Can Art Exist Without An Audience?
Paul Grecian has written a couple of blog posts about art needing an audience in order for it to truly be art; and that the bigger or wider the viewing audience the more widely accepted a piece becomes as a work of art. You can read the full post here and a followup here.
My favorite definition of art is “subjects other than sciences requiring sensitive understanding rather than measurement“. Given that definition, I would tend to agree with Paul that art does require the active participation of a viewer to be considered art. Who that viewer is, and the number of viewers, is where I would disagree. I don’t think that simply by having more viewers qualifies a piece of work to be considered “more” art. A painting can be considered art if it is only seen by the eyes of the painter.
Paul used the Mona Lisa as an example in his followup post. So I will continue on using the Mona Lisa as an example. If it had been locked away somewhere for all this time and you were the first one to view it, free from outside influence, what would your reaction to it be? There is no doubt that we are heavily influenced by the opinions of others. If you were the first person to view this painting and thought to yourself “wow, powerful….a masterpiece….takes my breath away…” and then John Doe from down the street comes up and says “what is this piece of crap”, your reaction would likely be to view the painting under a more critical eye trying to find the faults in which John Doe has based his critical opinion. It takes a rare individual to stand up for their own first impression and put total trust in themselves when it goes against the opinions of someone else.
When someone of stature says something is desirable, society will desire that object. When someone of stature says something is worthless, society will deem it so as well. In a lot of regards we are like sheep, ready and willing to blindly follow the leader. If you were to take the Mona Lisa home and hang it in your living room, would it not bring you joy and pleasure on viewing it? Would your enjoyment of it differ according to the opinions of others, and especially on the number of other people that view it?
Sure we all seek the approval of our peers and would be especially pleased to have our friends and relatives approve of, and even desire, work which we have bought to grace our homes, but I will dare to suggest it would be the vain person who’s enjoyment of a piece of art hinges on the opinions of others. I think it then takes art from being an object of expression to a commodity; and yes, we all know art is a commodity. With increased public acceptance, promotion, and/or desire of a work comes an increase in the perceived value. So while more viewers may not make art more legitimate, it will make it have a higher perceived value.
That said, I can now speak from the point of view of the artist. If I were to ask myself why I do exhibitions and gallery shows, the answer would be to put my work in front on an audience. But I am not strictly after the largest audience I can possibly find. There are differences in the audiences. There are people who pass quickly by each piece and think they are all pretty. Then there are people who will pause to study the work and consider the meaning behind it. Sometimes they will ask questions. Often they are moved by the work. It is for those people that I exhibit.
I would trade you any day 1000 “pretty picture” viewers for 1 viewer who has a sensitive understanding of the work. But just because, as an artist, I’d rather have just that 1 viewer, does that speak to the authenticity or a quantifiable acceptance of my work as art? To me it doesn’t. (I can also say faced with the imaginative dilemma of 2 people who want to by a work; 1 who offers a thousand dollars because they think it’s a pretty picture, and 1 who offers a hundred dollars but is moved to tears – I would rather the person moved to tears own the work even if it means a financial loss. My perceived value is in how people respond to the work.)
Just because Thomas Kinkade is one of America’s most popular and collected artists, doesn’t mean his work is “more art” than someone who may be relatively unknown outside a smaller geographic area. Because Kinkade has a great marketing team behind him doesn’t make his work more legitimate as art than the expressive, but minimalistic prairie landscapes of Dale Kirschenman, whose work strikes a chord so deep inside me I would have trouble trying to verbalize my reactions to it. Is Kinkade’s overly hyped images more representing of art than the vibrant, exotic paintings of Tinyan Chan which fill me happiness? Does Kinkade’s popularity make his work better than English painter Arthur Burrington (my husbands great uncle), who is relatively unknown despite being a good friend of Monet?
Or to put it in context with photography, are the images of renowned photographer Anne Geddes more art than my images just because Geddes is well known and I am not (ignoring the fact our subject matter is completely different)? The answer, as far as I’m concerned, is no. While I may not discount Kinkade’s or Geddes’ work as qualifying to be called art, they do fall flat in eliciting that emotional response which I feel is such a major component of successful art, at least for me. So while I do believe art needs an audience to exist, who that audience is or how big of one doesn’t make art more real. We can try to define art all we want; and put all kinds of labels on it, but the true definition or existence of art lies only within the viewer. It is only that viewer who can say whether a piece is a work of art or not.
In: Art · Tagged with: Art, audience, Mona Lisa, painting, society, viewer
on February 28, 2010 at 3:41 pm
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Roberta,
I really enjoyed this piece. Maybe surprisingly, I agree with what you’re saying. I did note in my blog that I did not consider “more” in my context as being “better”. I am not suggesting that acceptance of someones work by a larger audience makes their work better. I am suggesting that the label of “art” being placed on a work by more people qualifies it as being “more” art. “More” in this sense is only a quantitative measure not qualititative. You’re concept of “sensitive understanding” is a more qualititative measure and a more difficult one to determine. It is something that any artist hopes to achieve in their audience. If we agree however, that the purpose, function, desire of art is to touch people in that sensitive understanding way, then any piece of art achieves “more” as it’s audience grows. When I was young, I didn’t appreciate the Mona Lisa, I do now. In that sense I feel, the Mona Lisa has achieved a level of being “more” art than it was before.
Thanks again for exploring this idea with me.
on February 28, 2010 at 4:45 pm
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I know you didn’t equate more as better, sorry if my post suggests that. I do agree with what you’ve written, yet I think it’s wrong – if that makes any sense at all. The more widely viewed a piece is the more it becomes accepted as a work of art, without questioning, but I think this is one of the flaws of society. Mass approval = mass acceptance. I do agree the purpose of art is to touch people or to elicit an emotional response (good or bad); but I don’t think just because the audience grows you are touching more people. The potential is there to touch more people, but it could be that the growing audience are just being sheep-like and going to see because everyone else did and they have no reaction whatsoever to the work itself. It is a fascinating subject to explore – thanks for starting it!