"What is art?" Few such questions have caused heated debates and failed to get satisfactory answers. But even if we can't reach a final conclusion, it can still be partially explained. First of all, "art" is a word, which means that we recognize the concept of art and the existence of art itself. Without this word, we may have doubts about it, but in fact, this word does not exist in the language system of every society. Art is made everywhere, so art can also be an object, but not all objects are art, and art is an aesthetic object. This means that art is concerned and appreciated by people because of its intrinsic value, and it is this feature that makes art different. Many precious works of art break away from daily life and appear in museums, churches and even caves. So, what do we mean by "aesthetics"? It is defined as: related to beauty.
Of course, not all arts are pleasing to the eye, but they are still arts. No matter how unsatisfactory the word "aesthetic" is, we still have to use it, because there is no better word to replace it. Aesthetics, as a branch of philosophy, has been the object of discussion by thinkers from Plato to today, but like all problems related to philosophy, this topic caused by "beauty" may be difficult to explain clearly in essence. In the last century, aesthetics became the research field of psychology, but it failed to reach a unified understanding. Why is this happening? On the one hand, since human brain structure and nervous system are the same, all people must have many very similar basic feelings; On the other hand, our tastes and choices will be limited by our respective cultural backgrounds. The types of culture are so rich and colorful that it is impossible to give art a set of universal rules that can be applied to all cultural types. Moreover, these "scientific" laws will have an effect on people's visual perception only if artists are clear about these laws and consciously act according to them. Therefore, the law is meaningless to understand art, and the absolute value of art has troubled us in the past and now. We must put the artwork back into its time and background for research. Maybe we have another way. Since works of art are still being created around us, we should always pay attention to what is happening and force ourselves to adjust our visual orientation.
# Imagination
We all have dreams. This is imagination at work. Imagination can be simply described as forming an image in the mind-a picture. Man is not the only creature with imagination. Animals also have their own dreams. When a cat sleeps, its ears or tail will tremble and twitch; Sleeping dogs may growl and even wave their paws out of thin air, as if they were fighting. When awake, animals also "see" imaginary things. When a cat looks at the darkness in the closet, the hair on its back will stand up inexplicably. This situation, like what we haven't seen or heard, will only be due to hallucinations and delusions. However, in any case, there must be profound differences between human and animal imaginations. Humans are the only creatures that can express their imagination with words or pictures, and only humans have the desire to create art. In the wild, no animal can spontaneously draw recognizable images. Even under strictly controlled experimental conditions, the images drawn by animals only convey the information of the experimental process, and have nothing to do with art.
On the other hand, people undoubtedly have artistic talent. Before the age of five, any ordinary child will paint a flat face like a full moon. Artistic creativity is unique to human beings, which is like drawing an insurmountable gap to separate people from animals.
Just as the developing fetus always traces back to most of the course of human evolution, the budding artist should also establish the first stage of his artistic occurrence, and soon he can complete this process and begin to respond to the surrounding cultural environment. Even children's art is subordinate to the social interests and concepts that shape their personality. In fact, we always tend to judge children's creation by the standards of judging adult art-just using appropriate terms. This makes sense, because when we study every stage of an artist's growth, we will find that if a child wants to engage in art after adulthood, he must expand all his qualities: coordination, intelligence, personality, imagination, creativity and aesthetic ability. From this perspective, the achievement process of a young artist is as fragile as the growth of life itself, and will stagnate because of any changes in life. Therefore, it is not surprising that only very lucky people can continue to be creative in adulthood.
Artistic creation is related to so many factors, so it is bound to play an extremely important role in the artist's personality. Sigmund, the father of modern psychology? Freud believed that artistic conception is the sublimation of the subconscious mind. This view is somewhat inaccurate in its interpretation of artistic creation. Because art comes not only from the negative power dominated by neurological diseases, but also from the positive expression of personality in many aspects. In fact, when we watch the works of mental patients, although we will be moved by their enthusiastic vitality, we will still intuitively feel that something is wrong. Because this expression is incomplete.
Artists sometimes suffer from unbearable talent, but if they are bound by mental illness, they will never have real creativity. Imagination is a mystery of human beings. It is considered to be a combination of consciousness and subconsciousness, and many activities of our brain are done in the subconsciousness. Imagination is the intersection of personality, intellectual knowledge and spirit, because it is related to the three. It follows the path determined by the mind and spirit, although its direction is unpredictable. Therefore, even the most personalized works of art, even if it is only an intuitive product, can also get a bosom friend at a certain level.
