What is an Artist?

[Terrapin Station]

Dubious, wait, before I address the rest of your post, what in the world does this phrase refer to: "The greater the distances that pool individual subjectivities"? That sounds like gobbledy-gook to me.

[Hobbes' Choice]

An artist is a person who creates things which are more than purely utilitarian.

That is not to say that artistry cannot be found in a maker of utility. I've seen bricklayers who go about their tasks with such enthusiasm that we can say they are artists in their field.

A pure artist creates objects of aesthetic quality; and a good artist is a craftsman.
Poor artists are lazy and use little or no craft.

Art without craft is like sex without love.

That's the balance I wanted but didn't achieve in prior posts. An artist in a non-artistic field like Dubious's creative accountants.

I only disagree with your last statement, which seems backwards. Art without craft is like sex with only love - like two clumsy virgins naively loving and with little clue what they are doing. Their efforts are all "art". In time they will develop the craft / technical aspects that's often (but not always) required to make great art.

Let me put it another way.

Bad art that includes no craft is just mental fucking - worse just masturbation and involves the artist in no deep engagement with the materials.
There is little love in much modern art, except self-love of the artist.
I'm talking about dirt under the fingernails craftiness, as being the love an artist can lavish on their work.

[Dubious]

Dubious, wait, before I address the rest of your post, what in the world does this phrase refer to: "The greater the distances that pool individual subjectivities"? That sounds like gobbledy-gook to me.

Time as distance; space as distance. Does that make it less gobbledygook? The rest should be easy.

[Walker]

The proferred reasoning replete with example indicates otherwise.

There isn't objective quality just because you or any number of other people believe there is. I can pick apart your earlier comment more, but you didn't reply very directly to what I'd just said, so I'm not sure it would be worth the time.

Irrelevant. That was not the reasoning presented.

[Walker]

The proferred reasoning replete with example indicates otherwise.

Are you talking like a knob head to make a point or are you actually a knob head?

Typical bigoted response. You should get out more. A knob head wouldn't misspell proffered, and trying too hard does not funny make. Not that reasoning counts in the realm of unreasoned and unsupported assertions, it's just a habit of courtesy on the default assumption that folks are serious about philosophy.

[Harbal]

Typical bigoted response. You should get out more. A knob head wouldn't misspell proffered, and trying too hard does not funny make. Not that reasoning counts in the realm of unreasoned and unsupported assertions, it's just a habit of courtesy on the default assumption that folks are serious about philosophy.

What's your problem, Walker? Can't a guy ask a civil question now?

[Lacewing]

What's your problem, Walker?

Swamp gas.

[Greta]

Bad art that includes no craft is just mental fucking - worse just masturbation and involves the artist in no deep engagement with the materials.
There is little love in much modern art, except self-love of the artist.
I'm talking about dirt under the fingernails craftiness, as being the love an artist can lavish on their work.

I might need some examples before commenting further, Hobbs.

[Walker]

What's your problem, Walker?

Swamp gas.

Arsenic and Old Lace.

[Greta]

Bad art that includes no craft is just mental fucking - worse just masturbation and involves the artist in no deep engagement with the materials.

There is little love in much modern art, except self-love of the artist.
I'm talking about dirt under the fingernails craftiness, as being the love an artist can lavish on their work.

That's what happens when economic rationalism is applied to the arts. The bean counters strip the love out of it because market research didn't ask whether genuine passion was necessary for satisfactory sales.

[MatejValuch]

Speaking from etymological point of view, artist is anyone with an extraordinary skill, obtained by learning or practice. Mother can be an artist, so can be a cook, an auto-mechanic, an accountant, a lover.
One with a good eye can spot an artist in every profession. One with darkened mind full of thoughts will never spot one, even if walking close by. Then, if anyone is an artist depends more on the observer that the person performing the act itself.

[Dubious]

Bad art that includes no craft is just mental fucking - worse just masturbation and involves the artist in no deep engagement with the materials.

There is little love in much modern art, except self-love of the artist.
I'm talking about dirt under the fingernails craftiness, as being the love an artist can lavish on their work.

