A Simple Guide to

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Ever wandered around an art gallery and

wondered what art was all about, or even why
the art works were there at all? The days of heavily carved gold frames and dark, varnish
encrusted paintings have been replaced by beds, dead animals, endless videos and even
lumps of elephant dung. Should we blame the artist, after all they are hardly ordinary
people are they? Normal individuals don’t chop up cows and call it art as Damien Hirst did,
cut off his ear as Van Gogh did one night in 1889, or spend four years laid on their back
painting 5000 square feet of ceiling as Michelangelo did in the early 1500’s.

Yet these odd individuals have dramatically changed our view of the world. Damien Hirst
with his famous shark, cow and sheep sculptures has made us re-consider our treatment
of animals in a fundamental way. If we are going to make a cow into burgers, why can’t we
use it to create art? Van Gogh, despite his self-mutilation, his time in a mental institution
and his final suicide, gave us paintings that explore the human condition in a way no other
artist has managed. Michelangelo - who was averse to washing, often wore his leather
breeches for so long they had to be cut off him, pulling his skin off in the process - gave us
the sublime masterpiece that is the Sistine Chapel.

Why should we see art as important? Why bother with the outpourings of these odd
individuals, these artists and their art? I think we should. Artists have the ability to make us
look at ourselves and our world through new eyes. And let’s face it, we find art endlessly
fascinating, because art often challenges our ideas, beliefs and perceptions. It does not
matter whether we are looking at the sublime portraiture of Rembrandt or something as
challenging as 2012 Turner prize winner, Elizabeth Price’s videos, there is always
something to discuss or argue about. Art will always do that and it is perhaps one of those
things which distinguishes good art from the art which is simply created to fill a gap on the
lounge wall. So what is art?
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Art reflects life; it can be wonderful, frustrating, beautiful or

ugly. It can have a deep philosophical meaning, or it can be
fun and frivolous, strongly political, or morally uplifting. It can reflect the society in which it
was produced, just look at the art produced in Nazi Germany compared with that
produced in France during the 1870’s.

Art is such a wide subject so I am restricting my comments to painting and painters, but
they could apply to almost all other forms of art. Judging or appreciating paintings is a
subjective process, but it can also be seen as an exciting journey through the life and times
of the artists. If we are prepared to put in a little effort to gain a some background
knowledge and understanding of art, our journey will become much more satisfying. So let
us start our excursion by acquiring some background knowledge and understanding.

Art is what artists produce. All artists are human beings, but not all human beings are
artists. So what is it that makes a human being an artist? And what do they produce?
These questions are the basis of endless debate so let’s break it down into simple chunks.

Lots of distinguished individuals have written about what is art and what it is to be an
artist, from these writings some common elements seem to emerge:

• We expect the artist to possess some form of manual or technical skill; probably
something we are not capable of ourselves, or which we aspire to. We can see skill in
many walks of life; sport, engineering as well as painting, drawing and sculpture.
However, it is important that we do not see technical skill as the most important or
only criteria.

• We expect art to present some form of intellectual challenge, something that

confronts our ideas and thoughts, but has no definitive answer, much like a political
or religious discussion.
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• Finally, we should see some form of personal or public expression that

communicates or suggests what the painting or art is about, this may not
necessarily be in a literal sense. During conversations we express our ideas and
thoughts, it is a similar type of process.

The above describes what a lot of people do so there has to be something else we need
to understand to define what art is? We could start with the word Art itself? Art is
related to the word artificial in the sense that art is not naturally occurring like a tree,
man creates art. Although, it does not follow that everything man produces is Art.

There is something different, more profound about Art compared with what is simply
manufactured in a factory. Imagine comparing a sculpture of a human figure with a nail.
The sculpture can tell to us something about the human form or condition, whereas the
nail is mass produced and is simply a functional object with little or no real significance.
On the other hand a nail is a very useful object whereas, in a practical sense, a sculpture is
not. So art seems to be a group of objects, ideas or activities, which are probably useless
in practical terms, yet are different or significant in a way that a nail or painting a window
frame is not.

Art is in constant flux and as each century passes by, artists change the direction of art, or
completely redefine it. Such a thing happened in the early 20 th century when Marcel
Duchamp invented the ready-made, a work of art created from found objects, a gent’s
urinal which he named ‘Fountain’ and signed R. Mutt. It was presented to the Society of
Artists Exhibition in New York in 1917. This act made us realise even a toilet has to be
designed and could be a work of art in itself, or perhaps he was trying to say something
else! Picasso destroyed the traditional idea of painting what is seen and replaced it with
paintings based on multi viewpoints and showed us what modern art might look like. He
opened the doors for artists such as Piet Mondrian and Wassily Kandinsky who reduced
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the world to series of lines, colours and shapes and invented abstraction with its
consequent effect on the design, architecture and fashion of the 20th century.

