Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => But is it Art? => Topic started by: mr.dude on August 10, 2006, 08:07:12 am
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The question is, what separates a photograph from being labeled “fine art” and one from just the regular “photograph” label?
I see this term “fine art” term thrown around quite a lot. So I’m asking for opinions as to what defines “fine art” or a “fine art photo”. I am not looking for the definition that states something along the lines of fine art being of the traditional categories of painting, music, and blah blah, as that is a very out of date and narrow minded idea. Nor am I looking for other textbook definitions. I want to know what you think it is in your own words. Is this term so loosely applied and overused that it no longer has meaning anymore? Is it fine art only because some “expert” claims it as such, or is it only when the viewer feels it is? What about all the stuff many of us call crap but either sells for a lot of money, is well known, or is exhibited in well respected museums ans galleries? How many of us that use the phrase "fine art" or critisize art have actually studied art? I have my own opinions on the subject but I’d like to hear some intelligent responses to take into consideration. I hope everyone understands that people are just stating their opinions and not claiming authority in the matter.
BTW if someone wants to claim that it’s not fine art if it’s not shot on film and produced in the darkroom AND has good reasons, then I’d like to hear it. So far I’ve only heard things like “cuz I like it / the process is old / I can’t describe it, I just know it / some people are willing to pay more for it” which aren’t good reasons and certainly aren’t going to change anyone’s minds. Basically I’ve just heard weak arguments as to why their preferred process was superior, and usually a lot of other things that point to a poor understanding of the digital process and sometimes a fear of change.
Thanks for everyone's participation.
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The term isn't one of value judgement. It is intended to discrimate between photographs taken for any other purpose.
So, a photograph taken of a house to put in a real estate ad, or a child to put in a family album, or a mountain to put in a travel slide show, are what they are. But if a photograph of a house, a child or a mountain are made with the intention of being displayed or sold as "art" then that's what they are. They may be crap, but it's reasonable to call them "fine art" because that's their intended purpose.
Michael
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My simplistic way of looking at this: fine art photos are taken primarily to represent a more abstract quality or characteristic of the subject--beauty, symmetry, form, tone--rather than to present literally the subject itself. This distinguishes them from advertising, portraiture, fashion, architecture, and other variants of commercial photography, where the concreteness of the subject itself is what you hope to depict. (words rarely fail me but they do so here.)
Obviously there is overlap and one can take a fine-art architectural image, for instance (my intention in my photos at the Brickworks last fall, for instance); but a literal representation is not the primary goal for a fine-art image.
My amateur's take on this. Forgive the art-school babble
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The term isn't one of value judgement. It is intended to discrimate between photographs taken for any other purpose.
So, a photograph taken of a house to put in a real estate ad, or a child to put in a family album, or a mountain to put in a travel slide show, are what they are. But if a photograph of a house, a child or a mountain are made with the intention of being displayed or sold as "art" then that's what they are. They may be crap, but it's reasonable to call them "fine art" because that's their intended purpose.
Michael
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I agree with Michael that "purpose" is the key word here. What we think of the end product is up to us, and the original intent of the person creating the work is up to them. If you intend to create art, if this is your purpose, then it is art to you unless you decide it is not. The audience is free to decide whether they agree or not.
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I agree with Michael that "purpose" is the key word here. What we think of the end product is up to us, and the original intent of the person creating the work is up to them. If you intend to create art, if this is your purpose, then it is art to you unless you decide it is not. The audience is free to decide whether they agree or not.
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Perhaps it would be a good idea to scrap the the term "fine art" when referring to photographs as inevitably it lends itself to misinterpretation and has a grandiose flavour which is undesirable.Basicly there are only photos they can be catorgorised as excellant,good,bad,mediocre etc etc.they can be used for whatever purpose one likes,just because a photo is intended for one purpose does not mean it can not be used for another purpose as well i.e. a well composed holiday photo can be exhibited if properly framed and mounted.
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Along with "purpose" you also have to consider the audience.
If you are selling or hanging for pubilc dispaly rather tha simply keeping them at home for your own pleasure, viewer opinion weighs in. In our studio the perception of "fine art" niggles into clients decision making in purchases- not only which to buy, but also whether to buy and how large. It's great when people stand enraptured in front of your photos, but it's not business till they are motivated to buy. Even for access to public display venues with no intent of sales, the owner of the venue must at some point decide whether or not it is art, and whether or not to associate themselves with it.
