Christopher Marlowe, of course. Don’t tell me that after the whole nation saw that
terrible film (Shakespeare in love? Young Shakespeare? Young Shakespeare in Love? Erm…)
anyway, after the whole nation saw that terrible film, the least they could have done
is taken that one historical fact away with them…
(I say ‘terrible’, but it did do a fair job of entertaining, and while totally implausible,
it was paced quickly enough that you weren’t left to dwell on the problems. I rate it
‘mindless summer entertainment’. Anyway.)
Hmmm. Try creating an original work in Photoshop from a blank new document, then,
and show us how easy it is to create an ersatz masterwork with the aid of the
advanced toolbar…
Or if you mean the cropped, chopped, and manipulated photos, well, people have been
making collages without photoshop for forever.
In any case, I think this is exactly the -opposite- of the point that was made, anyway.
Someone sitting down and working with photoshop is -doing-, not -viewing-.
You may not think what they are doing has any value by your measures, but they
are not sitting back and passively taking in prepared entertainment.
And most folks who know him today (outside of college English Lit classes) know him for the movie.
Yes, he was one of the people I had in mind, but from my own reading. Also Ben Johnson, Beaumont & Fletcher, and Spenser. But I’ll admit it: if you say “Elizabethan Playwright” I think of Shakespeare first.
Computer programmers like to aggrandize their job by saying that programming is an “art”, just because there is some aesthetic component when solving a problem or writing code. Maybe that makes it a craft, but you’re not writing a word processor for its own sake, or to induce deep emotions in the viewer.
Not even mathematicians call what they do an art, even though pure mathematics is pursued for its own sake, with no intended utility.
I really don’t like the way singers, songwriters and musicians are called “recording artists” or just “artists”. For some reason it gets on my nerves to use such a vague, inclusive label. Why give a label at all if it isn’t at least descriptive?
There’s an opposite phenomenon in the tech sector, where everything people produce is called “content.” Poetry is “content,” music is “content,” I guess really good stuff is “premium content.”
So basically if you’re the drummer for the Electric Scum Monkeys, what you do all day is either ineffable fluff or a meterable utility.
Fair point - but that brings up the bigger question of what value these computer-generated images offer to society. After all, sitting at one’s desk in front of a computer with various macros and myriad ‘point & click’ devices at their leisure isn’t exactly Picasso sitting in front of a landscape or model or vase of fresh flowers, and having him trying to interpret that mood onto a canvas. Better still, it isn’t Michaelangelo, lying on his back for what must have seemed an eternity, painting the Sistine chapel.
PS: I used Photoshop merely as an example. I was once introduced to this guy some years’ back, and was told beforehand that “as an artist, he has a tendency toward being a bit eccentric.” This was the first I’d been told that this guy was ‘an artist’. Upon arrival at his home, we were invited to sit on a small patio for drinks and a chat. All around us were these ‘figures’… most of them rather peculiar. They were all various bits and pieces of steel… rebar, horseshoes, you name it… all welded together. These pieces, he told us, were his ‘art’. “Okey-dokey”, thought I. Last I heard, he took a job with a highway road repair crew. Guess those 400 pound pieces of steel welded together never caught on.
While this is only showing his smaller dog and cat and other things - I’ve been various places in Kentucky that handle his creations. He’s done some fantastic things (he got a great set of “bluegrass dogs” playing all kinds of instruments - but so far, no dulcimer!)
Now see- those things are pretty cool. They’re at least recognizable forms.
But the guy that I’d met some years’ back … man - he’d weld & bend & bend & weld & twist 14 pieces of rebar into these odd shapes, and then he’d weld & twist & bend & weld 18 other / various pieces of steel and then give the thing some weird title, like, “Half-eaten fried eggs on a toasted willowleaf sandwich at daybreak”. To me, the guy was nothing more than a frustrated, out of work blacksmith on acid.
I don’t seem to have made my point at all. Using software tools to develop in image is
-not- the same as a computer-generated image at all. It is merely a set of tools that one can
use to create images. It is certainly an extremely versatile set of tools, but if you aren’t
able to do create imagery with a pencil, all the shading, blurring, layering, and convolving
in the world will not make an unrecognizeable scrawl into a work of beauty. If you think the
program is doing the work, you’re gravely mistaken. Honestly, I think acrylic paints
are easier to work with than computer art programs. Anyway. Extremes like the Sistine
Chapel aside, really, the physical strain of working at the computer and working at the
canvas is essentially the same, it’s all minute hand work with light objects. Carving in
marble may be another case.
Now, I don’t know that computer art will ever have -fiscal- value, because duplicates
are precisely the same as the original… in fact, ‘original’ is essentially meaningless;
the product is a data pattern that is infinitely replicatable. That doesn’t change the
-aesthetic- value of a created work of art.
In any case, the same kinds of criticisms have been leveled before - art with pencils isn’t
really art because you can erase, oil paints are easy, you make a mistake and you just
cover it up with more, etc, etc. It’s nonsense there and it’s nonsense here.
And just to completely confuse things, I’ll also point everyone to http://irtc.org/ where
you can see ray-traced images… ray-traced works are basically ‘virtual sculputures’;
the ray-tracing person creates the shapes and defines the colors, textures, and sources of
light, and the ray-tracing program calculates the movement of light to generate what it
would look like. How much is borrowed from existing archives of models and textures
is highly variable, and the value the creator brought to the work is always subject to
argument. Most people that haven’t at least dabbled in the medium have trouble even
understanding where the person’s work leaves off and the computer’s begins…
Whether it’s art or not there’s some real skill in creating some of these images.
