Photographic art - an oxymoron?

In some comments below I described the 'Ill Man', with ponderous wit, as 'a snapper of unconsidered trifles' prompted by his habit of  always carrying a camera and taking photographs of anything that catches his eye.  In this manner he has captured some unusual and attractive views of Glasgow and indeed some of his images are beautiful.  But is it art?  Here, I must hasten to make clear that 'Ill Man', himself, makes no such claim; he appears to love what he sees and simply captures it on film.  Even so, I still ask the question, in general form, is photography art?

At this point I must ask myself what I mean by 'art' and, rather gloomily, even as I begin to write I am ominously aware that I have nothing original to say on the subject, but still, it will help me clear my mind if nothing else.  Art is visceral not intellectual!  By that I mean that when confronted with certain man-made objects one experiences what I can only call, somewhat pathetically, a thrill .  I can still remember quite clearly browsing in a W.H. Smiths in Guildford when I was a teen-ager, looking for nothing much in particular, when I spotted the cover of a tiny book with a reproduction of a painting on its cover.  The painting consisted of small, differently-sized squares, the outer ones being in dark shades whilst into the centre they became brighter and brighter.  (I am aware that my description is less than fulsome but we only have so much time!)  Without thinking I reached for the little book and flicked through the pages to look at the illustrations of this painter's work and was instantly entranced - and I use that word deliberately.  Fifty years later I still have that book, plus several more and in my little parlour I have several reproductions of the painter's work on my walls.  His name was Paul Klee.

Of course, over the years I have studied the man and his work so that now (be warned!) I can at the slightest chance pontificate at length on how Klee, with a mixture of 'Intelligent Designer'-given talent and sheer intellectual concentration, developed his art over the years.  Because it confirms my prejudices, I was delighted to discover exactly how hard Klee worked to perfect his artistry because I do not believe that truly great art arises by accident.  This is proved again and again by the thousands of trashy, dashed-off daubs produced by Picasso once he had achieved fame - and how he must have sniggered at the mugs who paid such enormous sums for them.

Unfortunately for many 'wannabe' artists, hard work alone is not enough.  The world of music is littered with composers who laboured a lifetime only to produce one piece that is generally recognised to have reached artistic heights.  (As I tell my actors, God is not a socialist and does not, therefor, dish out talent in nice, equal dollops.)  However, it adds to the pleasure one receives from a work of art if subsequently one discovers how the artist grafted to reach the pinnacle.  Or, to put it another way, there would be an instant disappointment to discover that, indeed, the works of Shakespeare were written by a monkey at a typewriter!

This disappointment reminds me of an exhibition of Vermeer and other Dutch masters  I saw a few years ago.  Whilst I recognised the unbelievable skill of the artists in drawing complicated three-dimensional spaces, the paintings left me cold.  Later, ignorant twerp that I am, I discovered that they used the camera obscura technique to achieve the perfect image and then I understood why the paintings had left me unmoved and why the skill(?) was indeed, unbelievable.  Of course, there are still human elements of artistry in the pictures; the composition; the contrast between the rooms inside and the spaces, glimpsed through open doors and windows, outside; the cold, flat northern light and so on ... but still, the interpolation of the mechanical device, removing as it does the requirement of skill from the artist detracts from my pleasure.

Thus it is for me when it comes to photography.  I know that the photographer must compose or choose the image, and in certain cases, light it or wait for the natural light to prevail.  He must have technical expertise in understanding and using the camera (a  skill that has evaded me all my life!), and indeed, the end result might well produce a fleeting pleasure but nothing compared to the 'shock 'n' awe' that hits you when you see a work of totally man-made art and artistry.

Additional:  On a rather different facet of art I recommend Oliver Kamm's essay dated 7th January entitled 'Caliban's return' in which he masks up and then takes his scalpel to a particularly ripe example of the sort of ignorant Jobsworths who infest our public life.

Comments

[The Ill Man]

Paul Klee's stuff is brilliant. Doesn't have the same effect on me as Marc Chagall or Van Gogh, but it's captivating in the way much abstract isn't for me.

As for the "Is it art?" thing. It's a bit like comparing apples and oranges really. Great photographs are documents of time and place.

