Friedrich --

It's always fun to try to puzzle out what the figure of "the artist" means to people, and to marvel at how attached people are to their fantasies about art and artists. Michael L., a reader from Boston, took note of an offhand sentence in one of my postings on the topic and sent in a fine anecdote and reflection:

You say "Perhaps the general public likes having an "artist" figure out there -- perhaps it means something to the general public." I think you're right, and I'll give you an example.

My wife is an artist, and recently I acquired work space in the building where her studio is located. I'm playing around with wood and polymer clay sculpture.

The artists in the building had an open studio event. During that weekend I was in and out of my workshop, but not a part of the open studios. The public dropped in to my space anyway since it was warm and I had the door ajar. Other than workbenches I had built, there were just some figures in progress on my worktable. I talked to whoever came in, telling them I was not an artist nor a part of the open studios but merely a hobbyist and a beginning one at that.

To a person, they insisted that I was an artist because I was doing something creative -- and not because I had produced any art. Even the most generous of critics could not have said that with any seriousness. They were in love with the idea of "artist" and had a need to democratize that idea as much as possible. (Which may explain why some horrible "art" gets sold.) However, I think the romantic idea of artist as individual creator in his/her garret is a pervasive part of our modern culture.

Isn't that great? They couldn't be talked out of believing that he's an artist. They'd come to meet and see artists -- so, by god, they were going to have themselves an artist.

Many thanks to Michael L.

Best,

Michael

I think, Michael (Blowhard), you (willfully?) missed the *key* line in Michael L's story; the line that reads: "They were in love with the idea of 'artist' and had a need to democratize that idea as much as possible. [emphasis mine]"

That's the deal, all right. If the ungifted democratize the idea in their minds convincingly enough, that means they too can be artists. Why do you think they resolutely refused to be dissuaded from their belief that Michael L was indeed an artist even though he made no art.

ACD

Posted by: acdouglas on January 17, 2003 9:27 PM

Well, maybe I'm not getting your point ACD, but I don't think I quite agree. Are you saying that ungifted people have a need to democratize art in order to believe that they too can be artists?

I work in a gallery and feel it's more because they are certain they'll NEVER be artistic. The non-artistic person has a tendency to attribute god-like status to the skill of painting saying things like, "Oh I could never do that," as they swoon and practically faint.

Heck, the guy did have a couple of his pieces in the studio. I've seen many new artists/hobbiests downgrade their first artistic attempts even though a lot of talent is clearly showing.

But maybe I've missed your *key* line too.

Posted by: laurel on January 18, 2003 7:06 AM

Laurel wrote: "Well, maybe I'm not getting your point ACD...."

You got my point perfectly.

When the ungifted are confronted by *validated* works of art (i.e., validated by being displayed in an art gallery, for instance), the response is as you state it. But when they are confronted by someone who's turned out something -- anything -- by his creative efforts, and that something has not been validated, the response is as I stated it. Note Michael L's lead-in sentence to his key line: "To a person, they insisted that I was an artist because I was doing something creative...."

Just so.

I can't begin to count the number of times I've seen that phenomenon in action. There seems to be something in Everyman -- a part of _Homo sapiens_ psychic inheritance; a species-wide inherited brain module, if you will -- that needs to embody symbolic representations of experience in what we call works of art. But it's given to only the privileged few to have the necessary specialized brain equipment, so to speak, to actually realize that need. For the rest of us, only the need remains.

ACD

Posted by: acdouglas on January 18, 2003 10:28 AM

I wrote: "But it's given to only the privileged few to have the necessary specialized brain equipment, so to speak, to actually realize that need."

That should have read: "But it's given to only the privileged few to have the necessary specialized brain WIRING, so to speak, to actually realize that need."

ACD

Posted by: acdouglas on January 18, 2003 10:45 AM

I think this is really funny. Michael Blowhard, the Great Democrat, the man who famously rattled off a list of American artworks which included "Elvis", "breakdancing", and "Tex-Mex cooking", now gets all elitist about how the muddled masses delude themselves into thinking they're talking to an artist when in fact all they're doing is talking to a guy in a studio who is making sculpture out of wood and polymer clay.

What I find interesting about the response of Michael L's interlocutors is that I wouldn't be at all surprised if there wasn't an overlap between them and the people who are prone to saying "that's not art" whenever they see something vaguely minimal or conceptual in an art gallery. Their artist-in-a-garret ideas cut both ways: anybody in a garret becomes an artist, but on the other hand anybody who isn't in a garret, and rather just puts bricks on floor, isn't an artist.

Posted by: Felix on January 18, 2003 1:39 PM

Hey AC -- I confess I'm not quite sure what your point is. I take Michael L. to be telling a story about how eager, indeed overeager, people are to believe in that symbolic figure "the artist." You seem to see the point of his story as something quite different, though I can't tell what. Only one person, I fear, can resolve our confusion here: Michael L., are you out there?