Imagination is very important. It enables us to acquire all the possibilities of the future and to understand the past in a truly valuable way. Imagination is one of the foundations of creation. As far as the whole history of human evolution is concerned, artistic creativity must have been given to human beings at a relatively late stage. The earliest works of art of mankind are unknown. Our ancestors have lived on this planet for 3 million years, and the oldest known prehistoric art happened 25,000 years ago. There is no doubt that this is a hard-to-find culmination after long-term development. Even the most "primitive" works of art of tribal peoples are produced in a society with stable structure, which only represents a late stage in the process of artistic development.
What kind of people were the earliest artists? The biggest possibility is a wizard. For example, the legendary orpheus is considered to have sacred power and inspiration, and can enter the subconscious in a state of suspended animation; Unlike ordinary people, they can return to reality. Because they have the ability to understand the unknown world and the talent for artistic expression, they gain the power to control the forces hidden behind human beings and nature. Even today's artists have magical power to confuse or impress people with their works and put members of civilized society in an embarrassing situation because they don't want to lose the appearance of rational control.
Why do humans create art? One of the reasons is undoubtedly the irresistible desire to decorate oneself and beautify the surrounding environment. This stems from a deeper desire: not only to describe the world in his works, but also to reconstruct himself and the environment in an ideal form. Therefore, art is far more than decoration, it is full of meaning, although its meaning is sometimes so subtle and difficult to understand. Art enables us to convey things that cannot be expressed in other ways. Whether describing function or symbolic meaning, a painting can replace a thousand words. Just like in language, man is the creator of symbolic meaning in art first, and conveys complex and subtle thoughts in a brand-new way. We can't treat art as an essay of daily life. Art is poetry. In order to convey new, usually richer meanings and emotions, poetry can freely reorganize traditional vocabulary and sentence structures. A painting usually means more than what it depicts. Like poetry, the value of art lies in what to express and how to express it. However, whether it is implied by suggestion, posture, expression and vividness; Or through visual factors such as lines, forms, colors and composition to arouse people's feelings, it can't fully convey its connotation.
What is the meaning of art? What does the artwork want to tell us? Artists often can't explain clearly because the work is the content itself. If these contents can be expressed in words, then artists will become writers. Fortunately, some visual symbols and their symbolic meanings are repeated regularly in different times and regions, so these can be regarded as universal things. Only in a specific cultural background can these symbols have their exact meanings, thus causing infinite changes in art.
Therefore, art is like language. If we want to understand it correctly, we must understand the country, the times and the artists' styles and thoughts. We are very familiar with the naturalistic tradition of exact reproduction, so we think that art is to imitate reality. And this artistic technique of creating illusion is just a way to express an artist's understanding of reality. Truth is always relative. Because it is not only what the eyes see, but also what the heart feels.
Therefore, there is no reason to attach great importance to realism because of realism, and the style should be commensurate with the content. The greatest advantage of realistic works is that they look easy to understand. Its shortcomings, like essays, are always inseparable from some degree of statements and superficial phenomena in daily life. In fact, realism should be regarded as an exception in the history of art, even for the purpose of art itself. Since the artist only relies on his own creativity, we should understand that any image he creates is an independent and self-sufficient reality, has his own ending and follows his own laws. Even the truest representation of reality is the product of the artist's imagination and understanding. So we should keep asking him why he chose this theme and why he chose such an artistic expression.
# Creativity
What does "making" mean? In order to simplify the problem, we only discuss visual art, then we may say that works of art must be tangible objects made by human hands. This definition can at least distinguish works of art from natural phenomena such as flowers, shells and sunset. This definition is obviously incomplete, because besides works of art, human hands have produced many other things. However, this definition can also be used as a start. Now let's take a look at Picasso's amazing work: ‖ Bull's Head ‖ (Figure 1), which consists of only an old bicycle seat and an old handlebar. What is the significance of our definition here? Obviously, the materials used by Picasso are all man-made. However, it would be ridiculous if Picasso and bicycle manufacturer * * * enjoyed the right of signature. Because the car seat and handlebar are not works of art in themselves.
While people are shocked to recognize the components of this work of art, they also feel that only a genius can combine them in such a unique way. It is hard to deny that this work is a work of art. Although this work (car seat and handlebar) is extremely simple, it is not a simple jump thinking of Picasso. He found the image of a bull's head from an irrelevant object. It must be admitted that only he can do this. Artistic creation must not be confused with craft or craft. Some artistic creations require a lot of skills, while others require the opposite. However, even the most painstaking handicraft can't be called a work of art unless it condenses an active imagination.
