January 19, 2023
Art, the Problem
The word Art, given its multiple valence, is taken for granted.
Art is usually taken as a positive quality, the product of creativity. This is not necessarily so. Art can be good or bad. Creativity can be strong or weak. This is a source of much confusion. This is a place that scoundrels hide.
The use of Art to quality disciplines indicates an arena of operation outside of the rational structure of a discipline, an intuitive maneuver outside, within and between existing logical framework. Skill plus imagination, this the basis of all dictionary definitions. The Art of War. Architecture is considered a synthesis of art and science. The art of medicine.
The phrase "a term of art" is about the use of language specific to a discipline. It is about the nuance pertaining to a field or trade.
The term Fine Art distinguishes Art from art. This is about creative activity explicated via media from gross to subtle. Fine Art is the ambition towards the best in art.
Art also indicates cunning. Artfulness is associated with deceit. Guile, trickery, wiliness. Not all uses of artful cunning is about theft... consider another dimension concerning the idea of the Art of War. It is for no small reason that Odysseus is known as the great artificer. Deception is the foundation of battle. Stratagem. Combatants create patterns and break patterns, this is how traps are made, how war is won.
Artifice can be an indication of bad art, the reliance on clever or cunning devices within prevailing cultural codes. Shtick. Gimmick. Things get complicated when bad art is used to make good art. Meta. The hall of mirrors.
Nabokov, "The Gift": "Actually, of course, any genuinely new trend is a knight's move, a change of shadows, a shift that displaces the mirror."
Art, like many other terms, requires distinction.
Posted by Dennis at January 19, 2023 11:02 AM
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