Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously used the phrase, “I know it when I see it” as his definition for pornography (he did later recant in the Miller decision). I think most people also use that as their definition of art. The trouble is, it conveys absolutely nothing to anybody other than the speaker. At least in the case of art, you won’t be breaking the law if your idea of art is not the same as the person making the statement.
But though the phrase is meaningless for communicating anything to others, it does point up one fact about both pornography and art; their inclusions/exclusions are subjective and therefore any objective definition must leave room for subjectivity.
Luckily for those who are not Supreme Court Justices, we don’t have to worry about defining the meaning of either of these words. We can just “know it when we see it” and get on with our lives.
Unfortunately for me, if I’m going to keep writing about art day after day, I do need to at least describe what I am talking about when I use that word.
You will all agree with me that one of the top five most boring topics in all the world is “what is art?” So I will be as brief and as evasive as possible.
First, I will avoid claiming to “define” the word. That’s been tried. I will admit immediately that it can’t be defined. Rather I will treat it like the electron — which exists but which can never be precisely located. We know the field in which it will be found without ever being able to, or even needing to, know where any one of them is. I will give you a theory which is a nice, tentative, fuzzy, elastic term. Lots of room for not saying precisely what I mean. The field theory of the meaning of art. Justice Stewart, eat your heart out.
Here we go. I know it’s messy, but it’s the best I can do in one day of trying to narrow it down:
1. But for the art, I would not have perceived whatever it is that it shows.
2. It must be attractive. I must want to look at it the first time, and further, want to look at it again and again.
3. It has to make sense.
That’s it. Anything that falls within the field of those parameters will be art.
A true scientific theory must, in theory, be falsifiable. In other words, if I make a statement that can’t be falsified, it’s not a theory, it’s an assumption or a principle, not a theory. Here is where the fun begins. Let’s see if we can find something that fits my three criteria but which is not art.
Immediately, many of you will be thinking of things not intended as art (and I know who you are). For example the earthrise picture (better seen with the moon vertical, though I don’t know how the linked site can claim which way is “correct”):
[photo from the Wikipedia Commons]
Or the Hubble Space Telescope pictures. Or the Mars rover pictures from Spirit and Opportunity. To me, all of those are art if they are attractive (even though presumably by accident). Scanning electron microscopy pictures are good, again, if they are beautiful for whatever reason.
I do start to hesitate when I see the IBM ‘art’ created with the electron tunneling microscope, but I think that violates my third parameter; it doesn’t make sense to me.
How about the Bassett Collection? Incredibly detailed photos of human dissection by David L. Bassett. Absolutely! Love ‘em!
Or Jens Knigge’s x-ray series on Foreign Bodies and the Bowel already discussed in an ealier post? Sure, though not in the dining room.
What about something like the Oxford English Dictionary? It seems to meet all three criteria. Luckily, I claim only to be theorizing about visual art.
My very broad field of inclusion probably explains a lot of what I have been saying about the irrelevance of intent. More on that tomorrow…
-Julie
