Art is the craft of being human.
I really relate to this, but others don't as they seem to see art and craft as two very different things with art being more lofty than craft, which is mearly the ability to do something competantly. For me it goes to the heart of what art is, it is the crafting of non verbal means of sharing a concept, although I do think words can be art too, a beautifully crafted sentence is a thing of beauty.
What do you all think?
It’s not philosophy per se. It’s more an anthropological inquiry.
For me, art can illustrate aspects of the meaning of life.
I think that is the beauty of art. it’s more than aesthetic appeal. It conveys human thought processes and the viewer is provoked to feel something as you did when you smelt the air when looking at a painting in an exhibition.
I think, it must be a thing about how my brain works that I can't get on with a lot of philosophy, I can't get on with disecting books for hidden meanings, I either enjoy it don't and I rarely feel the need to go into it any further, I often find that it detracts from my enjoyment of something, whereas others find it enhances their ecperiences
I agree that there are many bad copies of original artworks out there, but some copies are pretty good. Some painting just can’t be copied well because photography has its limitations. They can be the visual equivalent of AI text, flat and lacking soul. Yet people buy some of these for their decorative value.
It’s just a way of looking at different frameworks and approaches to investigating art. Just as history and archaeology can use frameworks in research.
Visual art provokes artists and users/viewers to explore what it means to be a human, our needs, values, desires, belief system. For example, approaches to studying art can include:
Social construction: An artwork can tell us something of human identities, values, roles within family/society, relationships.
Phenomenology: Art is often a way to express the lived experience and consciousness of being in the world.
Religion/spirituality: Art may express a belief or morality.
Materialism: Art can show aspects of humans as biological beings which lead to their choices and values.
Gender studies: Art is often used to explore gender.
These approaches (and many more) can show how humans make, use and view art.
I'm never sure about philosophy, I find it very confusing and hard to get into, some of the stuff I've read I just want to say to the author, 'ffs sake, get over yourself'.
You might like to check out the interiors of the homes of the Bloomsbury Group. They created high art in the sense of modernist literature and post-impressionist paintings but their homes were crafted temples of living objects and spaces. The book “Rooms of Their Own” published by the National Trust gives some great examples of theirs, plus Vita Sackville-West’s writing room at Sissinghurst is an incredible art of arrangement of objects and colour.
I've been to Charleston many times, plus I've visited Vita Sackville-West's home Sissinghurst and Virginia Woolf's home Monk's House.
I've also read a lot about the Bloomsbury Group including biographies.
What I find fascinating (amongst other things) is how far the sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf progressed from their rigid Victorian upbringing.
Our hospital has photos of local scenes in its corridors.
I remember going to an exhibition and seeing a beautiful picture, done in chalk pastels, it was of a woman who'd just got out of the bath and was drying herself, it was so evocative and well done that you could almost smell the slightly damp and scented air of the bathroom and that the figure might turn and speak to you. Then I saw a print of it, it was horrible, so flat and had nothing of the depth of the original, I could hardly believe they were the same picture.
I think there are far to many really bad copies of so many paintings, to me so many images that have been downloaded and then printed look flat, they lack depth and dimension, I don't think this was always the case with other printing methods. Maybe the colour density isn't right, but theres something missing.
Its something I find with a lot of photographs in online shops, theres often just a thing, with no context, no idea of size, it could be something for a doll or dolls house or something for a human and would fit in a mansion? I wonder how many things I miss because the photography or whatever is so poor?
I think the wall fillers could be art, but not if they were facsimiles. On the other hand, could a copy of say, the Mona Lisa be art if a machine simply reproduces the copy? The physical copy of the original painting itself isn’t imbued with artistic expression, it is simply a copy of an original intention which manifested as art, so I would say that it is a decorative piece to make a space more welcoming. It’s far from straightforward and it’s debatable. Art historians have argued over the definition of art a lot.
Some hospitals have paintings framed and displayed on their walls for the benefit of patients and staff. Some of these wouldn’t be of much financial value, but many are meaningful to the artist and viewers. They are art, and they are decorative and utilitarian because they make the space less clinical, more welcoming and can distract the viewer from their daily concerns.
Ohhh, good one ArchaeC, I will have to sit with that one for a bit.
