Painting From Life vs. From Photos
In my previous post I discussed conceptual- versus procedural-based art and asked how an artist could have the two dimensions interact. This got me thinking about how different art forms mix these aspects. Contemporary conceptual art, for example, tends to be big on ideas and light on craft, whereas something like the Painting a Day movement is more procedure-based. Renaissance art, in contrast, combined conceptual and procedural components.
Below I try to express this distinction in a two-dimensional plot where the axes are Conceptual and Procedural.
Note, nothing about this hypothetical representation says anything about the quality of the artwork. It is possible to have a technically developed artwork, full of ideas, that is just plain bad. Conversely, a simple, non-conceptual painting could be something wonderful.
Where on this graph would you like your work to be? Where do you think you are now?
Where is the money today? It seems that the conceptual gets rewarded more than the procedural.
Where on this graph would you like your work to be?
I would like to be at point x=0, y=0; the origin, before concept and procedure go their separate ways.
Where is the money today? It seems that the conceptual gets rewarded more than the procedural.
There are different kinds of rewards. Conceptual work does seem to get more attention in the art media, and is shown more in the Chelsea galleries. I’m not so sure that it automatically translates to money however. With some conceptual work, it’s very interesting but there’s nothing to sell.
Now that I’ve written (though not exactly finished) the post following this one, I can place myself on the graph as Painting a Day moving fitfully toward Renaissance. As for the money, it appears to be somewhere else.
Bang in the center.
David,
Good mot, but don’t be misled by the simplified graph, which shows only two of an infinite number of lines. Concept and procedure also meet in the middle, where the contribution of each is non-zero.
But as long as we’re examining Karl’s presentation, I note that he grants essentially zero procedure to some conceptual art. Lucky it didn’t go negative.
Steve,
What would it mean for procedure to go negative? As I see it, P=0 gives you a pure idea. So David, 0,0 would be an artwork with no ideas and no work involved in making it. If you could sell that I would be impressed.
P<0 would be an idea that generates work, instead of requiring work to express. Or would it be an artwork that eats other artwork?
I think C<0 would be an artwork that drains ideas from your head instead of inspring thought. Guess that’s where television is.
So David, 0,0 would be an artwork with no ideas and no work involved in making it. If you could sell that I would be impressed.
If I can achieve it I’ll defintely expect some congratulations, at least from my friends.
I am a big fan of the middle too, although I doubt it compels me to like the same kinds of things Sunil does.
Also, I find it odd that the graph indicates the possibility of a purely conceptual artwork. What would that entail? Even if my artwork consists of me writing “this sentence is a work of art”, the idea still requires (minimal) physical labor on my part and leaves a perceptible trace.
Arthur,
Here is a story that may shed light on the issue:
Two people go into an empty building and three people come out. A physicist, a biologist, and a mathematician are asked to explain the observation.
The physicist says, “It must be experimental error.”
The biologist says, “They must have replicated.”
The mathematician says, “There is -1 person still in the building.”
The graph above, if you keep in mind that the axes also extend in the opposite directions, allows for the possibility of artwork that requires a negative amount of labor to create and has a negative amount of conceptual content. Go figure.
Karl, I couldn’t resist picking on you with my 0,0 proposal, but what I would like to suggest, a bit more seriously, is that your conceptual/procedural model would best be represented by a continuum. Neither extreme would probably ever exist, but all art could be placed somewhere between the two. A hypothetical work that was pure concept would just be pure concept. There’s no reason for it to move up the y axis.
On the other hand, I think your 2-d plot would be an excellent way for someone to express their opinion (totally subjective, of course) as to the quality of a work of art. Something at 0,0 would be pure shit, both technically and conceptually. As you move up in “y” you’re saying the concept is getting better, and movement to the right in “x” represents increasing quality of execution. You could probably leave your three labeled ovals right where they are.
David, you anticipated the remark I was about to make that Karl’s graph was created to represent the process of creating art, but one could do something similar for experiencing art. A highly conceptual work might be all experience and emotion, with little thought, for the viewer.
David,
You’re getting into the delicate question of what the dimensions of the graph represent in terms of magnitude.
Okay, so moving along the procedure axis, we are saying that technique is getting better? That’s a bit different than I was thinking, but it seems fine to me. In that case, moving out on the x axis does not so much mean increasing complexity, but increasing sublimeness of execution.
Going up, the concept gets better, as you say.
Sounds good. Now we can start plotting individual artists. Go ahead, you first. I see a lot of controversy in that direction!
Steve,
yes, emotion, that sounds like another important dimension. Maybe next week’s graph!
Sounds good. Now we can start plotting individual artists. Go ahead, you first.
Ha, no way! I don’t ever rate other artists. I’ll leave that to the critics.
I place myself at 1,1; but my ambition is to achieve ever higher values for x=y.
Karl,
I’m wondering whether Renaissance art isn’t highly conceptual, the difference being that the artists didn’t have to explain the conceptions. All that mythology and religious symbolism were right at hand, as were the clients who asked for Daphne or Mary or busts of themselves.Artists were not expected to express their innermost selves nor to say something new, although of course they often did both. It’s as if the attention could be diverted to the conventional meaning while the artist slid ideas and processes into the mix on the side.
Today, we all have to start froms scratch, finding ourselves, our ideas, our style, our sublimity, our audience, and our customers.
So while I understand something of what you are saying, the simplification of it bothers me. As contemporary artists, we are enjoined to reinvent ourselves and our art, while at the same time partaking of all of art history that we can allude to, verbally or visually. It’s a tall order, and it isn’t surprising that extremes on all sides crop up and are rewarded or laughed at. it isn’t an era when the expected is lauded.
So I’m dismissing your x’s and y’s and replacing them with “yes, buts….”
June,
Interesting point about the Renaissance artists. Where they just spitting out the same old ideas about religion etc, or where they making new statements? If you think about the Sistine Chapel ceiling, I’d say you have some new ideas about the religion and the place of humanity and the body. At the Vatican they have to do some contortions in explaining why Michelangelo’s frescos go with the standard Catholic viewpoint.
Look at Bosch. Talk about conceptual!
Today we start from scratch with our concepts, but also with our techniques.
Now June, obviously an X-Y plot in which we can represent all art has got to be some kind of simplification. That is the point. The graph does not attempt to represent all dimensions, only to look at a couple of them. The simplification comes where we think that we can express “conceptual” as a single axis.