Lovecraft on good art

[brianvds]

Saw this quote by H.P. Lovecraft:

Makes sense to me!

 

[Enyaw]

That makes sense but to me it's all about being able to get something down that will enable the viewer to what it was that inspired the colorings I have laid down. Example being a few brush strokes to descibe the shapes of a shovel insead of painting a picture of a shovel.

 

[Artyczar]

He, him, man, himself, other fellow, WOW!!! That's pretty limited and leaves out a lot of other artists I know. I also think the definition is pretty lame. You can't define art in any one way.

 

[stlukesguild]

To be fair, Arty, Lovecraft was born in the 19th century and like any of us, was a product of his or her time and culture.

Having said that... I can't say I've ever found a satisfactory definition of what Art is.

 

[Enyaw]

You can't define art in any one way.

Yes you can but you are describing art as per self not universal.

 

[Hausamann]

The original post is simply a personal description of what good art is for Lovecraft. It has nothing to do with what art is; let alone what good art is.

Lovecraft was often criticized for his horror and apocalyptic writings. Lovecraft's quote was one of many to defend his art. He in fact became famously known as a good artist in what some first critically called bad. This is a common scenario throughout the history of art and artists.

We all love it when an observer identifies with our artwork the same way as we do. To us this means we done a good job of it (good art). If someone else sees it differently, we may question our own ability to represent what it is we see in our own artwork. Does this mean it's bad art? Certainly not!

I fell in this trap long time ago when all my art was only seen by a few people. If the few did not like it, I defined it as bad art. But the more people that saw the art the more people liked it. It only takes one other person to make us feel not alone in our endeavours; and that is enough.

 

[stlukesguild]

I think it's hard enough to define my own Art or Theory of Art let alone a universal definition of what art is... or isn't.

 

[brianvds]

I think it's hard enough to define my own Art or Theory of Art let alone a universal definition of what art is... or isn't.

In fairness to Lovecraft, it is not clear that in the quote he insists that it is an all-inclusive definition, or even any definition at all, and even the heading calls it the definition of good art, not art in general.

I would agree that defining art or good art is almost impossible, though what Lovecraft says there makes much sense - when I think of all manner of good works of art, including even good photographs, they will often contain something of what he says here: they make you look with new eyes. The artist saw something that we normally would not notice.

Reminds me of an anecdote about a local artist that I once read. One Pieter van der Westhuizen's wife had died, and he spent months in depression. People would see him just sitting on his porch all day long, doing nothing. So eventually some of his friends took him to the beach to get his mind off things. And they knew he was feeling better when he said "Wow, now that's really beautiful!" And then they noticed: he wasn't looking at the ocean, but at a piece rusting barbed-wire fence they had all passed without noticing it.

I know exactly what he meant.

It's always fun to poke holes in attempted definitions of art by coming up with an example of something that someone has presented as art, but that doesn't fit into the definition. And thus the definition gets ever broader, until it gets so broad as to be vague and thus kind of pointless.

I once came up with this definition: visual art is the visual representation of real or imaginary objects or ideas. It would probably include most things that have been called art, but, er, it doesn't really tell us much, so what's the point then? Now if you use the ARC's type of definition you get something far more specific, and also something that excludes almost all of art history from being art, or at least good art.

 

[Artyczar]

To be fair, Arty, Lovecraft was born in the 19th century and like any of us, was a product of his or her time and culture.

I understand. It just came as a bit shocking at this day and age.

 

[Artyczar]

Who said, "Art is what you make of it?" Or did no one say that? I should Google it.

 

[Hausamann]

Who said, "Art is what you make of it?" Or did no one say that? I should Google it.

I agree.
Everything is subjective. We are the world we walk through.