Talent vs Technology

[ReNae Stueve]

OK guys, it's been quiet in here. As you know I'm home caring for mother most of the time, so I thought I'd throw out a provocative question.

Is the mastery of technological tools to create an image actually art?

Let me explain why this question pops up for me. I recently attended an arts and crafts fair in Winter Park, Fl. I do every year. The fall show is for locals only and there were some good painters there. One in particular who did plen-air, a Mr. Palmeiero, was excellent.

Then there were a few others, whose work was also in the oil painting class but seemed odd to us. My daughter and I spent a great great deal of time looking at these pieces. They were flat as pancakes without a single visible brush stroke. If you got really close, you could see that these appear to be photos printed onto canvas and then washed over with color. Some had a real "draftsman-like" look that didn't really move me.

On other art focused web sites, I've seen a lot of work that is done completely with a graphic computer programs.

Is this art? It IS creative, to some extent. You have to imagine it before you use the computer tools to create it.

My Webster's II as follows:

ART = Conscious arrangement or production of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a way that affects the aesthetic sense.

Why do I, as an artist who limits herself to the non Frankin-art tools (sticks and hog hair) feel so superior to those who create Mac-Art with intelligent machines?

Feel free to blast my closed minded art snob attitude. I could use a little change now and again.

[Michele Rushworth]

In a former life I taught computer graphics and computer illustration to artists who were used to paint and paper. I always told them that they should think of the computer as just another new medium that they could use to create their work.

I personally like the look of art created with paints and a brush better than the look of computer art, but by any definiton, it's still "Art", at least in my opinion.

[Marvin Mattelson]

The designation of artist is so overused it ceases to have any meaning today. We have performance artists, make up artists, conceptual artists, digital artists. Carpenters, haircutters, landscapers, chefs and house painters are all considered artists in our society.

I couldn't care less what is or isn't considered art or who is or isn't deemed an artist. To me an artist is someone who defines themselves as the creator of ART. Artists think the work they create is significant and meaningful. However, since we live in a universe that is billions of years old and stretches infinitely how significant can any of our achievements be? To believe so is, IMHO, delusional at best.

A painter is someone who is involved in the act of creating paintings. Paintings are made by applying paint to a ground and therefore are not part of the digital realm. Digital artists are not painters. Whatever else they choose to call themselves has absolutely no significance, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm just happy to be a painter.

[ReNae Stueve]

So art is like food. I can cook, but Wolfgang Puck I'm not. But it's food just the same.

I think computer art is a misnomer. Graphics should be called graphics. Chefs should be called chefs. Calling something an "art" used be a compliment, an exaggeration offered to mean that something had exceeded the boundaries of its normal craft.

Language gradually gets worn away by overuse, and this is a pity with art. Anybody can call themselves an artist, I hear, and so the meaning of "art" is so diffuse as to have no meaning at all. The criteria for what's good or what isn't should be clear, should be intuitive, but actually we have to wonder if we're missing "the next Van Gogh" by disregarding any blatant display of rubbish.

We don't wonder if a doctor is good or not - a doctor is credentialled and required to adhere to certain conventions of his/her craft.

As far as significance, I'm not trying to be significant to every satellite and earthquake stretching forward or back a million years. There's only 50,000 years of humans (generally an agreed-upon anthropological standard for homo sapiens sapiens), or even less if you're religious. I think you can attempt to be significant for them.

Besides, my business cards say "painter." I'd be flattered to be called an artist.

[Lynn T. McCallum]

ART n. Employment of intelligent and skillful means to the accomplishment of some end; a system of rules directive of such employment. 2. Practice of a system directed to the production of a work of art, esp. fine art; the result of such practice. 3. A branch of learning, as one taught in higher educational institutions. 4. Practical skill; cunning; studied behavior. Syn. Aptitude, dexterity, ingenuity, skill. There is no syn. for art in the sense of fine art.

This is from my grandmother's dictionary published in 1939, Webster's New American Dictionary. I tend to turn towards the older editions of books and dictionaries because so many meanings have been lost through the years.

The older ways are most times better, especially in the study of the Visual Arts.

[Tom Edgerton]

I'm with Marvin.

ReNae, the operative word in what you posted is "mastery". I had a European colleague when I (briefly) taught in the local community college who remarked that Americans are always confusing tools with skills. They're not the same thing. My students automatically thought that any crap they produced on a computer was good because it was created on a machine, vs. being done by hand. I made it my mission to inform them otherwise.

We've lately seen the hybrid product called "virtual painting." It's digital photography modified by various filters and paint programs like Photoshop, and output in large format on canvas, much like a giclee. It's mostly being touted around here by professional portrait photographers, and while it's not my cup of tea, I can't fault someone for identifying and filling a niche--as long as they don't advertise it as original painting. Some of it isn't totally odious when done by pros, but when done by amateurs, it's...well...amateurish. Again, tools aren't skills.

I don't want to "virtually" paint, I want to paint--as well as I can humanly learn to do so. But change is what is, and tools will change with time. I just pray each day that there will continue to be a market for original "real" painting, but worrying about it is a waste of spirit and takes valuable time away from trying to get better.

I'm not a natural optimist, so coming to this philosophy hasn't been easy. But fear never got us anything worth having, right?

Best--TE