A new Rembrandt?

[LONDONER]

Could we just keep on the subject of the OP please?

[LJay]

I am fully aware of that definition. Although, if I didn't, it would take a simple read in a dictionary and not something as compromising and time consuming as a "study"

If you have a problem with me say it, use clear words. Insult me if you want to, do it publicly or in private. I can take about as much as anyone can dish out.

The one thing I don't find ok is passive-agressiveness. That reeks of cowardice.

Are we on a clear note, then?

Cool, dude. Chillax.

[Insertnamehere]

Cool, dude. Chillax.

Could we just keep on the subject of the OP please?

Sorry about that.

Maybe it was different, subjective answers that I was inviting.

If you ask me, I think art doesn't and can't have a strict definition. This qualifies then, as art by simple perception of shifts over time in the techniques used on the work made by men. For instance, people used to get their portraits done, but then photography happened.

But not all portraits painted and not all photographs taken (and not all buldings made, etc, etc) are generally classified as "art". So there must me some criteria, purely personal, maybe social, of an aesthetic nature, that defines something as "art" in your head. Simply put, somethign ahs to allure your senses in a way that is memorable.

What I think is problematic is not whether to question about it being art, though, which is a loose thing, but a simple question of who gets the credit? The guy who printed it? the guy who made the printer?...etc.

Sort of like that macaques' "monkey" selfie ordeal

[LONDONER]

If you ask me, I think art doesn't and can't have a strict definition. This qualifies then, as art by simple perception of shifts over time in the techniques used on the work made by men. For instance, people used to get their portraits done, but then photography happened.

But not all portraits painted and not all photographs taken (and not all buldings made, etc, etc) are generally classified as "art". So there must me some criteria, purely personal, maybe social, of an aesthetic nature, that defines something as "art" in your head. Simply put, somethign ahs to allure your senses in a way that is memorable.

What I think is problematic is not whether to question about it being art, though, which is a loose thing, but a simple question of who gets the credit? The guy who printed it? the guy who made the printer?...etc.

Sort of like that macaques' "monkey" selfie ordeal

I am by no means an expert on the subjecct but it is impossible for me to forget the exhibition of late Rembrandt portraits I saw two years ago in London. I was so overwhelmed by it that at the end of the exhibition I was very very close to tears. If art can move someone in such a way then it is truly art because the artist has succeeded in touching your soul.

[Emiliano]

What I think is problematic is not whether to question about it being art, though, which is a loose thing, but a simple question of who gets the credit? The guy who printed it? the guy who made the printer?...etc.

I'm curious about why you say that the problematic thing has to do with who gets credit. That is an interesting question. And its a question we could ask of nearly all art.

Like take Warhol for example, where sometimes he didn't even lay a finger on the actual product. But it's still a Warhol, right?

When it comes to a more traditional painting, say a Hopper, it's not like we question who gets the credit - the guy who made the paint, the guy who made the canvas, or the horse whose hair made the paintbrush. But it's still a Hopper, right?

Or when you go back further to artists who had much of the actual creation of the work done by apprentices. Or even further back, when what we might call an "Artist" were just considered tradesmen, and made their work anonymously, not to receive any credit or fame for themselves, but to glorify God or the Royalty or whatever. Or even further back to things like the cave paintings Londoner mentioned, where we can only theorize for what purpose or by who filling what role in that society created them.

When something is simply inspired by an artist, does that artist get any credit? When there is no driving, creative force behind the product - is it still art?

Does "art" require an "artist"?

[Emiliano]

If you saw it in a gallery and knew nothing of its origins I don't think that anyone would have any doubt about labelling it art. If it were labelled as a reproduction youn would still call it art but it would be less interesting. However, it has been produced without any real human intervention, the sort of intervention that produces the soul of a painting. It as if they had taken the eyes from one painting, the nose from another, the mouth from another etc. and just cleverly combined them. In the end it is a moral issue and it shows how technology is blurring the borders. Stephen Hawkins has warned about the danger of robots so maybe we shoud stop trying to be so clever. The soul is more important and we should understand that it is that that produces the "spark".

I could go on and on but it is 08.15 and far too early for such a weighty subject. Anyway, I'm glad that my post has started such an interesting debate.

This is a continuation of my message number 8 not written in the early morning this time:

Art is also what you know about something. Quite some years ago I was privileged to enter the Caves of Altamira in the North of Spain,

https://es.images.search.yahoo.com/searc...=yfp-t-907

not once but twice, to see the 20,000 year old paintings, a magical experience. That privileged is no longer extended to the public. Instead the local authorities have built a 100% accurate copy made out of fibreglass. It is exact in every single detail achieved by scanning and 3D printing (!) but, it lacks the soul of the original. The act of lying on my back, looking up, where a man had done exactly the same 20,000 years ago to paint those marvellous paintings was just magic, a feeling that could not be experienced in any other way or place, something that simply is not possible to feel in a fibreglass copy nor a 3D "creation" made by an algorithms.

First of all, how lucky you are to have actually been able to experience those paintings in that space.

And yeah, what you describe is one of my favorite discussions about art. Is the art in the image or the object - or is it not connected to either? A replica of the cave paintings is basically a glorified poster - sure, skill, talent, and hard work - not to mention a creative mind - is behind the replica - but it is simply a recreation of the original - it is the image of the art, not the actual object. What gives the original so much more power? Why would it cost so much more money to buy a Monet than it is to buy a tote bag with a Monet on it?

