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NOTE: Most essays on this site represent original theoretical work. If you find these articles interesting, inspiring or helpful, please let me know. If you refer to them, please give me and this website credit. In addition, links back to this page in blogs or from other sites are always appreciated!
NOTE: Most essays on this site represent original theoretical work. If you find these articles interesting, inspiring or helpful, please let me know. If you refer to them, please give me and this website credit. In addition, links back to this page in blogs or from other sites are always appreciated!
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Hero For Christ
Everything About Art Explained
by Christopher Sunami, Columbus Philosopher
rev. 11/9/07
Contents
The Utility of Art
What, if any, practical purpose or function is served by art? Some have argued that art is precisely those objects which serve no practical purpose or function at all. This is incorrect. However, the utility of a piece of art as a piece of art is different (and generally independent) from the utility of (for example) a pot as a pot; although one object can possess both material and artistic types of utility simultaneously.The philosopher Immanuel Kant described art as possessing “purposiveness without a purpose,” meaning that art presents as meaningful, yet without having a well-defined function. I would amend this definition by calling art an “underdetermined heuristic”, meaning a generalized solution to a vaguely defined problem.
At the most abstract level, the problem that all art seeks to solve is the coexistence of two or more unlike things. This is also the basic problem facing all worldly entities. To exist is to have an identity. To have an identity is to be distinguishable from what is around you, and to be distinguishable from what is around you is to contrast with your surroundings, and inevitably, to enter into conflict with them. Yet nothing can long thrive or even survive in opposition to its environment and to the entities that compose its environment.
Each artwork, at a minimum, brings two elements into relationship with each other: the medium, whether that be word, sound, movement, or physical matter, and the additional level of meaning or significance imposed by the artist, whatever that may be. When these two (as well as a potentially unlimited number of additional elements) come together successfully, it serves as a model for the general problem of living successfully as an individual within a frequently hostile and indifferent world.
In addition, as complex creatures, we often exist in states of high Tension, in which the different elements of our existence come into conflict with one another. Over the course of time, such a state can be very inefficient and destructive. A successful artwork provides a model for resolving our internal and external conflicts. By observing the way the tension in the artwork is resolved, we discover how to find similar consonances in our own lives. This explains why better art is produced during times of social unrest, or personal trauma, or by persons with dysfunctional personas. The more damaging the Tension experienced by a person, the more they experience the necessity for good art.
The Quality of Art
The goodness of an artwork, its artistic quality as a determinable quantity, is a function of three separate but related factors, which together measure its ability to serve the purpose of art, as described above. These factors are “Tension,” “Consonance,” and what I used to describe as “Purity”, but is perhaps better called “Verity”.Tension is a measure of the metaphysical distance between the elements composing the artwork. The more unlike or oppositional those elements, the more Tension is possessed by the artwork. An artwork with a high degree of Tension is potentially more valuable than one with a low degree of Tension, because the problem it (putatively) solves is a more difficult one. An artwork with a high degree of Tension is generally described in ordinary language as “creative,” and we describe an artist’s command over the Tension in the artwork as their “creativity.”
The Tension of an artwork is formed by the diversity of the elements that create it. The more distinctly different the elements composing the artwork, the higher the Tension. For example, a representational painting, such as this one of a fish, has a certain base-level Tension simply because the materials that compose it (the paint on the canvas) are distinctly different from the subject (a fish). If the fish in the painting were playing a piano, the Tension would grow accordingly, because of the presence of an additional conceptual element, with no obvious correspondence to the material or the primary subject.
One approach to maximizing Tension is increasing the diversity of elements included in the artwork. However, the actual number of elements is secondary to how well the artist captures the full essence of each element. This is particularly important for elements that are present conceptually rather than physically. An example of an artwork given more Tension by including more elements, is Outkast's “Hey Ya”, which includes an overall perspective based in hip-hop, a British-Invasion-era pop sensibility, absurdist pop-culture references (“Polaroid picture”), and a section where a hip-hop style call-and-response abruptly gives way to a church-by-the-way-of-funk-music mini-sermon.
