(Joseph Kossuth, 1969)

"The fact that it has lately become fashionable among physicists to be sympathetic to religion<...>notes the insufficient faith of some physicists in the reliability of their own hypotheses. This is the reaction of physicists to the anti-religious dogmatism of nineteenth-century scientists, and a natural consequence of the recent crisis in physics" (A. J. Ayer).

"... After clarifying the meaning of the Treatise, the reader will no longer be tempted to engage in philosophy - after all, it is not empirical, like science, and not tautological, like mathematics; like Wittgenstein in 1918, philosophy must be abandoned, since, as it is traditionally considered , built on embarrassment" (J. O. Armson).

Traditional philosophy, one might say, by definition, has until recently dealt with the unspeakable. The almost exclusive attention that twentieth-century philosophers of linguistic analysis paid to the utterance is based on their shared conviction that the unsaid is unsaid because it is unpronounceable. Hegelian philosophy only made sense in the 19th century—it must have seemed reassuring from the point of view of an age that barely survived Hume, the Enlightenment, and Kant. Hegel's philosophy was also able to provide a haven for those who defended religious beliefs - it provided an alternative to Newtonian mechanics and allowed the growth of historical disciplines (after all, it justified even Darwinian biology). In addition, Hegel guaranteed a satisfactory resolution of the conflict between theology and science.

The result of Hegel's influence is that most modern philosophers are in fact very little different from the historians of philosophy. They are a kind of librarians of Truth. One gets the impression that "there is nothing more to say." And if we recall the consequences of Wittgenstein's argument - as well as everything that arose in thinking under the influence and after Wittgenstein - there is no need to seriously talk about the so-called "continental" philosophy) .

Is there a reason for the "unreality" of philosophy in our time? Probably, the answer to this question lies in the difference between our time and previous centuries. In the past, man's conclusions were based on the information that he received about the world around him - if not necessarily as the empiricists claimed, then, in general, as the rationalists imagined. Sometimes the proximity of philosophy and science was so great that the scientist and the philosopher turned out to be one and the same person. Indeed, from the time of Thales, Epicurus, Heraclitus, and Aristotle to the era of Descartes and Leibniz, "great names in philosophy have often been magnitudes in science." The fact that the picture of the world created by science in the 20th century is very different from the ideas of the previous century needs no proof (at least here). Is it possible that now a person has learned so much and his intellect is such that he is simply not able to believe in the arguments of traditional philosophy? Maybe he knows so much that he can no longer draw conclusions of the traditional type? As Sir James Jeans pointed out:

“... When philosophy took advantage of the achievements of science, it did not borrow an abstract mathematical description of the sequence of events, but borrowed the pictorial description of such a sequence that existed at that time; therefore it appropriated not certain knowledge, but certain connections. Such connections were sometimes suitable for a model of the world proportionate to man; but they are not applicable to those higher processes of nature that control the formation of the human world and bring us closer to the true nature of reality.

Then he continues:
“One consequence of the above development has been that the standard of philosophical discussion on many issues - for example, the discussion of causality and free will or materialism and mentalism - is based on an interpretation of the sequence of events that no longer satisfies us. The scientific basis of all these old discussions turned out to be blurred, and with their disappearance, all their arguments also disappeared ... ".

The 20th century ushered in a time that can be called "the end of philosophy and the beginning of art." I mean, of course, not the narrow sense of the statement, but rather the trend of the whole situation. Of course, linguistic philosophy can be considered the heir of empiricism, but still it is a “philosophy with one motor”. Of course, there is [still] a "certain state of art" - art before Duchamp - but all its other functions, or reasons-to-be, are formulated in such a way that the ability to function precisely as art decisively limits the state of art and the last can be itself only to a minimal extent. The connection between the “end of philosophy” and the “beginning of art” is by no means mechanical, but such a coincidence does not seem to me accidental. Since the same reasons may be underlying both events, I state such a connection. All of the above I have cited in order to analyze the function of art, and subsequently its validity. I do this in order to allow other researchers to understand the argumentation of my own art, and subsequently other [similar] art, and to provide a clearer understanding of the term "conceptual art" adopted by [me].

Function of art

“The main reason for the minor role of painting at the present time is that the main achievements in art are not necessarily formal achievements” (Donald Judd, 1963).

“More than half of the best that has been created in the last few years is neither painting nor sculpture” (Donald Judd, 1965).

“There is nothing in my painting that sculpture has” (Donald Judd, 1967).

"The idea becomes a machine that produces art" (Saul LeWitt, 1967).

“The only thing that can be said about art is that art is the only thing. Art is art as art, and something else is something else. Art as art is something other than art. Art is not that which is not art” (Ed Reinhardt, 1963).

“Meaning is utility” (Ludwig Wittgenstein).

“A more functional approach to the study of concepts tended to replace the method of introspection. Instead of trying to capture or describe concepts in a naked manner, so to speak, the psychologist explores the way they function as ingredients of belief or Judgment” (Irving M. Kopy).

“Meaning is always the assumption of a function” (T. Segerstedt).

“... The subject of conceptual research is the meaning of certain words and expressions, and not in themselves the objects or states of affairs that we talk about using these words and expressions” (G. H. von Wright).

“Thinking has a radical metaphor. Connection by analogy is its consistent law or principle, its causal network, since meaning arises only from random contexts where the sign stands (or takes the place) of some instance. To think of something is to perceive something as something (this or that), and this “how” brings (overtly or veiledly) an analogy, a parallel, a metaphorical struggle, or a foundation, or a grip, or an attraction, and only through this the mind takes control of the situation. The latter cannot master it if there is nothing to which he could cling - after all, all thinking is clinging, the attraction of similar things ”(I. A. Richards).

In this section, I will discuss the distinction between aesthetics and art, briefly consider formalist art (since it is the main defender of the idea of ​​\u200b\u200baesthetics as art), and also argue that art is analogous to the analytic assumption and that it is precisely the existence of art as a tautology that allows it not to get bogged down in philosophical statements.

It is necessary to separate aesthetics and art because aesthetics is concerned with opinions about the perception of the world in general. In the past, one of the branches of art was the value of the latter as an ornament [decoration]. Therefore, any kind of philosophy that dealt with "beauty" (and therefore taste) was inevitably forced to discuss art. This “habit” gave rise to the idea that there is a conceptual connection between art and aesthetics, which is not true. Until recently, such an idea did not come into open conflict with artistic judgment at all - not so much because the morphological characteristics of art contributed to the constant repetition of this error, but also because other obvious functions of art (depicting religious themes, portraying aristocrats, detailed display of architecture etc.) used art to disguise art.

When objects are represented in the context of art (and until recently [art] has always used objects), they are subject to aesthetic consideration, like any objects of the external world; the aesthetic consideration of an object that exists in the realm of art means that existence and functioning in the context of art has nothing to do with aesthetic judgment.

The relationship of aesthetics to art is similar to the relationship of aesthetics to architecture, in that architecture has a very specific function, and how "good" its design is is primarily determined by how well it performs its function. This means that the judgment of how architecture looks is related to taste: we can indeed see how throughout history at different times - depending on the aesthetics of a particular era - different examples of architecture were praised. Aesthetic thinking went so far that examples of architecture turned out to be not related to art at all, but, moreover, to works of art as such (for example, the Egyptian pyramids).

Indeed, aesthetic judgments are always external to the object's function or to its "reason for being." The exception, of course, are cases where the “reason for existence” of an object is strictly aesthetic. An example of a purely aesthetic object is a decorative object, since the original function of a decorative object is to "add something to make the object more attractive, decorate, ornament." And this is directly related to taste and brings us directly to "formalist" art and criticism. Formalist art (painting and sculpture) is the vanguard of embellishment (decoration). Strictly speaking, it can be justifiably argued that its state as an art is so minimal that for all functional purposes it is not art, but pure exercises of aesthetics. Clement Greenberg is first and foremost a critic of taste. Behind any of his decisions is an artistic judgment, and these judgments reflect his taste. But what does its taste reflect? The period when Greenberg was formed as a critic, the period of "real" for him, the fifties. Based on his theories (assuming there is some logic in them), how else can you explain that he is not interested in Frank Stella, Ed Reinhardt and others who fit his historical scheme well? Is the answer really that he "doesn't sympathize with them for personal reasons"? So, in other words, their works do not correspond to his taste?

