What is Art?

[geordief]

Can I ask whether we would have to invent art if it did not exist?

 

Is it possible to live without a connection to art in one's own interior life?

 

Or us it take it or leave it?

 

[StringJunky]

3 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

https://acrm.org/rehabilitation-medicine/how-the-brain-is-affected-by-art/#:~:text=There is increasing evidence in,also occur by experiencing art.

I think we look at the world in ways limited by our own imaginations, and art is an attempt by the artist to show you a part of life in a way you haven't perceived it before.

Yes, a piece of art is an abstraction.

[Peterkin]

20 minutes ago, geordief said:

Can I ask whether we would have to invent art if it did not exist?

We did. In one form, anyway. There were artists before us. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/150610-animals-camouflage-decoration-bugs-science

24 minutes ago, geordief said:

Is it possible to live without a connection to art in one's own interior life?

It's possible to reject art and artifice. You can even beat the creative impulse out of children. But humans do naturally have it, in some form and degree, and do crave both  outward expression of our own perceptions and connection with others and the world through imagery. You can see it on every stone surface of places people have occupied since forever: scratching, painting, carving, building their mark on all their surroundings. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-australian-aboriginal-art-unlike-anything-seen-180975984/  

[joigus]

2 hours ago, Phi for All said:

I think we look at the world in ways limited by our own imaginations, and art is an attempt by the artist to show you a part of life in a way you haven't perceived it before.

Yeah, I think there's something at the root of art that's to do with the unattainable, with longing.

I think when art was jump-started, back in the paleolithic, the main motivation must have been to conjure up those things that mattered most to our ancestors, but were not there and they could hardly wait to see again --mostly pack animals that constituted their main resource for survival, when they were gone and they knew they would have to wait for another year for them to come back. Curiously enough, they didn't depict predators nearly as much as they did their favourite prey.

Then it became more about gods and human authorities. 'Think of me when I'm not here.' Sure that was what Roman emperors had in mind when they had artistic renditions of themselves put in place hundreds and hundreds of miles away from the place from where they exerted their authority.

It's when photography became possible that art started to become more abstract, and more of an interior journey.

Thanks for the link, BTW. I'm not surprised that, when people can be taken at their word that they like the art the see or hear, a rush of neurotransmitters goes with it.

[Genady]

1 hour ago, joigus said:

Yeah, I think there's something at the root of art that's to do with the unattainable, with longing.

I think when art was jump-started, back in the paleolithic, the main motivation must have been to conjure up those things that mattered most to our ancestors, but were not there and they could hardly wait to see again --mostly pack animals that constituted their main resource for survival, when they were gone and they knew they would have to wait for another year for them to come back. Curiously enough, they didn't depict predators nearly as much as they did their favourite prey.

Then it became more about gods and human authorities. 'Think of me when I'm not here.' Sure that was what Roman emperors had in mind when they had artistic renditions of themselves put in place hundreds and hundreds of miles away from the place from where they exerted their authority.

It's when photography became possible that art started to become more abstract, and more of an interior journey.

Thanks for the link, BTW. I'm not surprised that, when people can be taken at their word that they like the art the see or hear, a rush of neurotransmitters goes with it.

I think that what is there at the root of art is sexual selection. We can see similar behavior in other animals, esp. birds. It does not contradict your first statement. But I think it goes much father back than the paleolithic. IIRC the very simple bone tools were found with ornamentation on them.

And, BTW, photography became another art medium. I know as it is one of the specialties of my daughter (MFA from Pratt Institute with majors in Psychology, Art History, and Visual Arts.)

Edited May 2, 2022 by Genady

[joigus]

1 hour ago, Genady said:

I think that what is there at the root of art is sexual selection. We can see similar behavior in other animals, esp. birds. It does not contradict your first statement. But I think it goes much father back than the paleolithic. IIRC the very simple bone tools were found with ornamentation on them.

 

This idea that sexual selection is at the root of art I find very intriguing, and I would be pleased to know more about your idea and how you came up with it. It kinda makes sense, as there are examples in Nature where animals display and preen --to the point of risking their lives-- for the only purpose of attracting a mate. If that's the case, it obviously has grown into something much bigger than that. I've once read everything we do, we do in order to mate. Now, I think that's an exaggeration. But I'm diverting again...

The paleolithic though goes as far back as 3.3 m.y.a., so it's not off the boundaries you propose. Paleoanthropologists have pushed the boundary much farther back than we used to think even a couple of decades ago. What I do know paleoanthropologists have said is that the first manifestations of art come from about 75,000 y.a. Circa the Toba eruption. Before that, it's as if we have modern humans from the anatomical point of view, but no art, no simbolism, and no traces of any religion.

1 hour ago, Genady said:

And, BTW, photography became another art medium. I know as it is one of the specialties of my daughter (MFA from Pratt Institute with majors in Psychology, Art History, and Visual Arts.)

Sure. I agree. I didn't mean to say photography is not art. It is. I meant that, once the possibility arose to faithfully represent what we see by imprinting it, simply depicting what we see became not such a compelling artistic drive for painters and sculptors, and other, more abstract forms of 'depiction' became more relevant.