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Along with "purpose" you also have to consider the audience.
If you are selling or hanging for pubilc dispaly rather tha simply keeping them at home for your own pleasure, viewer opinion weighs in. In our studio the perception of "fine art" niggles into clients decision making in purchases- not only which to buy, but also whether to buy and how large. It's great when people stand enraptured in front of your photos, but it's not business till they are motivated to buy. Even for access to public display venues with no intent of sales, the owner of the venue must at some point decide whether or not it is art, and whether or not to associate themselves with it.
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In each case above the decision is basicly one of purpose i.e. is it suitable for the buyer or the gallerys requirements=purpose
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That semantic hair split rather well- lengthwise.
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Mr Dude
Your question was: what separates one photograph from being fine art and another just a photograph. The answer is very simple: opinion. Nothing more and nothing less.
Ciao - Rob C
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Susan Sontag, in her book, On Photography asserts that [paraphrasing] "all photographs become art once they reach a certain age." One can verify this by examining the photographic holdings of most any museum. It's a matter of simple annointment. The more influential the person executing the annointment, the wider the sphere of possible effect.
If there were a required reading list for visitors to this "Art" forum, it would possibly raise the level of discourse or reduce the periodicity of the familar cycle of predictable exchange. In that spirit, I would suggest the following for those interested:
Sontag, Susan, On Photography, Picador, New York, 1973, 1974, 1977
Danto, Arthur C., After the End of Art, Princeton University Press, NJ, 1997
Greenhalgh, Paul, The Modern Ideal, the Rise and Collapse of Idealism in the Visual Arts,V & A, London, 2005
Barrett, Terry, Criticizing Photographs, Fourth Edition, McGraw Hill, Boston, 2006
Adams, Robert, Beauty in Photography, Aperture, New York, 1996
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hi all,
thanks for all of your responses so far. i also asked another group of working artists/photographers the same question a while back. from their response and the ones found here, it seems that there is no general agreement on what seperates "fine art photography" from just "photography". most, if not all responses were valid and made plenty of sense. i've got to say that the reason i asked this question was because i had run into a few individuals that were making claims that certain photographs or methods of photographing (specifically digital related processes) were not fine art. while none of these comments were directed at my work, this struck me in a odd way since i had never heard of real defining and widely agreed upon explanation of what IS fine art photography and what ISN'T. i feel these responses have supported the idea that there is no real definition, and that those who go around claiming such and such work is not fine art are just....
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Hi russell a
Well yes, you can quote any number of writers with higher or lower prestige values but, at the end of the day, all that they are giving you is not a lot more than opinion. It has to be so - without scientific parameters there is no option other than the subjective view of each individual.
I have read so many so-called art photography magazines and books and it always comes down to opinion and also, generally, a hard sell springs out to surprise one somewhere down the line.
So in the end, call it what you like and enjoy it for what you think it's worth (the 'art' photograph before you) but don't put any faith in the commercial sector trading in such material: it's there to turn a buck, just like everyone else. There is, of course, absolutely nothing wrong with this unless you become hooked on the idea of art as investment, at which stage I believe you feed the commission frenzy of every picture peddler in town.
This is exactly as an earlier scribe here has stated - should the right guru give you or whoever he deems marketable his /her blessing, then that person is on his/her way. The smell of that anointment reminds me of funeral parlours...
Sweet dreams - Rob C
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Maybe the moral of this is to do what you love and let others call it what they want. Also, the notion that something is not art because of a particular technology used is ridiculous. New technologies have been used to create art since the beginning of mankind through today.
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I agree with Michael that "purpose" is the key word here. What we think of the end product is up to us, and the original intent of the person creating the work is up to them. If you intend to create art, if this is your purpose, then it is art to you unless you decide it is not. The audience is free to decide whether they agree or not.
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I still have a synthaxical problem with this approach though.
My view is that the purpose alone, deprived from any of the means required to reach a certain acceptance among viewers, is an empty shell.
This definition of fine art hereby proposed is in my view an - admitedely ellegant - attempt to escape from the delicate task of casting a judgement on a piece. Forget the "fine", and you are back on the fudamental question "is this art?" or "what is art?".