If so, does it mean that the real process of the creation of Niutou was completed in Picasso's mind? That was not the case. Imagine if Picasso didn't show us the seat and handlebar together, but just said, "I saw a bicycle seat and handlebar today." Together, it's like a cow's head! " "Then there would be no works of art, and the conversation itself would be boring and not wonderful at all. Picasso himself will not be satisfied with creating works of art entirely by personal imagination. Once he has an idea, only by putting it into practice can he finally determine its effect.
Therefore, no matter how simple a work is, the artist's hands are the most basic part in the creative process. This is a good example. In this process, we must rack our brains to come up with ways to achieve it. The key is that imagination should find the connection between seemingly unrelated things and find the way of expression.
Usually, artists don't use ready-made objects, they use materials that have no or almost no form of their own. The process of creation includes a series of imaginative activities and efforts to shape materials. The artist's hand tries to draw a pen with expectation according to his imagination, but the result may not be satisfactory. On the one hand, the material itself is not suitable for use; On the other hand, the image in the artist's mind is always changing, so the imagination itself is not very clear. In fact, only when an artist draws a line does his image begin to be determined. This line becomes a part of the image-the only definite part. What has not yet appeared is still changing. Every time an artist adds a line, he needs a new imagination to match the mature image in his mind. If this line is not compatible, he will give up and draw a new one.
In this way, in the constant creative impulse, between his own imagination and the material that has been partially formed in front of him, the artist gradually and clearly determined the image in his brain until he finally gave it a visual image. It is true that artistic creation is a subtle inner experience, and it is impossible to accurately describe every step of it. Only the artist himself can fully understand it. But he is so immersed in it that it is extremely difficult to attract others.
However, using the metaphor of birth and upbringing to describe the creative process is closer to the real situation of creation than using "the transformation or projection of image in the artist's mind", because artistic creation is both joyful and painful, full of surprises, and it is by no means mechanical. Even, we have sufficient evidence to say that artists themselves prefer to regard their creations as living things. Perhaps this is why creation used to be the exclusive right of God. Because only he can give material form according to his own ideas. In fact, the artist's works have the same meaning as God's creation in the Bible. But this sacred ability was ignored for a long time, until Michelangelo described his creation as "liberating the image from the imprisonment of marble", and he expressed Dolor y gloria more vividly than anyone else in his creative experience. It can be understood that his sculpture process began with the discovery of characters in the original stone of the quarry. Sometimes he observes the stone even before it is mined. As we all know, he likes to go to the quarry and use local materials. )
Michelangelo can't see the hidden image in the stone any more than people can see the baby still in the womb. But we believe that he can see some dialysis "signs of life" on the marble-knees or elbows on the stone surface. In order to firmly grasp these vague and flowing images, Michelangelo always drew many sketches, sometimes made small models with wax or clay, and then really attacked the "marble cage". Because he knows that this is his final contest with matter. Once he started carving, every time he cut a knife, his responsibility for the imprisoned image would increase by one point. Only when he correctly predicted the posture of the image will the marbles be completely released.
Sometimes his expectations are not perfect-Marble even refuses to show the most basic parts of its prisoners. Michelangelo failed, leaving only unfinished works, just like his Saint Matthew (Figure 2). Every part of it shows the futile struggle for liberation. Look at the profile of the statue of ‖ St. Matthew ‖ (Figure 3), and you may know Michelangelo's hardships. However, can't he finish it in another position? Obviously, there is enough material for him to do so. Yes, he can, but maybe because he can't finish the sculpture in the expected way, it will make him feel double pain.
Obviously, the creation of artistic works has little in common with what we generally call "manufacturing". This is a strange and dangerous job. An artist never knows what he is creating until he really finishes his work. Or in other words, artistic creation is a game of hide and seek, and the seeker doesn't know what he will find until he finds the goal. What impressed us most in Niutou was the bold "discovery", while in St. Matthew it was the arduous exploration. )
For non-artists, it is hard to believe that uncertainty and contingency are the essence of artists' works, because we often associate creation with artists or craftsmen. From the beginning, they knew what they were going to do, chose the most suitable tools, and had a good idea of the effectiveness of each step they made. This "production" can be divided into two steps: one is the craftsman's production plan; Then, he followed the plan. Since he or his client has made the most important decision in advance, he only needs to worry about the means, not the result, when implementing the plan. This kind of work is not adventurous, but it may be adventurous. His work will eventually be stereotyped and replaced by machinery.
