Art and Craft
I was once invited to the launch of a new film company associated with the Pythons. Terry Jones gave a speech and considered what is art and what is craft.
I had a ‘YES!’ moment, followed by several more ‘That’s IT’ moments and even though the occasion was a long time ago, I think on it often. And modern art suddenly made sense; I could walk around Tate Modern saying, ‘Wow!’
Thought I’d share.
Art, he explained, was the creation of something original, something that has never been done before. Something that makes you think long afterwards, a whole new take on an issue or common artefact that you’ve never considered until now. It attracts your interest, for better or worse; it provokes.
You don’t have to like it as such, but it has to disturb, to linger in your mind. Art surprises. And as you think about it, you learn.
So the crowds of people who discussed (negatively) Tracy Emin’s unmade bed, or Rachel Whiteread’s pile of bricks – almost confirmed that it was art, by the attention they gave it.
You can only do art, once. If you repeat it, it’s not original any more.
Craft, on the other hand, is the repetition of a winning formula. It’s a skill; honed, practiced, perfected. There’s a lot of it about: in William Morris prints, in Chippendale furniture, in Barbara Cartland novels, in Hollywood films. With each iteration, the skill can refined so that it’s more effective for less effort, but there’s a plan, a blueprint. I read so many Agatha Christie novels in my teens that I could work out the murderer early on – not through any plot device, but from the way it was written. Regardless of the impossibility of any events, I knew it was going to be X because of features I learnt to look out for. I might tell if you torture me.
So any recognisable style, is, by definition, craft; not art. The first one of the series might have been art, unless it was derivative. All subsequent efforts become craft.
Terry Jones argued that British films were often experimental art whereas the Hollywood industry only churned out craft. Art is too risky for them, art might fail. Of course, he pointed to ‘Life of Brian’ and I’d have to agree with him. Not everyone liked it, but it certainly provoked.
‘The Blair Witch Project’, I’d offer, is also art because it was radically different to what went before.
Both, incidentally, made on a shoestring budget. With billions at stake, can you take a chance on art, when you know craft is more likely to repay? Therefore, does too much money stifle creativity? (my thought, not Terry’s)
So what of books and book-writing? Clearly there’s craft involved. Skill, practice, learning, going over and over it; finding what works and doing more of it.
How much is also art? Books that were so different, that they stopped you in your tracks. Not the cosy Catherine Cooksons or the formulaic James Bonds – both skilful in their own right – not knocking them at all. Sometimes you want the comfort of familiarity; sometimes you want the ride of your life.
Which books were so original, they took your breath away? Are you an art or a craft person? In what you read and what you write?
Here are a few of my most haunting artworks:
Annie Proulx – Postcards, Patrick Hamilton – Hangover Square, Margaret Atwood – Oryx and Crake, Sylvia Plath – The Belljar.
To be a good artist, I’d argue that you first have to be a good craftsman – but not necessarily the other way round. However, craftsmanship can be enough; and the pay’s better.
What do you think?
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16 Comments
I'd agree with your definition and would add that design means that shape usually follows function, whereas with a piece of art, the idea is all-important and the expression of it secondary. As a result, finish can be a huge bone of contention. Something too 'finished' can be interpreted as being 'design' because content has been sacrificed in favour of aesthetics - modern art is meant to be provocative rather than beautiful. And I mean 'provocative' in the best sense of the word.
This all gets a bit nebulous when applied to writing. Good writing is all about finish. Therefore, writing is a craft, right? I don't think so. Or at least, not necessarily.
Much of Chinese poetry used to work precisely by adhering to the rules, so the 'originality' criterion would wipe out much of a culture.
Then I think of Haiku or sonnets - the challenge is to do something very unoriginal and somehow infuse it with originality.
Unmade beds and piles of bricks annoy people precisely because of their lack of originality - we can find them anywhere. There's a half made bed right behind me as I type.
Thanks for provoking thought, though!
I should also add that I expect the people who own examples from Picasso's cubist period would argure that it is all art, not craft. Repetitious, but art.
