On Tuesday, September 12, 2000 7:30 AM Greg Burch GBurch1@aol.com wrote:
> [... random entry into dangerous thread ...]
I prefer to think of it as a friendly discussion. It's also good to be
outnumbered and the lone person going against the grain here.:)
> > This is really only so with Modernist Art and Postmodernist Art. While
> > taste vary from age to age, from person to person, it's only with the
20th
> > century that we get works which would only fit an elitist,
authoritarian
> > definition of art -- i.e., "Art is what artists or the art
establishment
> say
> > is art, objectivity be damned!"
>
> I don't think this is entirely true: There have been "official"
definitions
> of art, high and low, in many other periods, from the influence of the
> National Academies in France and the UK in the 18th-19th centuries back to
> the impact of royal or ecclesiastical patronage in earlier times. Those
> institutions sought to create a bright line between art/not-art. Your
point
> may be that what was called "art" by these official arbiters of taste
WOULD
> have been considered "art" by all, but I'm not so sure . . .
The authoritarian definition of art is a specific definition, not a general
case of an authority given his or her defintion of art. Instead, strictly,
as used in current esthetics, it's where artists or the art Establishment
defines art based on its decree. Former ages usually had some pretense of a
definition outside their whim or fancy.
An example might help here. I'll stick to painting and to an example from
around 1900:
"The art of painting is the selective representation on a plane surface of
objects, real or imagined, by means of spaces, lines, colors, and variations
of light and dark, all of which elements, as well as the materials employed,
have been subjected to some principle of order for the attainment of unity."
This comes from Kenyon Cox in his essay collection _What is Painting?_.
(Cox was a painter, teacher, an art critic. So, those who might claim he
was ignorant -- an accusation leveled in this forum before -- of his subject
matter are, well, wrong. Not that his credentials should matter. His views
should stand or fall on their own.) This is not the tightest definition,
but notice from it, I don't need to rely on Cox's authority or what he
liked. Instead, we can ponder it and see if paintings actually fit into it
and test it by seeing if it includes non-paintings. We can't do that with
the authoritarian (or institutional) definition(s) of art. (The
institutional definition is where the art establishment defines what art is.
This establishment is taken, usually, to be those who are accepted already
as artists, art critics, art historians, patrons, etc. Note the circularity
inherent in both definitions. If one doesn't accept person X as an artist
or group Y as part of the art establishment, then whatever he/she or they
call art might not be art. Imagine if physics operated the same way. A
physicist might say whatever she calls energy is energy, defintion be
damned! Surely, we'd all laugh, especially if her theories did not work or
explain anything. Not so with art. Instead, such people in the art world
are called ahead of their time.:)
I compare Cox to Rand at http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Kenyon.html for
those who are interested.
It's also true, that in former times, the masses and the art establishment
were more in line with their respective views on art. Granted, the
illiterate Italian peasant might not have been able to critique
Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel interior, but the differences in view were
more that of the lay person versus the expert where both agreed roughly on
the boundaries -- even if only implicitly.
With Modernism and Postmodernism, we have a different ball of wax. Now, the
specific authoritarian definition given above -- whoever calls him/herself
an artist gets to define art, meaning anything goes. Generally, they do not
like it when their "art" is called "non-art." They like that label and wish
to keep it on their stuff, no matter how unartlike their stuff is.
Not such a big deal but our tax dollars are supporting such "art." Of
course, this goes for genuine art too. I don't think anyone should be
forced to support it. And for those who might think I lack compassion here,
I not only buy art (from prints to CDs to poetry books), I do frequent
museums, theaters, cinemas, galleries, and concerts. So I support it
already. I also see lots of other people doing the same. Granted, I'm not
feeding starving artists, but I do my part. Nothing to brag about, just
trying to disarm the highly vocal libertarian-bashers.:)
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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