Surrey Libraries.

Reference 7: http://art-now-and-then.blogspot.com/2011/08/mark-rothko-chapel.html.

Reference 8: http://www.rothkochapel.org/.

Reference 9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothko_Chapel. 

Reference 10: https://texasmesquitegrill.com/. The people who send me florid advertisements. If one can properly apply that f-word to poultry, meat and fish.

Reference 11: http://www.essentialvermeer.com/misc/van_meegeren.html.

Reference 12: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/10/a-new-sort-of-rubbish-2.html.

Reference 13: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/10/a-new-sort-of-rubbish-1.html.

Reference 14: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/search?q=emperor+clothes.

Group search key: pba.