a few thoughts on painting, by Christina (www.christinart.da.ru)

What do we call art? Most of us have a fixed mental image of what a work of art looks like: some paintings are universally known and recognised. Nobody would hesitate to dub them art. But what about those works of painting that are widely thought-of as art, but never caused us a stir? What about those that we actively dislike, and dont understand why anyone would call them art?

And finally, why are some works that appeal to us -pictures that wed gladly decorate our room with- scorned by the critics and society?

The word for art in ancient greek techni (english derivatives of which are technique, technician, etc) used to plainly mean skill, and craft.. The later latin word ars, had the exact same meaning. Since Plato, however, art is also upgraded to Ideal; only Beauty can be considered Art. According to the platonic philosophy this means that art can only be the most perfect specimen of each object in nature.

Following this, the humanistic Western culture of the Renaissance adopts an ideology in which Ideals are very highly thought of. The universal human conscience is bombarded with concepts borrowed from ancient greek philosophy and politics; Justice, Equality, Liberty, and other nice and Capitalised notions. Our culture has settled on definitions for what Altruism, Democracy, Isonomy are, and we all more or less accept them as self-evident. Nobody wonders, in every-day life, if all these notions are Eternal and Unchanging, or just fabrications of a nae, subjective philosophical explanation of the world. Similarly, the Renaissance decided on equally narrow-minded criteria about what art is, essentially labeling High Art only the most ingenious, beautiful and celebrated paintings. The emergent problem is of course, that when High Art is defined, there also has to be Base art.

Naturally, since the 16th century our outlook on art has changed, so that it doesnt exclusively mean the Grand Masters, any more; Art doesnt nowadays only consist of works by the Superstars Da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Raphael or the more recent Vermeer, Gericault, RenoirSince Plato weve come a long way, and various definitions of art have been worked out by many a remarkable personality. Among them, these are the ones I consider crucial, in a few words; The Formalists insisted there are subjective visual criteria which differentiate between works of Art and lesser paintings. Leo Tolstoy used to believe that a painting may only be called Art if it causes an emotional reaction in the viewer, and that High Art must bring the viewer in touch with God. Finally, the more modern theories hold that the title art can only be awarded by the collective art world. All those theories aspire to being complete. Naturally, no single one of them succeeds. And to put it simply, each theoretician dubs the art she likes as the only worthwhile art, and scorns the rest. Such dogma is dangerous to the average person who struggles to organise things in her mind; it narrows down our aesthetic and visual criteria and detracts from our subjectivity.

So, regarding the sentiments that art should cause us, there is already a misunderstanding. Art isnt only pleasant and agreeable pictures. Of course light, happy scenes are as capable of being Masterpieces as anything. However art isnt always pop entertainment. Sometimes its very deep, dark, magnificent, hopeful or gloomy, and even hard to decipher. And although some art-lovers prefer not to trouble their heads to much, all of us are more or less capable of experiencing as art both the classical beauty of The Mona Lisa by Da Vinci and the revolting sight of Saturn eating his children, by Goya.

On the thematology of art now, it can be said that the artist it doesnt have to mimic nature, but now and again do something more. The themes that fascinate each century are often unexpected; take constructivism as an example. It is a movement in painting that insists on depicting machinery, gears, metal and in general an industrial aesthetic, which cant be argued to be universally agreeable, but still it cant be disproved as art because of this. Further examples are cubism, which defies the real visual form of objects, fauvism, which willingly ignores the ordinary color of objects, surrealism which challenges gravity, optics and logic itself.

That is to say, a good work of art isnt solely the faithful reproduction of our visual perception of the world. Linear perspective, this technique that gives the staggering illusion of realism and depth, was only invented in early 15th century. There are numerous masterpiece paintings that deny perspective, and many more that were created long before it came about. Attention to detail and realism arent indispensable in art.

