What is an Artist?

What is art? What is beauty?

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Walker
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by Walker »

Terrapin Station wrote:
Walker wrote:Fully answered. All you have to do is understand, which may be difficult for a question junkie. Not really interested in why you don't understand, since even though the total possibilities of your limitations do have a limit, it's likely extensive. Also if possible, make the animal a chicken or a duck. For some reason they hold attention in this attention-seeking world, a least enough for folks to pause and maybe expand a bit.
Ah, so you don't know how to answer simple questions. Okay.
Ancillary but related to the thread topic, interesting is this demonstrable drive to reroute the energy of understanding into shaping one's view of reality, bending reality into one's own view, shaping reality into a bent view, one's little piece of the elephant, just to fit preconceptions. Duchamp was into creative commentary on this human tendency.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Walker wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:
Walker wrote:Fully answered. All you have to do is understand, which may be difficult for a question junkie. Not really interested in why you don't understand, since even though the total possibilities of your limitations do have a limit, it's likely extensive. Also if possible, make the animal a chicken or a duck. For some reason they hold attention in this attention-seeking world, a least enough for folks to pause and maybe expand a bit.
Ah, so you don't know how to answer simple questions. Okay.
Ancillary but related to the thread topic, interesting is this demonstrable drive to reroute the energy of understanding into shaping one's view of reality, bending reality into one's own view, shaping reality into a bent view, one's little piece of the elephant, just to fit preconceptions. Duchamp was into creative commentary on this human tendency.
You'd be better off putting more energy in learning how to answer simple questions.
Walker
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by Walker »

Terrapin Station wrote:
Walker wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:
Ah, so you don't know how to answer simple questions. Okay.
Ancillary but related to the thread topic, interesting is this demonstrable drive to reroute the energy of understanding into shaping one's view of reality, bending reality into one's own view, shaping reality into a bent view, one's little piece of the elephant, just to fit preconceptions. Duchamp was into creative commentary on this human tendency.
You'd be better off putting more energy in learning how to answer simple questions.
Quoth the Raven?

Really, any effort is otherwise, as in nose-to-the-grindstone. How pompous to pout that simple questions did not shape the dialogue, simply because the orchard does not blossom in winter. How tedious to walk slow when one who has all the ignored advantages of time could simply follow the snow-tracks of change showing motion through time as thought, the metaphor of life that shapes bricks and mortar.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Walker wrote: How pompous to pout that simple questions did not shape the dialogue, simply because the orchard does not blossom in winter. How tedious to walk slow when one who has all the ignored advantages of time could simply follow the snow-tracks of change showing motion through time as thought, the metaphor of life that shapes bricks and mortar.
Have you been marathon-watching David Carradine's "Kung Fu"?
Walker
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by Walker »

Terrapin Station wrote:
Walker wrote: How pompous to pout that simple questions did not shape the dialogue, simply because the orchard does not blossom in winter. How tedious to walk slow when one who has all the ignored advantages of time could simply follow the snow-tracks of change showing motion through time as thought, the metaphor of life that shapes bricks and mortar.
Have you been marathon-watching David Carradine's "Kung Fu"?
It’s likely just grabbing a branch to slow sliding into the maw of the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anUyKygkD9w

Or perhaps merely a balancing reaction to the other than dulcet tones, and other election conditions.
Belinda
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by Belinda »

Conde Lucanor wrote:
Belinda wrote:I wish that I hadn't said that Beethoven was a Romantic composer as its seems that people here who probably know more than I about the history of music say not so. This is tangential anyway. (My excuse: I was thinking of B's use of the big orchestra and the emotionality of the pieces (e.g. Moonlight. Pathetique) )
It was (and still is) a fair statement. Whoever told you otherwise has no idea. The boundaries that defined each period were never perfectly delineated and periodization was an issue raised afterwards by historians and musicologists. Musicians themselves were not trying to make their work fit into a designated period.
It's quite a thought that artists are not of their 'period' because of the artists' intentions but because sociologists and others have used their art to reflect upon Thus Nazi era art reflects the autocracy of the regime but later commentators use Nazi art to show how artists might be subservient to regimes.

