This whole thread is about meanings, or semantics.Originally Posted by cyrus
Before your original question can be answered, a working definition of what "fine art" is must be roughed out. It is obvious that it has as many meanings as there are posters in this thread. A common ground must be formed, or at least an understanding of what others mean by the term must occur before a valid discussion takes place.
So is "fine art" like sand paper? Does that mean there's "medium art' and "rough art"? Hasn't this question been debated for the last 100 years? Photography has already been accepted as "Art"! Because it has been, and continues to be displayed in some of the finest art museums and galleries all over the world and continues to be, thanks to the perpetuation of photographers / fine artists who have joined this forum, as well as the many working photographers / fine artists who may or may not occasionally just lurk here, I think the answer is an emphatic "yes!" There is such a thing as "fine art photography" in the world today, and there will probably always continue to be fine art photographers creating meaningful (and sometimes not so meaningful ~ you know, beauty is to eye of the beholder) works of compelling, creative fine art photography. I'd love to say discussion closed, but I know better.
"everything in the world has already been photographed!" ~ anonymous fine art photographer quote
Isn't alt process consider a fine art? Like pt/pd?
No. It's a medium. Not art in itself.
Steve.
Yes! One minor point - the grade at the other end of the scale is "coarse art", not "rough art".
A guy who nails 2x4s together to frame a house is a laborer; a guy who joins pieces of mahogany together to make a chest of drawers by hand is a craftsman; and a guy who creates abstract sculptures made of wood is an artist. (Whereas a guy who can assemble IKEA furniture without using the instructions is a genius!) But why?
I can only venture to guess, but I believe it has something to do with utility vs. creativity vs. risk. The house framer is applying a skill to contribute his part to a pre-determined whole. He has little control over the decisions that guide his work and there is little creativity in it as a result. In fact, if he gets creative and deviates from the house plans he can compromise the integrity of the project. The woodworker also works from a plan, but often one of his own devising. What woods he selects, what joinery methods he employs, what finishes he chooses are up to him, although his decisions are limited by the practicalities of making a functional piece. The finished product is utilitarian--a piece of furniture--but one made using skills and decisions well beyond what is necessary to simply make a unit with drawers that holds clothes. (See above re: IKEA.) The sculptor may have a plan, but it is not bound by utility. He can make his sculpture in any shape he wants, or any size, or any color. His sculpture will not house people or hold clothes but will exist for its own sake as a product of the imagination of its creator. The level of creative decision-making is highest for the sculptor, even if he uses some of the same methods and materials as the laborer and the craftsman, and so we call him an artist.
In photographic terms even the best printers are usually considered craftsmen when it comes to their darkroom work, especially if they are printing other people's images. Why? Probably because a good deal of the creative content of the work was done by the photographer. No matter how good a printer is (say, John Sexton), he is bound by what is in a negative made by someone else. Since not all the creative decisions were up to him he is kicked down a notch from artist to craftsman. Take the example of Cartier-Bresson: he was the idea man out taking pictures and was content to let other people print them. It goes without saying that history has not been as kind to the names of his printers as it has been to C-B.
This goes back to Jay and Rick's debate about musicians vs. composers. Ultimately a musician may be seen as less creative than a composer because, like the printer, he does not decide what the notes are but only how to play them. He takes fewer risks by following an existing score than by making one up out of thin air. This is also why cover bands don't get the same respect as the bands they emulate, reporters are not heralded as artists the way novelists often are, and movie directors--not movie producers--are hailed as "auteurs."
This is also at the root of photography's struggle to be viewed as an art form altogether. Initially people saw the photographic apparatus as a recording device and the people who took the pictures simply as "camera operators"--the same way you might think of a movie projectionist, only in reverse. The level of creative decision-making was seen as lower than for painters or sculptors since the control a photographer had over how his subject looked was limited. Whatever was before the camera was recorded to the plate in a pre-determined fashion. (Sounds a lot like a craftsman to me!)
This notion exists well beyond the arts, of course. We reward creative risk-taking in almost every discipline, from finance to pharmaceuticals to entrepreneurship. Even theoretical physicists are seen as the most creative of the bunch because, unlike the experimental guys who go around testing what's already been thought up, the theoretical practitioners are the ones doing the thinking. Etc., etc.
I am not advocating the above positions, simply trying to explore the ideas. I very well may be completely wrong.
Jonathan
NOTE: I realize I used male pronouns throughout, but it was not my intent to exclude female practitioners from any or all of the above examples. Mea culpa. Oh, and sorry for the thesis. Unlike Rick I didn't lose mine by hitting the wrong key and so it remains in all its tattered, long-winded glory.
Painting is a medium. Are you saying that painting is not art?
I think Adams summed it up best: Assignments from without, rather than assignments from within.
When I was in college, I had a girlfriend who was studying commercial art at a different university. In her program, commercial art vs. fine art was the driving distinction. Both required creativity, both required even a degree of risk taking. If anything, the commercial art required the more exacting skills. The difference was in the purpose. The commercial art was supposed to achieve an objective set by the client, while the fine art was supposed to achieve an objective set by the artist. (This really should be orthogonal to the matter of who is paying for it. A client for commercial art has specifications and the artist is expected to honor them. Someone commissioning fine art gets what they get, with--maybe--a right of refusal. The line between them seems to me the nature and degree of those specifications.)
Having an objective worth achieving--that's the tricky bit.
Rick "who, with sufficient experience, could have become a decent commercial photographer" Denney
I just painted a new door for the room where I store my camera stuff. I don't think art was involved.
But there is a subterrainian point in your comment that deserves the plain light of day: Artists often define "art" as being what they consider good art, and define as not art what they consider to be bad.
Once we recognize that art can be bad, the definitions become easier.
Then, fine artists often define "fine" as fulfilling some fine-art objective nearly always tied to their opinion of it. And then they define as something else what they do not consider to be worthy of "fine".
Once we recognize that fine art can be bad, the definitions become easier.
Rick "thinking the world needs bad art to bring to clarity good art" Denney
To me art is merely the language of imagination. An artist fluent in his ability to communicate this language will always produce fine work no matter the medium.
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