I wrote: "But as we now know -- excellence in any specific art is irrelevant to what's recognized as achievement in "Art"
for which William graciously provided the following consent: "What ought to be presumed is that excellence and achievement are separate conditions without internal relationship." .... so it appears that we're not that far apart, except that I've also "intended to suggest that there ought to be a demonstrable connection between excellence and achievement." Don't Classical music competitions make just such a connection? First -- using whatever criteria the judges have, they identify the excellence of the performances -- and then -- they announce the winners - which is supposed to be (and often is) recognized as an important achievement in that artist's career. Sometimes a competition prize is enough to get a recording contract and book concert dates at prestigious venues -- i.e. enable performers to build an even longer list of achievements. Of course, that's only one kind of award/competition --- by contrast, there are some awards that are based completely on prior achievement -- like those national arts awards that come at the end of a career -- and there are some awards that seem to seem to recognize both excellence and achievement -- like the Oscars for film or the Grammys for recorded music or the Pulitzer Prizes for literature. Are these awards based exclusively on market performance - or prestige of the artists involved -- or is perceived excellence also a factor? The Pulitzer organization, for example, makes it quite clear that the recognition of "excellence" (whatever that means to them) is important: "In writing his 1904 will, (Joseph Pulitzer) made provision for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prizes as an incentive to excellence" ---and-- "He also empowered the board to withhold any award where entries fell below its standards of excellence." But as Michael Brady has pointed out -- there is no such award given in the visual arts -- presumably because, despite the proliferation of art schools and university departments of art and art theory -- there's no consensus anywhere on what the "standards of excellence" might be. It's all "propositional" as William would say. Though - if we look back a hundred years - that was not the case -- as exampled by the Prix de Rome. There can be no doubt that winning that award was considered an achievement - as it enabled the young Paul Manship to rise to the top the artworld as soon as he returned from Rome. But prior to receiving the award - the contestants were completely unknown - their record of achievement was practically zilch. Whether any of us would recognize his work as excellent today - that is of course a matter of opinion, and I suppose that William and I disagree about it. Though even there, we're pretty close -- since it says a lot to say that someone "exemplified a style, with grace and formal design" What greater excellence might one require ? -- unless we consider that specific style (art deco) to be inferior in some way -- or consider the artist to be merely following rather than inventing it. Interestingly enough, Manship first presented his style to the public in 1916 -- with this piece that is perpetually on display at the Art Institute: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/72198 The term 'Art Deco' was derived from the Paris Exposition of 1925, which is nine years later (though it was not used until the late 1960s)-- so it appears that Manship was also an innovator. And yet still, I'm sure that William, along with canonical art history, will assign Manship a minor role since his work is disconnected from the contemporary artworld. (which is not to say that collectors are ignoring it -- indeed, anything recognizable as 'art deco' currently has a much higher auction value than any non-canonical modernist work from the 1920's - 1940's. (This is weird factoid that I have recently discovered in my study local art history. The work of the leading Chicago modernists of the first decades of the 20th C. is all selling for peanuts -- i.e. the low four figures -- sometimes less than $1000 -- while an art deco candlestick designed by an utterly obscure member of my art club recently sold for $12,000 ) And moving back into the 19C -- where the contemporary art world is less of an issue -- I think we'd find even more examples of recognized achievement coinciding with recognized excellence. Carpeaux was another example of a great/famous sculptor whose career began with the Prix de Rome. Rodin never won it -- but his career was begun by winning an important state commission (an event which, today, is also irrelevant to achievement in the contemporary artworld) Overall -- I think we have to recognize, as Brady has done, that there is something very unusual about the absence of prizes in the cultivation of an art. And I would add -- that when "excellence and achievement are separate conditions without internal relationship" in an art -- the cultivation of that art has utterly collapsed. ***************************************************************** William wrote that: "Manship was a good example of pure art deco. He exemplified a style, with grace and formal design. If the result is art, it is a very minor art." Miller's second sentence below makes an assertion that cannot be demonstrated. It's just an empty opinion lacking any objective evidence. He cannot tell us -- independently of his opinion -- what constitutes excellence in any specific art and he can't show any correspondence between that absent condition and another absent condition, achievement. Excellence is a handy term if we know its identifying traits. But these need to be extracted from a specific condition of something, like an act or object, in comparison to an agreed ideal condition for that act or object. Yet there can't be an ideal act or object until there is some act or object. In other words, there is no prexisting ideal of excellence available for comparison with something in which case we are forced to conclude that whatever is said to be excellent is excellent. The next best thing to do is to compare one excellent thing to another thing that is proposed as excellent and try to make analogical or metaphorical correspondences -- effectively loaning the excellence of one thing to another thing. But these correspondences are never one to one. They always stretch or shrink what is being compared. So, we can claim that a portrait by Titian is excellent by comparing its excellence to the excellence of another portrait either by Titian or by someone else. But this is a faulty, wishful comparison. The excellence of one Titian portrait cannot be matched by any other Titian portrait -- or by anything at all. The same is true for any artwork. The best we can do is to say that all artworks are propositional, suggested instances of excellence as bolstered by the equally propositional excellence of other artworks or things which have their own unrepeatable excellences. It's all hope, faith, persuasion. Excellence is particular. A onetime event. Thus every instance of excellence is unique and not repeatable. It cannot be achieved because no standard can prescribe it. Achievement is something else, I think. Achievement can be predetermined by some set of standards or measures. One may only propose excellence. It is a leap of faith to say that such and such achievement represents excellence for there is no internal link between the two concepts. There can be excellence without achievement and achievement without excellence. Miller's comment is intended to suggest that there ought to be a demonstrable connnection between