Edited May 2, 2022 by joigus
link added

[Genady]

7 minutes ago, joigus said:

This idea that sexual selection is at the root of art I find very intriguing, and I would be pleased to know more about your idea and how you came up with it. It kinda makes sense, as there are examples in Nature where animals display and preen --to the point of risking their lives-- for the only purpose of attracting a mate. If that's the case, it obviously has grown into something much bigger than that. I've once read everything we do, we do in order to mate. Now, I think that's an exaggeration. But I'm diverting again...

The paleolithic though goes as far back as 3.3 m.y.a., so it's not off the boundaries you propose. Paleoanthropologists have pushed the boundary much farther back than we used to think even a couple of decades ago. What I do know paleoanthropologists have said is that the first manifestations of art come from about 75,000 y.a. Circa the Toba eruption. Before that, it's as if we have modern humans from the anatomical point of view, but no art, no simbolism, and no traces of any religion.

I didn't know that the paleolithic went so far back. Thank you.

The connection to sexual selection as I see it comes from many angles. I see art (not Art) as a form of human behavior rooted in biology, like attention to music, dancing, vocalizing. It doesn't require a language or special tools, and could exist before them.

Other animals not only display and preen, they also make and build non-practical things just for show and in competitions. As I last studied animal behavior about 15 years ago, I don't remember names and details, but I remember elaborate tentative constructions they made with no practical use, just showing off. We have some kind of small birds in the garden, that continuously make nest imitations in the most inappropriate places just to abandon them and to make another somewhere else.

It is just so easy to see this kind of behavior growing into other aspects of life as human cultures evolved. I also don't think that everything we do, we do in order to mate, but the roots of art fit this biological factor IMO. If art of our ancestors was more like that of these small birds, or simply something like small rock arrangements, it is not surprising that we didn't find their traces. When it came to big rocks, we have plenty of those. But that happened much later.

So, it seems to me that the artistic behavior was there from the beginning, but it grew out of the original mating rituals and became a thing by itself or for other purposes, e.g. religious, when social evolution took over.

[iNow]

17 minutes ago, Genady said:

Other animals not only display and preen, they also make and build non-practical things just for show and in competitions. As I last studied animal behavior about 15 years ago, I don't remember names and details, but I remember elaborate tentative constructions they made with no practical use, just showing off. We have some kind of small birds in the garden, that continuously make nest imitations in the most inappropriate places just to abandon them and to make another somewhere else.

 

Another example of art by non-humans comes from... the pufferfish.

 

 

[Genady]

32 minutes ago, iNow said:

 

Another example of art by non-humans comes from... the pufferfish.

 

 

Amazing!

[NTuft]

“You must first of all remember that there are two kinds of art, one quite different than the other — objective art and subjective art. All that you know, all that you call art, is subjective art, that is, something that I do not call art at all because it is only objective art that I call art…. We have different standards. I measure the merit of art by its consciousness and you measure it by its unconsciousness.”

[joigus]

23 hours ago, iNow said:

 

Another example of art by non-humans comes from... the pufferfish.

 

 

There's more art in Puffy Pufferson here than in many a student of Art I've met.  

Whether he does it for love or for a one-night stander, he only knows.

23 hours ago, Genady said:

I didn't know that the paleolithic went so far back. Thank you.

The connection to sexual selection as I see it comes from many angles. I see art (not Art) as a form of human behavior rooted in biology, like attention to music, dancing, vocalizing. It doesn't require a language or special tools, and could exist before them.

Other animals not only display and preen, they also make and build non-practical things just for show and in competitions. As I last studied animal behavior about 15 years ago, I don't remember names and details, but I remember elaborate tentative constructions they made with no practical use, just showing off. We have some kind of small birds in the garden, that continuously make nest imitations in the most inappropriate places just to abandon them and to make another somewhere else.

It is just so easy to see this kind of behavior growing into other aspects of life as human cultures evolved. I also don't think that everything we do, we do in order to mate, but the roots of art fit this biological factor IMO. If art of our ancestors was more like that of these small birds, or simply something like small rock arrangements, it is not surprising that we didn't find their traces. When it came to big rocks, we have plenty of those. But that happened much later.

So, it seems to me that the artistic behavior was there from the beginning, but it grew out of the original mating rituals and became a thing by itself or for other purposes, e.g. religious, when social evolution took over.

I agree with you 80 %. The other part that humans add to the artistic equation is, IMO, awareness of death. Awereness of death in humans --and, don't tell anybody, but also I suspect probably in corvids and other primates at least-- has given art a compelling character for us as a species, that only the urge to procreate can rival with.

I don't know where this feature puts us in relation with fundamental biological principles, or even among other species, that I suspect present us with the slightest inkling of something like that.

Edited May 3, 2022 by joigus
minor addition

[Genady]

41 minutes ago, joigus said:

There's more art in Puffy Pufferson here than in many a student of Art I've met.  

Whether he does it for love or for a one-night stander, he only knows.

I agree with you 80 %. The other part that humans add to the artistic equation is, IMO, awareness of death. Awereness of death in humans --and, don't tell anybody, but also I suspect probably in corvids and other primates at least-- has given art a compelling character for us as a species, that only the urge to procreate can rival with.

I don't know where this feature puts us in relation with fundamental biological principles, or even among other species, that I suspect present us with the slightest inkling of something like that.

Re other primates, I've just noticed this recent paper exactly on this topic: Dead infant carrying by chimpanzee mothers in the Budongo Forest | bioRxiv

I agree with you that awareness of death is a part of human experience and as such it is reflected in art. But so are many other aspects of our complex experience. I am not sure it is so very special.