What is Art? - A research on the concept and perception of Art in the 21st Century PDF

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What is art? A research on the concept and perception of Art in the 21st Century Author: Alejandro ESCUDER GONZÁLEZ Matriculation number: 01371033 Thesis submitted for the degree of: Bachelor of Arts in Sociology 033/505 Supervisor / Professor: Prof. Dr. Alfred Smudits Created in the frame VOSE Soci...

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What is art? A research on the concept and perception of Art in the 21st Century Author:

Alejandro ESCUDER GONZÁLEZ Matriculation number: 01371033

Thesis submitted for the degree of:

Bachelor of Arts in

Sociology 033/505

Supervisor / Professor: Prof. Dr. Alfred Smudits Created in the frame VOSE Sociology of the Arts – SS 2017 of the course: Submission date: 30th November 2017 Vienna, 2017

-ABSTRACTThe concept of Art and Artist has had countless definitions throughout history. But are there really common concepts to define them to both ancient and modern art? This thesis focuses on the current perception of what is considered art or what is considered an artist, for, outside what the books tell, what ordinary people understand by art.

Alejandro Escuder

 www.alejandroescuder.com

What is Art? | 2

INDEX Chapter

Page

I.  INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research justification

5 7

1.1.1  Importance of the topic

7

1.1.2  State of the research

8

1.1.3  Personal motivation for the research

8

1.2 Research questions and hypotheses

II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

9

10

2.1 History of the evolution of the concept of “art”

10

2.2 Classification of the Arts

14

2.3 Theories related to Art meaning and perception

16

2.3.1  Pierre Bourdieu: Cultural capital and taste levels

16

2.3.2  Jean Baudrillard: The simulation of Art

16

III. METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH DESIGN 3.1 Qualitative research: Expert Interviews

18 19

3.1.1  Selection and Function of the Experts

19

3.1.2  Preparation and procedure of the Guided Interviews

20

3.1.3  Interpretation method: Content analysis

22

3.2 Quantitative research: Survey

25

3.2.1.  Definition of the aims for the quantitative research

24

3.2.2.  Measuring instrument: Elaboration of a Survey

24

3.2.3.  Data Collection

31

Alejandro Escuder

 www.alejandroescuder.com

What is Art? | 3

IV. DATA ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION

33

4.1 Exploration and analysis of the results

33

4.1.1  Demographic Data

34

4.1.2  Concept of Art

36

4.1.3  Perception of Art and Artist

39

4.2 Interpretation and review of the hypotheses

46

V. CONCLUSIONS 5.1 Personal notes and reflections

48 50

REFERENCES

51

LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHICS

53

Alejandro Escuder

 www.alejandroescuder.com

What is Art? | 4

I. INTRODUCTION

The Arts are a human practice as old as the same humanity. Even in the early age, there was a primitive version of what we call art nowadays, in their different forms. It should not be a surprise that sociology ended up considering to put a special focus on this field. Art and society are indeed deeply interconnected –or even some experts would consider them as the same thing, one reflected on the other one–. Art is indeed a purely human characteristic, since so far, we only know or consider art the work of humans, and it is an inner capacity of the members of asociety to create art, same as it happens with technology. So it is clear that art exists. But the great question is very simple: “What is it?”

The answer to that question is connected to other questions such “what is an artist?”, “what is an Artwork?”, or even “when art begins?”. And none of them have an easy answer. It is hard to find a definition able to express what the words can’t. Additionally, art and society have changed and evolved always together, and so have their perception and creation evolved too. For this reason, this research wants to focus on the current –in 2017- perception and understanding of the concept of Art. In other words, what do we consider in order to call someone artist, and what are the characteristics that we search or find in what we perceive as an Artwork –and therefore consider it as Art–.

Alejandro Escuder

 www.alejandroescuder.com

What is Art? | 5

The target of the research is to get an approximation of what people from today’s contemporary western society understand by art; what arts they value more or better; and what works or artists are considered more artistic; and of course, to perform an interpretation of how this happens.

In order to perform the research in this topic, first the concept of art will be exposed, all the variations that it has suffered in the course of history and its evolution. The limitations of the art and the changes in its tolerance and the different elements that it has covered in different periods will be summarized. In this way, it will be possible to see clearly that since the beginning, some conflicts were caused to establish a definition of the concept of art and its scope. In the same chapter, different approaches related to the perception of art relevant to our research will be discussed.

Later we will describe the methodological part and the design of the investigation. This research will use a mixed design of qualitative and quantitative research. The qualitative part will be used to obtain more information a part from the theoretical part, while the quantitative analysis will consist in the elaboration of a survey with the purpose of obtaining a lot of data about the objectives of this work, which we have already defined.

