What is art
(Edited and ongoing: last update: Jan 12.2008)


Art is a product, produced from labor, whose actions are directed by the intent to produce art. This is to say that the creation of art must be intentional. In this model, art can be discovered, in which case the labor in making art is manifest in the discovery, intellectual processing and the identification of the quality that the discovered work represents.  This labor is visible through the presentation or exhibition of this quality and this expression of the object’s sublimation is neither incidental nor unintentional.

There is no separation between the creation of art and the creation of other products. One can recognize that the successful fulfillment of a desire to create a specific work, is the creation of the intended product, and therefore a successful work does not transcend it’s goal, but rather fulfills it. (Collingwood) This is best described in the following way, if one sets out to make an exceptional table and through one’s labor, makes an exceptional table; they have fulfilled their intent.  Even if the table they made is the most exceptional table, they have ultimately, made a table, they have not made art.  In the same way if one sets out to make an exceptional piece of art and through ones labor makes an exceptional piece of art, they have not made a table.

Art, much like the table, does not have to be constructed by its conceiver.  This is obviously the case with discovered art, and is further true where art is manufactured by assistants or through facilities that fabricate under the direction of the artist in the fulfillment of the artists work.  This structure makes clear the distinct separation between art; the creation or production of art works, and craft; the construction or fabrication of art works.

This separation of art and craft identifies that the creation of art is done through the conception or identification of an idea, position, perception or discovery.  This structure therefore indicates that works produced through the specific direction of another person are merely fabricated by the later person.

If we understand that following the direction of an artist makes the person constructing the work simply a fabricator than we must translate this idea to that of copying work.  If one directly copies another work they have only engaged in a labor of craft just as those who sit in the museum and draw from the presented works are simply trying to enhance their technical rendering skills. In understanding this idea it becomes clear that the further an artist gets from the copying of previously existing works the more art they are creating. It can therefore be stated that originality in art is an extremely important feature in art itself.  Here however we must make a distinction between visual and conceptual similarity. 

The theory presented here places a great significance on what can be defined as intellectual property, a term that is generally understood and legally defined. To many, notions of work without a specific tangible form, seems illusory.  To help clarify this notion I would like to present two examples that are within the general public understanding. In the United States the main governing body for intellectual property is the USPTO the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  This agency awards property rights and ownership status to original ideas, inventions and general creative works. The documentation that the agency uses to make its determination of intellectual property ownership is a document with descriptive technical and structural information about the original idea.  The determination for the award of intellectual property ownership is not based on the quality of the concept nor if the idea exists in tangible form or even if the product could ever be produced but is determined solely on the idea’s described function and originality.  This references the substantive nature of concepts and ideas in defiance of physical structured form, and further identifies the separation of creation and fabrication.

A specific reference to the value of concept can be seen in stories that are made into movies.  Although a story has been created as a literary work using specific language and arranged in a specific manner and produced through the material of words, if someone wishes to make the story into a movie the rights to the story reside with the conceiver. One might say that a movie is a completely different form than a written story having no written words displayed, and using completely different materials to produce it, a moviemaker may even alter the dialogue, change the location or time of the action, or even modify the final result of the story.  But even with these major modifications the original concept, that is the essential framework of the piece, is owned by its conceiver and therefore rights must be given to the moviemaker for the film to be made.

A great deal of confusion arises with the separation of art and craft for many reasons.  One of the reasons why this separation leads to confusion is that in many instances throughout art history, craft was the concept that was being expressed. As one who views art historical works for any extent can deduce the technical abilities of artists to produce visual imagery that accurately represents the forms and views that exist in nature has advanced significantly.  Nowhere is this expressed better than in trompe loeil painting (trompe loeil is a French expression which means to fool the eye) where paintings are produced with such great technical craft that it has been said the masters of this style painted flowers that fooled the bees. This highly realistic painting craft was the concept that drove the work of this style which challenged viewers not merely to see the subject of the painting but rather to become aware of the significance of this technical advancement within art and specifically painting thereby advancing the scope of art generally. 

This focus of artists on art itself is of ever increasing significance in art history. It forces viewers to become aware of the history of art to be able to understand the significance of the work being exhibited.  This demand for viewers to have a fundamental understanding of art history in order for them to understand the work is a derivative of many of the themes inherent in art throughout history.  This value of work in reference to it’s content becomes more difficult for viewers as the content moves away from the general and more towards the specific, and a times is the cause for a great deal of confusion and the frequent temptation to reduce art to a mere evaluation of aesthetics or of craft. 

