Art and Donuts

The etymology of the word donut seems an unlikely metaphorical tool with which to examine art, but with such widely accepted terms as “the art of medicine” broad, quizzical associations with art seem relatively common. When one considers the word “donut,” it is amazing how plainly descriptive the word was in its origin, and how bastardized it has become. Much is the same with the term “art” as it is used contemporarily—a one-time simple term explained what its creators described, and then future societies with a decided lack of neologists applied the word to almost anything, thereby creating the current nimiety in application and flaccidity of meaning that we see today. The cause of this change seems to be a conspicuous application of the idiocy theory, which states that if people don't know what a word means they either replace it with a word they know, even if it makes no sense, or misuse the word in a way that they thinks makes sense. Then, like a group of lemmings, we all follow along, trying not to appear ignorant or ill-informed.

I am frequently asked by students, friends, relatives and strangers questions about art.  As a university professor whose major course of study is art this should in fact be a simple task, the problem that I have found however is not in providing information about the subject but in defining the questions themselves.  The question that I find myself most commonly asking my questioners is “ What is your definition of art?”.  This may seem like a simple question until you begin amassing the words, which describe the delicate intricacies of the scope of your parameters. To assist with this standard of evaluation I will propose the following test question which will in turn lead to a series of logical steps. The question is “Have you ever seen a piece of art? To this most people will respond saying that they have seen a piece of art which means that they have, to some degree, a definition of art which has identified some objects within the standard and consequently other objects beyond it, we now must simply identify and describe the measure by which they define these art things specifically and other things generally. The problem here is not that individuals have not considered this issue before, in fact on some level most people have given consideration to their standard of art and others standards as well, and probably even discussed them saying in turn “I like that because” or “I don’t like that because”. The problem I believe is not apathy in the subject but is rather in the elusory definition of the term. 

The term art was first created by the Greeks the Latin form being “ars” which was described as ” a skilled craft” and although we would generally distinguish art as something other than craft (more on this in Art vs. Craft) this definition seems to play a role in the way art as we define it today is identified it was not until around the 19th century that the French created the term the “beaux arts” by definition ”the beautiful arts” by which we apply the current notions of aesthetics. But the definition has gotten even more broad over time and rather than more clear it has conversely gotten more recondite and essentially lost distinction as a result of its all-inclusiveness.  Common definitions of art mention the art of dance, the art of selling, the art of baking, the art of building (but not architecture which is specifically identified separately), self criticism is art and so is trickery. ( http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/art )  With the increasing range of contemporary art practices, the lack of effective art history, theory and practice in K-12 education and the perpetuation of pluralism in art, it seems no wonder that art has affectively lost its definition and in this way it seems we should be reminded of the cautionary tale of the etymology of the donut.

The history of the donut seems lost to history but the logic of it’s form as well as its name seem glaringly apparent to all who chose to spend a moment considering the food of choice for law enforcement.  The donut begins as dough or batter that is in turn fried to create its final form. Now anyone understanding the nature of fried foods as we Americans surely do, understands that frying depends on a range of factors for successful, even, cooking some of these most important factors are surface area and thickness.  If someone poured a large glob of batter into a pan of hot oil what they might expect to find occurs is that while the outside surface of the glob cooks as a result of it’s direct contact with the hot oil the inside remains gooey for a much greater time, so long in fact that by the time the inside cooks the outside is far less than yummy.  A smart and logical person may well then try a smaller glob to reduce the distance from surface to core this in fact works successfully but produces an extremely small snack and reduces your labor to profit ratio or your labor to yummy ratio.  This small successfully cooked glob is even reported in the standard history of the donut. After the success of the small dough glob one might think to produce a larger item by simply extending the glob into a longer strip but being that the ends of the long strip would again have a different surface area than the middle of the strip uneven cooking would again occur.  The solution that bagel makers and bundt cake enthusiasts have long ago understood is that if you make a circle with the dough than the item is uniform throughout its shape and the heat can get to the center to allow for even cooking.  This circle shape exists cross culturally and has many different names including zefiro, sifr, toris, O, zero, and most importantly for this definition “naught”. That is right a circle shape is called a naught and therefore a circle made from dough is called a dough naught. Then later in an act of conspicuous silent g-h bias the u and both sets of g-h's were removed to create the modern day"donut" which escapes all of the clear descriptive terminology that the original term once had but explains why in a country that spells Krispy Kreme like this that a confused notion of art standards could not be far off.