Cheers anyway.

[David Duff]

"Great photographs are documents of time and place"

I rather like that!

Also, 'Ill Man', you raise another point which I should have included in my post concerning the point that art is personal - thank God! Thus, Chagal does to you what Klee does to me and we could spend an entire evening emptying the Lahproaig and trying to convince each other to no effect other than, perhaps, both obtaining greater knowledge of the other artist concerned. Think what a dreary world it would be if tastes were the same!

[Larry Teabag]

Lord knows David I've heard you spout some fuckwitted nonsense in my time. But I would have thought that at least the likes of Vermeer should be safe from your idiotic jabbering.

"...then I understood why the paintings had left me unmoved and why the skill(?) was indeed, unbelievable..."

Good grief.

Firstly, the paintings left you unmoved because you are philistine, and a soulless husk of a human being.

Secondly, if you think that using a Camera Obscura is "removing... the requirement of skill from the artist" then your are also brainless, gelatinous, vegetable.

Exhibit one: http://developmentalidealism.org/img/art/Jan-Vermeer_milkMaid_f.jpg

So any old cunt with a Camera Obscura could do that could they?

What utter drivel. It's the incredible humanity of the painting, its exquisite subtlety: on the one hand its serenity, and on the other its realism and apparent tangibility, these are the things which make it great - "complicated three-dimensional spaces" have absolutely fuck-all to do with it.

There's good reason to believe that many, even most, of the old masters used optical devices to assist them (see this article: http://www.nexusjournal.com/reviews_v4n4-Domini.html
about this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Knowledge-Rediscovering-Techniques-Masters/dp/0500286388/sr=8-1/qid=1168546674/ref=pd_ka_1/026-6339620-4550819?ie=UTF8&s=books ). Indeed, historically it may well have been that technological break-throughs in optics *caused* watershed improvements in artistic techniques.

In any case the works of Vermeer and the Dutch masters (excluding those boring ones of fruit and dead peacocks) have brought boundless pleasure to countless people down the generations. For you to dismiss them as "a fleeting pleasure" because they fail to conform to your brand of fascist puritanism, is a good example of the heady mixture of arrogance and imbecility for which you are famous.

[The Ill Man]

".....but it's captivating in the way much abstract isn't for me."

Spot the mistake in this sentence.

Have to say, this is the second arguement I seem to have inadvertantly started between you two. I trust my fee will be in the post....

[David Duff]

Sad news to report, I'm afraid. Young Dr. Larry Teabag has been bitten by his rabid pet, 'Mattie the dog', and is now, himself, reduced to foaming at the lips and biting the carpet. Also, I fear, his eyesight is failing, or his brain rotting (one cannot be sure which) because he was obviously unable to read this, "Think what a dreary world it would be if tastes were the same!" But then again it must be remembered that Dr. Teabag is of a socialist bent (I use the word advisedly) and thus inclined to tell everyone what they should or should not enjoy in the arts with an implicit threat that anyone who disagrees will have to undergo re-education. (This, of course, from a man who displays his own wonderful breadth of toleration like a banner - I even suspect he has a coloured wrist band to indicate to his admiring comrades on the progressive side of the street that he is, indeed, a 'tolerationist'!)

As to Vermeer, I had in mind this painting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Jan_Vermeer_van_Delft_011.jpg
in which there is a particularly complex chandelier drawn in perspective with absolute accuracy. I remember gazing at it for some time and wondering at the skill required to get that exactly right. Of course, the tiled floor is in perfect perspective and all the furniture 'sits' on it exactly right. Later, as indicated above, I found out that it is done with the aid of a mechanical device. It is, more or less, the equivalent of modern photograph.

I don't doubt, as I said above but which Dr. Teabag in his ravings failed to notice, that some considerable skill is still involved but somehow I feel cheated and the painting, whilst pleasing to the eye, fails to produce that visceral re-action (from me, at any rate) that other pictures do.

I apologise for Dr. Teabag's language but we must be patient; he's growing up, you know, and life is very stressful for young people, or 'kids', as I believe they are now called, although quite what young goats have done to deserve such a connection beat me!