That aside in terms of writing I think that there is a time of inspiration and a time of craft. Plucking one example out of the air, Le Carre. His early work is inspired, take "The Spy who came in from the Cold". His later work is all about craft, eg The Constant Gardner. It shows, even in the titles it shows.
Thinking about it, these are things that e-books try to emulate, aren't they? Rather like those little flags that stuck out of cars in the 60s as indicators - they were emulating the driver's arm. Then someone was daring enough to ask the question, 'but what are we trying to achieve here - and can we achieve it another way?' And so tried out flashing lights instead. That first flashing light indicator - was it art? Or design? Or even ergonomics? Moving swiftly on:
Gerry - funny - I think of Chinese 'art' culture as almost entirely formulaic. Could be wrong, as I've never studied it. But that would make it all 'craft', wouldn't it? Hang on, there was the Chinese chappie with the painted beads in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern - you could go surfing on them until Health & Safety pricked up their pens. What fun that sounded! Art, defo.
And the first Haiku was definitely art. Not sure about the others.
Any your unmade bed sounds a lot more compelling than mine but it can't be art because you're copying :)
Interested what you say about 'heart'. Does this imply there's no 'heart' in 'craft'? Or are arts and crafts, one and the same? *Shurely not - Ed*
Alan - even though I totally agree that dead animals on display in formaldehyde is deeply horrid, I'd have to admit it was art: disturbing, thought-provoking, icky. Is it so different from the 'craft' of taxidermy? Displaying dead foxes and badgers on mantelpieces? It's up an octave, isn't it?
As for the owners of Picassos - well, they would think that, wouldn't they?
I suppose it hangs on the multitudinous definitions of 'Art'. Suppose one definition is 'something that has no particular purpose'. Then you get into knots.
I'm not disagreeing with anyone, btw - I'm curious.
Off the top of my head, two books jump out as works of art. 'Hotel world' by Ali Smith is an extraordinary and daring piece of writing, but certainly not comfortable. And a book I finished reading this week, 'The Old Man and the Sea,' by Hemingway. As I was reading the book, I realized that it wouldn't have a chance of publication today. There is almost no plot, and at every turn, Hemingway chooses the less dramatic alternative. Afloat, out of sight of land in a small boat, there is no storm. The young man trailed in the early pages doesn't come out and rescue the old man, and the other obvious ending never happens. But with all that, I read the book in a couple of sittings, and the writing took my breath away.
Besides, certain artists sell, and as you must know, there are the Dan Browns out there as well as the Hemingways
As for writing that has taken my breath away recently, I recommend you to A.S. Byatt's 'A Stone Woman' in her 'Little Black Book of Stories.' Fantastic, poetical and full of resonances. Art? Oh, yes.
When I first went to the Louvre (as a hitch hiker aged seventeen) I headed for the Raphaels because I considered Raphael to be top painter. Then I went to a Leonardo. Back to the Raphaels. Back to Leonardo. Ever since then Leonardo has been top painter for me. Why? Because there was something inimitably Leonardo that gave life to everything on the canvas. True, he was an unparalleled craftsman (which helps) but that could not account for the air of mystery - of transcendence - that seemed to light everything from within.
Real art, then, for me is on the inside. Craft can certainly have the passionate vision that makes it real art, and 'real art' can certainly lack it (be lifeless, a corpse).
Various attempts have been made to define this inside-ness. I call it heart, but you could call it oomph, Itness, quiddity, soul, swing ('It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing'). Robert M. Pirsig spent 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' looking for it and decided it was 'quality' (although it had also been 'gumption' en route).
Pat Cash, in another context, defined 'ticker' as the difference between two tennis players of equal potential but unequal accomplishment. So there's another word for it, this mysterious quality on the inside, ticker.
And are the "art" things "purer" in the sense that making money may be a low-priority motivation but it's mainly about expressing the idea or vision of the creator of that artwork?
Books as works of art? Difficult - they would really have to have that feeling of "otherness" for me - Steppenwolf (Hesse) or Le Petit Prince (Saint-Exupery) or The Master & Margarita (Bulgakov) - weird that all of these weren't originally written in English...