It is not just artists that change art, technology also has a major influence. Without the
invention of the camera obscura (the pin hole camera) some 18th century artists would
have struggled to create their topographical paintings. Luckily, the paint tube was invented
before the 1860’s; otherwise the ability of the Impressionist painters to work outside
would have been very diffiocult. The invention of the camera had a profound effect on the
work of Degas and today David Hockney is creating works of art on his iPad.

I think we have established that art is different from the other products and activities of
human endeavour, so what does the artist actually do and what does it mean to be an
artist? There are a few characteristics that might give us an idea of what it is to be an artist.
Although a list of qualities cannot be definitive, someone claiming to be an artist is bound
to have some, if not all the following attributes:

The artist has to have mastery of the techniques and skills that he uses
to creates art. As with all great artists, sportsmen, musicians and actors,
true virtuosity makes the mastery of technical skills look really easy. So it is likely he also
displays some of these qualities too.

• The intention to create – art is not produced by accident so the ability to produce
more than an accidental one off is crucial, which rules out the outpourings of chimps,
elephants or cows.

• The desire to Illustrate – the ability to produce in two dimensions, or three if

sculpture, what we see around us

• The ability to exhibit a skill – drawing/painting/sculpting to a level above what you

might expect an ordinary person to achieve
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• Art is self-rewarding activity – the artist should enjoy what he is doing, remember he
works for himself not for the gratification of others.

Since the Renaissance we have encouraged, praised and valued

innovation. After all, to be the first to create or invent something almost
certainly ensures a place in history. This is why artists such as Picasso are giants of art
because they innovate, whereas other artists simply extend or develop the innovation of
others. Innovation by definition challenges accepted rules, conventions and ideas. To be a
true innovator, not just in the arts, requires great courage, determination, a dash of
arrogance and an unshakeable belief in oneself. So the typical innovator probably exhibit
some of the following abilities:

• Making us see objects and the relationship between them in a new way – e.g.
Picasso’s Bull’s Head created from the saddle and handle bars of a bicycle

• A fascination with change and variety – artists try to offer new insights on the world,
or change and challenge accepted ways of seeing or doing things

• To create illusions – M S Escher manipulated space in his drawings making us believe

water could really flow upwards.

• Challenging the familiar with elements of surprise –The surrealist painter Rene
Magritte’s work often shows the ordinary with a dash of the totally unexpected. His
painting The Domain of Arnheim 1937 illustrates this perfectly.

• Manipulate our perceptions – any painting by Salvador Dali illustrates the artists
ability to engineer a reality of his own making

Given what has been said above, artists who have a total belief in
and complete commitment to, the works they are producing
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usually produce good art. Artistic vision is the ability to see, exploit or give meaning to the
chaos and absurdity of life and perhaps can be defined in the following points.

• A desire or sometimes the need, to make sense of life – artists often try to give
meaning to, or interpret, the profound or insignificant moments of life. A look at the
work of Edvard Munch’s illustrates his need to find meaning in the death of close
relations. See his painting, Death in the Sickroom 1893

• The creation of fantasy – artists such as Richard Dadd created mystical worlds
sometimes based on Shakespeare’s plays. One, inspired by A Midsummer Nights
Dream, is his painting, The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke . Interestingly, Richard Dadd
murdered his father on a tow path in London because he thought he was the devil.
He ended up in the notorious mental hospital Bethlem otherwise known as Bedlam.
It was there he painted the The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke

• Indulging in sensuousness – maybe the best example might be Velasquez’s painting

of the Rokeby Venus 1648.

• The glorification of self or others – where would the Kings, Queens, Emperors,
Presidents and the aristocracy of this world, not to mention some religious leaders
be, without the indulgent artistic vision of the artist. Jacques Louis David’s painting of
The Crowning of Napoleon’ or Van Dyke’s painting of King Charles I.

• A wish to shock or surprise - Damien Hirst uses shock tactics to make us assess our
attitudes towards the use of animals for food in such works as, This little Piggy went
to Market and this little Piggy stayed at Home.

Artists are human beings and are impossible to place into nice neat little boxes of
qualities, ideas, skills or movements. Art, by its very nature is not a logical development, it
relies on that flash of inspiration to create its greatest moments. Although what has
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discussed above goes some way to define the artist and what he does , it is perhaps
prudent to bear in mind a very famous interview with Picasso that took place in the 1950’s.
The theme of the interview was a discussion of Picasso’s Blue Period of 1900 - 1904 and it
went something like this:

Interviewer: Was it the death of your best friend, Casagemas that drove you to explore
the plight of the disabled, the needy and those in despair in your Blue paintings?

Picasso: No

Interviewer: At that time you were experiencing poverty, you were homeless, your
paintings of beggars, the old and infirm in monochromatic tones of blue, were they a
metaphor for you’re own feelings of detachment?

Picasso: No

Interviewer: You were in Paris alone, your best friend was dead. Was your choice to use
tonal blues, a conscious decision to give your paintings an air of despair and sadness?

Picasso: No

Interviewer: So why were so many of your paintings at the time infused with the colour
blue?

Picasso: I had a lot of blue paint.

Enough said!