Are there fundamental abilities that characterize being an artist?
 Are there fundamental abilities that characterize being an artist? | |
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Smerdlap
Resident Usergroup: Members Joined: Jul 20, 2011 Total Topics: 11 Total Posts: 317 |
 #1
Subject: Are there fundamental abilities that characterize being an artist? If I were a mathematician, I know there are certain essential abilities that I would be crippled without. For example: -Ability to count small numbers of objects (about four or less) in constant time. This is also known as subitizing and it is something that infants and pigeons can do. -Ability to think in conceptual metaphors, e.g. a number is like traveling a certain distance along a path. Adding is like travelling twice. -Ability to imagine spatial displacements and shapes -Ability to transform formal sentences of symbols according to certain rules I would say overall math ability is a composition of these basic abilities, and others. But what are the component abilities required to be an artist? Or is it something so organic that it can't be broken down into specific capabilities? Is it possible to be wholly lacking in some of the needed abilities, or are they essential to being a human being? Are there abilities that are shared in common by different kinds of artists (e.g. painters, sculptors, poets, musicians) or are they all highly specific to the medium in question? Can a person have the ability to perceive beauty in some media, but fail to be able to do so for others? I apologize if these seem like stupid questions, but art seems quite alien and is a difficult subject for me. |
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Bobard
remodernist  Usergroup: Moderators Joined: May 04, 2008 Total Topics: 14 Total Posts: 297 |
#2
Smerdlap wrote: If I were a mathematician, I know there are certain essential abilities that I would be crippled without. For example: -Ability to count small numbers of objects (about four or less) in constant time. This is also known as subitizing and it is something that infants and pigeons can do. -Ability to think in conceptual metaphors, e.g. a number is like traveling a certain distance along a path. Adding is like travelling twice. -Ability to imagine spatial displacements and shapes -Ability to transform formal sentences of symbols according to certain rules I would say overall math ability is a composition of these basic abilities, and others. But what are the component abilities required to be an artist? Or is it something so organic that it can't be broken down into specific capabilities? Is it possible to be wholly lacking in some of the needed abilities, or are they essential to being a human being? Are there abilities that are shared in common by different kinds of artists (e.g. painters, sculptors, poets, musicians) or are they all highly specific to the medium in question? Can a person have the ability to perceive beauty in some media, but fail to be able to do so for others? I apologize if these seem like stupid questions, but art seems quite alien and is a difficult subject for me. Not a stupid question at all - I would say an artist needs the: -Ability to observe objects -Ability to think in conceptual metaphors -Ability to imagine spatial displacements and shapes -Ability to transform symbols and symbolism according to certain rules And then have the desire to share what they have learnt - everything after that is technique. |
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Gryphon
Your Getting Warmer  Usergroup: Sponsors Joined: Nov 21, 2011 Total Topics: 14 Total Posts: 326 |
#3
Spontaneity and perseverence. Not many arts are similar to math I think, math is mostly thinking. The other arts are mostly feeling, in those the feeling guides the thinking. The willingness to change feelings and ideas will amount to creativity and freer flowing paintings, whether they be stories or pictures or philosophy, the willingness to yield to creativity will allow the greatest creations. |
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Kali Yuga
Tokyo Two-Stepper  Usergroup: Moderators Joined: Jan 30, 2005 Location: Monster Island Total Topics: 24 Total Posts: 1006 |
#4
I'm fairly confident that if you name a required attribute, I can find a fairly well-known artist who lacks that attribute. 
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knucklehead
Just 50 cents a bottle.  Usergroup: Sponsors Joined: Dec 08, 2011 Location: Crocodile infested coast, Australia Total Topics: 13 Total Posts: 456 |
#5
I have no problem saying "That is not art" when I see or hear the work of a poser. For me, there are two halves of the one capacity of an artist. One is skill within a discipline. The other is imagination. The first of these two can and often is a point of departure. |
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DonLorenzo
Discharged  Usergroup: Members Joined: Feb 25, 2012 Location: Tuebingen, Germany Total Topics: 2 Total Posts: 45 |
#6
No |
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busycuttingcrap
Forum Veteran  Usergroup: Sponsors Joined: Jul 15, 2011 Location: St. Paul, MN Total Topics: 15 Total Posts: 925 |
#7
Smerdlap wrote: But what are the component abilities required to be an artist? Or is it something so organic that it can't be broken down into specific capabilities? Is it possible to be wholly lacking in some of the needed abilities, or are they essential to being a human being? Are there abilities that are shared in common by different kinds of artists (e.g. painters, sculptors, poets, musicians) or are they all highly specific to the medium in question? Can a person have the ability to perceive beauty in some media, but fail to be able to do so for others? Certainly not a stupid question. Obviously there are some very discipline-specific skills that artists have; for musicians and painters manual dexterity and coordination, for writers linguistic skill, for dancers athletic ability and natural rhythm and so on... One would also probably venture that any artist, regardless of the medium, must have imagination- but that is a fairly vague, and very broad, term- and in the case of music (which is the only medium I can speak to from personal experience), the sort of imagination involved is of such a different sort that I even question calling it imagination at all... At least, some distinction between visual and auditory imagination may be required- competent jazz musicians, during an improv, "hear" what they want to play "in their heads", and then play it a moment later (improv is nothing more than musical stream-of-consciousness). Beyond this, I have a hard time coming up with anything that all musicians, much less all artists, have in common... Many of the criteria mentioned already are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for being a good musician (for example, one of the criteria is understanding and manipulating the relevent symbols- Flea, who is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and influential bass guitar players ever to have lived, can't read a single lick of sheet music and has no technical background whatsoever). I have known and played with musicians who are as disparate as are the different genres of music- some are extremely detail-oriented, others much less so, some are workaholics, some get by mostly on their god-given talent, some are very technically knowledgable while others play from intuition or experiment... some are democrats while some are republican, some drink coke and some drink pepsi, and so on. I'd imagine the case is similar for any other medium. |
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