Can art be utilitarian? I'm thinking of all those wall fillers in public buildings, they seem more utilitarian and a facsimile of making a space more human and welcoming
I don’t think the concepts of art and craft need be in competition with each other. Craft such as needlework, dress design and pottery can be art but these things can also be utilitarian. For instance, Picasso modelled pots, plates and figures which sold for £100,00.00 +. I think that a drawing or painting would be art rather than craft.
Your idea of sharing a concept through non verbal means could be art, although not every concept shared necessarily would be art, eg, technical drawing.
Art is a philosophy of being human.
I'm not sure I can explain it more, I guess it's that humans create things, they draw things from the imagination and the psyche and give them shape and meaning, thats mostly understandale to others.
It's interesting that so many people have mentioned the arts and crafts movement, its quite devicive, some love it and others have quite a visceral reaction against it. Personally I think it's snobbery as many of those who dislike so much splutter about it not being real art, but what is real art?
I think art is taught and it does have instructions, if you go to an art class or read a book on painting and drawing techniques theres lots of instructions, but it's taught to the few and not to the many, thats probably where the idea of status comes in, you have to have a certain status to be able to access the knowlege. Craft is cheaper, often something done by women too and low status males such as weaving as a cottage industry before the industrial revolution. I think theres a huge class element in art, how we access it and how we feel about it and what we think it's for, but does it have to have a purpose other than to be what it is?
I think how people react to art is telling, often the very word brings splutters of outrage, it seems to speak to something very deep in us, far more than simply what we like and what we don't.
I’m so sorry - that’s sounds so upsetting for you. Sometimes it’s the timing of when we first see something isn’t it? I’m sorry religion has been a cause of such suffering for you. I wasn’t bought up with religion in my family, but about 4 years ago I got into Buddhism and it’s been really helpful to me. Because it doesn’t involve belief in a deity, and it’s not in any way conditional or guilt trippy, I find it very positive and helpful. My husband was bought up in a very religious household and he has some very negative feelings about religion - it made him very anxious as a child - he thought god was watching him all the time when he was a little boy - and understandably did not like that at all! Also he got very bored having to go to church so much, and realised that some of the people going to church that he came across were just very mean or horrible, and that made him very cynical about religious people too.
Thanks Alice. Yes - my house is full of all sorts of found objects likes stones and shells, bits of wood, collage, paintings, old printing blocks, bits of ceramic, all sorts of stuff I’ve found or bought over the years - and I don’t see any difference in terms of my appreciation between a nice pebble I might find on a beach and a work of art - they’re just visual and tactile things that I enjoy and find interesting. I don’t much like the ‘high art’ /contemporary art world because I think a lot of it is about status and financial investment - and I think that’s quite a distortion of the best aspects of human creativity and self expression. Like you I enjoy painting and making things in various ways - just because I enjoy it. I really like the Arts and Crafts movement - because it does mix what’s viewed as Art and as Craft, and they also had some very admirable socialist and egalitarian views that believed in having respect for people that make things that were previously undervalued- and also in making beautiful things accessible to all. I managed to buy a little Newlyn copper vase from an antiques fair a couple of years ago and it’s one of my favourite things. It’s got fish on it.
I think the two can mix together.
when making cards it's known as a 'craft' activity but there is an element of art in it, as you have to make what you're putting on it work together
same with building a structure it's known as 'art' but there's an element of craft when you're building it
Yes these crafts are interesting. I enjoy watching these skills on Country file. Cornish hedges are too, as they start off as crafted walls which have a space for planting in the top and then they grow over as they mature..
Thank you, I shall check those out, they sound amazing!
I think Whitman’s American Civil War poems are fascinating and Im very glad he wrote them and they survived.
Blake’s paintings are part of the landscape of my nightmares. I first encountered them at exactly the same point in childhood when I was being exposed to the religious concept of hell and that it was where I was headed! I was just 5 or 6.
I am so grateful to my parents for introducing me to all types of art, and eternally angry at religion for its abuse of me with its conditional love.
Hi CW.
Is “Art is the Craft of Being Human” a quotation from someone? I think its interesting the discussion you have created with it but as a string of words it doesn’t make sense to me - yet. I need to process it further.
Thanks
Alice
You might like to check out the interiors of the homes of the Bloomsbury Group. They created high art in the sense of modernist literature and post-impressionist paintings but their homes were crafted temples of living objects and spaces. The book “Rooms of Their Own” published by the National Trust gives some great examples of theirs, plus Vita Sackville-West’s writing room at Sissinghurst is an incredible art of arrangement of objects and colour.