An artwork with extremely high degrees of Tension is generally described as “difficult”, “challenging”, “disturbing”, “unsettling,” or “distressing,” whereas one with unusually low degrees of Tension will be described as “tepid”, “unoriginal”, “boring”, “inconsequential”, or “forgettable”. Artworks with high degrees of Tension are experienced as more exciting, and they inspire more passionate reactions, both positive and negative, from their audiences. Without Tension, there is no challenge to be overcome within the artwork, and so it becomes useless as a problem-solving model.
Any artwork with high Tension, but little else can be described as hypertense (a good example is the kind of Japanese Anime with monsters and the flashing lights). This is an unstable, inefficient state, as the lack of Consonance leads to a great deal of internal conflict. Artworks with this quality are percieved as ugly, garish and disturbing. They tend to have a numbing or a desensitizing effect on the audience.
Consonance is a measure of how well the elements in an artwork match up with each other. The more those elements work together or harmonize, the more Consonant the artwork. An artwork with a high degree of Consonance is potentially more valuable than one with a low degree of Consonance because it presents as a more complete or effective solution to the problem it solves. An artwork with a high degree of Consonance is described in ordinary language as “pretty” or “attractive.” The Consonance of an artwork is chiefly a function of the artist’s technical expertise and training, and so we often describe it as “craft” or “craftsmanship”. Typically, craft includes a mastery of styles and conventions, a developed sense of perception, an education in the great works of the field, and an attention to the technical details. For example,although Pablo Picasso is best known for his seemingly free-form cubist pictures, his more realist work reveals him as a master of the technicalities of his craft.
Consonances are relationships or alignments between the elements of an object. The stronger those relationships, the higher the object’s overall Consonance. In general Consonance affects the audiences immediate reaction to an artwork. Artworks with high degrees of Consonance are generally described with terms such as “harmonious”, whereas those with low degrees of Consonance are described as “ugly,” “artless” or “amateurish”. Artworks with high degrees of Consonance are experienced as more positive and inviting, and they inspire more uniform reactions from their audiences. The Consonance of the artwork serves as an advertisement for its success as model for solving problems.
In the above example, if the fish is painted in an ultrarealistic fashion it will create one kind of Consonance --a visual consonance between the painting and its subject. However, the establishment of one consonance can mean the destruction of another. A realistic painting of the fish has no clear consonance between the materials used and the final product, whereas a less realistic version of the same painting (utilizing visible brushstrokes or blobs of paint) might be more consonant with the materials, although at the price of being less visually consonant.
An artwork with a lot of Consonance, but little Tension or other artistic qualities might be described as hyperconsonant. Such artworks are produced by artists with a high degree of craft, but little artistry or creativity. Artworks with this quality are perceived as mechanical, overproduced or uninteresting. The effect they produce on the audience is a period of initial appeal, followed by distaste. A good example is the boy-band hits of the early 2000's, or the work of Thomas Kinkade.
Verity is the most elusive quality of art, and in some ways the most important. It measures the depth of the observation and the respectfulness of the replication of the elements that compose a given work of art. An artwork with a high degree of Verity is potentially more valuable than one with a low degree of Verity because it solves its problems in a way that is more truthful. This is important because a truthful solution is an efficient solution, whereas an untruthful solution is no real solution at all. The Verity of the artwork is what provides the real benefits, because it is the truthfulness of the artwork considered as a whole that defines the model we follow in creating our own consonances.
An artwork with a high degree of Verity is generally described in ordinary language as "beautiful", "powerful" or "seminal", while an artist's ability to work with high degrees of Verity is often described as his or her "artistry." This is the hardest quality to measure, as well as the most foundational and the most difficult to develop. It generally increases with age and life experience, and can be heightened by periods of personal trauma. For example, when the late Johnny Cash covered the NIN song “Hurt,” his simply arranged rendition revealed a previously unglimpsed depth of emotion in the lyrics. Another example is found in Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Less Traveled”, where the words have the sound of true conversational speech, despite also possessing strict meter and rhyme.