The next part will contain the analysis of the data obtained from our survey, and the relationships (or not) they have with certain demographic data. The difference between the theoretical framework presented in chapter two and the interviews with experts will also be examined with the data results that people have answered in the survey. In this way we can compare if there are large differences or similarities between expert opinions and the perception of ordinary people, who in the end are those who constitute most of society.

Finally, the interpretations of the results will be included and compared with the hypotheses formulated at the beginning of the work. The thesis will conclude with the author's conclusions, both formal and sociological about the research, as well as personal comments and reflections on the thesis.

Alejandro Escuder

 www.alejandroescuder.com

What is Art? | 6

1.1 Research justification 1.1.1 Importance of the topic Art is something that involves us everyday and everywhere, no matter if we want it or not, we are just surrounded of it as we are part of a society which needs to create, to express something. However, it is not common that people think about it and about its meaning. They just take it as it is and then they like it or dislike it. In the world of art, it is very common that people affirm that something is a piece of art or not without knowing why they think so. They know maybe they don’t like it, but they usually don’t know why. Or even sometimes they judge as art a piece by Beethoven, just because they were told that Beethoven was a great composer and indeed an artist, but they don’t know really what are the things that can make them consider it as art, if they don’t know what art means for them. This is the reason why this research on the topic can be especially important. I think, in order to judge anything in the world to the best that we can, it is important to have the many information about it as possible. Here is an example: someone goes into a museum and observe a painting, its form and colours. Then someone approaches to him or her and explains something about the technique and about the story of the painting. Suddenly the person starts seeing more things on the painting, and it goes from being a simple painting (which can also be aesthetically beautiful) to being something with meaning.

Many value this difference as a key to value and identify art, and without a doubt the understanding of the artwork offers a new experience to those who observe or perceive it. However, this may not be reflected in the same way in the real world. The purpose of the research is to capture the perception of ordinary people, because this is the answer that gives sociology a vision of the social concept of art, beyond the theoretical or experts postulates.

This research can provide a current definition of art and the artist as society understands and perceives it. In this way we will learn what people really value when judging something as art. And the results may vary from people considering technique as the most descriptive element of the concept, until it is simply considered as a type of non-verbal communication between the artist and the receiver. Alejandro Escuder

 www.alejandroescuder.com

What is Art? | 7

1.1.2 State of the research Since art exists, existed also a search about its comprehension and understanding. Many authors have talked about this topic among all the history, beginning by Plato, and ending by Hegel, Nietzsche, and going through other figures such as Leo Tolstoi. However most of the research by sociologist have had not the question of understanding and perception of art, but rather other questions such as “When is art?” (perception) and “What is art for?” (Dissanayake, 2015). This view analyses more from the point of view of the quality, and our research does not want that, it aims to stay in the understanding, the Yes or No. This research aims to focus in the most actual review of the concept, to which the research papers of Andina (2017) and Kreutzbauer (2017) are some of the most actual about the issue.

1.1.2 Personal motivation for the research I chose this topic for my thesis because I am a music composer, and I intend to be an artist. But every composer wonder what is the key to get to their public, what is the key to do something artistic. For me, Art is expression above all. Every person who creates something artistic intends to say something through different methods, or so called Arts, either through music, literature, or any other artistic practice. Some people could say is another way of non-verbal communication. But we all know it is more than that, isn’t it? My motivation for this investigation originated from my recent incursion into postmodernism. From it I learned that everything can be art, and I wonder: how is this possible? Suddenly I realized that I did not have an answer to define art, which is simply my taste, shaped after all my life dedicated to music, which defines when something I like or not, and when I value the artistic quality of a music or an object. So, is it true that art can not be defined? It is quite possible that it does not have a single and absolute definition, but at least I wanted to investigate what we rely on to value something as art or not art. And as an artist I do not care what an author from a century ago says, I'm interested in what people think, what people perceive, because they are the judges of art in the 21st century. Alejandro Escuder

 www.alejandroescuder.com

What is Art? | 8

1.2 Research questions and hypotheses After a development of so many tendencies and art trends in the 20th Century and since the apparition of the Postmodernism, where it seems that the limits of art disappeared, the concept of art have gotten a wider dimension than ever. Technology, technique, mathematics, randomness, intuition, rationalism… Everything has been applied in arts and taken to the limits. However, my hypothesis is that the general understanding and perception of art and artist remain in the traditional concepts of creativity and beauty together with an emphasis on the senses (feelings). In other words, even taking into account all the innovations and extensions of art, the senses and the beauty or something new that attracts us (creativity) captured through them continue to induce us to consider something artistic or not.

We had a series of research questions (RQ) to which we formulated some hypotheses (H):

RQ:

What terms are better considered for best definition of what they understand by art?

H:

The concepts related to historically and traditional understanding of the art are still the most important. E.g. expression, creativity, beauty…

RQ:

Does the understanding of those concepts have a relation with academic degree / education in arts?

H:

No, there’s a general understanding of art.