I agree with ChrisA. Try doing some of this stuff. Same goes with 3D “art” (the ray tracing mentioned above). I’ve heard plenty of painters cry about how it isn’t “art” but a LOT goes into these images.
It’s not just about clicking a bunch of buttons. It’s about using a tool to create something. No less then a brush, pencil, chisel or whistle.
My avatar was made on a computer. For the entire image (that’s just a lo-rez snippet) at full resolution, I;d guesstimate around 30-40 hours went into the actual “creation” phase. Not including the many weeks and months doing similar artwork, building up skills
In my opinion:
A designer can work in any medium—paint, marble, pencil, computer----and create a work of art. In every medium there are techniques to be mastered so that the artist can achieve the vision s/he has in mind. A bad designer will, no matter how good his skills, not achieve anything noteworthy. A good designer will, regardless of the medium.
Among those ray-traced images, I saw some that I thought were really good designs and others that, in spite of the skill involved, struck me as not very good in terms of design or artistry.
I don’t think art is really about a particular person going through some physical process. I think many artists have had helpers or apprentices who worked on their paintings and sculptures doing the parts that didn’t need the skills of the designer or might have had skills the designer didn’t. The person who designed the work and brought about its completion, using whatever means at his disposal, is the artist. I think the artistry takes place in the brain, in the vision the artist is trying to convery. I’m not saying everyone who does this is an artist—but just those few who achieve a work that transcends its materials and techniques.
Do you suppose Picasso and Michaelangelo couldn’t have produced “art” with a digital camera and Photoshop?
I won’t claim to be an “artist”, but I’m often as happy with my post-processed photos as I am with my watercolors or my film photography.
Here are a couple of examples of a single film photo that’s undergone different darkroom processing to get different effects:
The first was printed on fairly contrasty paper, to emphasize the waves and to remove some detail from the figures. The second was printed on higher contrast paper using the paper negative technique to remove all greys, and then cropped to remove the shorelines. It’s hard to see the borders here on a white background.
The next two are digital photos that were manipulated in Photoshop. The first had contrast changes, sharpening, and cropping. The second had those, plus the replacement of the background with a gradient, and the addition of a shadow frame and signature.
I seldom shoot with overall composition and cropping/framing in mind. I leave those decisions for Photoshop.
I don’t think the Photoshop techniques are necessarily any less “artistic” than the darkroom techniques.
Well, it’s a revolving contest with no barrier to entry. Many of the images are, quite frankly,
pathetic, on all levels. Some are artisitically brilliant and technically weak, some are
technically brilliant and artistically weak, and a few are really good all the way across.
Some -appear- technically brilliant to the inexperienced, but are actually using advanced
tools that make the task simple, and conversely, some appear technically simple unless
you know how hard a particular subtle effect is to achieve.
The contest also allows recycling of public objects and macros, so you have to read the notes
to know which technical achievements are the creators and which are borrowed.
Mostly, I think of the irtc as a place where it’s really, really hard to answer the questions
like ‘is this art?’ ‘is this original?’ ‘is this ___?’
Reflecting on the original complaint, I think the big problem is that ‘art’ has many
definitions that have a tendency to overlap. I had listed out definitions, but
the dictionary is better at listing out definitions.
Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.
a. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
b. The study of these activities.
c. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.
3. High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value.
4. A field or category of art, such as music, ballet, or literature.
5. A nonscientific branch of learning; one of the liberal arts.
6.
a. A system of principles and methods employed in the performance of a set of activities: the art of building.
b. A trade or craft that applies such a system of principles and methods: the art of the lexicographer.
7.
a. Skill that is attained by study, practice, or observation: the art of the baker; the blacksmith’s art.
b. Skill arising from the exercise of intuitive faculties: “Self-criticism is an art not many are qualified to practice” (Joyce Carol Oates).
8.
a. arts Artful devices, stratagems, and tricks.
b. Artful contrivance; cunning.
9. Printing. Illustrative material.
When people say something is or isn’t ‘really’ art, I think they’re talking about (3), an I
think that’s the crux of the original complaint. When people use the word art, they aren’t
always meaning art(3).
I don’t think that’s new, and I don’t think that’s going to change… look at well-established
words and phrases like artist, artisan, artful, state of the art, liberal arts, etc., and it’s pretty
clear (given the pace of etymological change) that ‘art’ has had a variety of meanings
for centuries.
(also, of course, there’s “art (v) (archaic) ‘to be’”, but that’s not very useful in this
conversation. )
ChrisA, I hope I wasn’t sounding snobbish when I said some of the irtc things I didn’t think too good. I was just indicating that those works were like any others, some good design, some not so good. I know nothing about the medium, and really nothing about good design. It’s just personal opinion for me.
I don’t think the question about what art is will ever be answered. Hasn’t it been discussed for, well, probably 2500 years or more? It’s interesting until I start thinking, how did I ever get involved in this again!
You know, even (3) is sort of weird, because I make quite a distinction between high quality of conception and high quality of execution. I think you would have to have both and the defintion sounds as though one or the other would be okay.
Oh, well, I’m sure the dictionary folks had a their own huge battle over each word of
each definition. Probably the ‘or’ supporters had better weaponry than the ‘and’ supporters.
I wonder what they threaten each other with—spitwads?
Darwin, I had intended to mention in my last post that I really think your photographs are good. I particularly like the 2nd one down, although I really like the top one too. Well, they are just completely different and both quite lovely.
“You simply don’t understand art, dahling…” 