But in the philosophical "blank field" (tabula rasa) of art, "if anyone calls something art" (to use Donald Judd's apt phrase), then that would be art? In such a situation, the activity of creating formalistic painting and sculpture can guarantee a "state of art", but only if it is presented in terms of one's own idea of ​​art (i.e. [if there is] a rectangular canvas stretched over a wooden frame, covered with various colors , using certain forms that provide this or that visual experience, etc.). Looking at contemporary art in this light, one realizes how minimal the creative efforts made by formalist artists, and in particular by painters (who now work in this capacity).

All this brings us to the realization of the following fact: what formalist art and criticism take to be the definition of art exists only at the morphological level. And although a significant number of similar-looking objects or images (or visually related objects and images) may appear to be related [to art] (or related to it) due to the similarity of visual / experimental "readings", it would be unreasonable to deduce from this [fact] artistic or conceptual relationship.

It is therefore quite obvious that the dependence of formalist criticism on morphology necessarily leads to a bias against the morphology of traditional art. And in this sense, such criticism is not associated with any "scientific method", nor with any kind of empiricism (as opposed to what Michael Fried would like to convince us with his detailed descriptions of paintings and other scientific paraphernalia). Formalistic criticism is nothing more than an analysis of the physical attributes of certain individual objects that exist in a morphological context. However, it does not add any knowledge (or facts) to our understanding of the nature or function of art. Nor does it comment on the extent to which the objects analyzed are works of art at all, since formalist criticism invariably bypasses the conceptual element in works of art. The reason why [this critique] does not comment on the conceptual element in the works is the fact that formalist art in general becomes such only by virtue of its resemblance to earlier examples of works of art. This is completely mindless art. As Lucy Lippard accurately and succinctly put it in relation to the painting of Jules Olitsky, "it is a visual Muzak".

Formalist critics and artists, as one, do not question the nature of art; about this I said somewhere earlier: “To be an artist means to question the nature of art. If one asks about the nature of painting, it is impossible to ask about the nature of art. If an artist accepts painting (or sculpture), he accepts everything connected with it. This is so because the word art is general, and the word painting is particular. Painting is a kind of art. If you are painting, it means that you are already accepting (not questioning) the nature of art. This means that you accept the nature of art, as it has developed in the European tradition, as a dichotomy of painting and sculpture.

The strongest argument that can be used against the morphological justifications of traditional art is that the morphological concept of art embodies a given a priori conception of art's possibilities. Such an a priori conception of the nature of art (separate from the analytically framed artistic "statements" that I will deal with later) makes it impossible a priori to question the nature of art. But such questioning is conceptually very important for understanding the function of art.

The question of the function of art was first raised by Marcel Duchamp. Indeed, it is to Marcel Duchamp that we should be grateful for giving art its identity. (Of course, a tendency towards a gradual self-identification of art can be seen from Manet and Cezanne all the way to Cubism, but in comparison with Duchamp, all these attempts are timid and ambiguous). "Modern" art [modernism] and what was done before seemed to be connected due to their morphological similarities. If the same is said in other words, then it turns out that the "language" of art remained the same, but it spoke about other things. The event that paved the way for the realization of what made it possible to "speak another language" was Duchamp's first use of an unassisted ready made. With the help of a self-sufficient ready-made object, art changed its focus from the form of language to what was said. This means that at the same time the nature of art has changed: from the question of morphology to the question of function. This change (from "appearance" to "concept") was the beginning of "modern" art [modernism] and the beginning of conceptual art. All art (after Duchamp) is conceptual in nature, because art in general exists only conceptually.

The “value” of certain artists after Duchamp can only be determined according to how much they asked about the nature of art, in other words, “what they added to the concept of art” that was not there before they began work. By making new assumptions, artists question the nature of art. To do this, one cannot only care about the inherited "language" of traditional art, since such an activity is based on the assumption of only one way of framing artistic assumptions. But the very essence of art depends to a large extent on the "creation" of new assumptions.

It is often theorized (especially in connection with Duchamp) that objects of art (in particular, such as finished objects, ready made, but any artifacts are meant) are discussed as objets d'art only in subsequent years and that the intention of the artist himself is not plays no role. This kind of argumentation is an example of a preconceived notion of art, where facts that are not necessarily related to each other are put together. There is only one meaning here: aesthetics, as we have already pointed out, is conceptually indifferent in relation to art. So, any physical object can turn into objets d'art, i.e. may be considered to be in [good] taste, aesthetically pleasing, etc. But all this has nothing to do with the use of this object in the context of art, i.e. its functioning in the context of art. (For example, if a collector attaches legs to a painting and uses it as a dining table, this would have nothing to do with art or the artist, since it was not the intention of the artist to classify it as art.)

What is true of Duchamp's art is true of much of the art created after him. In other words, the value of Cubism is its idea in the field of art, and not the physical or visual qualities that can be observed in a particular painting - special cases of a certain arrangement of colors or shapes. After all, these colors and shapes are the "language" of art, and not its conceptual meaning as art. From a conceptual point of view, looking at cubic "masterpieces" as art is now meaningless - at least if we are really talking about art. The visual information that was unique to the language of Cubism is now generally internalized and has a lot to do with the way painting is viewed “linguistically”. (What, say, a Cubist painting meant to Gertrude Stein is beyond our speculation, since the same painting meant something different at the time than it does now.) Today, the "value" of an original Cubist painting is in most respects the same as the value of an authentic Lord Byron's manuscripts or "The Spirit of St. Louis, as viewed by the Smithsonian Institution. (Indeed, museums serve the same function as the Smithsonian, otherwise why is Cezanne's or Van Gogh's palette on display in the Louvre's "ballgame wing" with as much pomp as their paintings?) more than historical curiosities. Speaking from the standpoint of art, Van Gogh's paintings are no more valuable than his palette: both are just "collector's items".

Art "lives" in the process of influencing other art, and not by preserving the physical "[dry] residue" of the artist's ideas. The reason why various masters of the past suddenly "come to life" again is that some aspects of their work are beginning to be used by those living today. No one seems to realize that there is no "truth" at all in what art is.

What is the function of art, or the nature of art? If we continue our analogy of the forms that it takes with the language of art, then we will understand that a work of art is a kind of sentence or statement (proposition), which appears in the context of art as a commentary on art. From here we can go further and analyze "types of utterance". Here, A. J. Ayer’s assessment of Kant’s separation of the analytic and synthetic [statement] will be valuable for us: “A statement is considered analytical when its solidity depends solely on the definitions of the symbols contained in it, and synthetic when its solidity is determined by experimental facts.” Here I will try to draw an analogy between the conditions of art and the conditions of analytic utterance. In that they are not [facts of] faith like anything else, not referential to anything (other than art itself) - in the end, the forms of art are most clearly related only to art - in this they turn out to be forms close to analytic statements.

Works of art are analytic statements. That is, if we consider them within their own context - as art - they do not carry any information about anything. A work of art is a tautology because it is a presentation of the intention of the artist, i.e. he says that a concrete work of art is art, and that means: it is the definition [of the concept] of art.

So, the fact that this is art, in fact, is pure non-experimental data (a priori). This is what Jada meant when he said: "... if anyone calls something art, then it will be art."

Indeed, it seems impossible to discuss art in general terms, without resorting to tautology - after all, trying to "grab" art by some other "handle" is simply to focus on another aspect or quality of the statement, usually not relevant to the "state of art" in a particular artifact. . You begin to understand that the "state of art" is a conceptual state. The fact that the linguistic forms in which the artist puts his statements are sometimes "private codes" or languages ​​is an inevitable condition for the freedom of art from morphological restrictions, and from this it follows that, in order to understand and appreciate contemporary art, acquaintance with him.

By analogy, one can understand why the “common man from the street” is so intolerant of artistic art (artistic art) and always demands art as a traditional language. (Now it is clear why formalist art sells "like hot cakes.") Only in painting and in sculpture did the artists speak the same language. What Formalists call "innovative art" (Novelty Art) is sometimes an attempt to find new languages, although [having] a new language does not mean that it will shape some new statements (example: most of the kinetic and electronic art).