If you talk to many of the abstract expressionists, they'd tell you that the canvas or the sculpture is simply a side effect of the art. Art is the moment of creation. Of course the people who buy and sell art wouldn't like that -- unless we are talking performance art, in which case you are exactly there for the moment of creation, which is why a ticket to the Met Opera costs so much more than a PBS rebroadcast of it.

When it comes to this "Rembrandt" I guess my original thought it is that it is just an image. There's not a driving creative mind behind it, it was not touched by an artist, and it was created by machine - not driven by emotion or creativity or inspiration, but by algorithms and directives. Thats kind of like three strikes against it in my mind.

Its just a display of cool trick that technology can do. Like teaching a parrot to mimic sounds so it seems like it has learned to talk. Or teaching an elephant to hold a paint brush and move it around on a canvas. Its a demonstration. Its a desire to see something human in something that is not. Its an illusion.

But as you said, if I didnt know the backstory and saw it in a museum, I wouldn't even think twice. But the same goes for a forgery. And if a parrot ever says "Hi" to me, I will probably say "Hi" back.

[Insertnamehere]

I'm curious about why you say that the problematic thing has to do with who gets credit. That is an interesting question. And its a question we could ask of nearly all art.

Like take Warhol for example, where sometimes he didn't even lay a finger on the actual product. But it's still a Warhol, right?

When it comes to a more traditional painting, say a Hopper, it's not like we question who gets the credit - the guy who made the paint, the guy who made the canvas, or the horse whose hair made the paintbrush. But it's still a Hopper, right?

Or when you go back further to artists who had much of the actual creation of the work done by apprentices. Or even further back, when what we might call an "Artist" were just considered tradesmen, and made their work anonymously, not to receive any credit or fame for themselves, but to glorify God or the Royalty or whatever. Or even further back to things like the cave paintings Londoner mentioned, where we can only theorize for what purpose or by who filling what role in that society created them.

When something is simply inspired by an artist, does that artist get any credit? When there is no driving, creative force behind the product - is it still art?

Does "art" require an "artist"?

For some works, not all, the work is nothing on itself but is the artist that made it. It's a "Monet", not a mere painting and the name is a brand. It's a Mozart sonata, not just any sonata.

The art becomes art because that guy and no one else made it. At first, the painting must be good enough for the name to become a household. The art makes the artist. In the end the artist makes the art.

Even the Altamira caves are representative. Not of an individual, but of a culture and an settlement. It's how those particular folks perpetuated themselves in time and now we know they existed.

Is that process imposed by an outside source or intended by the individual?

In the first case, it can be both, in the later it's the first. But in both cases there is an identification of human intervention that made the art exist, so much in some cases that the work is an extention of the artist's renown.

In general painting, sculpture, etc, people had similar things to work with, so it was more a matter of creativity, what were they able to do with the basics to make it into a work of art.

Now, a 3D printer is a different thing than a painting. It's an achievement that can be considered art on itself because it took plenty of skill, brainpower and engineering to make it happen. So in this case is it more relevant that someone could built such an impressive feat of technology or that some other person used it for "x" purposes?

[LONDONER]

I don't think that there will ever been a consensus about what is and what is not art. Art is in the eye of the beholder. I will stick to my guns and in my opinion it is what I know about an object and I will go further to say that if initially I believe something is art and later it is revealed that it is the work of a computer, then I will feel deceived and I will reject it. That might seem two faced of me and I can't explain it further. I have no deep knowledge of the subject but allow my gut feelings to guide me.

I'm getting myself in to a deep mess here because having rejected "art" that is not of human creation, I confess that I have at home a stone that I picked up on a beach in New Zealand that I find very beautiful. It is the shape and the colour at the "veins" on the surface. It is very tactile and the shape is reminiscent of Barbara Hepworth. It brings me pleasure and yet is is the result of maybe thousands of years of volcanic and/or water erosion and no human hand intervened. I mounted it and converted in to a work of art! Or was it my human hand that did that? After all, Picasso converted bicycle handlebars and seat in to a bull's head so, am I doing the same?

[Emiliano]

I don't think that there will ever been a consensus about what is and what is not art. Art is in the eye of the beholder. I will stick to my guns and in my opinion it is what I know about an object and I will go further to say that if initially I believe something is art and later it is revealed that it is the work of a computer, then I will feel deceived and I will reject it. That might seem two faced of me and I can't explain it further. I have no deep knowledge of the subject but allow my gut feelings to guide me.

I'm getting myself in to a deep mess here because having rejected "art" that is not of human creation, I confess that I have at home a stone that I picked up on a beach in New Zealand that I find very beautiful. It is the shape and the colour at the "veins" on the surface. It is very tactile and the shape is reminiscent of Barbara Hepworth. It brings me pleasure and yet is is the result of maybe thousands of years of volcanic and/or water erosion and no human hand intervened. I mounted it and converted in to a work of art! Or was it my human hand that did that? After all, Picasso converted bicycle handlebars and seat in to a bull's head so, am I doing the same?

I think when comes to "What is art?", the question is more interesting than the answer.