So Serious Saturday #13

Fiction needs a basis in reality. Exercising non-fiction muscles once in a while benefits an active imagination, channeling creative energies as it focuses on a subject. So Serious Saturdays will be an active place for critical essays or writing about reality in the context of real events - even when it is not written on Saturdays.

This is a rule-bending SSS, as the words are fictionalized, but the conflict was not.

Type: Discussion

The Nature of Art

      Early morning on Mother’s Day the residents of a certain household found themselves awake. They stood between the kitchen and the living area and chatted about this or that, in the manner of philosophical parliaments held at two in the morning.
     Someone brought up the subject of art, using either a painting or another painted medium as an example object. “That’s ugly,” one of the residents said.
     “Well, what do you think art is?” a conversational partner said. “Art is made by people who don’t know what they are doing. It’s totally random.”
     A third conversationalist chimed in. “Then what about all the masters of art? Picasso. Da Vinci. Pollack –”
     “Yes, and look at those soup cans.” The second speaker laughed. “They’re ugly.”
     “He meant for them to be like that,” said the first.
     “It was made on purpose,” the third said. “So is art intentional or unintentional ugliness?” 
     “Art isn’t supposed to be ugly,” the first replied.
     “Unless it’s on purpose,” the second said.
     “Then they do know what they are doing,” the third said. “Then it’s not random.”
     “It could be,” the first said. “What about nature pictures? Something like Monet's water lilies?”
     “Nature is beautiful,” the second said.
     “It’s a kind of spontaneous beauty,” said the third.
     “See? It’s not intentional. It’s random,” returned the second.
     “Only sometimes,” the third returned. “When photographers shoot nature, they capture reality.”
     “Art is reality captured,” the first said.
     “Not in surrealist paintings,” the second said. “Reality has no meaning there.”
     “It has some meaning,” the third said. “It’s reality, but it’s twisted.”
      “See? It is made up,” the second said.
     “By people who know what they’re making,” the third said.
     “Making or doing?” the first asked.
     “Does it matter?” said the third.
     “Yes, it does.”
     “I don’t think so.”
     “What about little kids? They don’t exactly know what they are doing.”
     “They know they are making something.”
     “People don’t pay megabucks for a child’s painting,” the first said.
     “That’s because it’s usually a copy of something another artist already dreamed up. The kindergartners did not intend it, but the artist did,” the third said.
     “But people don’t have to know to make art,” the second said.

     The argument circled until the residents decided it was finally time for bed.

     So is art ugliness or beauty – must it be intentional or can it be unintentional? And is it planned, spontaneous, or completely random?  Leave comments in the comments section.