Artworks without Verity are described as “fake” or “false”, and those who produce them are described as “hacks”. Artworks with a high degree of Verity are experienced as more important, and the reactions they provoke are more life-altering and consequential. A subject with only Verity, and little Tension or Consonance might be called hyperpure, and will be percieved, if at all, by the audience as elusive, confusing, abstract or abstruse. A good example of this is Plato’s concept of Virtue.
The Popularity of Art
The old saw, “there’s no accounting for tastes” is untrue, but necessitates explanation. If art serves a purpose, and can be determinably better or worse at serving that purpose, then why is there such variation in what people like, and such disagreement over the relative quality of works of art?The first answer to this question is that the popularity of art is a function not only of the quality of art, but also of its relevance. If all art posits solutions to generalized problems, then the art that we gravitate towards most often is the art that examines questions of personal relevance, which we can view as a measure of how closely the tensions in an artwork match the tensions the audience member is experiencing in everyday life.
As simple as this seems, several factors make it more complex. First of all, relevance can be simple and direct, as in a Love song (which is directly relevant to someone in love), but it can also be harder to discern, as in the relationship between Pachelbel’s Canon and the problems of personal identity, or more abstract, as in the almost purely mathematical problems solved by much of the work of Bach. Relevance can also be highly individual, which explains why two people raised in the same household might have divergent tastes (because, for example, accidents of sibling dynamics have made different issues important in their lives), but it can also be group-referenced, which explains why a whole group of people often fall in love with the same work of art at the same time. Such artworks respond to the particular problems of a given time and a place. Such artworks will have widespread popularity during their location and era because they address the tensions felt by everyone during that time.
This brings up the fact that relevance changes over time. Some songs have a perennial popularity among adolescents, while others are accessible only to mature adults. Similarly, the technology boom of the eighties and nineties, and the consequent widespread sensation of Tension felt by human beings in relationship to that technology led directly to the popularity of Techno music, an artform that united the electronic bleeps and mechanical rhythms of technology with the distinctly human phenomena of dance music. Although it seemed current and relevant during that slice of time, much of that era's music sounds dated now that our society’s relationship with technology has evolved.
A final complication in the issue of relevance is that it relates not only to the nature of the problem being considered, but also to the (perceived) validity of the solution. An artwork that solves its problem in a manner that is unacceptable (or that appears forced or unworkable) is likely to present as particularly distasteful to someone for whom the problem is personally relevant.
This quality of relevance also goes a long way towards explaining why we find it so important that others like and appreciate the same art as we do. The mutual admiration of a work of art signals that similar problems are relevant in the life of the other person, and furthermore, that he or she is open to solving those problems in the same sorts of ways. This advertisement, however, can be misleading, since the greater the acclaim of a work of art, the more likely it is to be interpreted in disparate (but valid) ways by different audience members. In other words, the fact that you and I both like the Mona Lisa or the song Yesterday may tell you little or nothing about either of us. This is why many devotees of indie art claim that the true mark of sympathetic souls is the mutual admiration of works of extreme obscurity and difficulty.
It is important here to note that all art exists only in the mid-ground of relevance. An artwork that is irrelevant to everyone will present as incomprehensible, or as devoid of artistic qualities, while an artwork with complete and stable relevance will not have the universality of real art.
Although questions of relevance explain a great deal of the vagaries of taste, there is another factor which is no less important: that being the fact that art is intrinsically a perceptual experience. Thus when we speak of an artwork, we really mean the experience generated by the related art object, although we have a tendency to conflate that with the object itself. To attribute artistic qualities to an object, however, is merely a shorthand way of describing qualities of the typical art experience generated by that object within members of the expected audience.
The artistic qualities of an art experience are, of course, related to the material qualities of the art object that generates them (where material qualities can include things such as sound waves, colors, rhythms and so forth), but they are not identical with them; and while many art objects consistently create similar art experiences in a diverse audience, many others do not. The reasons for this largely relate to qualities we might call idiom, genre and artifice.
Idiom: Every artwork speaks in its own language. For the art object to successfully create the artistic experience, therefore, the audience must be able to understand the language in which the artwork communicates. Some such idioms are transparent, as in Realism in paintings, where the pattern of paint is a direct visual representation of the scene or object depicted; others are more stylized and abstract or iconic, such as the jagged human figures in a Cubist painting. Some idioms are self-presenting, such as the repeating figures in a Bach fugue; others are more difficult to discern, such as the repeating figures in a twelve-tone composition.
