There’s a saying between 3D veterans which says, “there’s no make pretty picture button.” If there was, a lot of us would be out of work and business. Many people tend to have different opinions as to what “art” actually is. Many years ago, my impression of 3D work was very similar to an average person’s general understanding of the 3D field — that is to say, not very understanding at all. As I became more involved in the field, my opinion eventually changed.
I was going through some social networking posts I had made a while back with my architectural rendering company LunarStudio, and noticed some comments. While most of them were pretty flattering, one stood out:
great photorealistic renderings are not creative in my opinion, Im getting kind of sick of seeing them, and less artistic/conceptual perspective
I replied:
Anyone that knows how to do this type of work would disagree with you. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not a “simple press of the button” — otherwise everyone would be doing it.
This is actually my work. I modeled and textured all the furniture and hardware by hand. It’s not much different than sculpting. On top of all that, you have to know how to operate the rendering applications.
It’s a mix between art, technology, and science. If you think it is easy, you’re more than welcome to try your hand at it. ;)
Yes — I do get defensive about all the time and effort I put into my work. I think rightfully so. If you just sit back, take the punches, and don’t try to at least make an attempt to put things into their proper perspective, others (including some clients) tend to take your work for granted. I’ve seen it happen time and time again in almost all of my conversations with clients at some point or another. It sometimes gets to the point where they don’t realize the time and skill involved and their expectations are set unrealistically high. This really brings about a much deeper question — “what is art?”
The best thing I could possibly do here is to give some examples. When photography first came around, I’m sure that most people were completely amazed (if not a little frightened.) But over time, cameras become commonplace to the point where now everyone who has a cellphone probably has a camera built-in. Just because we all have cameras on our phones, does that automatically make one a photographer? No. I think most of us agree that good photography requires a level of skill that most of us do not possess — proper light balance, framing, color-usage, contrast, etc. It’s a skill that takes time to develop and not necessarily something that “comes natural.”
Let’s take the example of landscape paintings. I’m certain there were people who first saw them and thought, “that’s not art, that’s just trying to recreate what already exists.” Perhaps you fall into that same camp of opinion, but there is a certain quality which makes a Monet a Monet. Not everyone can be Monet.
I used to have a friend that would bash Photoshop artwork back in the late 90’s. He would tell me that it “didn’t take any skill to use a mouse and the eraser.” Well, fortunately with the modern-age, he eventually changed his opinion. Would you still be of that opinion today? Just about every commercial, movie, magazine, billboard, poster, package, and album cover has been run through some post-processing application such as Photoshop. By saying that you “cannot create art with Photoshop”, it would be tantamount to turning a complete blind-eye to the entire world around you.
So what is the definition of “art” exactly? Here’s Merriam-Webster’s take on the definition:
Art:
1 : skill acquired by experience, study, or observation <the art of making friends>
2 a : a branch of learning: (1) : one of the humanities (2) plural : liberal arts b archaic : learning, scholarship
3 : an occupation requiring knowledge or skill <the art of organ building>
4 a : the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also : works so produced b (1) : fine arts (2) : one of the fine arts (3) : a graphic art
5 a archaic : a skillful plan b : the quality or state of being artful
6 : decorative or illustrative elements in printed matter
The key point to the definition is that art involves “requiring knowledge or skill.” To an average observer who doesn’t think something is “art”, they may not realize the amount of work or understanding involved to get to a certain point. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of people automatically assume that my work (as well as that of others) is a “push of the button.” When I first started in my field, I had found this to be an insult but over time my own view had changed to become one of tolerance and education. It actually has less to do with their subjective opinion as to what art actually is, but more to do with a lack of understanding of what goes into the process itself.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
3 Responses to What is Art?
Leave a Reply
LunarStudio
First of all, I love your work. You did an amazing job on the Daguerre Blvd. photograph with the first human. I loved the burned down, deteriorating building on the right, and the bright red carpet hanging over a balcony. All those things were there, I went back to the original to look — which colors, who knows — and you brought these details out and gave them life. Just fantastic.
Anyway, I wanted to reply to your question of what art is. I was reminded of two conversations I once had with my father. He made the comment that these days, everybody is a photographer because the technology is so good now all you have to do is press a button. I admit, at the moment he said that I was flabbergasted and didn’t immediately know how to respond. In fact, it’s impossible to answer it in two sentences, which was all the time I had. Now I would say that knowing how to press a button on a camera does not make one a photographer, just as knowing grammar and sentence structure and knowing how to move a pen across a page to form words does not make one a writer. But it is also fair to say that people create pictures today with their digital cameras because they can, and they can thanks to the sophisticated and convenient technology of the cameras themselves, and to Photoshop, and I suspect if they had to take time-consuming courses in light and composition, and get their hands dirty in a darkroom, they might decide to pick up a different hobby. Also it is so easy and fun to experiment with your camera and see the result immediately without wasting film. So, while it is true that you still have to have the eye to recognize an opportunity, if feeling free to experiment to one’s heart content is part of practicing one’s art, then digital cameras have helped many people immeasurably, myself included. At the same time, anybody who has ever worked in a commercial photo lab and developed thousands of pictures on a daily basis knows that most people just take pictures. Which is the lowest common denominator everybody shares who owns a camera.
The other conversation was when my father and I walked through an art museum, and artists could be seen with their easels in front of some of the masterpieces, rendering reproductions with astonishing accuracy. Is this art too? Again, I was momentarily taken aback. All I could say was that any one of those artists would probably have given their eye teeth for the ability to create something original of their own of lasting value. As skillful as those imitations were, in a broad sense they were also infantile in that the artists were practicing a technique. That was all. So, yes it was amazing, but I was underwhelmed by it, and I would not call it art because it lacked original vision. I would call it technically proficient.
Loved the Daguerre Blvd. photograph and comments so I went on to your links. I’m not an artist but a teacher of gifted elementary students and find myself becoming more and more interested in art and want to know more about it. I was pretty disappointed when the answer to ‘What is Art,” ended with the definitions from Webster and a “it’s a matter of personal opinion.“
Is that all it is?
@Yochi “artists could be seen with their easels in front of some of the master pieces, rendering reproductions with astonishing accuracy. Is this art too?”
While I’d consider the creativity factor of what you had mentioned above to be low, I think this could fall into one of the dictionary’s definitions:
“an occupation requiring knowledge or skill.“
I also knew people who specialized in copying other people’s artwork. When it comes to reproduction, most people that can master that aspect also tend to know their ways around a paintbrush and are fairly decent (this is subjective) artists in their own right. It’s not everyone that can duplicate somebody else’s work.
@Kathleen Shaw Thank you for your comments. I blame myself for ending the article this way — in part, I have a very short attention span and probably just wanted to end the article that day when I wrote it. In retrospect, I think I could have made a more convincing argument with a more solid ending. However, if you do look throughout my writing you may notice several examples which I pointed out. I just changed the last paragraph so that it made a little more sense.
I ended mostly with the definition because when it comes to the actual word of “art”, I think we can all mostly agree that a dictionary’s definition (in this case Merriam Webster) is generally an accepted baseline. In the definition, “art” can be described as a skillful process. It doesn’t necessarily have to imply creativity. Creativity and art are often lumped together, but they are not the same thing. Creativity can be one aspect of what goes into art.
I mentioned: “Ultimately, it comes down to a matter of personal opinion as to whether or not “you” think something is creative or falls under the definition of artwork.”
Art is completely subjective. If you think something is not art, than that’s your opinion and label. Others might disagree. However, I think the important point of the whole article is to recognize that when coming to making our assumptions, that there is often more work involved than what generally meets the eye.