[Larry Teabag]

Lie Number 1: "it must be remembered that Dr. Teabag is of a socialist bent..."

Lie Number 2: "... and thus inclined to tell everyone what they should or should not enjoy in the arts"

Lie Number 3: "...with an implicit threat that anyone who disagrees will have to undergo re-education"

I'll leave your readers the pleasure of identifying lies 4 - 10,000.

[David Duff]

OFFICIAL NOTICE:

This site (prop. D. L. Duff) in pursuance of its policy of honest reportage has appointed an independent ombudsman (er, D. L. Duff) to adjudicate on disputes with its readers and on the basis of his report this site is now happy to apologise to Dr. Teabag, thus:

It is clear that Dr. Teabag is an unadulterated capitalist (well, if he's not a socialist, he must be!) Nor would Dr. Teabag tell anyone "what they should or should not enjoy in the arts", even if, from time to time he tells those who do not instantly appreciate the finer points of the paintings of Vermeer that they are "brainless, gelatinous, vegetable[s]". This hyperbole was wrought from his unwilling keyboard by the nature of his heightened and delicate sensibilities, and this site disassociates itself from any suggestion that he is an excitable little Hitler. His insistance that the writer, er, D. L. Duff (no relation), should instantly read certain texts should not be construed as an early attempt at re-education pending Dr. Teabag's seizure of power when all those ghastly, old, re-actionary swine will be ... [end].

[Larry Teabag]

Duff, have you finally lost your mind completely?

I pointed out that you were talking crap, and *recommended* a book which refuted your nonsense.

I called you a "brainless, gelatinous, vegetable", not because you dislike Vermeer, but because you implied (preposterously) that he had no talent, thus: "the skill(?) was indeed, unbelievable... the interpolation of the mechanical device, removing as it does the requirement of skill from the artist ". Obviously in using such language I offended your heightened and delicate sensibilities, in which case I apologise. Somehow I'd got the impression that you were made of sterner stuff.

You've now called me "Hitler", accused me of making "implicit threat[s]" against you, and finally implicitly accused me of wanting to have you shot.

And *I'm* being "excitable"??? *I'm* guilty of hyperbole???

[David Duff]

"Welcome back! We're now going straight over to our reporter, Butch van Dyke, who is in bed with ... sorry, that should be embeded with ... the Dutch contingent of coalition forces commanded by Brig. Gen. Diip ze Teabagg where there is breaking news. How's it going, Butch?"

"Not so good, Selina, there has been a major hitch in the deployment of a top secret piece of revolutionary, new technology known as 'the Obscure Kammera' which was designed to ensure that in future all Dutch forces advance to what is known as 'the vanishing point' on the horizon in straight lines thus throwing the fanatical forces of the Duff Free Daubers into total confusion, Selina."

"So what went wrong, Butch?"

"I'm not sure, Selina, but the Obscure Kammera appears to have malfunctioned and there are lights flashing on and off and the tannoys all over HQ are yelling 'Humour Failure! Humour Failure! Humour Failure!' Meanwhile Brig. Gen. Diip ze Teabagg is jumping up and down on the Kammera and biting large chunks out of what appears to be canvas camouflage or maybe it's a painting of some sort. Lotta confusion here, Selina, but a source tells me that the for the moment the Duff Free Daubers are lying quiet, well, to be exact, Selina, I'm told they're fast asleep!"

"Thanks, Butch. Now to the war between the Cubists and the Fauvists, over to ..."

[Larry Teabag]

"Humour Failure!"

Not at all David. You responded to having your idiocies and hypocricies pointed out, by accusing me of wanting to sieze control of the state, dictate who may enjoy what, and kill or "re-educate" anyone who disagrees - all of which I salute as being true, relevant, and above all witty in the extreme. Oscar Wilde would be proud, the disgusting old sodomite.

You also called me "an excitable little Hitler" - an insult of such devestating originality, and which cuts to the point so cuttingly, that I am now comletely floored by your épée of eloquence. Finally I would like to firmly distance myself from the suggestion that you're a hypocritical old liar having a tantrum, or that you can dish it out but can't take it.