What Ayer formulated in the context of language for the analytical method can be applied in a different way to art, i.e. the validity of the statements of art does not depend on any empirical (and still less aesthetic) assumptions about the nature of things. For the artist, like the analyst, is not directly connected with the physical parameters of things. He only cares about 1) what opportunities art has for conceptual growth, and 2) how statements can logically follow this growth. In a word, by the nature of the statements of art - not factual, but linguistic. This means that they do not describe the behavior of either physical or even mental objects, but express the definitions of art or the formal consequences of the definitions of art. Accordingly, we can say that art operates in accordance with logic. We shall see later that the characteristic feature of purely logical unity is that it is concerned with the formal consequences of our definitions (art) and not at all with problems of empirical facts.

I repeat again: art has something in common with logic and mathematics, that it is a tautology, i.e. the idea of ​​art (or work) and art are one and the same and can be evaluated as art without going beyond the context of art for any verification. On the other hand, let's consider why art cannot be a synthetic statement (at least it has great difficulty trying to be). This means that the truth or falsity of statements (of art) cannot be verified empirically. Ayer states: The criterion by which we determine the soundness of an a priori or analytic statement is not sufficient to determine the soundness of an empirical or synthetic statement. For it is characteristic of empirical statements that their solidity is not purely formal. To say that a geometric proposition, or a whole system of geometric propositions, is false is to say that they contradict themselves. But an empirical proposition, or a system of empirical propositions, can be free from contradictions and still be false. When they are said to be false, this does not mean that they have a formal defect, but that they do not satisfy some particular material criterion.

The unreality of "realistic" art stems from the fact that it is framed as a synthetic statement: the viewer is constantly tempted to test it empirically. The synthetic property of realism does not lead us back to questioning within a wider range of questions about the nature of art (as opposed to the works of such artists as Malevich, Mondrian, Pollock, Reinhardt, early Rauschenberg, Jones, Lichtenstein, Warhol, André, Judd, Flavin, LeWitt, Morris and others) - rather, we simply leave the "orbit" of art and find ourselves in the "boundless space" of human existence.

Pure expressionism could be defined (continuing to use Ayer's terms) as follows: “A sentence consisting only of demonstrative symbols cannot be a real utterance. Such a sentence could be a mere exclamation, in no way characterizing what it is supposed to refer to. Expressionist works are usually the kind of "exclamations" that exist in the morphological language of traditional art. If Pollock is important, it is only because he painted on loose pieces of canvas, spread out on the floor, horizontally. What is completely unimportant with Pollock is that later he stretched his spattered canvases on stretchers and hung them on the walls, vertically. (What matters is what the artist brings to the art, not how he adapts to what came before him.) And even less important for art are Pollock's claims of "self-expression," since the very notion of distinct subjective meanings is useless to anyone who had no personal contact with a particular artist. The "specificity" of such concepts is decidedly outside the context of art.

“I don't make art,” says Richard Serra. - I am doing some activity; if someone wants to call it art, then that's their business - it's not for me to decide. All this is usually found out later. So, Serra is well aware of the possible consequences of his activities. If Serra really only "figures out how lead behaves" (in terms of gravity, molecular, etc.), then why should anyone really consider his work to be art? If he does not take responsibility for the fact that he "makes art", who can (or should) take such responsibility? Indeed, Serra's work seems to be quite empirically reliable: lead is capable of many things, which is why it is used for various physical needs. All of the above leads to anything but a dialogue about the nature of art. In a certain sense, Serra is a primitivist. He has no idea about art. But how then do we know about his “activities”? We know because he told us that this is art - by certain actions of his, after the "activity" took place. That is, he used several galleries, placed there and in museums some physical remnants of his “activity”, and also sold them to art collectors (however, as we have already indicated, collectors do not play a role in determining the “state of art” in a particular work). So, by denying that his work is art and "playing the artist," Serra signifies something more than a paradox. He secretly feels that "art" is arrived at empirically. As Ayer said: “There are no absolutely accurate empirical statements. Only tautologies are accurate. Empirical questions, all as one, are hypotheses that can be confirmed or refuted in actual sensory experience. And the statements in which we formulate observations that confirm these hypotheses are themselves hypotheses, which must be subjected to further verification by sensory experience. Therefore, there are no definitive statements.

In the writings of Ed Reinhardt one can find a very close concept - art as art - and the thesis that "all art is always dead, living art is a deception". Reinhardt understood the nature of art very well. Its true meaning has not yet been assessed. Art forms that can be considered as synthetic statements are confirmed by the whole world, i.e. to understand these statements, it is necessary to go beyond the tautological limits8 of art and consider "external" information. However, in order to be considered art, this external information must be ignored, since external information (for example, qualities obtained by experimentation) has its own intrinsic value. To realize this value, one does not need to resort to the "state of the art" at all.

From this it is easy to realize that the vitality of art is not about the presentation of a visual (or any other) [human] experience. It is quite possible that in previous centuries one of the external functions of art was precisely this. After all, even in the 19th century, man lived in fairly standard visual environments. That is, it was usually possible to predict with some ease what a person would come into contact with from day to day: in the part of the world in which a particular person lived, the visual environment was relatively constant. In our time, on the contrary, the experimental environment [of man] has become extremely enriched. You can fly around the globe in some hours and days (and not months, as before). We have movies, color television, as well as man-made wonders like Las Vegas light shows or New York skyscrapers. The whole world is available for viewing, and, on the other hand, the whole world can see a person on the surface of the moon without leaving their apartments. Of course, no one expects that the objects of painting and sculpture will be able to visually and experimentally compete with all this.

The concept of "usefulness" is also relevant for art and for its "language". More recently, the box or cube has been used quite a lot in the context of art (compare, for example, these forms in Judd, Morris, LeWitt, Bladen, Smith, Bell, and McCracken, not to mention the abundance of boxes and cubes created since). The difference between such diverse applications of the box or cube form is directly related to the differences in the intentions of the authors-artists. Moreover, the use of a box or a cube (especially by Judd) illustrates well our contention that an object only becomes art when it is placed in the context of art. A few examples will clarify this point. It can be argued that if one of Judd's boxes was filled with garbage and placed in an industrial environment (and even just put on the street), then it would not be identified as art. It follows from this that understanding and comprehension of it as a work of art will only be a priori and should precede the direct consideration of it as an artifact. In order to appreciate and understand contemporary (contemporary) art, preliminary information about the concept of art and the concepts of a particular artist is necessary. Any individual physical attribute (quality) or even the totality of all attributes of works of contemporary art is completely unimportant for the concept of art. The concept of art, as Judd said (although he did not mean it), should be taken as something holistic. To look at the elements of a concept is always to look at aspects that are not essential to the "state of the art" - it's like reading the individual words of a statement.

Therefore, it will not come as a surprise to assert that art with the least fixed morphology is the very example from which we deduce the nature of the generalizing concept of art. After all, where there is a context that exists independently of the morphology [of art] and includes its function, it is there that one can expect the least predictable, nonconformist result. Precisely because modern [modernist] art has the "language" with the shortest history, that is why the justified rejection of this "language" becomes the most possible. From this it is clear that art, rooted in Western (European) painting and sculpture, of all the general conceptions of "art", is the least presumptuous and most energetic in questioning the nature of art. Ultimately, however, all forms of art have (in Wittgenstein's terms) only a family resemblance. However, the variety of qualities associated with the “state of art” (which, for example, poetry, the novel, cinema, theater and various types of music have, etc.) is their aspect, which in the definition of the function of art (as it is understood in these pages) is the most reliable.

Isn't the decline of poetry due to the implicit metaphysics involved in the use of "ordinary" language as the language of art? In New York, the recent transition of "concrete" poets to the use of real objects and the theater can be considered the last decadent phase of poetry. Maybe they feel the unreality of their own art form? “We now see that the axioms of geometry are simple definitions, and that geometric theorems are simply the logical consequences of these definitions. Geometry itself is not related to physical space; one cannot say "what" geometry is talking about. But we can use geometry to analyze physical space. In other words, once we give the axioms a physical interpretation, we can apply the theorems to objects that satisfy the requirements of the axioms as well. Whether geometry can be applied to the real physical world or not is an empirical question beyond the study of geometry itself. Therefore, it makes no sense to ask which of the varieties of geometry known to us are true and which are false. All are true to the extent that they are free from contradictions. A statement that says that some definite application of geometry is possible is a statement that does not refer to geometry itself. All that geometry itself tells us is that if something can be subsumed under the definitions, then it will also meet the theorems. Thus geometry is a purely logical system, and its propositions are pure analytic propositions. (A.J. Ayer) I guess that's where the vitality of art lies. In an age in which traditional philosophy is, by virtue of its own assumptions, unrealistic, the ability of art to exist will depend not only on its ability not to perform some service - for example, to entertain, to convey a visual (or some other) experience, or to decorate - in all in these qualities it is easily replaced by the culture and technology of kitsch; art will be viable only without taking a philosophical position. The unique character of art lies in its ability to remain "suspended" in relation to all philosophical judgments. It is in this context that art reveals similarities with science - with logic, mathematics, and so on. But while all other activities are useful, art is useless. In fact, art exists only for itself.

