What is the Nature & Purpose of Art-With-a-Capital-"A"?

[Wahoo Redux]

At its bedrock, art is really just a conversation about ethics and experience. 

I don't know which came first after hunting, prayer, song, or narrative----probably all three as one, which is what literature is.

Literature is one of the oldest pursuits of human beings. 

Why should we need to justify its existence in the academy?

At its bedrock, art is really just a conversation about ethics and experience. 

I don't think that's right at all. It's a nice idea, but I don't think it's at all plausible.

For one thing, it doesn't really capture non-representational art or art forms (e.g. suprematism, colour-field or action-paintings, music, dance) very well at all (the mimetic theory of art shares this failing, incidentally). More importantly, it's far too reductive, and offers a really impoverished analysis of art, its use, and its value. I am reminded, in this respect, of the literary Darwinists' analysis of genre as the play between tragedy and comedy, or of science fiction as being about species survival (or whatever trite thing it is they say--it's the end of a long day and I don't quite remember offhand. There's only so much garbage a chap can have ready to hand with a hatchling around).

Some art is about ethics at its core. A lot of Ursula K. LeGuin's work comes to mind--not least The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, although I think almost everything she wrote has a deep and rich moral underpinning. And some art is conversational, especially in the sense of trying to spark something inside its viewers, such as conceptual art or lots of avant-garde fun and nonsense.

But it needn't be and, frankly, most art for most of art history--especially 'art' with a lower-case 'a', though this applies to 'Art' too--didn't, and doesn't. Aestheticians pretty much gave up on the project of finding a common essence for art twenty years ago, and rightly so: the field has really flourished since.

I just have too much to do at the moment to really respond, and I wouldn't want to hijack the thread, but maybe this should be it's own post. 

You are a bit literal here.

This is not to say that ONLY ethics and experience are part of Art-with-a-capital-"A," but at the very DNA of any artistic endeavor is human experience----how can there not be?----and on some level there is an ethical overtone---we have to make choices about it.

Even a Pollock splatter painting engenders a reaction, often predicated on experience and exposure, and simply reacting to the colors in their abstraction is human experience.  The human brain can conceive of abstraction and patterns---that is an experience at the heart of art.  He does not have a moral in the way Omalas or The Hobbit do, but the fact that Pollock spattered house paint over massive canvases and called it "art," and museums, collectors, and admirers also call it "art," is an ethical choice to accept abstraction, something which would never have been accepted before in history.

As far as Art in the academy, fair enough, it must be justified to scale and purpose.  I simply see an attack on the part of some posters (and in my life outside of the Fora) on the very existence of Art in the academy.  Some people simply do not value its contribution.  Some are here on these boards.

We're butting up against one of my areas of expertise, so you can imagine I have a lot to say on the matter. But you're right, there's a danger of getting too far afield. I'd be happy to contribute to a new post, however, if you care to start it.

For now, I'll just say this, by way of explanation: I think that the use of 'ethics' or 'moral' here is, at best, so overgeneral as to be entirely trivial (narrower characterizations, I think, would just be false). There's a lot more going on there, and it's a lot more interesting, than a characterization of it in terms of the 'moral' allows.

Again, I was simply using the term "moral" in its simplest and broadest sense not meant to eliminate or even reduce the mass complexities .  All art has a moral of some sort...yet here the hijacking begins.

So I will start a new, fascinating thread under "General Discussion."

[Wahoo Redux]

Also:

Why should we need to justify its existence in the academy?

Every field of study needs to justify its existence in the academy on a continuous basis. Fields that fail to do so because  they think they have some kind of "lifetime membership" are going to lose resources to fields that keep reporting their worth. How pervasive is the idea among humanities faculty that ancient human pursuits are automatically justified?

I'm in an applied science field. Some faculty and administrators in my institution are truly embarrassed about the "applied" part. There is a significant faction that would boot us if they could. That puts pressure on delivering and documenting value in terms they understand or we'd be starved of resources. The administrators are usually persuaded by the money, but sometimes the satisfaction of knowing that their academic work makes regular people's lives better through the work of the applied faculty.

And:

At its bedrock, art is really just a conversation about ethics and experience. 

I don't know which came first after hunting, prayer, song, or narrative----probably all three as one, which is what literature is.

Literature is one of the oldest pursuits of human beings. 

Why should we need to justify its existence in the academy?

1) Are you advocating bringing hunting and prayers into curriculum? The latter actually was a foundation for many old European universities.
2) The question is not about justifying existence per se. It is about justifying existence on the scale some people used to and in the specific form. Coal geology does not warrant a separate course in many places anymore.

And:

At its bedrock, art is really just a conversation about ethics and experience. 

I don't know which came first after hunting, prayer, song, or narrative----probably all three as one, which is what literature is.

Literature is one of the oldest pursuits of human beings. 

Why should we need to justify its existence in the academy?

At one level I'd like to say that its justification should be self-evident.  But in practice, Hibush is right.  Every field needs to earn its keep in some way.  I'm a great believer in the value and utility of public libraries, but I've long since accepted the necessity of justifying our existence through service to the community that supports us, adapting in any way necessary to continue performing that mission.  Any institution that wants to survive in a changing world has to adapt to show that it is still relevant. 