However, no machine can replace the artist. Ideas and techniques come together, and they are closely interdependent, so artists can't completely separate them. The craftsman only asks him to know what is possible, while the artist is always driven to pursue the impossible-at least impossible or unimaginable. After all, before Picasso discovered it, who ever imagined that the cow's head would be hidden in the seat and handlebar of a bicycle? Without Picasso's original ideas, who can "turn decay into magic"? No wonder artists' working methods always conflict with any old rules and regulations, while craftsmen's work is based on the requirements of standardization and rules. When we talk about artists, we always call them "creative" works, not just "productive" works, which means we admit their differences. Although "creation" has been abused too quickly and has lost its original intention, almost every child or lipstick manufacturer has been branded with "creation".
Needless to say, there are far more craftsmen than artists in the crowd. Because our demand for familiar and realizable things has overwhelmed our ability to discover creativity from works of art, this discovery is often disturbing. Everyone may have the desire to know the unknown and discover new things from time to time. In this sense, we can all imagine ourselves as potential artists-Milton who is silent and unknown. What distinguishes ordinary people from artists is not the desire to explore, but the mysterious discovery ability called "talent", which we also call "talent", that is, it is a gift from heaven, or it is called "genius". The word originally meant that the artist's body was occupied by a higher power-a kind monster (energetic and skilled elf) and acted according to his own wishes.
What can really be said about talent is that it must not be confused with ability. Ability is what craftsmen need, which only means showing above-average know-how when doing something that any ordinary person can do. Stable and professional. It can be measured by the test results, which enables us to foresee someone's future achievements. On the other hand, creative talents seem completely unpredictable; We can only spy on past performance. Even the past performance is not enough to prove that an artist will create at the same level in the future. Some artists reached the peak of creation in the early years of their artistic career, and then their thoughts dried up; Others who start late and seem to have no future may make amazing creative works in middle age or even later.
# Creativity
To sum up, originality is the touchstone to distinguish art from skill. Therefore, we can say that it is a measure of the value and significance of art. Unfortunately, it is not easy to define it accurately. General synonyms-unique, novel and fresh-are not accurate enough, and dictionaries only tell us that creative works must not be copied. In this way, when we try to evaluate a work from the perspective of originality, the problem is not to judge whether the work is original (it is easy to rule out obvious plagiarism or imitation), but to determine how original it is. It is not impossible to do so, but we are troubled by so many difficulties and can only make hypothetical and incomplete judgments. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't work hard. On the contrary, in any case, no matter what the result of our efforts is, we can always benefit a lot from the process of judging.
Direct imitation can only be identified by its internal characteristics. If the imitator is a responsible craftsman rather than an artist, then what he will make is handicrafts. Our evaluation of his efforts can only be mediocrity, lack of imagination and failure to understand the spiritual connotation of the original work. Moreover, this imitation will have some minor omissions and mistakes, which are very common in printing. But what if a great artist imitates the work of another equally great artist? Take another work as his "model". Of course, artists are not entirely based on it as the original meaning of the word "model". Because he didn't want to get the effect of reproduction, he copied another work of art purely out of his own will, and at the same time left his own unique charm in the work, which no one could imitate. In other words, at least he won't feel bound or skilled because his "model" is another work of art. Once we understand this, we will know that the artist is re-expressing (he didn't copy) another work of art, which does not disgrace his artistic originality.
This close relationship between two works of art is not as rare as people think, but it is not obvious under normal circumstances. Edward? Manet's work Lunch on the Grass (Figure 4) was so revolutionary when it was first exhibited a century ago that it caused all kinds of gossip, partly because the artist put a naked lady between two fashionable young people. If it were in real life, such a party would undoubtedly be banned by the police. The audience thinks MANET is showing real scenes in life. It was not until many years later that an art historian found the source of MANET's image: a set of ancient gods' copper prints based on Raphael's works (Figure 5). Once this connection was pointed out, we couldn't help being surprised. Such an obvious fact has been ignored! This is because Manet didn't "copy" or "copy" Raphael's composition, he just "borrowed" the basic outline of the characters and then gave them modern vocabulary.
If MANET's contemporaries knew this, then Lunch on the Grass would not be so notorious. Because even now, the admiration for Raphael is still lingering. Perhaps Manet just wants to mock the conservative public, hoping that after the initial shock, someone can recognize Raphael hidden in his "shameful" figure. For the audience, this contrast makes us more clearly understand the calm and formal characteristics of MANET's works. But will we belittle his originality because of this? He did "borrow" Raphael's works, but his originality and creativity in bringing the forgotten ancient works back to real life were enough for him to repay what he borrowed. In fact, Raphael's works, like Manet's, are all "derivatives", which come from ancient Rome or older art (see the relief ‖ River God ‖ Figure 6).