In this period of [existence] of man, art is perhaps the only (after philosophy and religion) daring that satisfies what in other times was called "human spiritual needs." It can be put differently: art adequately responds to the state of things “beyond physics”, where philosophy is forced to limit itself to only assumptions. And the strength of art lies in the fact that even the previous statement is an assumption that cannot be confirmed by it. Art is the only thing art claims to be. Art is the definition of art.

II. "Conceptual Art" and Recent Art

“Disappointment in painting and sculpture is a lack of interest in doing it all over again, not a disillusionment with themselves - as they are done by those who have developed the latest advanced varieties. New work always involves opposition to the old. This confrontation is included in the work. If the earlier work is first class, then it is complete in itself" (Donald Judd, 1965).

"Abstract art, or non-pictorial art, is as old as this age itself, and although it is more specialized than previous art, it is purer and more complete: and like any modern thought or field of knowledge, it is more demanding in its scope. Human Relations (Ed Reinhardt, 1948)

"In France, there is an old saying: "Stupid as an artist." Artists have always been considered stupid, and poets and writers have always been considered very smart. I wanted to be smart. I had to invent. There is no point in doing what your own father did. No It makes no sense to be another Cezanne. In the "visual" period, there is still a bit of the stupidity of the artist. All my work in that period, before "Nude", was visual painting. And then I had an idea. I came up with the ideal formulation of a way to get rid of all influences " (Marcel Duchamp)

“Although every work of art becomes a physical phenomenon, there are some that do not” (Saul LeWitt).

“The main advantage of geometric shapes is that that they are not organic, like all other art. If one could come up with a form that was neither geometric nor organic, it would be a great discovery” (Donald Judd, 1967)

“The only thing that can be said about art is its breathlessness, lifelessness, immortality, contentlessness, formlessness, spacelessness, timelessness. And that always means the end of art” (Ed Reinhardt, 1962).

NOTE The whole discussion in the preceding part [of the article] did not just justify the right of the latest art to be called "conceptual". It also reflected, it seems to me, a certain confusion of mind associated with past (and especially modern) trends in the development of art. This article should not indicate any "movement". But as one of the earliest exponents (through both creativity and conversation) of the kind of art best described by the term “conceptual art,” I am increasingly concerned about the quite arbitrary application of the term to art of the broadest interest, and to many of I would never want to (and logically by no means obliged) to use them.

The most "pure" definition of conceptual art is that it is an exploration of the foundations of the concept of "art" and what it has come to mean. Like most terms with a rather idiosyncratic connotation, "conceptual art" is often viewed as a trend. Of course, in a certain sense this is a trend, because the definition of "conceptual art" is very close to the meaning of the concept of art as such.

But the argumentation of such an understanding of the trend, to my greatest regret, is still due to errors in the morphological characterization that conjugates what [in fact] are diverse activities. In our case, this means an attempt to highlight style characteristics (slylehood). Assuming the primacy of causal relationships leading to "final consequences", such criticism does not notice the original intentions (concepts) of the artist and focuses exclusively on his "final product". In fact, much of the criticism is concerned only with the superficial aspect of this "final product", namely the apparent non-materiality or "anti-object" similarity of most "conceptual" works of art. But all this can only be significant if we assume that the objects are necessarily important to art, or rather, that they have an unambiguous connection with art. In this case, the above criticism will focus on the negative aspect of art.

If the reader has followed the discussion in the first part [of the article], then he can understand my statement that objects are conceptually indifferent in relation to the state of art. This does not mean at all that any particular "research of art" may or may not use objects, material substances, etc., within the framework of the undertaken study. Of course, research and development, such as those of Bainbridge or Harrell, are excellent examples of this use. While I have suggested that all art is ultimately conceptual, some of the latest work is conceptual in intent, while other recent art is only superficially related to conceptual creativity. And, despite the fact that many recent works are mostly progress towards "formalist" or "anti-formalist" tendencies (Morris, Serra, Saunier, Hesse, etc.), they should not be considered as conceptual art in a more precise sense. words.

The three artists most often associated with me (particularly in Seth Siegelaub's projects) - Douglas Huebler, Robert Barry and Laurens Weiner - do not seem to me to be associated with conceptual art as defined above. Douglas Huebler, who participated in the exhibition "Primary Structures" at the Jewish Museum (New York), uses a non-morphological art-like form of presentation (photographs, maps, mailings) to treat iconic, structural, sculptural problems directly arising from his own sculptures from laminated plastics. (he performed them even in 1968). The artist himself points this out in his preface to the catalog of the solo exhibition (it was organized by Seth Siegelaub and existed only as a documentary catalogue): "The existence of each sculpture is documented by its documentation." I did not cite all this in order to emphasize the negative aspect of such work - I only show that Huebler (he is now well over forty - he is much older than most of the artists considered here) does not have those goals and objectives that would bring him closer with conceptual art in its purest and most widespread form.

Other artists - Robert Barry and Lawrence Weiner - have observed how their work, one might say, by pure chance, evokes associations with conceptual art. Barry painted: his paintings appeared in the Systematic Painting exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum; the only thing he has in common with Weiner is that the "path" leading to conceptual art was associated with the choice of artistic materials and processes. Barry's previous works were post-Newman-Reinhardt opuses and reduced (in terms of physical materials, but not in terms of meaning): from tiny two-inch square paintings to wire stretched between architectural points, then to radio waves, inert gases, and finally , to "brain energy" They appear to be "conceptual" only to the extent that the material is invisible. But Barry's art has a physical status, and this is different from [status] works that exist purely conceptually.

Lawrence Weiner abandoned painting in the spring of 1968 and changed his idea of ​​"place" (in the sense that Carl Andre gave to this term): from the context of the canvas (which may have only specificity) he moved into a "more general" context, continuing , however, take care of the specifics of materials and processes. It is obvious to him that if one does not take care of "appearance" (he does not take care of it himself and in this sense anticipated many so-called anti-formalists), then not only will there be no need to do work (for example, in his own workshop), but - more importantly - such doing will again put them in their place, in a specific context. So, by the summer of 1968, Weiner decided that his work would exist only as suggestions in his notebook - precisely as long as some "reason" (museum, gallery or collector), or, as he called it, "recipient" , will not require them to be implemented. Just in the late autumn of that year, Weiner took the next step, deciding that it didn’t matter at all whether his work was done or not. In this sense, his private notebooks became the public domain.

Pure conceptual art was first consistently embodied in the work of Terry Atkinson and Michael Baldwin in Coventry, England, as well as in my work created in New York around 1966. Japanese artist On Kawara, who has traveled the world continuously since 1959, has been making deeply conceptual works since 1964. He Kawara began with pictures, all covered with the same word. He then moved on to "questions" and "codes" and to works consisting of describing a place in the Sahara Desert using [geographical] latitude and longitude. More famous are his “pictures-dates”. Such a painting consists of the date of the day on which it was painted painted on canvas. If the picture did not end on the same day that the author started it (that is, by midnight), then it was destroyed. Although Kawara still makes “date paintings” (he spent a year traveling all over South America), he has taken on other projects in the last two years. These occupations include the "Centennial Calendar" - a daily listing of all the people he met ([it] is kept in notebooks entitled "I met"), and "I went" - a collection of city plans with the designation of the streets where he walked. Every day, On Kawara also sends out postcards, where he tells the time when he woke up one morning or another. The reasons that led Kawara to his art are deeply personal: he deliberately avoids public attention and advertising in the [modern] art world. It seems to me that his incessant references to "painting" as a medium are nothing more than a joke, touching on the morphological characteristics of traditional art rather than reflecting his interest in painting itself. The work of Terry Atkinson and Michael Baldwin (they are co-authors) began in 1966 and included such projects as a polygon composed of the contour outlines of the states of Kentucky and Iowa (titled "Map excluding Canada, James Bay, Ontario, Quebec, Bay of St. Lawrence, New Brunswick...”, etc.); conceptual drawings created from various serial conceptual schemes; map of the 36-mile Pacific Ocean west of Oahu, at a scale of 3 inches 1 mile (blank square). In 1967, such works as "Air Conditioner Show" and "Air Show" were created. The latter, as described by Terry Atkinson, was "a series of statements regarding the possible theoretical use of an air column based on a base of one square mile and having uncertain parameters in the vertical dimension" .