I don't have many original ideas, but I do dislike and distrust censorship. I was taught that expressiveness is a sign of the Romantic tradition mainly because of the cultural ascendency of the individual over the collective to the effect that the individual and their feelings were considered to matter. This was a novel idea which some have suggested is caused by society's need for a mobile work force of fit young people who were able and willing to join the trend to urbanisation. Ideas are integral to the society that works with and because of the ideas. At the time when urbanisation was speedy in Europe there wasn't any deliberation on the part of authorities to encourage the Romantic styles, but I doubt if Beethoven or Joni Mitchell could have happened if everybody had remained in feudal rural villages.

Thus art itself and musical forms and meanings in particular can usefully be differentiated by how the forms and the meanings if any aim to serve the individual or the society. For instance the ritual music and ritual dance of an economically undeveloped people serve the community as community but not as individuals' feelings except as those feelings are attuned to community activities and aims.

Beethoven's music , and the lyrics of serious modern performers such as Joni Mitchell , are of interest only to those who have learned the idiom ; neither are easily understood by those who have not been educated to understand them. Commercial pop is easier for those who have not concentrated their attention upon the forms of the more serious music. The upshot is that serious music tends to be enjoyed by those who have had sufficient leisure and opportunity to listen or perform with careful attention.

The same can be said about visual arts such as painting, and this is why novel trends such as impressionism were initially unpopular and there was a time lapse before they become generally understood.
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Belinda wrote: Beethoven's music , and the lyrics of serious modern performers such as Joni Mitchell , are of interest only to those who have learned the idiom ;
I couldn't disagree more. Children have natural good taste--it's adults who force bad taste on them--with 'children's food' and 'children's music' etc. (usually crap). Every child I have known, without exception, LOVES Ode to Joy and Fur Elise.
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by Pluto »

Conde Lucanor wrote:
Pluto wrote:An artist is someone who sits outside or on the edge of the system.
An artist is someone who works inside the system using its tools to climb up the ladder.
An artist is someone who says I'm an Artist and means it.
What an artist is and what an artist does is socially determined and has changed throughout history. So you would need to be more specific to which cultural context you are referring to.
Yes an artist changes with the times. The description I wrote above of an artist would be for today. To be an artist not in service of the system. Yet not to be irrelevant.

Can an artist create a body of work that sits outside the time that the artist maker finds herself in. It seems confining that ones art would mirror the time and context. Art is bigger than a documenter of time. It blows time and context wide open and after builds its own narrative as to how things might be. It is Time that should be following Art not the other way around.
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by Belinda »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:
Belinda wrote: Beethoven's music , and the lyrics of serious modern performers such as Joni Mitchell , are of interest only to those who have learned the idiom ;
I couldn't disagree more. Children have natural good taste--it's adults who force bad taste on them--with 'children's food' and 'children's music' etc. (usually crap). Every child I have known, without exception, LOVES Ode to Joy and Fur Elise.
I can well believe you. I object that your experience is probably too slight and too carelessly interpreted to establish a valid objection to the hypothesis that good art is synonymous with effort on the part of originator and audience. Ode to Joy and Fur Elise are melodic. Sonata form and symphonic variations need more deliberate listening skills than melody does.

Lyrics as complex as those of Joni Mitchell can't be understood except by those who have experienced the feelings and the connotations in the lyrics, although children could appreciate rhythm, rhyme, and assonance.
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Belinda wrote:
vegetariantaxidermy wrote:
Belinda wrote: Beethoven's music , and the lyrics of serious modern performers such as Joni Mitchell , are of interest only to those who have learned the idiom ;
I couldn't disagree more. Children have natural good taste--it's adults who force bad taste on them--with 'children's food' and 'children's music' etc. (usually crap). Every child I have known, without exception, LOVES Ode to Joy and Fur Elise.
I can well believe you. I object that your experience is probably too slight and too carelessly interpreted to establish a valid objection to the hypothesis that good art is synonymous with effort on the part of originator and audience. Ode to Joy and Fur Elise are melodic. Sonata form and symphonic variations need more deliberate listening skills than melody does.