Look at Starry Night by Van Gogh , for example; He doesnt bow to technique, or realism, and admittedly it may be off-putting and incomprehensible at first. But if it happens to strike your fancy, its priceless how honest, passionate and respectful this painting is with regards to its subject matter. It's true that people who see in works of art more than meets the eye can be annoying and stupid at times, especially when they extricate monumental meanings out of simple paintings, which we ourselves find childish, or indifferent, or untalented. However they are occasionally right about this: some works of art require a little bit of familiarisation first, and the average person really isnt ready to accept the specific emotions and meanings portrayed.

Weird as it may sound, the work of some modernists, for example Mondrian with his -boring or tasteless to some people- colourful squares directly stimulates very specific regions in our optical brain. The psychological processes that allow us to appreciate art havent been researched on a neurological level yet, but we know this much; when something stimulates our optical brain, its visually interesting. Of course, then our learned aesthetics intervenes saying no way am I going to regard this as art. Its just squares for crying out loud. Nonetheless, Mondrian himself was one step ahead of us all in terms of sensitivity and perception, so perhaps more of an artist than we are willing to acknowledge. However its not difficult for anyone, with the proper education and persistence, to attain such a perception of painting.

I can almost hear the indignant and disappointed murmur rising from my readers; Do you mean to say that we have to do work in order to experience something as art? In my opinion, not at all! We have no such obligation, since there surely exists some kind of painting that already attracts our interest, stirring inside us memories of colour, of form, of emotions. This feeling of a specific picture touching us is the result of mental reflexes that were and still are being accumulated during our lives. Art influences the viewers mental state; it saddens us, angers us, thrills us, disgusts us, or makes us think. It all depends on our experience with colour, form and social situations which we have associated with art. The reason why we like something is the object of psychology and so complicated that it doesnt practically matter. It is easier, and more honest, to accept what we like for whatever reason we may like it. Not all that appeals to us is art, but I think it would be worth it if each of us considered art everything that already, without conscious effort, is appealing.

However dont allow your pursuit for visual satisfaction to succumb to the frustration that the narrow-minded experts of the art world tend to cause. We have every right to like even the humblest creation, and this right is inalienable, because it stems from our own brain, which is the one chiefly interested in what we feed into it. Let art critics exercise the advisory role that society has allotted them and they should! But otherwise, art is a personal matter, and up to this day we are thankfully allowed to choose what we like, measuring only our personal needs and pursuits.

The essence of this all is, I deem, the following odd and perhaps heretic axiom; if a creation fulfills our aesthetic, spiritual and ideological criteria, or if it simply and inexplicably causes us a stir, then it doesnt matter if it belongs to a known art movement. In fact, it doesnt even have to be art for anyone else but ourselves. So, when they ask you what art means to you, you may boldly reply anything I want.

Recommended for further reading:
E.H. Gombrich The story of Art (introduction)
Richard Wollheim - Painting as an Art
Leo Tolstoy What is art
Gregg Simpson So painting is dead again at
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Articles/GreggSimpson/painting_is_dead.html

####

A special note from Renderosity:
We agree and acknowledge that art, and the beauty of art, is always "in the eye of the beholder". We encourage all artists to express their own unique vision and style.

While expressing yourselves, please remember that images posted on Renderosity must comply with our Terms of Service, specifically the following themes and images are not permissible on our site:

• No Rape [actual or implied]
• No Torture [defined as: the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, wounding, crucifixion) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure]
• No Sexual acts [no depictions of sexual intercourse - between humanoids/non-humanoids/animals - no masturbation]
• No Physical arousal [This includes but is not exclusive to: no images of an erect penis/ no images showing the inner portion of the vulva or vaginal area]
• No Explicit sexual content [No manipulation of breasts/nipples/ no sexual situations/ no implied sexual acts/ no extreme or explicit S&M bondage situations/ no lewd or obscene sexual references]
• No Genital contact with ANY object, other than sitting or clothing.
• No depictions of young humanoid characters/children giving the appearance of being under the age of 18 where genitals are displayed and/or in erotic, seductive, provocative poses or context. Since age is difficult to identify with 3D images, this will be at the discretion of the Renderosity team.
• No character attacks, which could be interpreted as defamation of character, slander, and libelous.
  
  For additional information on our TOS, please check here. **These images were used for educational and demonstration purposes only.** Thank you and render on!