In addition, while many art objects, such as those in the immediately preceding examples, are largely self-contained, there are others where the context of the art object is itself a contributing element of the art experience. One case of this is Duchamp’s Fountain, a urinal displayed in an art gallery, this was perceivable as art only in the context of the gallery, and even then only to someone familiar with the context and conventions of the contemporary artworld.
A different, but related form of context-dependence is reliance on allusions, which are direct references to elements not contained within the artwork itself, such as current events, other artworks, cultural presuppositions, and the like. They presuppose either the actual presence of the element referred to, or a significant familiarity with the same. Allusions are the least stable element in most artworks, and use of them can cause a artwork to quickly seem “dated”. A good example is this hip-hop song which references singers “Marvin Gaye,” “Luther Vandross,” “Anita,” and others, thus requiring the audience member to be familiar with all those other artists in order to appreciate the meaning of the lyrics.
Genre: If every artwork speaks a language, then a genre is a shared dialect between artworks, in possession of a vocabulary of conventions and formalisms which together open a space in which the art experience can be constructed. In some sense, a genre is a generalized artwork itself, with its individual examples serving as variations on a theme. In another sense, however, the genre is the carrier wave upon which the signal rides. When one first encounters an unfamiliar genre, the tendency is to notice and respond primarily to the genre elements themselves. As familiarity with the genre grows, however, those fade into the background, and the divergences from the genre are what stand out as the figure against the ground. For example, someone who reads his or her first detective novel may be attracted at first by the pleasures of the genre conventions: the puzzles posed by the central mystery, the thrill of the chase, the satisfaction of the conclusion. Someone on his or her hundredth detective novel, however, is more likely to notice the atypical narrator, the usually sympathetic villain or the genuinely unexpected plot twist. Because genre plays such a strong role in how a work is perceived, genre familiarity is an important factor in perceiving an artwork as the artist intended. Mastery of genre is a key skill for an artist, precisely because the familiarity of the genre translates between the unique idiom of the individual artwork and the shared language of popular culture. A work that is sui generis demands a greater effort by the audience, who must then strive to comprehend its idiom without assistance.
Artifice: Most artworks depends to some extent on artifice, and the creation of illusions, which are are elements that are perceived as present, without actually being present. A trompe l’oeil painting fools the eye, while a piece of classical music may contain ghostly notes suggested by the interplay of harmony, yet not aurally present in reality. At its best, the use of artifice serves to orient the audience towards a higher level of Truth than can be achieved with the tools of ordinary reality. In lesser art, however, the use of artifice can be deployed as a cheap substitute for more substantive elements. Because of this, a highly artificial or theatrical artwork can be perceived quite differently by different audiences. Some people will be taken in more easily by the illusions, or will display a greater willingness to suspend disbelief. Others may find their enjoyment destroyed if the artifice is discovered or revealed. In addition, the use of illusion is an exploitation of a particular way of perception, and those are subject to change. Thus, cultural and generational differences may make it difficult or even impossible for the wrong audience to even perceive the intended illusion. For example, the use of perspective in paintings is widespread in Western art, but is unconvincing to members of some cultures.
Paradoxes of Art Solved:
Q: Why is it that receiving the right explanation of an artwork can transform its effect and impact, yet well-informed critics can argue for years about an artwork without ever changing their minds?A: In the first case, the explanation of the artwork familiarizes you with its idiom, and thus allowing you to perceive it more successfully. In the second case, however, the critics may already perceive the artwork accurately, but yet find it either irrelevant or unacceptable. It is worth noting at this point, however, that there is another factor, largely outside of the artist's control, that can also transform the impact of an artwork, that being the acquisition of associations, which are states of mind, including perceptions, conceptions, memories, and most typically, emotions, that can become linked, for a given audience member, with a particular work of art. This will inevitably alter that audience member’s perceptions of the artwork, sometimes in unpredictable ways.
Q: Does conceptual art reduce the entire idea of art to meaninglessness?