Lyrics as complex as those of Joni Mitchell can't be understood except by those who have experienced the feelings and the connotations in the lyrics, although children could appreciate rhythm, rhyme, and assonance.
I wouldn't underestimate children. And I wouldn't call my experience 'slight'. Just listening to great music is all the 'effort' you really have to make. Knowing the form of a Beethoven sonata won't make it sound any more beautiful.
Belinda
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by Belinda »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:
Belinda wrote:
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: I couldn't disagree more. Children have natural good taste--it's adults who force bad taste on them--with 'children's food' and 'children's music' etc. (usually crap). Every child I have known, without exception, LOVES Ode to Joy and Fur Elise.
I can well believe you. I object that your experience is probably too slight and too carelessly interpreted to establish a valid objection to the hypothesis that good art is synonymous with effort on the part of originator and audience. Ode to Joy and Fur Elise are melodic. Sonata form and symphonic variations need more deliberate listening skills than melody does.

Lyrics as complex as those of Joni Mitchell can't be understood except by those who have experienced the feelings and the connotations in the lyrics, although children could appreciate rhythm, rhyme, and assonance.
I wouldn't underestimate children. And I wouldn't call my experience 'slight'. Just listening to great music is all the 'effort' you really have to make. Knowing the form of a Beethoven sonata won't make it sound any more beautiful.
vegetariantaxi wrote:
I wouldn't underestimate children. And I wouldn't call my experience 'slight'. Just listening to great music is all the 'effort' you really have to make. Knowing the form of a Beethoven sonata won't make it sound any more beautiful.
Unless you have done a respectable cross-cultural study of children's appreciation of Beethoven then I'd not regard your experience in this field as more than anecdotal. While it's true that listening to music is necessary its not sufficient. First you have to be familiar with the idiom of the musical form. As with any art unfamiliarity with the form causes the experience to be incomprehensible. While rhythm appeals at a visceral level, appreciation of melody requires a learned ability to appreciate the scales as used. Polyphony and counterpoint did not always exist and had to be learned . Learning to appreciate music is helped by an introduction to the more sophisticated sounds by easy stages. Stravinsky was booed and scorned when he introduced music to an audience who expected expressive meaning and when what they got was abstract sounds.
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Belinda wrote:
vegetariantaxidermy wrote:
Belinda wrote:
I can well believe you. I object that your experience is probably too slight and too carelessly interpreted to establish a valid objection to the hypothesis that good art is synonymous with effort on the part of originator and audience. Ode to Joy and Fur Elise are melodic. Sonata form and symphonic variations need more deliberate listening skills than melody does.

Lyrics as complex as those of Joni Mitchell can't be understood except by those who have experienced the feelings and the connotations in the lyrics, although children could appreciate rhythm, rhyme, and assonance.
I wouldn't underestimate children. And I wouldn't call my experience 'slight'. Just listening to great music is all the 'effort' you really have to make. Knowing the form of a Beethoven sonata won't make it sound any more beautiful.
vegetariantaxi wrote:
I wouldn't underestimate children. And I wouldn't call my experience 'slight'. Just listening to great music is all the 'effort' you really have to make. Knowing the form of a Beethoven sonata won't make it sound any more beautiful.
Unless you have done a respectable cross-cultural study of children's appreciation of Beethoven then I'd not regard your experience in this field as more than anecdotal. While it's true that listening to music is necessary its not sufficient. First you have to be familiar with the idiom of the musical form. As with any art unfamiliarity with the form causes the experience to be incomprehensible. While rhythm appeals at a visceral level, appreciation of melody requires a learned ability to appreciate the scales as used. Polyphony and counterpoint did not always exist and had to be learned . Learning to appreciate music is helped by an introduction to the more sophisticated sounds by easy stages. Stravinsky was booed and scorned when he introduced music to an audience who expected expressive meaning and when what they got was abstract sounds.
Well I respectfully disagree. I'm not going to argue about it with you.
Walker
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by Walker »