Actually, no specific square mile of the earth's surface was considered - the concept was not tied to a specific area. Works such as "Frames", "Hot and Cold" and "22 Propositions: The French Army" are examples of the most recent collaborations [of these authors]. Last year, Atkinson and Baldwin, along with David Bainbridge and Harold Harrel, founded Art & Language Press. They regularly publish the conceptual art magazine "Art & Language" and other publications related to their research projects.

Kristina Kozlov (a) from the end of 1966 also worked in the conceptual plan. Here are just a few of her productions: one included a "concept" film (shot on blank Letter film); "Compositions for audio structures" - a system of codes for sound; a stack of several hundred blank sheets of paper, each for one day when a concept is rejected; "Figurative work" - a listing of everything that [the artist] has eaten in the last six months; the study of crime as an artistic activity. Canadian Iain Baxter has been creating something like "conceptual things" since the end of 1967. Americans should also be mentioned here - James Byars and Frederic Bartelm, Franco-German artists Bernard Bern and Hannah Darboven. The books that Eduard Ruscha created around the same time are also relevant. This includes some of the work of Bruce Nauman, Barry Flanagan, Bruce McLean and Richard Long. Stephen Kaltenbach's 1968 Time Capsule is quite remarkable, as are most of his later works. Ian Wilson's Conversations (no longer influenced by [Alan] Kaprow) is also conceptualized. The German artist Franz E. Walther, beginning around 1965, treated objects in a way that was very different from what is usually accepted in the (conventional) art context. In the past few years, other artists have also moved to a more “conceptual” form of creativity (although some very superficially). Mel Bochner turned to such activity, moving away from works performed under the strong influence of "minimalist" art. Within the framework of "conceptual" creativity, a certain part of the work of Ian Dibbets, Eric Orr, Allen Ruppenberg and Dennis Oppenheim can undoubtedly be considered. In the works of Donald Burgey<...>concept format was also applied. The movement towards purer conceptual art can be noted in the work of young artists who have recently begun their development: these are Saul Ostrow, Adrian Panper, Perpetua Butler. From the point of view of this pure meaning, things made by a group of artists living in New York are interesting: among them are an Australian and two Englishmen - Ian Byrne, Mel Ramsden and Roger Cutforth. (John Baldessari's entertaining pop pictures, although they contain certain hints - "conceptual" caricatures of genuine conceptual art, do not really relate to the material of my reasoning.)

Terry Atkinson has suggested (and I agree with him) that Saul LeWitt is largely responsible for creating the kind of environment that made possible the perception (if not the creation!) of our art. (However, I hasten to add that it was not so much LeWitt who influenced me personally, but Ed Reinhardt, Duchamp - through Johnsy 13 Morris - and Donald Judd.) Probably, the early works of Robert Morris should also be attributed to the history of conceptual art, especially " Folder with cards "(1962). Important examples of conceptual type art are many of Rauschenberg's early works (for example, his "Portrait of Iris Clert" and "De Kooning's Erased Drawing"). To some extent, the Europeans Klein and Manzoni also reflect this history. Among the works of Jasper Johns (paintings from the "Targets" and "Flags" series, as well as his beer cans) we find good examples of art that exists as an analytical statement. Jones and Reinhardt are probably the last painters who were also full-fledged artists. As for Robert Smithson, if he recognized his articles in magazines as works of art (he could and should have done this), and his “paintings” as just illustrations for them, his influence would be more relevant. André, Flavin and Judd have been huge influences on recent creativity, though perhaps more as examples of high standards and clear thinking than in any more specific way. From my point of view, Pollock and Judd are the beginning and end of [the era] of American dominance in art - partly because of the ability of many young European artists to "cleanse" this tradition, but most of all because nationalism in art is as inappropriate as in any other area. Former art dealer Seth Siegelaub, who now acts as a "free curator" and was the first to specialize in organizing exhibitions of this type of contemporary art, has staged many group exhibitions not noted anywhere (except in the catalog). Siegelaub stated: "I'm interested in promoting the idea that an artist can live where he likes: not necessarily in New York, London or Paris, as it was in the past - really, anywhere, and still create important art ".

Supposedly my first conceptual work was Leaning Glass (1965). The work consisted of an ordinary five-foot piece of glass that had to be leaned against any wall. Shortly thereafter, I became interested in water - because of its shapelessness and colorlessness. I used water in every way I could think of: blocks of ice, steam from a radiator, maps with systematic use of water surfaces, a collection of postcards depicting bodies in water, etc., until in 1966 I made a photo enlargement of the dictionary definition of the concept water at that time for me was a way to represent the very idea of ​​water. I used the dictionary definition earlier (in late 1965) when I put up a chair, an enlarged photograph of this chair (albeit a little smaller) that I attached next to the wall, and the definition of the word chair attached right there. Around the same time, I made a series of works built on the relationship between words and objects (concepts and what they referred to), and a series of works that existed only as "models": simple shapes (for example, a five-foot square) with information [that] it should be understood as a one-foot square - these were simply attempts to "de-objectify" a certain object.

With the help of Christina Kozlov and a couple of others, in 1967 I founded the Museum of Normal Art. It was an exhibition space organized by artists for artists. The "Museum" itself lasted only a few months. One of his exhibitions was my first solo show in New York; I made it secret - the title was: "15 people present their favorite book." The exhibition was exactly what its title promised. The "participants" included Morris, Reinhardt, Smithson, LeWitt, and myself. In connection with the show, I also made a series of statements by artists - about their work, about art in general - which continued into 1968.

All my works since the first "definition of water" I have given the subtitle "Art as an Idea as an Idea". I have always considered exhibiting photocopies [of dictionary entries] as a working form of presentation (or medium), but I never wanted anyone to think that I exhibit photocopies as works of art, which is why I introduced such a distinction and gave all these subheadings. "Dictionary works" developed from abstractions of something special (particulars) - for example, "Water" - to abstractions of abstractions (for example, "Meaning"). A series of "dictionary works" I completed in 1968.<...>The only exhibition of such things took place in Los Angeles, at the 699 Gallery (now closed). At the exhibition, I presented a dozen different definitions of the word "nothing" [or nothing, nothing], taken from various dictionaries. At first, photocopies were frank photocopies, but over time they began to be mistaken for paintings, so the “endless series” ended there. The whole idea with photocopies was that they could be discarded and then restored (if needed) as part of an optional procedure related only to the form of presentation, but not to the "art" itself. Since the "dictionary series" ended, I have started another series (or "investigation" as I prefer to call my work) using the categories from the "Thesaurus". Information is presented through the means of advertising and mass communication (general advertising media). This allows me to separate the actual art in my work from the form of its presentation. I am currently working on a new investigation related to the concept of "games".

Notes.

1. See: Morton White. The Age of Analysis. New York: Mentor Books, 1955, p. 14.

2. Ibid. P. 15.

3. I am referring here to existentialism and phenomenology. Even Merleau-Ponty, who occupies a "middle" position between empiricism and rationalism, cannot express his philosophy without the medium of words (which involves the use of concepts); hence it follows: how can one discuss one's experience without introducing rigid distinctions between one's self and the world?

4 Sir James Jeans Physics and Philosophy. New York: Macmillan, 1946, p. 17.

5. Ibid. P. 190.

7. The task that such a philosophy assumes is the only "function" it can perform without making philosophical statements.

8. More on this in the next section.

9. I want to emphasize that I speak only for myself. I came to these conclusions on my own, and it is from these conclusions that my art has developed since 1966 (and maybe even earlier). Only recently, when I met Terry Atkinson, did I realize that he and Michael Baldwin shared similar, though not identical, beliefs to mine.

10. Dictionary definition (Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language 1962) of the concept of "decorate"

11. The conceptual level of the work of Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitsky, Morris Luns, Ron Davis, Anthony Caro, John Hoyland, Dan Christensen and others is so depressingly low that it can be said that if it exists at all, it is the merit of the critics who propagate them. More on this below.