RQ:

Does the understanding of those concepts differ between experts and population?

H:

Yes, experts might have another values with a higher rated for defining art, such as innovation, complexity, etc.

RQ:

Which or what kind of arts or artists are more perceived as indeed art / artists?

H:

The classical examples and more famous are the best rated as art / artist.

RQ:

Are artworks and artist better or worse perceived as it according to their prestige?

H:

No, probably people doesn’t know what is better rated as legitimate taste or not.

Alejandro Escuder

 www.alejandroescuder.com

What is Art? | 9

II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.1 History of the evolution of the concept of “art”1 The concept of art has varied considerably among the time. It has been the subject of many studies and controversies due to the evolution that has taken place throughout history. The concept has gone through many stages and had many variations according to the events and needs that have a specific moment in history. The tolerance of the concept, its definitions and limitations have been changing its structure and form to fit in each historical moment.

The term "art" is derived from the Latin "ars" which in its beginning did not have the same meaning as nowadays. It meaning was more related to “technique” actually. The concept has advanced in a line that has a continuity but is not straight and has gone through many stages that encompass and tolerate different characteristics or elements. Plato said that art was not a rational work. In the ancient times it was thought that all art should be subject to rules, something that was the product only of imagination, inspiration or fantasy, that was the antithesis of art. On the other hand, art in antiquity had a very broad scope since it was not only what we know today as fine arts, but also included manual crafts such as tailoring. So, in Ancient Greece, philosophers reflected on the concept of art (tecne)

1

Due to the large amount of literature on the history of art, and given that it is an introductory chapter, we have considered this section a summary basing on the writings of Tatakiewicz in his work History of Six Ideas – An Essay in Aesthetics (1995, spanish edition). Alejandro Escuder

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What is Art? | 10

understood as human activities with their own rules that can be learned and perfected. The arts were classified into superiors and minor ones (see 2.2, Classification of the Arts) depending on the senses with which the works are perceived, considering the superior senses sight and hearing and the less the taste, smell and touch.

In Ancient Rome the arts (ars) are divided between activities that require manual labor and those that do not. This same division is applied during the Middle Age being called mechanical arts the first and liberal arts the second. In other words, it was necessary to create a division in the concept in order to be able to understand each other better. They formed two groups classified according to their practice, the first included those areas that required a mental effort to which they were denominated as liberal arts and the second group was formed by those that required a physical work which they called vulgar or sometimes as mechanical arts (see 2.2). These two areas were valued very differently and unfairly since in antiquity it was thought that the liberal arts, ie those that are purely mental, were much more important than the areas that were based on a physical work only.

Tatarkiewicz explains that also in the Middle Age those two groups had seven arts each. The liberals included: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and the study of music theory; and the vulgar ones included: lanifium, armor, architecture, navigatio, agriculture, venatio, medicine and theatrica.

The curious point is that neither of the two groups included painting or sculpture, this did not mean that they were not considered art but they could not enter the liberal group since they used physical force and neither within the common ones since they were classified only the seven arts that were considered more important in terms of their usefulness and this was not the case of the fine arts, painting or sculpture therefore were out of the classification.

Later the concept of art kept changing, first the fine arts were separated from the crafts and later during the Renaissance it was when the difference between the sciences and the fine arts was achieved which was much more complicated since the situation of the scholars it was considered remarkably superior to that of the artists.

Alejandro Escuder

 www.alejandroescuder.com

What is Art? | 11

Therefore, it was not until the end of the Renaissance that it began to give value to the work of artists and art finally came to be seen as something different from the sciences and at the same time was seen with equal importance within society. From this, an obvious need arose to search for appropriate terms and concepts to give it the necessary place and value that the fine arts required. Art had become independent and was increasingly occupying a dignified place.

But in fact it was until the sixteenth century when the concept solidified and took shape, but the term visual arts and fine arts was not yet used, but reference was made to them with the name of design arts. All the practices that had something in common, such as design and drawing, were included in this term since they were thought to be similar and fit within the same classification. During this same century after a long road and once the concept of art was more solid and restricted, it was when they were classified within the term that we know today as "visual arts", but this does not mean that the concept does not I would keep changing. In contrast to the utilitarianism of the Industrial Revolution, movements such as aestheticism propose the autonomy of art, art for art, and the individual search for beauty by the artist isolated from society.

During Mannerism, art distanced itself from the norms and the representation of the reality of the Renaissance and opens itself to imagination, subjectivity, inspiration and originality. The Enlightenment favoured the secularization of society and in the eighteenth century art becomes independent of religion and the artist liberates his taste and will with his own language. Art in Romanticism expresses the emotions of the artist who is deified as a genius.

The concept in Europe has gone through several periods throughout history for twenty-five centuries. The first period goes from the 5th century BC to the 16th AC, in this period importance was given to the concept, art was built as a production subject to ru...