Belinda wrote: I don't have many original ideas, but I do dislike and distrust censorship.
Roll over, Plato.
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Conde Lucanor
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by Conde Lucanor »

Belinda wrote:

It's quite a thought that artists are not of their 'period' because of the artists' intentions but because sociologists and others have used their art to reflect upon Thus Nazi era art reflects the autocracy of the regime but later commentators use Nazi art to show how artists might be subservient to regimes.
I can't see Nazism as a period in art, as it is mostly concerned with political ideology, although one can always find connections between politics and art under the whole cultural atmosphere of a place and time.
Belinda wrote: I don't have many original ideas, but I do dislike and distrust censorship. I was taught that expressiveness is a sign of the Romantic tradition mainly because of the cultural ascendency of the individual over the collective to the effect that the individual and their feelings were considered to matter. This was a novel idea which some have suggested is caused by society's need for a mobile work force of fit young people who were able and willing to join the trend to urbanisation. Ideas are integral to the society that works with and because of the ideas. At the time when urbanisation was speedy in Europe there wasn't any deliberation on the part of authorities to encourage the Romantic styles, but I doubt if Beethoven or Joni Mitchell could have happened if everybody had remained in feudal rural villages.
I've seen many historical accounts of why Romanticism came to be. One of them is that the "romantic spirit" was a reaction to industrialization, science and the whole Enlightenment project, from the war trenches of bourgeois idealism. That reaction is still going on today, as the "romantic spirit" prevails in most of our culture. As you can witness in this forum, the prevailing notion about art is that it is all about provoking emotions. Leaving aside if we agree or not, let's first acknowledge that there are other more rational notions of aesthetics and its advocates have held a long dispute against the romantics and their aesthetics of the ineffable.
Belinda wrote:Thus art itself and musical forms and meanings in particular can usefully be differentiated by how the forms and the meanings if any aim to serve the individual or the society. For instance the ritual music and ritual dance of an economically undeveloped people serve the community as community but not as individuals' feelings except as those feelings are attuned to community activities and aims.
Employing that dichotomy between individual and society may be useful, but a society is conformed by individuals and they define their individuality from that very social context. I don't think they're completely independent, autonomous domains, but an interwoven, dialectical reality. By serving an individual, something may be serving society and vice versa.
Belinda wrote:Beethoven's music, and the lyrics of serious modern performers such as Joni Mitchell , are of interest only to those who have learned the idiom ; neither are easily understood by those who have not been educated to understand them.

Commercial pop is easier for those who have not concentrated their attention upon the forms of the more serious music. The upshot is that serious music tends to be enjoyed by those who have had sufficient leisure and opportunity to listen or perform with careful attention.
I'm not sure what we're comparing here. I know to what league Beethoven belongs and I'm pretty sure Mitchell belongs to a completely different one. In the case of Beethoven, at least, he can be of interest at different levels for different audiences. One of those audiences may be trained to fully understand the rich and complex language of classical music, but music can be just music and appreciated at its basic melodic or harmonic levels. That's why many "serious music" is popularized and blended with pop rhythms or cut into small selections for easy listening.
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Conde Lucanor
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Re: What is an Artist?

Post by Conde Lucanor »

Pluto wrote: The description I wrote above of an artist would be for today. To be an artist not in service of the system. Yet not to be irrelevant.
That would be a revolutionary artist. And no, it looks like there are not many of those around.
Pluto wrote:Can an artist create a body of work that sits outside the time that the artist maker finds herself in. It seems confining that ones art would mirror the time and context. Art is bigger than a documenter of time. It blows time and context wide open and after builds its own narrative as to how things might be. It is Time that should be following Art not the other way around.
I think art cannot escape from its relationship with the social context where it is produced. That does not mean that all there is in art is the expression of that relationship, neither that art is the passive recipient of social contents.
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