12. Michael Freed's reasons for using Greenberg's argument reflect his own background as a "scientist" (this is true of other critics as well), but even more, I suspect, his desire to bring his scientific studies into the modern world. One can fully sympathize with his attempts to connect, say, Tiepolo with Jules Olitsky. Although we should not forget that the historian loves history more than anything in the world - even more than art.

13. Lucy Lippard uses this quote in the exhibition catalog "Ad Reinhardt: Paintings" (New York: Jewish Museum, 1966, p.28).

14. Lucy Lippard again; this time from a review of the Whitney Museum's annual exhibition Constellations in the Harsh Daylight (Hudson Review 21. No.l. Spring 1968. P.I80).

16. As Terry Atkinson pointed out in his introductory article in [magazine] Art & Language (No. 1), the Cubists never questioned the morphological characteristics of art - they were interested in what characteristics of painting were acceptable

17. When a collector buys Flavin's work, he does not buy a light show (after all, in a store he could buy the corresponding equipment much cheaper). Such a collector does not "buy" anything at all - he subsidizes Flavin's activities as an artist.

18. Ayer A.J. language. Truth and Logic. New York: Dover, 1946. P.78.

19. Ibid. P.57.

21. Ibid. P.90. 15

22. Ibid. P.94.

23. Op. catalogue: Ad Reinhardt: Paintings. P.12.

24. Problematic here is the use of ordinary language in poetry - as an attempt to express the unsaid; in general, the use of language in the context of art does not entail any internal problems.

25. The irony is that many of them call themselves "conceptual poets." A number of such works are very close to what Walter de Maria does, and this is no mere coincidence: the latter's work functions as "object poetry", and his intentions are very poetic: de Maria really wants his works to influence the lives of many people . 26. AyerA.J. Op. cit. P.82.

27. Art & Language 1. No. 1.

28. I never understood and still don't understand this last decision. At the time when I first met Weiner, he argued his position (completely alien to me) by the fact that he is a "materialist". It always seemed to me that his last line of work was quite "sensualistic" (to use my own terminology); I can't imagine how Weiner explains it in his own way. W. I started dating my work with the Art as Idea as Idea series.

30. Quoted from: Atkinson. R.5-6 L. All project information is provided by Art & Language Press, 84 Jubilee Crescent, Coventry, England.

© Copyright c 2015
Idea, creation, support:
Anatoly Petrov

What types of arts are united by the concept of "fine art"?

What are the types of painting?

What is a self-portrait?

What is the name of the art store?

What is the name of the small board on which the artist mixes paints?

Cool artist - what is it?

What outstanding Russian artist painted the paintings “Morning of the Streltsy Execution”, “Boyar Morozova”, “Conquest of Siberia by Yermak”?

What type of painting are panels, frescoes and mosaics?

What type of fine art is based on a monochromatic drawing?

What tool is used to clean the palette and to remove the paint layer that has not yet dried from certain places on the canvas?

What is the name of a special box for carrying brushes, paints, palettes, etc.?

What is the difference between a diptych and a triptych?

They can be soft and hard, flat and round, short and long, pointed and blunt. What is it about?

What is the name of the type of fine art devoted to the depiction of animals?

You can paint a portrait by placing the person being portrayed sideways to the viewer - in profile. And if the depicted is facing the viewer, then they say that he is located ... How?

Material for drawing, made in the form of sticks of red-brown color. What is this?

Which of the two outstanding artists, the brothers Victor and Apollinary Vasnetsov, created the most famous canvases on the themes of Russian epics and fairy tales (“Alyonushka”, “Bogatyrs”, etc.)?

What do artists mean when they say it's a "dry brush"?

What are the three primary colors? Why?

The name of what, the most necessary object in the fine arts, is translated as "black stone"?

What in painting can be hot, cold, bright, faded, light, etc.?

Representatives of what direction in the visual arts took imitation of the methods of folk art as the basis of their creativity?

What is the name of the art of carving on precious and semi-precious stones, on glass and ivory?

In the name of what trend in the visual arts is there the name of a geometric body?

What brushes should not be used when working with watercolor?

What is the name of the branch of fine art devoted to military subjects?

What is a baguette?

What device is used to spray paint on the surface of a fabric, paper, ceramic product?

A collection of works of art, a place for their exhibition, as well as storage for the purpose of sale. How to call all this in one word?

What concept defines experimental, innovative undertakings in the art of the 20th century?

What is a preparatory sketch for a larger painting or drawing called?

What is the main element of drawing technique?

The name of what drawing material sounds the same as the name of a group of seasonings in cooking?

What is the name of the wooden frame on which the canvas is stretched for painting?

What is a passepartout?

What colors are called cold?

What colors are called warm?

What material underlies the paints used in a rare variety of painting technique - encaustic?

It can be used to make parts at the factory, but it is not the main tool for the work of the sculptor. What is it about?

Strictly regular gradation of light and dark, one of the main means of fine art - what is it?

What is the name of the artist's work time within one day, without a long break and without changing the model and task?

What are the names of the artists who dedicate their work to depicting the sea?

In what kind of monumental-decorative painting is soluble glass the basis of paint?

Who is an outstanding marine painter in Russian painting?

What is the name of the brush mark on the surface of the paint layer?

The name of what popular genre of fine art is translated from French as "dead nature"?

Who created the eraser?

What is the relationship between all the color elements of a work called in painting?

Art and artist

What is art? Few questions are so heatedly debated and so difficult to answer satisfactorily as this one. And although we do not hope to give a definite, final answer, we can think together: what is behind this word for us? First of all, it is really a word, and if there is such a word, it means that art as an idea and a fact is recognized by people. True, this term itself does not exist in all languages ​​and not in every human society, but one thing is certain: art is created - or created, or "produced" - everywhere. The result - a work of art - is, therefore, a certain object or object, and not every object deserves to be classified as a work of art: it must have a certain aesthetic value. In other words, a work of art must be considered and evaluated in the light of its inherent special properties. These properties are really special: they distinguish a work of art from all other things and objects - it is not without reason that special repositories are assigned to art, isolated from everyday life: museums, churches, and so on (even caves, if we are talking about its oldest samples). What do we mean by the word "aesthetic"? The dictionary explains: "related to the beautiful." Of course, far from all art is beautiful in our opinion, but nevertheless it is art. The fact is that the human brain and nervous system of different people are arranged in principle in the same way, and therefore the thoughts and judgments of people basically coincide in some way. Tastes are another matter: they are determined solely by the conditions of the culture in which a person is brought up, and the range of human tastes is so wide that it is simply impossible to establish uniform criteria in the field of art. Consequently, our perception, our evaluation of art cannot be subject to some general rules that are valid for all countries and eras; works of art must be considered solely in the context of the time and circumstances in which they were created.

Imagination

We all tend to indulge in dreams - to give work to our imagination. The word "imagination" itself means "to create in the mind some kind of image or picture." Animals are also endowed with this ability, but there is a very significant difference between the imagination of people and animals: only people are able to tell others what exactly was presented to their imagination; only people are able to talk about it or portray it. Imagination is one of our most mysterious properties. With its help, a connection is made between the consciousness and the subconscious - the area where most of the activity of the human brain takes place. Imagination holds together and unites the most important aspects of the human personality - character, intellect and the spiritual world - and because of this, it obeys certain laws, although it sometimes works unpredictably.

The role of the imagination is also great because it allows, on the one hand, to look into the future, and on the other hand, to understand the past and present it all in visible images that do not lose viability over time. Imagination is an integral part of our "I", and although, as already mentioned, not only a person has this ability, the desire to fix the fruits of the work of one's imagination in art is inherent only in people. Here between man and other representatives of the animal world lies an insurmountable evolutionary abyss. Apparently, if we take evolution as a whole, man acquired the ability to create art relatively recently. Humanity has existed on Earth for about two million years, and the earliest examples of prehistoric art known to us were created no more than thirty-five thousand years ago. Apparently, these samples arose as a result of a long process, which, unfortunately, is impossible to restore - the most ancient art has not come down to us.