Hey Laurel, I'd love to hear more tales about life in the art gallery. People's relationship to art (how they react to it, how they act around it, why they bother at all) is a much-underexplored topic. And art galleries are great places to witness that relationship get acted out. Let's have more!

Hey Felix, I'd bet that you're right about the overlap between the people Michael L. was describing and the people who might ridicule a Carl Andre. I wonder what the ratio would be: 50% of them scornful of the bricks, and 50% sweetly credulous? Although I doubt that many of the people making a tour of artists' studios would be big Rush Limbaugh fans.

I'm a little puzzled by AC and Felix, who both seem to think they've nailed me for something here. Maybe they have, but I'm not sure what. Michael L. was writing (his words) about "the romantic idea of artist as individual creator in his/her garret," and how attached people seem to be to that idea. Are you guys disputing the observation? No reason not to, I suppose. But is that your point? That you don't think the romantic idea of the artist is still surprisingly potent?

I sense something about "elitism" floating around in these comments, but will be damned if I can figure out exactly what it is.

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on January 18, 2003 2:11 PM

Okay, so now I'm once again TOTALLY confused.

Michael, were you getting all elitist? Was that whole posting supposed to be a sarcastic chastisement against the common man's view of an artist... or was it an applause for how open minded people can be in who they consider to be an artist?

And the gallery where I work shouldn't be considered some sort of validation. The artist himself opened his own gallery. He didn't wait to be discovered. He started painting and marketing his own work the day HE decided that he was an artist. Do his swooners still count?

Really, sometimes I feel like I'm on another planet. My *point* was that people aren't democratizing art in order to feel that they too can be artists. So, I still don't think I agree with ACD's original point.

Can anyone straighten out my confusion? Help! Someone who's not too bombastic please! :-)

Posted by: laurel on January 18, 2003 2:35 PM

Opps, I didn't see Michael's latest posting until after I sent mine.

Hmm...it might clear some things up. Let me read it again. Thanks.

Posted by: laurel on January 18, 2003 2:39 PM

Michael (Blowhard) wrote: "I'm a little puzzled by AC and Felix, who both seem to think they've nailed me for something here."

Speaking for myself only, what you've been "nailed" for is for going all warm and fuzzy over the supposed wonderful attachment your beloved Common Man has to the idea of an Artist ("Isn't that great? They couldn't be talked out of believing that he's an artist. They'd come to meet and see artists -- so, by god, they were going to have themselves an artist") when in fact his attachment consists of nothing more than the self-serving one I limned.

And what Michael L intended to convey by his anecdote is beside the (my) point. That anecdote described perfectly the phenomenon the underlying motivation of which I set out whatever conclusion Michael L might have or have not drawn from the experience.

ACD

Posted by: acdouglas on January 18, 2003 4:14 PM

Well, perhaps it's just me, my lousy control of tone, my horrendous writing style and my bad breath, but what I intended was nothing whatsoever about the Common Man (I don't think of people who go on gallery tours to be all that common), and what I wrote certainly wasn't meant to come across all warm and fuzzy. What I'm hoping to do is simply hitch a ride on Michael L.'s observation, which is one I've made too -- that people can be amazingly attached to what are rather silly and special ideas about "the Artist."

Personally, I'm kinda fond of people's foolishness in this regard, but also kinda annoyed by it. Mainly, though, I find the phenom interesting. And I suspect that a discussion along the lines of "What is it about the Romantic conception of the Artist that has such a longterm, drug-like hold on people? I mean, it's such a ludicrous piece of self-deception! But it must serve some psychological/emotional purpose, no?" would be a fascinating one.

Anyone want to join in?

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on January 18, 2003 4:27 PM

I'm overjoyed, Michael (Blowhard), to learn I've misunderstood your meaning in your original post.

And to protect against my misunderstanding you again (and I need that protection because what you're suggesting now sounds even more outrageous than what I misunderstood you to mean by your original post), are you suggesting that a *genuine* (I can't emphasize that qualifier enough) artist is not some unique and special example of _Homo sapiens_, distinct in some transcendent way from the rest of the species?

If you are, then, Michael my fellow culture blogger, I must count you among the enemy, and one of the culprits I identified here.

ACD

Posted by: acdouglas on January 18, 2003 5:01 PM

Oops. Missing critical word in my above.

I wrote:

"And to protect against my misunderstanding you again (and I need that protection because what you're suggesting now sounds even more outrageous than what I misunderstood you to mean by your original post)...."

That should have read:

"And to protect against my misunderstanding you again (and I need that protection because what you're SEEMINGLY suggesting now sounds even more outrageous than what I misunderstood you to mean by your original post)..."