The best way to describe this situation is with a simple example of perceived value. When one views a painting of a bowl full of oranges how does one tend to judge the work?  Generally the viewer observes the work, processes the content, judges the craft and makes an evaluation.  In the case of the bowl of oranges the viewer observes that a two dimensional image has been made and acknowledges that an allusion to three-dimensional space is being made. The viewer then determines that the concept is to technically represent the bowl of oranges. The viewer then identifies that the material used for this representation is paint and then judges if the craft has been sufficient to represent oranges as the viewer himself has experienced them.  Through the viewers experience with oranges he/she feels the authority to judge if the work is of value when compared to their expectation of how a bowl of oranges can be represented in a painting. This evaluation of work appears to be acceptable because we have identified the subject and have some experience with it and we have further processed the concept to be craft based representation.  However what happens when the subject matter escapes our experience or the concept goes beyond our understanding what is left for the viewer to process?  How do we know if hell is well depicted by Bosch when we have not seen it ourselves?  How do we know if the painting is interesting if we do not understand the relevant political issues driving it? For this point consider David’s Oath of the Horati if one is unfamiliar with the story of the Oath of the Horati and if one is further unfamiliar with the artist David and the political circumstances existing at the time of the creation of this work and therefore the message that is being presented to the viewers of its day, then what are we assessing in our evaluation of this work?  Ignoring the concept and thereby the art, a viewer is left commenting solely on the technical craft of the piece, in this case what they believe to be realistic depictions of life.  To examine this notion of the evaluation of craft we must finally review the idea of perceived realistic depiction of life as a tool of critical assessment and valuation of artwork.  To do this let us consider three painted images of George Washington one by Charles Wilson Peale 1779 one painted by John Trumbull 1780 and finally the Lansdowne portrait by Gilbert Stuart. In each of these works a single subject is depicted and as these pieces are each claimed as national; treasures we can presume that they are each considered valued well crafted works however the subject of the painting George Washington looks vastly different in each painting. Logic dictates that although individuals are mutable to some extent, for there to be such a distinct difference in the depictions of this one individual that some must be less representationally accurate than others. This hierarchical standard of valuation based on representational likeness creates an easy categorical system for analysis of works of craft the image that most closely represents the object that it is depicting is the best work.  However when we as the viewer have no experience with the object being depicted how are we to judge the work.  One could say that we can identify some object within the work that we do have some familiarity with and extrapolate the quality but in honesty this view would be short sighted in that it presumes that the skills of depiction of all objects are similar and that we can even judge any object within the work without actually being present for the images rendering. 

The distinction in this analysis of accurate rendering of objects as the factor for judgment is the notion of artist style.  While artist style is clearly observed through craft one may confuse inaccurate rendering with a consciously divergent crafting of the source material.  This notion of an artistic style falls under the purview of art rather than craft at least in the initial formation of the style. This idea is difficult to strictly identify and when style is applied routinely it may again return simply to craft but lets for a moment consider the idea of artist style.  When one looks at the works of Michelangelo what one believe that one is seeing is an attempt to as accurately as possible depict life or rather a theoretic scene as described in the bible using accurate human and object likenesses to illustrate it. This however is not the case.  One must acknowledge that when one has become accustomed to life and the surrounding world that the objects depicted on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel are far from accurate renderings.  It has been said at times that the images in these work are “better than life like” while the notion of creating a standard of value for life and its superior will not be engaged in this document what is clear by this statement is that a distinction is made between the experience of life and the depiction of it.  One answer for this may be flaw in the artist’s technical ability to depict life, another may be artist style.  Artist style is a clear and acknowledged understanding of the appearance of objects as perceived in life but a distinction of that appearance in depicting them.  This style is a distillation of objects, their color their form their place and function and interrelation in the world both within the physical laws governing them. It is peoples understanding of them which then allows for a shift in accurate visual representation while still successfully making reference to the objects being depicted.  An example of this can be seen in the works of Thomas Harte Benton who crafts recognizable depictions of people and objects that would in no way be confused with the objects in life.  These depictions make reference to the objects but allow viewers to understand that these object are in service of the acknowledgement of the artist style itself.

Artist style does however have to be distinguished from artistic movement.  Artistic movement is better defined as a theoretical position that necessitates a style or manner of visual representation or approach to craft.

(updated and editing ongoing)