Who were these primitive artists? In all likelihood, sorcerers, shamans. People believed that shamans - like the legendary Orpheus - have the ability granted from above to penetrate into the other (subconscious) world, falling into a trance, and, unlike mere mortals, again return from this mysterious world to the kingdom of the living. Apparently, it is precisely such a shaman-singer that is depicted by a figurine carved from marble, known as the "Harper" (ill. 1). This figurine is almost five thousand years old; for its time, it is unusually complex, even exquisite, and was created by an extremely talented artist who managed to convey the full power of the singer's inspiration. In prehistoric times, the shaman, who has the unique ability to penetrate the unknown and express this unknown through art, thereby gained power over the mysterious forces hidden in nature and in man. And to this day, the artist remains in a sense a sorcerer, since his work is able to influence us and fascinate us - which is surprising in itself: after all, a modern civilized person values ​​the rational principle too much and is not inclined to refuse it.

The role of art in human life can be compared with the role of science and religion: it also helps us to better understand ourselves and the world around us. This function of art gives it a special weight and makes us treat it with due attention. Art penetrates into the innermost depths of the human personality, which, in turn, is realized and finds itself in the creative act. At the same time, artists, creators of art, addressing us, the audience, in accordance with centuries-old traditions, act as spokesmen for ideas and values ​​that are shared by all people.

Creativity process

How is art created? If we confine ourselves to fine arts for space, then we can say: a work of art is a concrete man-made object, something created by human hands. Such a definition immediately takes out of the scope of art many beautiful things in themselves - say, flowers, sea shells or the sky at sunset. Of course, this definition is too broad, since a person creates a lot of things or objects that have nothing to do with art; nevertheless, let's use our formula as a starting point and look at Picasso's famous Bull's Head (ill. 2) as an example.

At first glance, there is nothing special here: the saddle and handlebars are from an old bicycle. What makes it all a work of art? How does our formula about "man-made" work in this case? Picasso used ready-made material, but it would be absurd to demand that the artist share the merit of creating this composition with the worker who made the bicycle parts: the saddle and steering wheel themselves are not works of art at all.

Let's look at the "Bull's Head" again - and we will see that the saddle and handlebars add up to some kind of playful "pictorial charade". They were formed in this way thanks to a certain leap of imagination, an instantaneous insight of the artist, who saw and guessed in these seemingly completely inappropriate objects the future "Bull's Head". This is how a work of art arose, and “Bull's Head” undoubtedly deserves such a name, although the moment of practical hand-made in it is small. Attaching the steering wheel to the saddle was not difficult: the main work was done by the imagination.

A decisive leap of imagination - or what is more often called inspiration - is almost always present in the creative process; but only in extremely rare cases is a work of art born in a finished, completed form, like the goddess Athena from the head of Zeus. In fact, this is preceded by a long period of maturation, when the most laborious work is done, the painful search for a solution to the problem is going on. And only then, at a certain critical moment, does the imagination finally establish connections between disparate elements and collect them into a complete whole.

The “Bull's Head” is a perfectly simple example: it took a single leap of imagination to create it, and all that remained was to embody the artist's idea: to properly connect the saddle and steering wheel and cast the resulting composition in bronze. This is an exceptional case: usually the artist works with formless - or almost formless - material, and the creative process involves repeated efforts of the imagination and equally repeated attempts by the artist to give the desired material form to the images that arise in his mind. Between the consciousness of the artist and the material that is in his hands, there is an interaction in the form of a continuous stream of impulses; gradually the image takes shape, and eventually the creative process is completed. Of course, this is only a rough outline: creativity is too intimate and subtle an experience to be described in stages. Only the artist himself, experiencing the creative process from within, could do this; but usually the artist is so absorbed in it that he has no time for explanations.

The creative process is compared to childbirth, and such a metaphor is perhaps closer to the truth than an attempt to reduce creativity to a simple transfer of an image from the artist's mind to one or another material. Creativity is associated with both joy and pain, it is fraught with a lot of surprises, and this process cannot be called mechanical. In addition, it is widely known that artists tend to treat their creations as living beings. No wonder creativity was traditionally the prerogative of the Lord God: it was believed that only He was able to embody the idea in a visible form. Indeed, the work of the artist-creator has much in common with the process of creation of the world, which the Bible tells about.

The divine nature of creativity helped us to realize Michelangelo: he described the bliss and torment experienced by the sculptor, freeing the future statue from a marble block, as from a prison. Apparently, for Michelangelo, the creative process began with the fact that he looked at a rough, unhewn block of marble, delivered straight from the quarry, and tried to imagine what kind of figure it contains. To see her at once in all the details was, most likely, as difficult as to see the unborn baby in the womb of the mother; but Michelangelo probably knew how to catch some "signs of life" in a dead stone. Getting to work, with each blow of the chisel, he approached the image guessed in the stone - and the stone finally freed, "released" the future statue only if the sculptor was able to correctly guess its future shape. Sometimes the guess turned out to be inaccurate, and the figure enclosed in the stone could not be completely released. Then Michelangelo admitted his defeat and left the work unfinished - this happened with the famous “Prisoner” (its other name is “The Awakening Slave”, ill. 3), in the very pose of which the idea of ​​​​the futility of the struggle for freedom is expressed with extraordinary force. Looking at this grandiose sculpture, we can imagine how much work the creator put into it; Isn't it a shame that he didn't finish what he started, abandoned it halfway? Apparently, Michelangelo did not want to finish the work somehow: a deviation from the original plan would only increase the bitterness of failure.

It turns out that creating a work of art is far from the same as making or making some ordinary thing. Creativity is an unusual, very risky business; the one who does, most often does not know what he will succeed until he sees the result. Creativity can be compared to a game of hide and seek, where the driver doesn't know exactly who - or what - he is looking for until he finds it. What strikes us most in the Bull's Head is a bold and successful find; in The Prisoner, the intense search is much more important. It is difficult for the uninitiated to come to terms with the idea that creativity initially involves some uncertainty, the need to take risks without knowing in advance what the result will be. We are all accustomed to thinking that a person who makes something - like, say, a professional craftsman or a person associated with any kind of industrial production - must know from the very beginning what exactly he is going to make or produce. The share of risk in this case is reduced to almost zero, but the share of interest too, and work becomes a routine task. The main difference between an artisan and an artist is that the former sets himself a goal that is obviously feasible, while the latter strives every time to solve an unsolvable problem - or at least come closer to solving it. The work of an artist is unpredictable, its course cannot be predicted, and therefore it does not obey any rules, while the work of an artisan is subject to certain standards and is based on strict regularity. We recognize this difference when we say that the artist creates (or creates), while the craftsman only makes (or produces) his product. Therefore, one should not confuse artistic creativity with the professional skill of an artisan. And although the creation of many works of art requires purely technical skills, let's not forget the main thing: even the most skillfully made and outwardly perfect object cannot be called a work of art if the artist's imagination did not participate in its creation, which at some point that same magical leap - and makes a discovery.

Needless to say, there have always been many more artisans among us than artists, since the human need for the familiar and experienced far exceeds the ability to perceive and assimilate all that new, unexpected and often disturbing our peace of mind that art brings with it. On the other hand, we are all sometimes visited by the desire to penetrate the unknown and create something of our own, original. And the main difference between an artist and other mortals is not that he seeks to search, but in that mysterious ability to find, which is usually called talent. It is no coincidence that in different languages ​​we meet other words to denote this concept - such as a gift (what a person, as it were, receives from some higher power) or genius (this was originally the name of a good spirit that settled in a person and created art with his hands) .

Originality and tradition

So, the main thing that distinguishes art from craft is originality, innovation. It is innovation that serves as a measure of the significance and value of art. Unfortunately, it is not easy to pinpoint originality. The usual synonyms - freshness, originality, novelty - are of little help, and from dictionaries one can only learn that the original is not a copy. Meanwhile, one work of art cannot be completely and completely original, since it is connected by numerous threads with everything that was created in the distant past, is being created now and will be created in the future. If John Donne is right when he asserted that man is not an island, but only a piece of the “big land”, the mainland, then his words can be attributed to art with no less reason. The interweaving of all these branching connections can be imagined as a web in which each work of art has its own special place; the totality of such connections is the tradition. Without tradition, that is, without what is inherited from generation to generation, originality does not exist. Tradition provides a solid base, a springboard from which the artist's imagination can take that magical leap. The place where he “lands” will, in turn, become the starting point for subsequent “leaps”, for future discoveries. The web of tradition is no less important to us viewers: whether we realize it or not, it forms the necessary framework within which our evaluations are formed; only against the background of this foundation does the degree of originality of a work of art become apparent.

