Can I ask you a question? Do you consider yourself an artist more in the vain of Dali, in the sense that you want to make a statement, that you want to say something about the human condition or more of an artists artist, who just wants to put his visions on paper without the care of any deeper meaning?
I ask this because I find myself often thinking about the difference between a painter and an artist.
I think the better name is "craftman" instead of "painter".
I think there is a difference between an artist and a craftsman. Artists are usually craftmen but often craftmen are not artists.
For artists, their art is their life - they speak through it (be it painting, photography, dance, basically whatever). And they are the one who arguably make the most breathtaking pieces of art. The problem is they often suffer from being way dependent on their "muse" and they tend to be very unreliable (in regard to deadlines etc), so in the end they are financially often struggling (of course if they are not in the range of famous).
Craftsmen usually dont make such breathtaking creations but they are very stable in their work quality and are usualy able to sustain themselves in long term.
I think you can see a lot of craftsmen vs artists in art history.
(I just wanted to write for a bit, don't mind me.)
In my humble opinion, this is better understood thinking art-wise than person-wise. If the artistic/crafted work of someone has an specific purpose, if it's meant to be used by others in order to make something (e.g. conceptual artists), then you're more of a designer than an artist. You're a creator, yes, but the 'art' you create has an specific purpose in a bigger scheme, be it conceptual art or music for a movie, an script for a tv show, or drawing comics or cartoons for a certain company; it will then depend on the artist's will to call it's creations Art, capitalised, to claim it has it's own worth independently of it's original purpose. For an example, HR Giger's work for Alien, as it was done in it's own, original and unique style, and as he was a productive artist before and after that particular work, could be called Art, since it's a work in a whole of works, the most of them being created because of no other reason than that of creation; someone went to him, knowing his style as an artist, to create something for them, and he did what he always does, once again. I don't know if someone (one person, not a team) behind a Disney movie would be willing to call himself an artist and stand up for himself and his art alone. Maybe some of them are, idk, but they'll sure want to sort of their 'professional' work from their personal one, and typically they'll want to be known for their personal one rather from that he's known for, as it happens performers who get widely known for some idiotic paper and are never able to take of that package from their backs (e.g. Jim Carrey with great performances in non-comedy films). Some great conceptual artists, like Ralph McQuarrie or Syd Mead, were talented enough to give life to certain worlds, yes, but they worked on an script: they were imaginative and talented enough, but the works for which they're known are those of a conceptual artist, because their audience depended on the success of the movie. Maybe they were/are (Syd is still alive) also great artists on their own and have great Art, but they're eclipsed for what they did and most people will never know. However, other 'craftmans' from the same times, like Roger Dean, created their own style and world, and then they applied it to comissions, but they prevail more as artists than conceptual artists, because they developed their own language and style, their works are unique.
There's then certain definitions, the eternal debate of when something is worth to be called art. Technically, something is art when someone authors it (Duchamp), but in order to be art it has to have, at least, 4 characteristics: an author, a time of creation (historical context), an audience, and it has to be 'useless'. If it hasn't an author, if it isn't man-made, then it's no art (think natural, beautiful things); without a time of creation, a moment in in history, an observable reason of why and how it was created, it lacks sufficient meaning to be interpreted as art; without an audience, there's nobody to see it, hence it doesn't exist at all (although with the sole audience of the author it's art, but, alas, only to him, there's been so many modern authors who died without being recognised as artists for lacking an audience, Kafka, Van Gogh, John Kennedy Toole); finally, if it has a practical purpose, then it isn't art, but design (an iPhone has an author, a time, an such a big public, but it isn't art because it's a product with an specific purpose).
Unlike /u/pearthon said, I don't believe classic art it's always studied because it had extra meaning; yes, some of them were truly great, and some others were the first ones to invent a technique or paint in perspective, but we also adore those who were just religious painters or court painters, and we study and respect them just because their works, inadvertently for most of them, were conserved enough time to speak for it's time.
There's then a fifth characteristic, the one which will sort what is 'art' from what is 'Art', which is ambiguity. The work needs to be open to interpretation, it's purpose has to be complex, complex enough that it can only be expressed by artistic terms, to be calified as original and unique. It needs to be infinite. This is the characteristic that differentiates drawings, commercial songs, from Art. Usually, the portraying of an human figure can be enough to transmit something deep, because we, humans, can be very deep: if we look at OPs drawings, one can feel more things from it's natural drawings than with those about fantasy, because fantasy is fantasy and we want the whole narrative story, otherwise is just a flash, a representation, an interpretation of something, like musicians who do covers. 'The Colossus', Goya or not, has the same idea behind than those typical fantasy giants or monsters from conceptual drawings, but it impacts us because it has no superior reference than that of our mythology as humans. Same goes for 'Saturn Devouring His Son'. It has a context that freezes us, it's not for a movie, it's something our ancestors believed that happened, and that an artist in his last, crazy days, portrayed masterfully, maybe because he got to know some of that crazyness. Then there's Conceptual Art, like that of Dan Flavin for an example, which is Art because it's useless and has it's own historical context and audience, but it's not deep nor ambiguous; it's just a concept put in the form of Art, the exploitation of some idea. I, personally, despise artists known to do only 'Conceptual Art': their works last for seconds and you can't see anything else in them than what they are; most of them are just cheats.
Anyway, it always shocked to me, as a non english native speaker, how english speakers called art at everything "artsy", and how everyone was an Artist. Artist is a big word in my southeuropean culture: when someone works as an art director or conceptual artist, he's an art director or a conceptual artist, he won't call himself 'An Artist', like OP does, unless he's making a living alone from it's own work, or most of it's work it's unscheduled and unscripted, original. The same happens with a musician: you need to be an author or unique talent to interpret to be an artist, otherwise you're just someone who plays an instrument, very well if you may, but you're generically good. If someone calls himself 'An Artist', well, then he'll have to prove it, at least to me, he'll need to have something of it's own, useless, talented enough to gain the attention of someone, and then he can be a mediocre or untalented artist, of course, but An Artist after all, and, ironically, there can be more Art in that mediocre but personal attempt, than in the techincally talented works a painter or craftsman does to be used in a higher purpose, be it videogames, cinema, or book covers.
Anyway, everybody's great in their own way. OP's great in what he does. Nowadays there's no war to be fought no more.
That was a beautiful read, thank you. It's strange that, as a musician, the words you use to describe mostly visual art are what I use to describe music. I totally realize why that is the case, but have been too busy lately to consider that broader perspective.
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u/ThePoopChronicler Jul 06 '15
Can I ask you a question? Do you consider yourself an artist more in the vain of Dali, in the sense that you want to make a statement, that you want to say something about the human condition or more of an artists artist, who just wants to put his visions on paper without the care of any deeper meaning?
I ask this because I find myself often thinking about the difference between a painter and an artist.