ACD

Posted by: acdouglas on January 18, 2003 5:13 PM

What it means is that there are so many people eager to identify with artists that they'll take anything thrown out there. The reason they are so eager to be identified as an aficionado is because people like ACD and Felix have convinced them that they don't know what the heck they're talking about (or even thinking) when it comes to art, that they'll take anything someone else has endorsed. They've got the critical skills of a dog confronted with a buffet of stewed beef bones. And in their eager rush to have ACD and Felix like them, they'll call durn near anything art, and durn near anyone artists.

It's yall's fault, AC and Felix, for teaching and preaching that the great unwashed have no earthly idea what art is. I'd put money on it that this happened in New York, where such things carry some significant social weight. If not there, then LA, where only a few know better.

Ready to turn on your own comments yet, AC?

Posted by: Scott CHaffin on January 18, 2003 8:00 PM

After reading the above exchange, the image of a James Thurber cartoon flashed through my ordinary neural wiring. It's the one where a bearded, respectable-looking man is looking at a painting, as one onlooker says to the other, "He doesn't know what he likes, but he knows art."

Posted by: Frank C on January 18, 2003 10:02 PM

Ahem. Speaking as a professional artist (I made art, they paid me, so nyeah)I have to point out the chatter about "democratizing" the definition of artist is incorrect one certain vital points.

Ironically, it's the Artist Elite who have corrupted and downvalued the meaning of the word "Artist"--- not the Common Folk.

Consider what hideous things have been afflicted upon the museum-attending public in the name of art. To a man, the Common man came in, looked, and said "Augh, that's not art !!!!"
Only to be told by the self-anointed (Modern Artists and the Art Critic): "Ah, you philistine! Do you not see that this is *avante garde*? Of course the creator is an Artist !"

(Yeah, CON artist, maybe. Lord. I come within inches of gouging my own eyes out with my micron pens every time I think of the "artist" who sold *jars of his own feces* for more money than I see in a year....)

The poster's experience only illustrates the truth of the matter: thanks to the unceasing flummery being shoveled onto the public conscience, the only way left for anyone--- artist, critic, or Joe sixpack-- to recognize a "work of art" anymore is if it's in a gallery....

Snot nosed cappuccino-sucking elitist scumbag Art Farts. They accomplished their objective-- everything is art, now-- and now they're getting pissy that noone can tell the difference anymore. *And blaming the people they swindled.*

Some days you just want to grab a tire iron and run thru the streets, thinning out the herd......

Posted by: RHJunior on January 18, 2003 10:57 PM

"are you suggesting that a *genuine* (I can't emphasize that qualifier enough) artist is not some unique and special example of _Homo sapiens_, distinct in some transcendent way from the rest of the species?"

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'll definitely say that. I don't see it as being a qualitative stairstep, some sort of distinct difference from anyone else. There are many ways in which people have unique and valuable mental talents, and all of them come in varying degrees. Artistry, whatever that may be, is one of them but it is neither unique among them nor necessarily the most important, and artistry like all other things is a matter of degree rather than a difference in kind.

Nor is it necessarily the case that everyone who is profoundly gifted in that particular way is necessarily known to us as an "artist", for some of them are also gifted in other ways and have chosen to dedicate their lives to expression of other aspects of themselves.

I'm afraid that I find the idea that "artists" are somehow distinct from the rest of us, not to mention also being superior, as being more than a bit pretentious.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste on January 19, 2003 12:25 AM

Steven wrote: "I'm afraid that I find the idea that 'artists' are somehow distinct from the rest of us, not to mention also being superior, as being more than a bit pretentious."

I see. So you would consider then that, say, Mozart (to use an example about which there can be no argument) was just a regular guy and not in any way distinct from other men, but merely distinguished by a particular skill that was more developed in him than it was in the population generally.

Have I got that right?

If I have, then I defy you to come up with an argument in support of your contention that doesn't fly in the face of the clear witness of centuries of critical examination of his output, and of history.

ACD

Posted by: acdouglas on January 19, 2003 1:12 AM

Are you familiar with the term "statistical outlier"?

What it means is that on a bell curve which covers a sufficiently large calculation, there are going to be people who are well away from the norm.

That's why my eyes are at a level with Shaquille O'Neill's navel, for instance. But when it comes to human height, it's not the case that there's men at 6' and less, like me, and men at 7' and more, like Shaq, and no one in between. Shaq is huge, tall, strong and athletic but there is a continuum of people between him and me. To look at one guy like him standing next to one guy like me is to make it seem as if there truly is such a gap, because you don't see all the other people who are taller than me but shorter than Shaq.

By the same token, Mozart is even further out on the "artistry" curve than Shaq is on the "tall" curve, but there are people in between him and me all along that curve. He's several sigma out, but there is no gap in between him and me, with the presumption that I am about the same place on the "composer" curve that I am on the "tall" curve.