In this way, if Manet's works, Raphael's works and Rome's works say that "there are no islands in the world", then this sentence also applies to works of art, all the relationship chains are intertwined into a big net, and each work of art has its own specific position on it. This is a tradition. Without tradition (this word means "things passed on to us"), there will be no originality. It provides a solid soil for artists to develop their imagination, and the place where artists' imagination landed becomes an integral part of the network, which provides a starting point for the next artist to leap forward.
This traditional network is equally important to the audience. Whether we realize this or not, we all form our views on works of art under the influence of tradition and evaluate their originality. However, we must also remember that this valuation should always be open and constantly revised. Because if we want to form a conclusive point of view, we must look at all the links in each relationship chain. At this point, we can only look at the ocean and sigh.
If originality is the touchstone to distinguish art from technology, then tradition provides a foundation for the combination of the two. Every fledgling artist begins with technical learning by imitating other works of art. In this way, he gradually absorbs the artistic traditions of his time and region, and these traditions will eventually be deeply rooted in them. However, only truly talented people can get rid of the shackles of tradition and become self-creators. Creation can't be taught, only creative gestures can be taught. Only with genius can he finally reach the truth. Like craftsmen and apprentices, art students initially learn skills and techniques-traditional sketches, paintings and sculptures, as well as design methods and methods of observing things.
If he feels that he has no talent in painting, sculpture or architecture, he is likely to turn to one of the many fields of "practical art", so that he will achieve fruitful results in a relatively limited scope and become an illustrator, printer or interior decorator; He can design textile patterns, porcelain, furniture, fashion or advertisements, all of which are between "pure" art and "pure" technology. These fields provide a certain creative space for those who have the desire for artistic creation but lack talent. This kind of creation is limited by realistic factors such as cost, material source, production technology, practicality, applicability and objective needs. Practical art is closely related to our daily life, so it must cater to the tastes of the public better than painting and sculpture.
As the name implies, the purpose of practical art is to beautify practical things. This is of course very important and glorious, but after all, it is not as noble as pure art. However, we often find it difficult to distinguish the two. Medieval paintings, for example, are largely practical. They have very practical uses: decorating the surfaces of walls, pages, windows and furniture. The same is true of many sculptures in ancient and medieval times. As we can see, the ancient Greek pottery bottles are completely the product of technology, but the most talented artists often finish the decorative paintings on the pottery bottles. Moreover, it is impossible to distinguish between art and practical art in architecture, because the design of both country villas and cathedrals must take into account the constraints such as geographical location, cost, materials, technology and practicality of architectural structures ("pure" architectural art is just a castle in the air). Therefore, architecture is defined as practical art, but it is also a big art (relative to other small arts).
# Have fun
Judging what art is and evaluating the value of a work of art are two different issues. If we have an absolutely reliable method to distinguish between art and non-art, it may not help us to determine the quality of art works. For a long time, people are used to confusing these two issues. They usually ask, "Why is this a work of art?" They are actually saying, "Why is this a good art?" In today's museums or art exhibitions, weird and disturbing works of art can be seen everywhere. In the face of these works, people have asked the above questions countless times, and even we ourselves can't help but have the same questions. This question is somewhat offensive, because it means that we don't think what we see is a work of art, but experts (art critics, museum curators, art historians) must think so, otherwise why should we show it to the public? Obviously, their standards are very different from those of the audience, but the audience is at a loss about these standards, so I hope experts can provide some concise rules to follow. Perhaps in this way, we can gradually like what we see and understand "why this is art" But the experts didn't give us any clues. So art lovers can only retreat to the last line of defense: yes, I know nothing about art, but at least I know what I like.
This problem has not been solved for a long time, which has become the most insurmountable obstacle for experts and art lovers to understand each other. Until recently, there was no need to communicate between the two; Ordinary people have no right to speak in the field of art, and their likes and dislikes are not enough to threaten the judgment of a few experts. Now, both sides are aware of the existence of obstacles (the obstacles themselves are not new, but they are more prominent than before) and the necessity of eliminating them. This book and similar books are written for this purpose. Now let's analyze this obstacle and its many reasons.
First of all, after the above discussion, deeply confused art lovers may be willing to regard art as a complex, subtle and even mysterious human activity. Even experts can't expect to fully understand them. But this idea is likely to be used by art lovers as a reason for their stubbornness: "I know nothing about art". Are there really people who don't understand art at all? If we exclude young children and people with severe mental illness or mental retardation, then the answer must be no, because we always know a little unconsciously. Just like no matter how uninterested we are in today's politics or economy, we still know something. Art is an indispensable part of our life, which exists at any time and anywhere, although our contact with art may be limited to magazine covers, advertising posters, war monuments, television and buildings where we live, work and worship.
These arts are great.