Meaning and style

What is art for? One of the obvious reasons is the irresistible desire of people to decorate themselves and make the world around them more attractive. Both are connected with an even more general desire, which has long been characteristic of man: to approach himself and bring his immediate environment closer to some ideal form, to bring them to perfection. However, the external, decorative side is far from everything that art gives us: it still carries a deep meaning, even if this meaning - or content - is not always obvious and needs to be interpreted. Art allows us to convey to other people our understanding of life - to convey in a special, specific way, subject only to art. No wonder they say: one picture is worth a thousand words. This applies equally to the plot of the picture and to its symbolic load. As in language, in art, a person tirelessly invents symbols that can convey the most complex thoughts in an unconventional way. But if we continue the comparison with language, art is closer to poetry than to prose: it is poetry that freely handles the usual vocabulary and syntax and transforms conventional forms, conveying new, diverse thoughts and moods with their help. In addition, art often speaks to the viewer not directly, but in a hint: a lot can only be guessed from the facial expression and posture of the character; art loves to resort to all sorts of allegories. In a word, as in poetry, in the visual arts both what is said and how it is said is equally important.

What is the actual content of art, its meaning! What does it want to express? The artist rarely goes into explanations, he presents us with a picture and believes that this says it all. In a sense, he is right: any work of art tells us something - even if we do not fully understand the artist's intention, we perceive the picture at the level of intuition. The meaning - or content - of art is inseparable from its formal embodiment, from style. The word style comes from the name of the writing tool used by the ancient Romans. Initially, style meant the character of writing as a whole, from the inscription of letters to the choice of words. In the visual arts, style refers to the way that determines the choice and combination of external, formal elements in each particular work. The study of different styles has been and is at the center of attention of art historians. Such a study, based on a thorough comparative analysis, not only makes it possible to establish where, when or by whom this or that thing was created, but also helps to reveal the intentions of the author, because the artist's intention is expressed precisely in the style of his work. The idea, in turn, depends on the personality of the artist, and on the time and place of creation of the work; so we can talk about the style of a particular era. Thus, in order to properly understand a work of art, we must have as complete an idea as possible about the place and time of its creation - in other words, about the style and views of the country, era and the author himself.

Self-expression and audience perception

We all know the Greek myth about the sculptor Pygmalion, who sculpted such a beautiful statue of the nymph Galatea that he fell in love with her without memory, and then the goddess Aphrodite, at his request, breathed life into her. A modern version of this myth is offered by John De Andrea in The Artist and the Model (ill. 4). In his interpretation, the artist and his creation seem to change roles: the statue is a young woman, far from the ideal of beauty, depicted quite realistically and, moreover, not yet completed (the artist has to finish painting her legs!), “comes to life” ahead of schedule and falls in love with her creator herself . The illusion is so convincing that we do not immediately understand which of the two characters is real and which is not. For an artist, a creative act is a kind of "feat of love"; it is only through self-expression that he is able to breathe life into a work of art - and De Andrea's painting helps us to realize this again. Of course, with the same right it can be argued that the creation of the artist, in turn, is able to breathe new life into him. Art is born in deep secrecy, and the process of its birth is not intended for prying eyes. Not without reason, many artists can only create in complete solitude and do not show their work to anyone until it is finished. But the creative process includes a necessary final stage: the work of art must be seen and appreciated by the audience - only then can its birth be considered completed. It is not enough for the artist to satisfy himself: he wants to see the reaction of others. In this sense, the creative process can be considered complete only when a work of art finds its audience, who will like it, and not just critics, who will make it the subject of scientific discussions. Strictly speaking, this is the goal of the artist. At first glance, such an explanation may seem paradoxical, so it should be noted that the artist is counting on a very specific viewer. He does not mean a faceless, average audience, but his own viewers and connoisseurs; for him, the approval of a few is much more important than a resounding success. Who are these few? Some are professional colleagues, other artists, some are art patrons, sponsors, art historians, friends, and some are just enthusiastic spectators. All these people are united by an innate (or educated) love for art and the ability to judge it astutely and prudently - in other words, a combination of known preparedness with sincere interest necessary to appreciate art. These are sophisticated viewers, more practitioners than theorists; and if desired, any of us can become such a connoisseur of art, having gained some experience. The point is only in the degree of preparation: there is no fundamental difference between a connoisseur and an ordinary spectator.

Tastes

It is one thing to define what art is; quite another - to learn to perceive and evaluate specific works. Even if we had an accurate method for separating true art from what is not art, we would not be able to automatically judge the quality of the work. Meanwhile, these two problems are often confused. Since experts do not offer us strict evaluation rules, we often become defensive and say something like this: “Actually, I don’t understand anything about art, but I know what I like.” Phrases like this make it very difficult to learn to understand art. Let's think about why this is so and what is behind such commonplace statements.

First of all, there are no people now who would not understand anything about art. We come into contact with it too closely, it is woven into our daily lives - even if our contact with art is limited to magazine covers, advertising posters, memorial complexes, television, and finally, just architecture - the buildings where we live, work or pray. When a person says: “I know what I like,” he essentially wants to say: “I only like what I know (and I reject in advance everything that does not fit into my usual standard).” But the habitual standard is not so much our own predilections, but the standards developed by education and the culture in which we grew up; the individual moment plays almost no role here.

Why, then, do so many of us strive to pretend that the usual standard is tantamount to their personal choice? There is another unspoken consideration at work here: if a work of art is inaccessible to non-professional perception, if I cannot evaluate it without special training, then this work is of very dubious quality and is not worth my attention. Only one thing can be objected to this: if you would like to understand art as well as professionals, who prevents you from learning this? The road to knowledge is accessible to everyone - here for any viewer who is able to assimilate new experience, the widest field of activity opens up. The boundaries of our tastes will very soon move apart, and we will begin to like things that we could not like before. Gradually, we will get used to judging art consciously and without prejudice - and then with much greater reason we will be able to repeat the notorious phrase: "I know what I like."

Yes, really, what is art? Such an elementary question, but how to find the answer to it? Is it possible to consider the work of a master as art, well, for example, the same artist whose paintings hang in the Louvre, the Hermitage? And how can you set criteria for certain works of people, what would call them real art? How to answer this question and is there a single answer to it? About this I will express my thoughts and knowledge.

“Imitation is one of the instincts in our nature. Further, there is an instinct for harmony and rhythm, as well as proportionality, in which, in particular, the sense of rhythm is expressed. Starting from this natural gift, a person develops in himself inclinations towards poetry, in order to gradually rise from rough improvisations to true art. - Aristotle.

Ever since ancient times, people have wanted to capture the moments of their lives, to tell something to each other, so that after them there would be at least some trace in history. And this was a kind of race. Someone better than others could mold the figure of a girl from a piece of clay, another from a piece of stone gave birth to kings identical to living people. People created, giving a piece of their soul into their work, and every day they honed their skills more and more.

The very foundations of art were created by such great empires as Egypt, Babylon, Persia, India, China, Greece, Rome. Each of these empires made direct contributions to the arts. The Greeks set the tone for a beautiful, male body, his posture. And in the nineteenth century, art began to be considered a comparison between the true and the created.

The very concept is extremely wide and very diverse, starting from those who go out into the streets at night and create on the walls of houses, and up to people in tailcoats and tuxedos, performing in front of the hall, on a brilliant piano. No one can clearly define the boundaries and answer this question. You can only slightly classify it as traditional and modern. By style, where it is directed, whether it is an artist or a writer.

Art is multifaceted. And those graffiti that get wet in the rain may someday become a tradition and even now there are people who like it. Art is a kind of process of creation. And any human creation can be called art, the only thing that people can not appreciate. Having said that this is an ordinary shirpotrap.

Many craftsmen tried to introduce something new into the established foundations and tried to create something that would be accessible to everyone and not have material value for a certain circle of people. To create something that could give harmony to everyone. So there was such a direction as conceptualism, art that needs to be comprehended.

Thus, everything that the human soul can admire can be called art, even if it is computer music or ballet, opera, it doesn’t matter. The main thing is that it would inspire a person, help to create, think and cause a smile on his face, albeit a stupid one, but everything that pleases the soul is art. But there will always be disputes about what is “beautiful”, what is art.