Ben Lifson
New member
I've been following the discussion here concerning definitions of art--a group discussion toward articulating a theory of art...One that can be applied to photography.
This is a difficult undertaking. It has defeated many wiser heads than ours. A very lucid, accessible and rigorously argued account of why it has defeated many critics and philosophers is given in the opening chapters of Susanne K. Langer's "Feeling and Form" -- a very important book for every one who at one time or another finds him/herself seriously asking the question, "What is art?"
In these same chapters (1 and 2) Langer (B.A., M.A. and Ph. D., Radcliffe, and a world-class expert in symbolic logic) explains why the question is so important -- why art as a symbolic language is so important to humanity that one should try to understand what it is...Why the question engaged so much of her career.
In Chapter 3 she gives her own theory. This, too, is clear, accessible to the layman, and rigorously argued. I have found no fault or flaw in it. Everything she says rings true to my experience of art (which began with my deep engagement with English literataure somewhere in my teens). (Please remember, I'm an artist, not a philosopher. Her argument reads perfectly to me and feels like everything I've ever felt about art. I don't know if the argument holds up to professional philosophical scrutiny. However, Langer's and her books' professional reputations are very, very high.)
In Chapter 4 she applies her theory to pictures. Everything she says about what a picture is rings true with everything I've learned in over 40 years of looking closely at photographs, paintings, drawings and prints.
Moreover, photographers who have read Chapter 4 have told me that it is almost impossible for them to read it to the end because it is so exciting, stimulating, inspiring and, according to their experience making pictures, true that at almost every page they want to put the book down and go out and make photographs.
As for strengthening our skills in looking at pictures and in putting what we see into words, and in having those words lead to more and better seeing, and that seeing leading, in turn, to more and better words -- better in the sense that they help us when we look through our viewfinders, or at our own work prints -- I can't think of anything better than Meyer Schapiro's short books (for the art publisher, Abrams) on Van Gogh and Cezanne.
In each of these books there is a general introduction (brilliant) and then a series of plates. The picture is on one page and a short text on the opposite page. The texts (also brilliant) are clear, specific, down to earth, plainly written, easy to follow, instructive and inspiring.
Meyer Schapiro is universally acknowledged as one of the greatest art historians of the 20th century. Some say he was the greatest. I heard him lecture once, at UCLA, on the South Tower of Chartres Cathedral. It was as though the whole medieval world had come on stage to tell us what that work of architecture really was.
Another good observer of art, who adopts the common viewer's point of view, is the British writer John Berger. His short essays on classic and 20th century painters in the book "Toward Reality" are classic instances of how good and illuminating untheoretical, common sensical, un-technical art criticism can be. No gobbledy-gook. No buzz words. No jargon. No allusions to obscure writers or ideas. Just an account of what an intelligent, observant, fairly well educated, socially aware, humanly thinking man sees when he looks at art. These short essays can teach us much about what to look for in our own photographs and in the photographs of others.
I strongly recommend all of the above texts to anyone who is seriously concerned with the question, What Is Art?
For just as there is such a thing as an internal combustion engine (as opposed to an external combustion engine) there is such a thing as art (as opposed to all the things that are not art.)
It is not in the eyes of the beholder.
This is a difficult undertaking. It has defeated many wiser heads than ours. A very lucid, accessible and rigorously argued account of why it has defeated many critics and philosophers is given in the opening chapters of Susanne K. Langer's "Feeling and Form" -- a very important book for every one who at one time or another finds him/herself seriously asking the question, "What is art?"
In these same chapters (1 and 2) Langer (B.A., M.A. and Ph. D., Radcliffe, and a world-class expert in symbolic logic) explains why the question is so important -- why art as a symbolic language is so important to humanity that one should try to understand what it is...Why the question engaged so much of her career.
In Chapter 3 she gives her own theory. This, too, is clear, accessible to the layman, and rigorously argued. I have found no fault or flaw in it. Everything she says rings true to my experience of art (which began with my deep engagement with English literataure somewhere in my teens). (Please remember, I'm an artist, not a philosopher. Her argument reads perfectly to me and feels like everything I've ever felt about art. I don't know if the argument holds up to professional philosophical scrutiny. However, Langer's and her books' professional reputations are very, very high.)
In Chapter 4 she applies her theory to pictures. Everything she says about what a picture is rings true with everything I've learned in over 40 years of looking closely at photographs, paintings, drawings and prints.
Moreover, photographers who have read Chapter 4 have told me that it is almost impossible for them to read it to the end because it is so exciting, stimulating, inspiring and, according to their experience making pictures, true that at almost every page they want to put the book down and go out and make photographs.
As for strengthening our skills in looking at pictures and in putting what we see into words, and in having those words lead to more and better seeing, and that seeing leading, in turn, to more and better words -- better in the sense that they help us when we look through our viewfinders, or at our own work prints -- I can't think of anything better than Meyer Schapiro's short books (for the art publisher, Abrams) on Van Gogh and Cezanne.
In each of these books there is a general introduction (brilliant) and then a series of plates. The picture is on one page and a short text on the opposite page. The texts (also brilliant) are clear, specific, down to earth, plainly written, easy to follow, instructive and inspiring.
Meyer Schapiro is universally acknowledged as one of the greatest art historians of the 20th century. Some say he was the greatest. I heard him lecture once, at UCLA, on the South Tower of Chartres Cathedral. It was as though the whole medieval world had come on stage to tell us what that work of architecture really was.
Another good observer of art, who adopts the common viewer's point of view, is the British writer John Berger. His short essays on classic and 20th century painters in the book "Toward Reality" are classic instances of how good and illuminating untheoretical, common sensical, un-technical art criticism can be. No gobbledy-gook. No buzz words. No jargon. No allusions to obscure writers or ideas. Just an account of what an intelligent, observant, fairly well educated, socially aware, humanly thinking man sees when he looks at art. These short essays can teach us much about what to look for in our own photographs and in the photographs of others.
I strongly recommend all of the above texts to anyone who is seriously concerned with the question, What Is Art?
For just as there is such a thing as an internal combustion engine (as opposed to an external combustion engine) there is such a thing as art (as opposed to all the things that are not art.)
It is not in the eyes of the beholder.