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Journal Shadow Wrought's Journal: The Chainsaw Theory of Artistic Merit 12

Journal by Shadow Wrought
"I may not know 'Art,' but I know it when I see it."

So what is Art? And what differentiates "Art" from "art?"

I think art can be anything anyone deems to be art. Someone can stick a turd on a stick and call it art. For it to be Art, however (with capital "A"), then it is the opinion of the people that matter. If every looks at your Turd on a Stick #34 and thinks, "Now that's Art," so be it. If they look at it and say, "Well that's just crap," then while you may have committed art, you are not yet to the level of Art.

My personal theory of what differentiates the two is a simple investigative tool called the chainsaw. If a theoretical chainsaw were taken to the piece, and an outside observer to the piece wouldn't notice, then its not Art. If, on the other hand, the outside observer thinks that it looks like someone took a chainsaw to a really nice piece of art, than that would be Art.

Imagine the Mona Lisa. Imagine the Mona Lisa quartered with a chainsaw. Are they fundamentally the same piece? Didn't think so. Now imagine a pile of garbage. Imagine that same pile of garbage after a chainsaw went thwacking away through it. Is it fundamentally changed? Not really, huh.

So how about you. What precision instruments do you use to separate the crap from the stick?

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The Chainsaw Theory of Artistic Merit More

The Chainsaw Theory of Artistic Merit

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  • You leave my signed velour-on-velvet official replica of Piss Christ out of this!
  • I've held a similar test for Art myself:
    If someone cleans up your work assuming it is trash and/or litter, then you fail. While there are certainly aspects to Art which the average person doesn't get, having a piece which the lay person will recognize was, at least, an attempt to convey some meaning beyond, "please pay me a ton of money for pissing on a canvas" is essential.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by subgeek ( 263292 ) *
      so only top 40 music is worth listening to?

      you put a lot of faith in janitors' collective ability to appreciate art. i'm not saying they're worse than anyone else, but if you get the one janitor that isn't up to snuff, they could throw something out that might have changed the world.

      jackson pollock was into a lot more than trying to con people into paying him a lot of money. his work has become accepted as deep and not just important as a sign of his own times, but as a shaping force to art that has come
      • jackson pollock was into a lot more than trying to con people into paying him a lot of money. his work has become accepted as deep and not just important as a sign of his own times, but as a shaping force to art that has come since.

        Ya actually, drizzling paint on a canvas is about what I had in mind. Just because he is a good con man, doesn't change anything, as far as I'm concerned he's managed to pull the wool over the art community's collective eyes with it. As for it's meaning, it strikes me as a R

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by subgeek ( 263292 ) *
          are you trolling or are you just not really that up on art history?
          • The latter. No, I'm not very informed on art history, and I expect that someone much more versed could expound on why Pollock's work is so wonderful; sorry, it still looks to this layperson that someone looked at a drop-cloth in a construction zone and said, "brilliant!" and has been defending his claim ever since.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by subgeek ( 263292 ) *
              that's completely ok. everyone has a right not to like anything they choose. i personally shouldn't judge the merits of modern country music because i don't really like the way it sounds, but that doesn't mean there's no art in it; it just means i'm not the intended audience.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by subgeek ( 263292 ) *
          as far as I'm concerned he's managed to pull the wool over the art community's collective eyes with it.

          because obviously laypeople have a better grasp on a subject than those that actually spend time studying it? this was my original point. laypeople aren't the only ones for whom "real" art is created.
  • that's interesting - but i can conceive of a piece of Art that could be chainsawed, and if someone to see it for the first time, they might not know. the tool that i use to separate the two is time. if it lasts a few generations it is Art. everything else is art hoping to someday be Art. and i enjoy lots of art - already knowing it will never make it to Art status.

    this is interesting (to me anyway) as this definition is what makes me shake my head at questions like - "are video games art?" or "i

  • I generally have little to no appreciation for the visual arts. Especially when they are forced on the public.

    The god awful "art" they installed in the traffic circles in Bend is an example of an eyesore placed at public expense. As are the "rusty arches" on U.S. 97 at Revere.

  • Art with the capital A is successful at evoking emotion, usually the emotion the artist was attempting to communicate; art with a lower-case a usually (to me) denotes attempts to evoke emotion, or pieces that, while they evoke emotion, do *not* invoke the emotion intended by the artist - Mapplethorpe's work invoked my disgust, and a desire to cause physical pain to the governmental idiot responsible for allowing any fractional percentage of my tax dollars to support his work - definitely "art", NOT "Ar
  • i agree with this part:

    I think art can be anything anyone deems to be art.

    i have different specifics about "art" and "Art." most of it stems from the fact that not everyone will see something is changed. there are a lot of people that would take notice of the mona lisa's demise because it "looks like a picture of a woman." if there were a pile of garbage aranged in such a way that that the position of constituent pieces was significant, even to a tiny minority, then chainsawing that pile into a differen

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