The question was asked, where is design in literature? That, surely would be the plot. But if there are, truely, only half-a-dozen or so distinct plots, does that mean the 'art' of designing a plot has already been exhausted long ago, and what we are all doing now is crafting our own copies. Or is an original take on one of the standard plots still an art form?
SSpi raises the question of commercialism. We could take it further and ask about manufacture. An 'artist' (for the sake of argument) produces and original design of vase, which is deemed to have commercial value - either utilitarian or aesthetic - and so it is reproduced either by hand or by mechanical processes to be sold in quantity - or, let's say, a limited edition. Is the vase I buy in the gift shop a work of art, a piece of fine craftmanship, or a factory product? And, if the latter, is it of intrinsically less value than the former?
Just asking. I don't know the answer to these questions.
Money isn't the issue, nor commissions, nor working their craft. What counts is what they put into their work (the oomph, the Itness, the soul, the gumption, the quality).
Geri, yes I think I'm crafty too. I don't 'get' artwork at first, only later when I've had time to think about it - by which time it's become a craft. Back to the Pythons, I remember watching them on telly when I was young. I found them a bit scary, unsettling, unsure how to react. Yet now, they're classics. Teenagers today (who never saw the originals) are familiar with them - but have never heard of the 'safe' sitcoms of the 70s that I loved at the time. Who but my age group remembers 'On the Buses' or 'Bless this House' or 'Terry and June' or 'Hugh & I' or 'Steptoe & Son'?
Gerry, you say that craftsmanship 'helps' with art. I'd opine that it's essential. It's only when you've mastered the craft of anything, and know the boundaries, can you stretch beyond them. There are a few child prodigies and we'd all like to think we're such - but we probably aren't. Ashkenazy had to learn his piano scales just as Houdini could probably do a mean 3-card trick. But I take your point about the transcendence of pure 'art'. I think we're saying the same thing. And 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' is another good example of a startlingly different book. Another that stays with me.
And yes, I was thinking of the Dickens serialisations this aft too.
Mac - and John's answer - agree totally. I'd rather have a nice picture of waterlilies on my wall than a cow in formaldehyde on the dining table, any day.
Which brings in another point, Spi - commerciality. There are many rumours of artists living in garrets and dying of poverty; not so the craftsman. They do very well on balance, and if they don't they must be pretty rubbish craftsmen. Good ones mass-produce what people want - or at least within the comfort zone of the masses. You can stretch it, but not too far. A good roof-tiler produces roofs which stay on - over and over again. Ikea produce dependable kit furniture - over and over again. They move the goalposts incrementally (craftily?), never by leaps. Artists don't often appear to be acknowledged in their lifetime, but craftsmen are. Think van Gogh. So perhaps art is futuristic? Something people will value 200 years hence? Whereas craft is valued right now?
There can certainly be art in advertisements though, can't there? I'm no expert, but a couple that spring to mind, that were so radically different, are the Guinness one with the surfer and the waves turning into horses - and the Prudential one where people listed their dreams: 'I want to be a tomato'. Oh, and a third - United Colours of Benetton, with its provocative poster campaign of - 20? years ago?
John, no, I agree - art can't exist in a vacuum. Can craft? [To UH too] As for 'The Old Man and the Sea', yes, there's no question that Hemingway knew exactly what each sentence was doing, and weighed each word. I heard that he combed it and combed it, taking out every single syllable that didn't contribute. A craftsman surely, which enabled the production of fine art.
Urbs - funny you should mention AS Byatt. I thought about putting 'Possession' on my list, but since I skipped all the poetry in the book, it felt like cheating. Poetry's another thing I mainly don't 'get' - which means it's probably high art. But I did love her poetic prose. I thought it's a fine book even without the poems.
Tony, I don't know where the 'design' comes in to literature. Could it be the voice? There are several 'art' books I felt like listing, but I haven't actually read (which proves I'm not so arty) - I wonder about Virginia Woolf, or 'Vernon God Little' or 'The Life of Pi'.
As for your vase, my take on it would be that the first may be art, but any subsequent manufacturing for the gift shop market, would be craft.
I'm hardly the oracle and may be wrong about any or all of this; it's just what I think now. Which may not be the case tomorrow.
I've gone on too long. Stopping now.
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