Good vs. Bad

In class we touched on the subject of mastery, skill level, and good vs. bad art.

Some argued that if one masters a certain aspect of art, then they are "good" at it, whereas a child or someone with less skills creates "bad" art.

I don't think that art can ever be good or bad. Art is simply art. That is why I do not understand the reason many people go to school for art. It is one thing to gain more skill and to learn different techniques, but I don't think that learning these things makes you any better of an artist; it just means you know things you didn't use to. It's like taking classes on drawing where you are taught how to draw, but in their style not yours.

Does knowing different techniques make you a "better" artist, or just more skillful?

Responding to Kim

Kim posed this question the other day, and it intrigued me:

When determining what is art, would the views of the creator or the viewer be more important? 

I liked this question a lot, Kim, and I think one could go so many places with it. However, I am going to give my opinion as an answer.

First, I believe that it is certainly the intent of the creator that makes something art. It is not the audience's position to determine if one thing is art and another is not. The biggest example I can think of is why on earth do we put ancient pots and other such artifacts into art museums!? These were not created with the intent of being art, but simply with utilitarian usage; it doesn't matter if they were painted all pretty and such, they were not meant to be displayed as works of art. I understand why they would be put into history museums, but not art. 

It would be like putting one of the tables from the townhouse living rooms in a museum...why!? They are just there to be used, not displayed. Or even better, it would be like displaying a display case...what the heck is the point of that?

Anyways, sorry for the little rant. Basically, it goes back to the discussion we were having in class, just because something is beautiful, doesn't mean it's art.

After day one...

So the purpose of this blog is to think and write about thought provoking ideas that I have in class and to continue the discussion outside of the classroom.


So to start off with, we only discussed part of the introduction for class. The main question was how can we look at art philosophically? Anyways, it turned into more of a discussion about aesthetics and such. I was not terribly into this part of the discussion, more off in my own world thinking about art itself and how can things be art.

Art is obviously changing and so is the definition, if there even is one for art. What is art? No one really knows. I say it's a purposeful expression of...something? Maybe? Who knows. The discussion in class was not focusing on anything in particular, other than aesthetics for a while and trying to determine what that even means.

Something I really wanted to delve into though, and tried but was unsuccessful was the fact that to look at art philosophically is not to determine what art is; instead it is a matter of looking at how others see and define art. Philosophy is not about defining things, it is about determining how others look at things and how it affects their lives. Therefore to try and define art in our class seems very against the whole premise of philosophy and its ideals.

A final question I will leave you with is: why are we on such a mission to define art?