Dropping the A-Bomb

There’s a certain word in the English language, one that so incites and arouses passions and emotions, that it is often simply best avoided in polite conversation. I never cease to be amazed how this little three-letter word can stir anger in the hearts and minds of certain people. To some, the “A-Bomb,” as I like to call it, is the ultimate fighting word, triggering an immediate bellicose response (worse even than that triggered by the more widely known F-Bomb). Drop the A-Bomb in certain company and you’re guaranteed a brawl.

No, the word is not ass, which I have no problem using, and which unfortunately describes how many people behave when the A-Bomb is dropped. Rather, the word is art. Actually, there are two A-Bombs—art and its close cousin, the word artist. For some reason, certain people literally bristle at these words, especially when they are applied to nature photography.

Granted, there is reason why passions are stirred when someone drops the A-Bomb. The word “art” is loaded, not unlike a modified MAC-10 ready to spray bullets at the mere twitch of a finger. It is no fault of the word itself, but rather people who have through the ages encumbered it with their own personal emotional baggage. Verbal wars have been waged over the definition of art, whether something is art or not, and about those who use the term art/artist and their motives for doing so. Many people have really strong opinions about art, and get jumpy in response to profligate use of the word.

Maybe we should pause for a moment and ask: What is art? Obviously, art is not something easy to define, and even more obvious, the definition of art is one of those things that gets people all riled up. But let’s give it a shot anyway.

Wikipedia defines art as follows:

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, photography, sculpture, and paintings.

Dictionary.com takes a slightly different tack:

The quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

Let’s parse through some of the elements in these definitions.

Deliberate arrangement of elements: This seems critical to me, and I endorse this element of the definition. Art, as I see it, cannot arise solely from random processes. For example, as much as I love cats (I have three), cats cannot make art. I bring this up because I once spent an hour in a veterinarian’s office reading a book on cat art. Yep, people put paint on their cat’s paws, put the cat in front of a blank canvas, and stand back and let nature take its course. The book had the whiff of the apocryphal, making some rather dubious claims such as that certain cats are impressionists, whereas others are drawn to cubism. Sorry folks, as much as I’d like to believe that my cats are budding Picassos, cats, dogs, turtles, and other pets can make a mess, but they cannot make art. There is no deliberate and conscious arrangement of elements, but rather just an animal getting its groove on. On the other hand, the book said that many cat paintings fetch as much as $20,000, so maybe I should change my tune on this one.

Influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect. This is a definition that many seem to embrace—something is art if it creates an emotional response. As for myself, I am less convinced. Of course, as artists, we always strive to affect the senses or emotion, but so do a lot of other things that I wouldn’t consider art. For example, walking up to someone on the street and calling them a “stupid smelly jerk face” would seem to qualify as art under these first two principles: it is a deliberate arrangement of elements (words) that influences or affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect (inciting anger in the recipient). The words may be deliberate and intended to arouse emotions, but I’d hardly call them poetry. Furthermore, this starts leading us into the murky realm of the subjective: if 5,999,999,999 people don’t respond emotionally to a painting, but one person does, is it then art? I’m not a big fan of definitions that in essence rely on focus groups, polls, and popularity contests. Of course, I am being glib, but you get my point—if something is one thing to one person, but another to someone else, then we haven’t really succeeded in coming up with a meaningful standard.

So that gets us to the third element, one which I believe is a critical component: production or expression pursuant to aesthetic principles. This definition is fraught with some peril, so let me be clear that I don’t believe that aesthetic principles are somehow universal or objective, or for that matter, tied strictly to those things that are beautiful. Rather, what I think is important here is that the artist is trying to create something that exists for reasons beyond mere functionality—the mere act of creative and representational expression is the key point.

For example, the words I have written above are not poetry, as they exist for purely functional reasons. If I were instead to write these words in haiku form, then I’ve likely crossed over into artistic territory. To wit:

Conscious arrangement
Aesthetic purpose achieved
Now my words are art

Okay, it may be a bad haiku, but hopefully you understand what I am getting at here.

Another way of putting it is illuminated by a quote from Jef I. Richards, an advertising expert: “Creative without strategy is called ‘art’. Creative with strategy is called ‘advertising’.” Of course, I believe that even advertising can be artistic, and commercial motives certainly do not diminish the value of art (and in fact can enhance the value of art, at least in terms of monetary value). I think nonetheless that we’re teasing out something important here: art, to some extent, is creative expression for the sake of creative expression.

So, to briefly sum up, the first and third elements cited above are important, but I am less convinced about the second as it seems too subjective. Accordingly, in my opinion, anyone who engages in deliberate, creative expression can lay claim to the words art and artist. You may note at this point—quite correctly—that this is a very broad definition. For many reasons, which I will discuss below, I believe that a broad, inclusive definition is the only way to go.

It seems to me that debate about the definition of art, more often than not, is really a debate about whether something is good art or bad art. When someone says “that’s not art,” what they usually really mean is “I don’t like it.” Personally, I don’t like Andy Warhol paintings, but I would never say they are not art.

Okay, I recognize that under my definition, velvet paintings of Elvis (oft-lampooned as kitsch by the fine art community, and just about everyone else for that matter) are in fact art. One might legitimately argue that they are bad art. But who are we to exclude the creative expression of Velvet Elvis painters? Is there really that much of a difference between Velvet Elvis and the Mona Lisa—they’re both just painted portraits, right? Okay, I’ve probably stepped into a mine field with this statement (which, by the way, is mostly but not entirely tongue-in-cheek), but I hope you get my drift—since we probably can all agree that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, one’s subjective feelings about the quality of someone else’s creative expression is hardly an objective standard for defining what is and what isn’t art. One man’s trash is another’s beloved Velvet Elvis treasure, and not everyone finds the Mona Lisa’s crooked smile to be all that mysterious.