This definition does IMHO not serve photography in its endless quest for recognition as a form of art, because art in photography becomes just whatever.
This definition does IMHO also not match our intuitive feeling of what such a definition should be.
The post-modern relativist culture we have grown into is very seductive in many ways, but it is too often the result of our fear of complexity. Taking a meta-like one step back approach a la "I will just propose the recipient and you do whatever you want with it" has some value, but is mostly in the end a negative approach.
Art-quality and quality are clearly different things, but defining the purpose alone as being enough to define are is too simplistic. The audience should be part of the equation, in the measure that it shoudl accept the attempt as being art. To me, you cannot do art alone, only something that could be art. The purpose only defines a potentiality that has to be materialized by an audience.
Just my un-educated view though.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Bernard - as soon as I read this, I immediately though of Schrödinger's cat. When the gallery is empty, the photo is simultaneously (fine) art and not art. When an observer gets within viewing distance, he collapses the quantum wave function and the true state of the image is revealed.
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Bernard - as soon as I read this, I immediately though of Schrödinger's cat. When the gallery is empty, the photo is simultaneously (fine) art and not art. When an observer gets within viewing distance, he collapses the quantum wave function and the true state of the image is revealed.
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Lois,
Brilliant.
Never thought I would have the chance to hear about quantum physics here, but yes, the crystalisation of a potential art form into something categorized happens in my view as a revelation, an acknowledgment, in the mind of an audience.
No audience, no instantiation of the photo, it keeps floating as a selfish creation whose photons are still desperatly looking for an eye where to rest and try to seduce and convince.
Cheers,
Bernard
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My essay "Being an Artist" discusses the importance of the audience specifically, in particular Section 6 which is titled "Being an Artist Means having an Audience" :
http://luminous-landscape.com/columns/aesthetics10.shtml (http://luminous-landscape.com/columns/aesthetics10.shtml)
Do note that my previous post in this thread was not meant to be "A definition of fine art" as Bernard states, but simply a response to the original post about fine art. I am working on an essay titled "Photography is Art" in which I will provide a much more complete answer to this and to other questions. My definition of art will be featured in this upcoming essay.
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If one finds an Ansel Adams, Edward Wesson, etc original print at a flea market for $2, is it art. Is it art or not because of the venue it's found.
A print by XYZ at a gallery in Jackson Hole, well lite, music, all the trappings of "Class", $10,000, is it art?
Because the customer is naive enough to believe the gallery, this can lead to the possible corruption of art.
A man meets a woman at a bar. He ask if she would have sex with him for $1000. She agrees. He then says how about $100. She said " what do you think I am" his reply " I know what you are, we are simply negotiating the price"
Sometimes people want to be lied to, the truth is not exciting enough. I was in a Gallery in Santa Fe several years ago and since I am also a potter, a pottery piece for $800 caught my eye. I asked if it were "Hand made in the traditional coil built method and was assured it was. It had the artist "cert of auth" and could be relied on as genuine.
When I ask why the piece had the noticable marks of a "slip cast " mold made piece, I was asked to leave.
One must factor in the reality of the world in deciding if it's art. IMHO, many times it's more about the $$$$ than Art
Just a passing thought, Wyndham
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A print by photographer XYZ is probably not, as an investment, worth 10,000 dollars. Is a print by Ansel Adams worth 10,000 dollars? As an investment, it very well may be if care was taken to preserve it for some years; it might be sold at some point for more than $10,000. So I don't even think the price a photograph is actually worth can ever be used to define 'fine art photography'. Similarly, just because a photograph by XYZ will never be 'worth' $10,000 (or even $1000 or even $100) doesn't mean it's not 'fine art'. Did any of that make sense?
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Yes, it makes sense. I agree that it is important to distinguish between "fine art" as something of intrinsic value to an audience, and "fine art" as an investment field. The investment (monetary) value of a photograph or painting depends on many factors, such as scarcity, that have nothing to do with the artistic value of the image, except, sometimes, after the fact.