That said, it is depressing to see how narrowly value is determined in our society.  If something's contribution can't be reduced to dollars and cents--revenue generated, or workforce utility, etc.--then it's assumed that it doesn't deserve support.  And that anybody who wants to argue for continued support is doing so only out of a cynical motivation to preserve employment.  An awful lot of decision makers' and ordinary people's minds are so imprisoned by that sort of thinking, and so unable to understand any motivation that can't be boiled down to dollars and cents, that they just can't think outside that box. 

It shouldn't be that way.  But it's the reality that we have to deal with.  It means that those of us who advocate for things that don't have an obvious dollars-and-cents justification have to work that much harder to make the case to a skeptical world that these things are useful.

[downer]

One of the big problems with the "What is art?" question is that it then includes all art: good, bad and indifferent. Unless you want to restrict the term "art" to "good art", and make it a success-term like a "proof". (A bad proof isn't a proof at all.)

If you allow crappy art in the extension of what counts as art, then it is clear that not all art is moral.

You can narrow down what you mean by art and broaden what you mean by morality, and then it will be true that all art is moral. But then you will probably be using words in ways that change the subject.

To put the question in more technical terms: we have 2 categories of evaluation: aesthetics and morality. 2 different dimensions. It sounds like the claim being made is that aesthetics is really also a kind of moral valuation, so there is really only one dimension of valuation. It is to downgrade aesthetics from an independent category to a subsidary category.

I'd be curious how one could argue for the claim. Is it through analysis of the meaning of the term art or is it an inductive generalization from what we count as great art?

It seems one consequence of the view is this: since most art has very little effect on the world, most art has low moral value, and thus low value compared to even simple acts of helping other people.

[marshwiggle]

The critical thing in talking about "value" is that it's relative. In the current discussion, it's meaning less to discuss whether "art" has "value" within the academy. The academy has a finite budget (as does any institution), students have a finite number of courses for a degree, etc.

So the only meaningful way to frame a question is "What things are important enough to use some of the finite budget (that then cannot be used for anything else) and to be required to take up some of students' finite course allocation (that then cannot be used for anything else)?"

Under that framework, the onus is reversed; only things with sufficient value can be considered. And by definition, anything excluded is deemed to be of less importance. Can you justify everything excluded to be less important?

[mahagonny]

It seems one consequence of the view is this: since most art has very little effect on the world, most art has low moral value, and thus low value compared to even simple acts of helping other people.

If you could tell during his lifetime that Vincent Van Gogh's work would eventually have a strong effect on the world, could you even get people to believe you?

[mamselle]

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on Today at 00:17:53

At its bedrock, art is really just a conversation about ethics and experience.

I don't know which came first after hunting, prayer, song, or narrative----probably all three as one, which is what literature is.

Literature is one of the oldest pursuits of human beings.

Why should we need to justify its existence in the academy?

Oh, dear. Not another "from the dawn of time" proclamation...in fact, blowing paint on your hands and putting them on cave walls is starting to look like the first type of documentable art event...as usual, the visual and visceral are leveraged out while the voluble (verbal) folks try to take over.

Read, let's see....Tolstoy, Weiss, Gombrich, Wittgenstein, Aristotle, Plato, Hume, Baumgarten, Bell, Goethe, and a few hundred others and get back to me.

I'd have to pull my Aesthetics course notes to give you exact page numbers, but I can do that if anyone's really interested.

But please, do not "kick this idea around" with a bunch of platitudes, sly remarks, and specious generalities and expect to get a reasonable thread about it.

Just don't.

Please?

M.

[Parasaurolophus]

Thanks for the thread, Wahoo.

Again, I was simply using the term "moral" in its simplest and broadest sense not meant to eliminate or even reduce the mass complexities .  All art has a moral of some sort...yet here the hijacking begins.

To continue, then, I don't understand what you mean by 'ethics' or 'moral'. What is this simplest and broadest sense? I mean that entirely genuinely--I don't see what it could be aside from its usual sense--but the usual sense (i.e. principles having to do with what's right and wrong) just doesn't seem at all like a plausible candidate meaning. Especially when you go on to talk about it in terms of choices, especially choices "to accept abstraction" or "call it 'art'", and the like.

(By the by, I'd balk at characterizing those as 'choices', too, since so much of what happens in the artworld is entirely de-centralized and the result of collective, rather than individual, activity and the influence of convention.)

[Wahoo Redux]

I don't see the difference between bad and good art; art is subjective.  Two Broke Girls, as inane, poorly written, badly acted and unwatchable as that show was, is a multicultural show about empowering women (as stupid as that sounds, those are the themes of the show).  And I don't know that Two Broke Girls' message is any less powerful than The Handmaiden's Tale, just  very different deliveries.  These two feminist statements will appeal to different audiences.

All Capital-A-Art has this kind of weight.  One does not look at a splatter painting and think, "You know, I will respect women after this," but Pollock is saying, This is a painting; it is up to you to discover why, and that is a moral statement about the nature of Art.  Philip Glass and Becket do the same thing.