Too often, “art” and “artist” are used in an elitist manner. Art is superior to inferior forms of expression (especially those of a commercial nature, or anything combining Elvis and velvet); and artists are sensitive, complicated, deep, passionate, prone to sporting soul patches and black berets and uttering abstruse yet somehow insightful platitudes—and somehow soaring creatively above those who are not. Call yourself a painter or a photographer and this implies to some that you are a mere craftsman—call yourself an artist, on the other hand, and everything you say and do is pregnant with soulful meaning. You can probably guess my feelings about this sort of thing.

Color nature photography has had its own struggles to gain acceptance from the art community, in the views of some occupying a position in the art caste somewhere below Velvet Elvis and pornography. The reasons for this are varied. Some argue that nature photographers don’t create, but rather only capture what nature has created (getting back to my first point about deliberate arrangement). This may be true, but the photographer imposes his or her artistic vision on a nature subject through choice of composition, light and moment. And of course, the same critique can be aimed at paintings and sculptures based on real life scenes. Some feel that the “documentary” aspect of nature photography makes such work less deserving of the status of art. Personally, I feel that documentary work can in fact be artistic—just take a look at the Pulitzer Prize winning photographs over the years—and of course, not all nature photography is documentary. Others express the view that nature photography isn’t art because it is “something you would put on a post card.” I don’t really understand why this disqualifies creative expression from being art, and furthermore, I’ve seen plenty of post cards featuring the work of Monet, Raphael, Rembrandt, and other great artists.

It seems to me that there is even a recent fad among some nature photographers to publicly eschew the term “photographer” in favor of the word “artist.” I’m not sure what exactly is motivating this open renunciation of the word photographer. In some cases, it may be the result of an honest public embrace of a mixed-media photography/computer art approach. Or maybe it is an attempt to stave off perceived or real anti-photography prejudice from art snobs. In other cases, it may be motivated by a desire to impress others with the above-mentioned haughty gravitas of the term “artist.” Although I am sure there are many legitimate reasons for choosing the title artist instead of photographer, I must confess that whenever I see a photographer reject the latter and proclaim to be an artist instead, I can’t help but feel a trifle amused; to paraphrase the Bard, “the artist doth protest too much, methinks.”

Of course, I think photographers should call themselves artists. I just don’t see the point in making a distinction between the words “artist” and “photographer,” embracing one while rejecting the other. In my opinion, the first word most certainly includes the second. As for me, I’m a nature photographer and damn proud of it. By definition that makes me an artist too, but I don’t feel compelled to make too fine a point about it. To quote Popeye, “I yam what I yam” and that’s the long and short of it. Popeye wasn’t afraid to be himself, no matter how squint-eyed and verbally assaulting that might be. So crack open a can of spinach, fortify your courage, and boldly proclaim what you are.

I don’t have any emotional attachment one way or the other to the A-Bombs. To me they are purely functional words, and they don’t imply anything other than exactly what they mean. I personally reject the baggage that others bring to the words, especially when division, anger, or vitriol is the result. It’s high time we demystified these terms, and stopped loading them with layers of elitist and exclusionary meaning. As I hope I have demonstrated above, the dividing line between “art” and “not art” is somewhat indistinct. There’s no reason to get all lofty and pretentious about it; rather, let’s err on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion, because we never know when the exclusionary finger will be pointed our way.

There are plenty of pundits in the blogosphere who are quick to tell you what it means to be a “true artist.” Do X, and you will make true art, but do Y and you are doomed to failure. I’d take these statements with a generous grain of salt. There’s no one way to do it right. Anyone who tells you otherwise is likely trying to elevate their way above the ways of others. Choose your own artistic path, and never worry about whether it conforms to the path chosen by someone else. I think the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky summed it up best: “There is no must in art because art is free.”

Let’s go back to another definition of art, one that may be my favorite, from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

The definition of art is controversial in contemporary philosophy. Whether art can be defined has also been a matter of controversy. The philosophical usefulness of a definition of art has also been debated.

To me, this about says it all. Arguing over “what is art” and “what isn’t art” seems rather pointless. Personally, I’d prefer that we all just agree on a broad, inclusive definition, and dispense with all of the elitism, posturing, and sophistry that too often comes with the debate. The art tent is a big one, and there’s plenty of room beneath it for the Velvet Elvis painters, latte foam artists, colored pencil sculptors, x-ray artists, toilet paper roll sculptors (I’m not making this stuff up), and even us nature photographers.

In the end, let us not forget that none of this really matters. Define art anyway you want—it is your right to do so, and no one can take that away from you. You can call yourself an artist or not—hell, you can call yourself Galactic President Superstar McAwesomeville for all I care. In the end, these are merely words. It is your creative expression that matters, and what it matters to you is most important.

So let me rephrase my earlier statement: anyone who engages in deliberate, creative expression can lay claim to the words art and artist unencumbered by the emotional baggage of others. It’s time to reclaim what in fact has always been ours—the right to honestly define ourselves and our creative expression as we see fit, and to use the words art and artist if we so choose. What’s more, we can embrace the words without feeling the need to act like a cliché, or to pretend to be meaningful, moody, soulful, and sensitive. And, most important, we don’t need to grow soul patches or wear black berets (unless we so choose). Thank goodness for that.

By the way, I can’t believe I managed to relevantly quote Shakespeare, Popeye, and How I Met Your Mother all in the same post. It’s almost as if I was trying to win a bet.

The views expressed in this article are probably that of the author’s unpaid intern and may not reflect what the author, the unpaid intern, or any sober or rational person actually believes.