We may regard any object as an art proposition. And we should keep in mind that it is possible that art may no longer exist, if we say so. There are four propositions: art as the commonplace; art as-if the commonplace; art as if the uncommon; non-art. Each of them requires a proposer.
It is faulty to assume that a particular kind of object (a painting) belongs intrinsically to a class called art. Name one thing that is painted but is not a painting. Nothing qualifies. And of all painted things, nothing inherently qualifies them as art. Why do we keep retracing the same ground? Even Worringer, in 1908, knew that art was a subjective relationship with a subjective idea that either enabled one to pretend being something else or protected one from being something else. Artists have devoted 100 years to questioning whether art exists as something with universal properties or not. I always liked Thierry deDuve's idea that "the jury is always still out" on the question of extrinsic properties of art. Frances answers all challengers by resorting to Peirce as a dogma. This may help to explain Peirce ( although even he is easier to read than she is) but it does nothing else. wc ________________________________ From: Frances Kelly <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, July 7, 2009 7:23:02 PM Subject: RE: Worringer: Abstraction and Empathy Frances to Saul and others... Every drawing or painting for example should broadly be found or held or deemed as a member of that class called art, if we agree that the main categorical acts of humans are art and tech and science. To such an extent, every drawing or painting would thus not be a member of those classes called tech or science. Since drawings and paintings of course will vary in aesthetic quality and artistic worth, it then falls to thinkers for a resolution of this issue, which likely turns on classifying the act of art into suitable kinds of art, such as fine art and liberal art and applied art. The task then would be to label particular drawings or paintings as the kinds of art they might be by some agreed norm. It may be for instance that crude doodles or rough drafts are perhaps not drawings, but are lower forms of say applied art and ordinary tech that are found in everyday life. Those drawings or paintings that are found or held or deemed to be of lesser artistic value or to even be bad by virtue of some pornographic deviance to the norm, would then be excluded at least from the realm of fine art and likely also from liberal art. My point is that it might be best for humans if there was a tentative standard norm of agreement about what could be good art. Although the Worringer thesis is clearly a product of its time, it does seem to have some merit in this regard. Saul wrote... Is every painting art? Michael wrote... Yes, I believe every painting--from the Barberini ceiling to a Kiefer to a Kinkade or the Breck Girl--is art. Whether it's high art, important art, significant art, worthy art, noble art, or even aesthetic art is another question, which cannot be addressed without first determining whether the object before us can qualify to be called "art." Saul wrote... If this is so is the word art a useful one in that it would appear that art does not differ from any other form of let us say cultural production.
