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| From | Sam Smith <sam@lullabypit.com> |
| Subject | Dr. Johnson said: |
| Date | Wed, 16 May 2007 11:01:26 -0600 |
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I haven't been following as closely as I should have, but if the
argument is that money invalidates the artistic credibility of a work,
then we've all been lied to about Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Michaelangelo,
and a host of others in the canon.
I doubt anybody is quite putting in terms that dramatic, but let's not
forget Samuel Johnson's dictum: "None but a fool ever wrote for aught but
money."
Matt Whitby wrote:
I've been reading this thread and frankly it's confused me. I went
for a walk around the garden, moved a few rocks and thought about it
some more. I came in, shook the mud off my shoes and remained
none-the-wiser. I put the kettle on and sat down with a good strong
coffee and thought some more. Nope. Nothing.
Now i'm obviously missing something here and you're all more than
welcome to shout at me and tell me that i'm not understanding the
fundamental part of this discussion but as it read it; it seems to
point back to one assertion.
Money invalidates art.
Now is this is true then i'm not grasping it.
I write music. Just for me. No one hears it... well, perhaps my
wife
and son, but to all intents and purposes it's just for me. I work
in
IT and frankly writing software is not a creative act (or it
shouldn't
be if you're writing good software). So here is me with my little
song. It's art. I needed a creative outlet so I wrote some music and
I would say the item that popped out was art. You can argue - and
dear God the wife would - that it's bad art. But bad art is art.
Now - and this is my simple, yet drawn out point. If someone really
likes my song and wants to sell it does it cease to be art? How can
it be? I wrote it with the simple intention of creating something
artistic for my own personal benefit... and now with my dirty
hypothetical money in the equation it's not art?
Is it simply that something that is created with the intention of
making money cannot be art? Did Van Gogh not intend to see his
paintings (albeit unsuccessfully)? I understand that he did. Yes,
you can argue that was "driven" to paint and would have painted
whether
he became rich enough to be able to stop. Is a Van Gogh painting not
art?
Mmm.. This whole topic confuses me no end.
Can someone summarise the argument for me in a pithy couple of
sentences. "Art for dummies" if you will.
Cheers,
Matt. England.
--
_______________________
Sam Smith
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