My definition of art is broader than that of most people I know. But it wasn't always that way - I bumped into a lot of interesting thoughts on my way through art history. And not just the art history I learned in school, either. I think, instead of telling you how I define art (which is the end result), I'll point out some signposts I saw on the journey.
Greek pottery, for instance, is considered art by most people. It's beautiful, it's old, and all the snooty people who tell you what you should think about things say it's art. But do you know where most specimens of Greek pottery in museums today come from?
Landfills. Ancient garbage dumps.
See, the Greeks liked their dishes and bowls and vases, but they also used them. They ate off them, drank out of them, and used them as the utensils that they were. And when they broke - when a plate was dropped, or cracked over time - they threw it into a big pit where all the cracked pottery went, and they bought a new one.
That's not to say that the pieces in museums today are ordinary dishes. They're more like fine china, or commemorative plates. The ones you only eat off on special occasions. But just think about how people in suits ogle them in museums. Could you imagine archaeologists, thousands of years from now, digging up our commemorative porcelain NASCAR plates and putting them in museums?
All we really have left of the Greeks are remnants of their buildings, and broken pottery. And we are so desperate to learn more that we root through their garbage, trying to mentally reconstruct their civilization from the crap they used in their daily life. Personally, I think the dishes I eat off of and the coffin I'll be buried in are the last things I'd want people to reconstruct the meaning of my life from. But maybe our daily detritus does say things about us.
But in the end, I'm not saying that Greek pottery isn't art. What I'm saying is: if the stuff Greeks ate off of and then threw away can be art, what else can be?
I probably haven't blown your mind just now with this essay, but if it has shifted your definition of art just a little bit, it has achieved its purpose.
Think about it. That's all I can really ask of you.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I've always thought about this! But I refrain from thinking too much about it because it can seem kind of demeaning to art. Maybe some people fancy acquiring a captured moment from the past, no matter what it may be, and thinking about all the stories and people associated with that history.
ReplyDeleteThinking about art never demeans it. If anything, just agreeing with what some famous art critic or artist says without thinking is more demeaning to art. Art is made for thinking (and enjoying).
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that acquiring a "piece of history" is a big reason why people collect art. Some people don't think they'll ever be valuable for their own contributions, so they desperately want to own something that makes them valuable. I think it's kind of sad.
Personally, I don't care if someone owns a chair that Abraham Lincoln sat in. That doesn't make the chair special. My grandmother sat in lots of chairs, but those chairs are worthless because my grandmother isn't on the 5 dollar bill? 'Celebrity' is just a hierarchy designed to separate people who are equally valuable.
Thanks for posting that comment so I could rant on some vaguely related things. It was fun.