William wrote:
I can't agree with Michael. His argument asserts that whatever an
artist consciously makes as art is art (without qualitative
ranking). That reduces art to intention in the sense that if the
artist intends to make art, the result of intention is art even if
it can't be ranked qualitatively until some consensus occurs or
recurs.
Ah, I see my lapse, which I didn't notice until Miller agreed with me,
a neurological jolt so severe I had to go back to see what provoked him.
I said--or thought I had conveyed, but apparently an ellipsis or two
caught me up--I meant to say that when an artist is making an artwork--
the thing on the easel, on the plinth, on the copper plate, litho
stone, etc.--he sets out to produce a thing that is (a) a
representation of some kind, and (b) does not have to pass an external
truth test. He sets out with the *telos* of art, true--in fact, with
all the three other causes of art in mind. The artist does intend to
make art, but his intention does not make it art; it only guides his
actions.
More:
(a) The thing has to be a representation of some kind: a photograph, a
map, a statue or macquette, a puppet, a word or song, etc. It stands
first and foremost as a proxy for something else, somehow. By
contrast, utilitarian things are made primarily to function in a
certain way. Their stylishness is subordinate to their operation.
"Beauty is as beauty does." All industrial or product design is an
expression of this relationship between outward appearance and
functional efficacy.
(b) The artistic representation doesn't have to be that way. The
artist can paint the figure any color he chooses, or elongate the
limbs, or add extra appendages, etc. The police crime scene
investigator can embellish the drawing of a scene by adding or taking
away a detail here or there, but that would impair the drawing's
reliability at trial. The biologist can add cutesy little cilia to a
drawing of some microbe, but that would ruin its value as a scientific
record. Such a priori limitations on the investigator's or scientist's
drawings govern how the works are made: no adding fanciful things, no
taking away things, *because the work will be evaluated by comparing
it to an outside standard*, i.e., a "truth test." A work of art does
not fall under that jurisdiction. The artist can make it any way he
pleases--and must be prepared to hear objections that a face shouldn't
have a green stripe in the nose, or those naked women look so gross
with all those wrinkles and cast shadows, or no such animal as a man-
horse.
More:
If a thing of a certain quality is called "art," how can we speak of
"bad art"? Isn't that a contradiction, an oxymoron? Or at least
ambiguous: "It's art, but it's not very good."
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Michael Brady
[email protected]
