Ellen Dissanayake offers many insights to the term “art” in her lecture, “Art for Life’s Sake,” and explores many different ways the term has been interpreted in the past. Dissanayake discusses a examination on how “art” has be viewed by some as something that people need to know a lot about before they can really appreciate it. On page 18 she writes, “Art had become if not a religion, an ideology whose principles were articulated by and for the few who had leisure and education enough to acquire them.” This is how sometimes I find myself viewing “art”, as if I am not good enough to appreciate the quality of someone’s work, and as if I am considered not an artistic person. This reading brought new light to my thinking in that many of the things I do in my life can be considered art and from my perspective everybody, or every culture, has a way of performing an art whether they consider it by the term “art” or not.
To me, art is a similar to our topic last week of values, in that it is an issue that can be difficult to discuss and really pin point thoughts on the topic. Maybe it is that art is not something that I would say I know a lot about nor do I know much about art history, but the topic is still thought provoking no matter how much you know about it. I think the author brings up an interesting topic of a species-centered view of art. She explains this view of thinking as combining, “modernism’s proclamation that art is of supreme value and a source for heightened personal experience with postmodernism’s insistence that it belongs to everyone and is potentially all around us. It does this by thinking of artmaking and experiencing as a human behavior” (Dissanayake 1991, 22). This can be confusing because it is combining a sense of having something be very special and significant while also bringing in an aspect that makes it seem to be everywhere and for everyone, therefore being common. For me when I first think of art, I think of things that are special to me or I have gone to a museum to view because they have been classified as “art.” From the reading I would now also consider more general things that people do on a daily basis like dancing for fun, signing to music, or even writing a letter to be considered art. When bringing in the species-centered view on art I believe it might lead to “art” eventually losing its sense of specialty. This being the objects that first come to mind when thinking of art will become equivalent to the things that come to mind after this article. This may not be a bad thing, but I look up to some of the first things I consider art in a much different way than the second things and do not want them to lose their “special” meaning if people take on a more all around view on art. Maybe the author wants my separation of views to disappear and that is her point. Or maybe these two sections will still be around and just more credit and acknowledgment will be given to the more general forms of art, which could be good.
You bring up a lot of interesting points.
I think your whole “first vs. second” thoughts that arise when you think of art are more close-knit than you think. You cite the first thoughts before reading this article as museum work or things that are special to you, and the second as more common things you do every day. I think the difference between these do is the craft or expertise behind them. For example, I really enjoy writing, I hope to have professionally produced screenplays someday, so I tend to enjoy movies more than the average person because they’re special to me. I understand a lot of the craft that goes into making them. However, that doesn’t mean I enjoy watching every tv show or every movie. Sure, they’re art. But if there isn’t effort put into them like the greats then I tend not to care as much. We look at paintings like Mona Lisa or listen to music by Mozart because they’re famous, but also because the respective artists were masters of their craft. If someone revolutionizes the way we think about art like they did, no one goes around touting that they suck or that they’re overrated. And even if they did, I think they could still appreciate what the respective artist did for the craft.
I feel like I’m just sorta ranting, but my point is that I don’t think you’ll ever lose the “special” feeling of those first thoughts, even if you learn to appreciate more basic art forms.
I think you are right in that my “first vs second” are more tightly related than I made them out to be. I think what Dissanayake was maybe trying to get at was more just being open to appreciating all forms and levels of art. Appreciate everything for what it is, and try not to compare it against other things that may be similar or once classified as “better.” In the article on page 25 Dissanayake discusses art in that “Usually art referes to objects – paintings, pictures, dances, musical compositions, works of art that are the result of artistic behavior.” Where I may have thought of these things as my “first” she goes on to discuss things I may have viewed as my “seconds.” “Yet if art is regarded as a behavior, making things special, emphasis shifts from the object or quality of commodity to the activity (the making or doing and appreciating)” (Dissanayake 25). From this section I am starting to see that is not making one better than the other, but more appreciating everything that could be considered “art” for what it is.
I also feel sometimes while viewing art that I am not good enough to fully appreciate the quality of the art. When Dissanayake brought up the point that an artworld became “composed of critics, dealers, gallery owners, museum directors, curators, art magazine editors, and so forth, was the source of conferring the status “work of art” onto objects” (19), I feel she was bringing attention to the fact that it take a certain status to be able to a member of the “artworld.” I don’t think Dissanayake intentionally changed the definition and meaning of art to make art not considered as special. I believe the author’s point was to bring attention to the fact that it doesn’t take a certain person’s position or status to fully appreciate art and that society needs to realize that there is such thing as “art for art’s sake, suggesting that art had no purpose but to “be” and to provide opportunities for enjoying an aesthetic experience that was it’s own reward” (18). This statement could support your claim that art can be the daily things that people do that they don’t count as art.