The spit-painted hands on cave walls make us think and feel (sorry mamselle).

These are morals. 

[Parasaurolophus]

I don't see the difference between bad and good art; art is subjective.

Do you mean that the evaluation of art (i.e. as good or bad) is subjective, or that what counts as art is subjective? (To show my cards, I don't agree with either claim, but if I'm going to bore you with a bunch of long posts or badger you with disagreements, it's best if they're on target!)

All Capital-A-Art has this kind of weight.  One does not look at a splatter painting and think, "You know, I will respect women after this," but Pollock is saying, This is a painting; it is up to you to discover why, and that is a moral statement about the nature of Art.  Philip Glass and Becket do the same thing.

The spit-painted hands on cave walls make us think and feel (sorry mamselle).

These are morals.

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand this use of 'moral'. Is it just in the sense of 'lesson', e.g. 'the moral of the story'? Or do you perhaps just mean something like the idea that all art uses its artistic vehicle to convey its artistic content?

[mahagonny]

I don't see the difference between bad and good art; art is subjective.

Plenty of people would say that but the artist wouldn't. It's only subjective in the sense that you can't prove it's art like you prove something in geometry. But to the artist the difference between art, not quite art, and a fraudulent representation of art is clear.

[Wahoo Redux]

I don't see the difference between bad and good art; art is subjective.

Do you mean that the evaluation of art (i.e. as good or bad) is subjective, or that what counts as art is subjective? (To show my cards, I don't agree with either claim, but if I'm going to bore you with a bunch of long posts or badger you with disagreements, it's best if they're on target!)

Please badger if you've got the time.  I'd like to know.  Suggest readings that are accessible to a non-philosopher----the summer is coming.

All Capital-A-Art has this kind of weight.  One does not look at a splatter painting and think, "You know, I will respect women after this," but Pollock is saying, This is a painting; it is up to you to discover why, and that is a moral statement about the nature of Art.  Philip Glass and Becket do the same thing.

The spit-painted hands on cave walls make us think and feel (sorry mamselle).

These are morals.

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand this use of 'moral'. Is it just in the sense of 'lesson', e.g. 'the moral of the story'? Or do you perhaps just mean something like the idea that all art uses its artistic vehicle to convey its artistic content?

I think there is a lesson.  'Rembrandt painted this way, but I am going to spatter house paint, and you will learn a new way of seeing, and you must make an evaluation of art, and that is the moral of the lesson.'

And again, I am simply suggesting that these reactions are some of the oldest experiences of humanity (sorry mamselle) which is why the humanities are primary to education. 

[mamselle]

Ok, look, sorry if I overspoke, but this stuff makes me grumpy, especially when I have three days to finish a presentation that is primarily A-Art-informed.

I should possibly have just posted my initial reaction, which was,

   "Hunh? Why are arts-related issues always put on the defensive?"

You wouldn't ask, "What's the purpose and function of Big-S-Science?" would you?

We just all instinctively (supposedly) know its value, and meaning, and all that stuff.

And we wouldn't dreeeam of challenging its right to exist, or do its thing, or eat the right kind of breakfast cereal.

Or think we could just, you know, "pronounce" on it off-handedly, without any serious prior reflection....hence my reading list.

But, like I say, I have this paper to prepare, so I think I'd better come back after it's done, like next Tuesday, and let it go until then.

Cheers.

M.

[downer]

Michael Clune argues that studying literature should generate moral expertise.
https://www.chronicle.com/article/are-humanities-professors-moral-experts

[Wahoo Redux]

   "Hunh? Why are arts-related issues always put on the defensive?"

You wouldn't ask, "What's the purpose and function of Big-S-Science?" would you?

We just all instinctively (supposedly) know its value, and meaning, and all that stuff.

And we wouldn't dreeeam of challenging its right to exist, or do its thing, or eat the right kind of breakfast cereal.

Or think we could just, you know, "pronounce" on it off-handedly, without any serious prior reflection....hence my reading list.

I was just kidding, mamselle, when I invoked the hand-painting.  I understand.  At the moment I forgot where I was and posted what I thought was a noncontroversial, actually uninteresting statement.  This being an academic fora, however, no simple statement will go unchallenged!

I believe what I posted (how can Capital-A-Art be anything but human experience, and how can it NOT make us think about [whatever]?) but the fact that it got any response whatsoever surprised me.  And I have spent much of my life dealing with A-Art and have reflected muchly, oftenly, totally upon it.

People do challenge Big-S-Science.  Anybody seen that press-conference in which the economist challenges the Hadron Collider physicist to justify the cost of the project?

But Big-S-Science can always point to jobs and industry. 

People are fine with A-Art as long as they don't feel their tax dollars are paying for it.  We are challenged in the academe.  (Read Marshy's comments.)

[marshwiggle]

People are fine with A-Art as long as they don't feel their tax dollars are paying for it.  We are challenged in the academe.  (Read Marshy's comments.)

If you're referring to my comment in this thread, it's that every discipline is challenged in the academy. Nothing gets a free pass for historical reasons.