A: Duchamp’s Fountain opened the door for a generation of artists who took a seemingly assortment objects and activities and labeled them as “art”. Yet the magic performed in transforming the prosaic into art was little more than a sleight-of-hand. Although much conceptual art did generate genuine art experiences, those experiences were not created by the physical art objects seemingly at their center, but by the concepts and context that came attached to them.
This in itself was confusing enough, but in addition one of the chief concepts used as an element in conceptual art was the concept of art itself, leading many people –including many of the artists themselves --to the false conclusion that the nature of art had been altered. In actuality, all that had happened was that concepts and non-material elements had been added to the media available for use by artists.
Q: Why do artworks go in-and-out of popularity? Shouldn't good art always be good?
A: Society as a whole is interested in different things at different points in time, and the popular art reflects its interests. In times of transition, people prefer works with a high degree of Tension, which reflects the internal turmoil they feel. Times of actual crisis favor works with high Consonance, reflecting a communal desire to impose order on a chaotic world. Conversely, times of peace and contentment diminish the need for art with a high degree of Verity, which is why good times often lead to bad art.
In addition to favoring differing qualities of art, social trends also select for art that considers those problems currently in the public consciousness. Although Pachelbel's Canon was composed in Germany in the 1600’s, it experienced a widespread burst of popularity in America in the 1980’s. Why? The reason is that the piece explores the Tension inherent in a piece of music set in counterpoint with itself. This resonated strongly with the push towards “self-actualization” that characterized the American eighties. The Canon's consonant harmonies represented a model for resolving one’s conflicts with one’s self. Similarly, the social relevance of artistic solutions can also undergo cyclical changes. If we perceive the music of Wagner as exploring solutions based on dominance, then we can expect that his music will pass out of favor in times focused more around collaboration.
A final factor in cyclical popularity is based on idiom. Certain modes of expression may themselves be more accessible in one era than another, and a work that depends, even subtly, on social context may seem less appealing when that context evolves.
Q: Why are some artists chiefly popular among other artists?
A: This is partly a question of relevance. An artist's artist may take as subject or inspiration technical or formal problems relating to the practice of art itself, and thus chiefly relevant to other artists. Furthermore, the artist's artist may be less concerned with Consonance, which makes his or her work less palatable or accessible to a general audience, but more concerned with Verity, which makes the work more attractive to those with greater artistic discernment or sensitivity.
How to Make Better Art:
Assess your strengths and weaknesses in relationship to the three basic qualities of art: Tension, Consonance and Verity. Someone who is creative is generally strong in the area of Tension. Someone who is technically skilled will excel in Consonance, and someone with artistic sensitivity will be strong in the area of Verity. If your work is described as garish, flamboyant, kitschy or campy, it probably means your work has a lot of Tension and Consonance, but not enough Verity. Such an artwork may potentially gain a high degree of popularity but experience little critical acclaim. A good example is drag performer RuPaul, or any number of popular children's television shows.If your work evokes strongly positive reactions in a few people and strongly negative reactions in many others, then you probably have a lot of Tension and Verity, but not enough Consonance. A rare state, such work is generally produced when a talented artist favors creativity over craft. Often, the seemingly unconsonant artwork has hidden consonances of a type with which the audience may be unfamiliar or unaware. It may initially appear unattractive, but have an odd, undefinable beauty or appeal. The audience will often disagree sharply about such work, but their impressions will tend to improve with familiarity. A good example is the music of Tom Waits.
If your work is received positively but without much excitement by everyone, then you probably have good Consonance and Verity, but not enough Tension. This is often a result of an artist following too closely in another artist’s shoes, or of an artist passing his or her prime and losing creativity. Such an artwork will be perceived as pleasant or pretty, but forgettable. The effect produced on the audience is ranges from lazy pleasure to boredom and critical dismissal, as in the music of Michael Bolton.
These are all problems that can be solved. The secret to increasing Tension is to choose more challenging or disturbing subjects, to experiment more with form and genre, and to pay more attention to your dreams and nightmares. The secret to improving Consonance is to put in time and hard work into technical study. The secret to improving Verity is to become more deeply observant and simultaneously less judgmental, in order to perceive your subjects as they are rather than as you wish them to be.