Mozart was also a bit far out on a couple of other curves, like the "raised by a very strange father" curve. But again, what that means is that he's well away from the center. It doesn't mean that there is no continuum between him and the center.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste on January 19, 2003 3:37 AM

If ACD can do it, so can I. For "sufficiently large calculation" read "sufficiently large population".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste on January 19, 2003 3:38 AM

For an example of someone in between Mozart and me, consider Carl Maria von Weber. Mozart wrote his first symphony when he was something like 5. Weber wrote his first opera when he was 13.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste on January 19, 2003 3:42 AM

I see. So you would consider then that, say, Mozart (to use an example about which there can be no argument) was just a regular guy and not in any way distinct from other men, but merely distinguished by a particular skill that was more developed in him than it was in the population generally.

Well that would depend on what you mean by "regular guy" and "distinct from other men." Composers in Mozart's day were not nearly so high and mighty as we now hold them to be. They were, in fact, servants. Furthermore, Mozart was known to be quite crude at times.

Yes, Mozart was "distinguished by a particular skill that was more developed in him than it was in the population generally." So? I don't understand how you can put the word "merely" before that particular phrase. You really just can't handle the notion that a "regular guy" might be extraordinarly talented, skilled or gifted can you? Now maybe the fact that a "regular guy" happens to be extraordinarly talented automatically makes him no longer just a "regular guy" but then, as I said, it just depends on how you define "regular guy" and as we've seen before in the literature discussions, ACD, you always define such terms in whatever way necessary to help you make your point.

Posted by: Lynn on January 19, 2003 10:24 AM

BTW, Mozart wrote his first piece of music, a short minuet, when he was 5. He wrote his first symphony when whe was 8. Child composers were actually fairly common. Mendelssohn also started early, writing a number of string symphonies in his early teens. The truly remarkable thing about Mozart was not that he started writing music at such a young age, but rather, the height he eventually reached as an adult composer.

Posted by: Lynn on January 19, 2003 10:28 AM

Steven wrote: "Are you familiar with the term 'statistical outlier'? What it means is that on a bell curve which covers a sufficiently large calculation, there are going to be people who are well away from the norm."

Aha! A statistical argument, eay? Spoken like a true engineer, Steven (it's been some time, but if I remember correctly, it is an engineer you are, right?). And, yes, I'm familiar with statistical measurement and reasoning.

Well, that's no argument against my point, and I would have hoped not one in support of yours. My original assertion was that genuine artists are distinct from ordinary members of _Homo sapiens_ in some transcendent way. We're dealing with two continuums here: The continuum of ordinary men, and the continuum of creative genius. The bourgeois assessments and values that apply to the former are wholly inappropriate to the latter, and man like Mozart cannot be measured in the former, clearly belonging at or near the top of the latter. The bridging of that dividing line, or rather that normally unbridgeable gap, between the two continuums is what constitutes the "transcendent factor," if I may be permitted the term. All genuine artists possess it; ordinary men are absent it entirely.

Whence does that transcendent factor obtain, and of what does it consist? Only The Shadow knows. I suspect that even in that far off day when the wizards of neuroscience have finally succeeded in mapping brain function and wiring exhaustively, the answer to those questions will elude them still.

ACD

Posted by: acdouglas on January 19, 2003 12:05 PM

Jeez! Typos.

The following segment of my immediately above should have read:

"The bourgeois assessments and values that apply to the former are wholly inappropriate to the latter, and a man like Mozart cannot be measured in the former, clearly belonging at or near the top of the latter. The bridging of that dividing line, or rather that normally unbridgeable gap between the two continuums, is what constitutes the 'transcendent factor,' if I may be permitted the term."

And your correction of your calculation/population typo, Steven, is noted. I recognized it as a typo even before the correction.

ACD

Posted by: acdouglas on January 19, 2003 12:14 PM

Damn! A typo in the typo correction.

Screw it. Y'all can correct it for yourselves.

I can already see it's going to be one of those days.

ACD

Posted by: acdouglas on January 19, 2003 12:22 PM

[Click]

Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain has an announcement to make.

[Crackle, pop, static. etc]

ENOUGH ALREADY! THIS COMMENT LADDER IS NOW OVER! FINITO! BUNCHA RUFFIANS! IF YOU WANT TO CONTINUE, TAKE IT OUTSIDE!

[Crackle, pop, static, etc]

Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain has decided that this conversation has continued long enough. To be frank, he'd been hoping it would focus on the "silly Romantic ideas about artists" angle, and feels a little let down. So he's decided that, if further posts appear on this comment ladder, they will be deleted forthwith.

Thank you for your cooperation.

[Click]

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on January 19, 2003 2:29 PM






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