Re: Art and photography
retoohs
here is photography as art
Alan
UC wrote:
> "A serious question though : Why don't you consider Photography art?"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> [QUOTE=chiller][QUOTE=Michael Scarpitti][QUOTE=chiller][QUOTE=Michael
> Scarpitti][url]http://www.users.on.net/~gl1500/htm/grave.htm[/url]
>
> This one: the sky looks too dark. The dodge line is quite
> apparent.[/QUOTE]
>
>
> Thankyou Micheal but unless I'm mistaken I didn't ask for your comments
>
> As for art I think you have little or no idea.
>
> Steve[/QUOTE]
>
> You posted a link. I figure that you want people to look. If so,
> comments will usually follow.
>
> As for 'art', I think the whole notion of 'fine-art' photography is the
> biggest hoax since the Zoan Cistern. It's a laugh-fest, hilarious in
> the extreme. Pompous, pretentious, contentless photographs of rocks and
> trees ad infinitum. All the while, the more important subject matter is
> neglected: People, places, ordinary events...
>
> I think it's a riot....
>
> How much would you give to have photographs of Caesar crossing the
> Rubicon?
>
> Are not the newsreels from before and during WWII utterly fascinating?
> And not a damned one of them is 'fine art'!
>
> The term 'fine art' has a definite meaning:
>
> "any art (as painting, drawing, architecture, sculpture, music,
> ceramics, or landscape architecture) for which aesthetic purposes are
> primary or uppermost usually used in plural".
>
> So, since photography is not even 'art' at all, it is certainly not a
> 'fine art'.[/QUOTE]
>
> Hi Michael,
>
> Now that is a much more interesting post. :)
>
> Thanks for your thoughts -- and I mean that. I don't agree with all you
> have written but certainly appreciate your point of view.
>
> A serious question though : Why don't you consider Photography art?
>
> Steve.[/QUOTE]
>
>
> Let me try this one more time:
>
> Consider these objects:
>
> 1) A household steam iron
>
> 2) Something that looks exactly like a household steam iron
>
> 3) A picture (painting) of a boy in blue clothes
>
> 4) A color photograph of boy in blue clothes
>
> 5) A color photograph of the (painting) of the boy in blue clothes
>
> Let's start with the steam iron, shall we? If you leave it around your
> house, no one is going to ask 'what is that a steam iron [i]of[/i]'?
> You're inclined to say: 'Excuse me, I don't quite understand you!', and
> you'd be right. A steam iron is not a steam iron of something else.
> It's self-contained.
>
> Turning to No. 2, the 'mock' steam iron, you could call it a work of
> art I suppose, but if there is no structural difference, how can we
> call that art? Suppose an 'artist' comes to the steam iron factory one
> day and takes away a bunch of slightly off-tolerance parts that are
> rejects, and then assembles these in exactly the correct way so as to
> form a working steam iron. Is there really any difference? I'd say
> we're straining to say so.
>
> Now, to No. 3, the painting.
> http://www.imagereproductions.com/galnsborough/Galnsborough01-blue%20boy.jpg
>
> Why is this 'art'? Well, in its day, it may not have been! The term
> 'artist' has been corrupted today to mean someone far more significant
> than that of the portrait painter. By those lower standards, I could
> accept that photographers are 'artists', but I must caution that I am
> talking only from the standpoint of portraiture, and that calling
> someone an 'artist' was more of an insult than a compliment. Ancient
> Greek and Roman sculpture that we praise so highly was essentially a
> commodity. What we have left today from them is mostly the cheap marble
> stuff. The good stuff was made of bronze or other metals, and most of
> it disappeared centuries ago.
>
> Now, is the color photograph of the boy in blue clothes 'art'.
> Certainly not in the modern sense, but perhaps in the ancient sense,
> and again the term 'artist' was more a term of derision than praise.
> Finally, our fifth object is but a mere copy of an artist's portrait.
>
> Now, the most important point of my little essay. The steam iron is not
> a steam iron of something else, but a photograph is always a photograph
> of something else.
>
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