In addition to these difficult and labor-intensive ways of improving yourself as an artist, however, you can also improve your art through the quicker and easier method of targeted collaboration. By choosing an artist whose strengths and weaknesses complement your own as your inspiration, model, mentor, collaborator, producer, protégé or source of material, you can potentially produce art that the best qualities of your own artwork with the best qualities of the artwork of the other contributor.
This path is followed particularly often in the field of music, which is an artform well suited to collaboration. Examples of fruitful collaborations between an entertainer or craftsman (high Consonance, low Tension), and an iconoclastic eccentric (high Tension, low Consonance) include the partnerships of Paul McCartney and John Lennon, Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill, Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, Big Boi and Andre 3000 (of Outkast)and even Salieri and Mozart (although admittedly, Mozart had all qualities with or without Salieri). In each case, the collaboration was especially successful because one partner's devotion to craft and audience was matched by the other's commitment to originality and experimentation.
How to Make Your Art Popular:
The first paradox of popularity is that you need to be intimately tapped into the trends and concerns of your time and place, yet to be able to stay ahead of the mass of others pursuing the same aims. The most popular artwork at any given time will be a seemingly original solution to a problem everyone is trying to solve. This requires a philosopher, a mystic, a genius, or, at the least, a skilled translator of solutions from one realm to another.The second paradox of popularity is that you need a mastery of the popular genres, so that people will be able to relate to your work immediately, yet be also able to transcend genre, so that your work will stand out from those around you. This requires immersing yourself in a genre until you know it intimately enough to violate its most central conventions with confidence.
In general, the most foolproof method of achieving both popularity and importance as an artist is to work closely and intensively with a small localized group of diverse artists over an extended period of time, towards the goal of developing your own new genre or subgenre. By innovating a new genre, you distinguish yourselves from the unoriginal masses outside of your circle, and by limiting the size and location of your group, you give your new genre a more distinctive and original personality; yet by diversifying your group, you give your genre an idiom that will communicate with an equally diversified cross-section of society.
How to Make Universal Art:
Your work will be universal if it deals with themes or problems that are relevant to people of all times and places. This, however, opens a wide range of possibilities. It is also important to realize that a great work of art by its nature is relevant to a wide range of problems, including ones the artist may not have intended or even ones of which he or she may have been unaware. Thus, even a highly specific or personally relevant artwork may achieve universality through sheer quality.Below is an incomplete list of some universal problems together with some approaches that address them:
- Problem: Successfully weathering the stages of the human life cycle.
Artistic Approach: Art that takes one or more of the following universal themes of human existence as its subject: Growing up, leaving home, falling in love, experiencing heartbreak, growing old, death, sibling dynamics, struggles with parents, dreams and visions, celebrations, roads and journeys, war, crime and punishment, etc. -
Problem: Relating to nature.
Artistic Approach: Depiction of allusions or references to one or more of the following: The sun, moon and stars, the elements (earth, sky, wind, water, fire, stone), the passing seasons, trees and animals, natural disasters. -
Problem: Navigating the difficulties of personal identity.
Artistic Approach: Self-portraits, work with repeating patterns that interact with copies of themselves. -
Problem: Problem-solving, considered in a general or abstract way.
Artistic Approach: Geometric visual patterns, and music following complex rules of harmony and counterpoint. -
Problem: Communication, relating sound to meaning, problems of translation.
Artistic Approach: Representational art, rhymed or metrical poetry, variations on a theme. -
Problem: Understanding or coming to grips with questions of gender and sexuality.
Artistic Approach: Performances by figures who are androgynous, hypermasculine or hyperfeminine, dressed in drag, or some combination thereof. -
Problem: Relating to a group as an individual, interacting with society.
Artistic Approach: Verse and chorus or call and response in songs, theme and variation. -
Problem: Relating to God and/or the universe, considered as a whole.
Artistic Approach: Religious art, meditative or trance-inducing art, visionary or mystical art.
- Two additional themes universal themes that pervade the world of art are the expression of emotions and the making of moral choices, both of which can be approached in too many disparate ways to be catalogued here.