what is art?
WHAT IS ART?

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drawing of a female nude studyWhen it comes to asking the question, "What is art", most people find it difficult to come up with a definition. Tens of thousands of books have been written on the subject – enough to fill several libraries, Whole forests cut down to produce paper for newspaper critics to expound the many theories, endless media debates, and many arguments propounded between artists, critics and the public in general. What doesn’t help us pin down a definition is the term “art” is too loose. It embraces many spheres of our lives: poetry, fiction writing, film, architecture, design, flower arranging, fashion and so on and so on – the list is seemingly endless. It’s worth remembering that everything we come across in the man made world came about as an initial idea, captured at some time by drawing it down on paper. Whether it was Leonardo Da Vinci doodlings on water pumps to an army of engineers designing the space shuttle.
A da Vinci drawing of a water pump


The space shuttle







SO “WHAT IS A PIECE OF ART?”


It is whatever an individual person claims something to be. In other words, you can produce something and if you say: “Hey! This is a piece of art.” Then that is good enough. Okay, your next door neighbour may disagree, but your other neighbour may agree with you and a debate ensues. For the purpose of this essay, when I use the term "art I refer mostly to painting. It’s not my intention to go back historically to the roots of art, otherwise this essay would turn into a book! And it should also be noted that I’m dealing with Western Art. Again, the subject of world art is too vast to address here. Sunset at the Liver Buildings, Liverpool



                                                                                Right, One of my paintings:
                                              "Sunset at the Liver Buildings, Liverpool".
As an art teacher, I find that students who want to acquaint themselves, or to find a root in art from which they can grow as artists themselves, that going back to the birth of Impressionism will usually meet their needs. This was the first truly “Revolution” in art and from where "Modern Art" has sprung. This was a group of artists that included Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley and Paul Cezanne The group held their first exhibition in a photographer’s studio in Paris, in 1874. But no revolution comes about instantly, or without good reason. The reason for the Impressionist revolution came about because the younger generation of artists in Paris (which was the centre of Western art at that time) were dissatisfied with the way art was exhibited and sold – also the subject matter. The kind of subjects painted in the mid-19th century was still mostly religious and historical, and the paintings were very much “academic” – in other words, highly finished to almost a photographic quality.
This painting by Jacques-louis David, painted in 1800, is a propaganda piece commemorating Napoleon's military exploits in Europe, and is an example of painting that dominated in the early part of the 1800's
And for an artist to receive any recognition, it was crucial to be accepted by the official Salon. It was virtually the only place an artist could sell their work. (The Official Salon was run by the French Government). As I wrote earlier, no revolution erupts without some ferment bubbling away. And it is now worth mentioning that this earlier fermentation process began some years earlier by other artists seeking to “modernise” art, and which would eventually bring about the birth of Impressionism. Again, I don’t want to spend much time pre-the-impressionist artists other than to say that artists such as John Constable, an Englishman.. d… was one of the first artists to undermine the status of the academic art mentioned earlier.


                                                                                right: John Constable's:
                                                                         "The Haywain," painted in 1821

Back in France, it was artists like Camille Corot and Gustave Courbet who first turned their back on academic paintings. They were among the first to leave the studio and work directly from the landscape. In the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874, Monet exhibited this painting (below) of the port of Le Harve:

Impression, Sunrise.
Monet was trying to create a rapid notation of weather effects, and not a detailed view of Le Harve. Why this painting is so important is because when an art critic wrote about the exhibition he referred to this painting and used the title to derisively label the group as a whole as “The Impressionist”. Until this point, the group hadn’t a name to describe themselves! So the reaction to this new art movement was one of scorn and ridicule. The attitude of the establishment to Impressionism was to denounce it as amateurish. Also linked to the question of “What is art?” is art does not exist in a vacuum. Often art is a response to whatever else is happening around the artists. Like other artistic revolutions that would follow in the next hundred years, the Impressionists were subject to the cultural, social and political climate of the mid-nineteenth century. For example, through easier communication, café life, new literature, modern manufacturing methods, which in turn led to the birth of the middle classes – even new sciences, especially the science that dealt with colour. The Impressionists were very much aware of the work done by Eugene Chevreul, the French chemist. He was working on the theories of colour harmony and worked as director of a dyeing company, Gobelins. He wrote a book on the subject: The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colours, and their Application to the Arts, published in 1839. To find out more about this period, Phoebe Pool’s book: Impressionism, published by Thames and Hudson, is a very good starting point. It must also be appreciated that future art, from the revolution of Impressionism, to the present day has not been a continuous unbroken straight line. Often groups of artists, or artistic movements, were at war with each other. Even within the Impressionist movement there were rivalries between artists and what and what didn’t constitute Impressionism. In fact, Impressionism itself was very short lived – Soon the next generation of artists would be seeking to find a new and more modern way to paint. These artists, referred to as the “Post Impressionist” would include the likes of Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gaugin
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