That's what happens when economic rationalism is applied to the arts. The bean counters strip the love out of it because market research didn't ask whether genuine passion was necessary for satisfactory sales.

Art is now one of the greatest investment vehicles there is and only the rich can play. With so much money desperately trying to find a niche with the greatest potential to breed more money the art world is more lucrative than all the banks out there. Investing a million or two in a piece of canvas that a horse could paint if it could piss in color painted by an "artist" with only a modest modicum of fame and even less of talent, virtually insures that the value will at least hold but more likely go up in short order because by spending that much its value as an investment is established. This means one can expect higher bids in the future as the name of the artist becomes a monetized brand.

The art of the art dealer has much in common with the stock market where the stock of company may have very little relation to its actual value They also know that the P/M ratio (price to merit) no matter how extreme or obscene has no meaning in these transactions...only the future monetary value of the product. Every such transaction in the "art" world amounts to a future's contract.

Also what seems so often to be both perverse and inverse is that the more ugly and seemly abstract the work the more valuable it becomes as an "original".

[Hobbes' Choice]

Bad art that includes no craft is just mental fucking - worse just masturbation and involves the artist in no deep engagement with the materials.
There is little love in much modern art, except self-love of the artist.
I'm talking about dirt under the fingernails craftiness, as being the love an artist can lavish on their work.

I might need some examples before commenting further, Hobbs.

Bad art is The Fountain, by Marcel Duchamp. Which have not involved him in ANY craft whatever. This is pure self-love.

Great art is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or the Parthenon Marbles, any painting by Van Gogh.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Bad art that includes no craft is just mental fucking - worse just masturbation and involves the artist in no deep engagement with the materials.

There is little love in much modern art, except self-love of the artist.
I'm talking about dirt under the fingernails craftiness, as being the love an artist can lavish on their work.

That's what happens when economic rationalism is applied to the arts. The bean counters strip the love out of it because market research didn't ask whether genuine passion was necessary for satisfactory sales.

Art is now one of the greatest investment vehicles there is and only the rich can play. With so much money desperately trying to find a niche with the greatest potential to breed more money the art world is more lucrative than all the banks out there. Investing a million or two in a piece of canvas that a horse could paint if it could piss in color painted by an "artist" with only a modest modicum of fame and even less of talent, virtually insures that the value will at least hold but more likely go up in short order because by spending that much its value as an investment is established. This means one can expect higher bids in the future as the name of the artist becomes a monetized brand.

The art of the art dealer has much in common with the stock market where the stock of company may have very little relation to its actual value They also know that the P/M ratio (price to merit) no matter how extreme or obscene has no meaning in these transactions...only the future monetary value of the product. Every such transaction in the "art" world amounts to a future's contract.

Also what seems so often to be both perverse and inverse is that the more ugly and seemly abstract the work the more valuable it becomes as an "original".

Commodity is not a measure of art. IMV

[Dubious]

That's what happens when economic rationalism is applied to the arts. The bean counters strip the love out of it because market research didn't ask whether genuine passion was necessary for satisfactory sales.

Art is now one of the greatest investment vehicles there is and only the rich can play. With so much money desperately trying to find a niche with the greatest potential to breed more money the art world is more lucrative than all the banks out there. Investing a million or two in a piece of canvas that a horse could paint if it could piss in color painted by an "artist" with only a modest modicum of fame and even less of talent, virtually insures that the value will at least hold but more likely go up in short order because by spending that much its value as an investment is established. This means one can expect higher bids in the future as the name of the artist becomes a monetized brand.

The art of the art dealer has much in common with the stock market where the stock of company may have very little relation to its actual value They also know that the P/M ratio (price to merit) no matter how extreme or obscene has no meaning in these transactions...only the future monetary value of the product. Every such transaction in the "art" world amounts to a future's contract.

Also what seems so often to be both perverse and inverse is that the more ugly and seemly abstract the work the more valuable it becomes as an "original".

Commodity is not a measure of art. IMV

Exactly right, it isn't. We both know that. It's a financial commodity that goes under the name of art (required to justify the prices) and I think I made that clear comparing the "art" market to the stock market and future contracts.