On the market, an Edward Weston print printed by his son Cole brings a lower price than the same image in an original Edward Weston print, even if the two prints are visually indistinuguishable. But it is certainly the case that the artistic value (which term I am leaving vague and undefined, except that it is distinct from the monetary value ) of Weston's ar Ansel's prints has contributed significantly to their investment/monetary value.
I hope this makes sense.
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Oh I agree, it makes sense. Yes there is a monetary value place on things that we enjoy(value). The value is in some way a measure of how people have of describing "art" , it maybe a poor choice but it is used anyway. The example above was my poor attempt at "perception of art". the example of Schrödinger's cat expresses the ambiguous nature of Art in a way that relates to the nature of peoples understanding of Art.
It would seem that part of the definition of "Fine Art XZY" has to come from what the public expects fine art to be, but that is external to my creating art.
Graffiti Art, is to me a valid art form, but in the context of location, gangs, and material, it's not a practical Fine Art form for the business side of Art.
Alain wrote an essay about the business of art vs creating art and part of our discussion on this thread has moved on both sides of this issue.
Maybe what we can say is as individuals, we create images that please our souls and if we have the integrity to not misrepresent our work as something its not and use the best methods and materials today to communicate our vision, we have created "Fine Art ", photography, painting, wall art. etc. I am always going to have a problem with the business ethics of selling art. It's akin to going to the kitchen of a restaurant, you learn more than you really wanted to know, and the food never taste quite the same again, but that's just me. Wyndham
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To me it is strictly what you as a photographer want to call or label your work. And secondarily whether there will be someone who values it or even purchases it based on what label you have given it. Although in reality it will still be Fine Art to you even if no one else sees it that way. And NO - an exchange of money or even someone other than yourself maintaining posession of the piece, isn't a requirement to make Art, Art or Photography, Fine Art - - - in my opinion.
I think it is impossible to pigeon hole the term and its product. As an example, I have several images that I have sold for commercial use as stock images where I did not term them as fine art and probably would not consider them to be so. I also have sold the same images as Fine Art prints. In another example, a golf course hired me in the spring to take shots for their website that did not reflect the standard golf course shots but were Fine Art shots similar to some of my work they had seen. I guess the small images on the website are fine art images - they are considered that by the client that hired me - but I don't tend to think of them as that for that application. However we will be using the same images to make Fine Art prints to sell to members of the course. And then the next question for me is - should they be printed on archival watercolor paper to make them fine art? I have produced Fine Art prints on both fine art papers and glossy papers. Does it have to be signed and numbered or limited edition and documented? I guess it just depends on how I see it.
I personally don't see Fine Art as having to be an altered or artistic image in content - to label it that. It probably has a feel, mood or emotional draw to it - but could be cold, static and maybe even uninteresting - and could just as easily be futuristic, simplistic, artistic or realistic in content. I use the term Fine Art with some of my Love Story and portrait images and have several documentary type shots that to me are Fine Art. I have just completed a 24x36 inch canvas print of a table setting as fine art to be displayed in a customers home. It is Fine Art as far as they are concerned. I feel that for the most part, today it is used simply as a selling termonology - and means little more than other terms that are bantied about on photographers websites and sales materials. Do I make use of them? Yes. Now if I was selling or showing in an Art Gallery and they saw Fine Art prints as being presented or printed in a certain way, then I guess they are the ones dictating what Fine Art is from their perspective - on the other hand another gallery may see the content or presentation differently.
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i have a question...
being a non-professional...i have taken this "thing" pretty seriously...one sure thing that is holding me back from taking it into profession is that down here in bangladesh photographers dont earn much.
still i do photography and give it all the time and effort i can. now i cant show my works, i cant sell them so i dont have any audiance.
still i do it with passion.i plan my works, i mean on what i am gonna work. infact those are sometimes written plans. with details and all...
from some of your comments i got confused as i dont show my work or i dont have any audiance.i do it for my love of it. so...
can i/you call it art...?
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so...
can i/you call it art...?
I have photography hanging on my walls that I consider fine art that no one except friends and family that come to my home are able to see. I guess that I as the photographer am the one to make that determintion. If I were to feel that Fine Art can only be a classification of some commercial venture, then even if I feel it is art, acceptance would depend on someone else feeling the same and displaying it in their gallery or forking out money for it. I just think that in general "Fine Art" is a marketing term that really means very little as everyone uses it.