Welcome to Fractal Forums

Definition of Art.

'Art' is an individual expression of an individual feeling.

Question: Is making Fractals then 'Art'?

It certainly is. Fractal images that are presented as art, rather than as specimens to demonstrate the result of a mathematical operation, are produced by a process of selection that depends entirely on the individual's personal taste and esthetic values. Choosing the parameters and coloring method and selecting a particular area are much the same as choosing paint colors and brushstrokes and composing an image on a canvas. As long as the process is under the control of the artist, it is art.

What do you think?

I'm an observationist fractal artist.  I know the software, and how to navigate - but that's about it.  I read a few technical books regarding fractals before realizing that, while this course of study is facinating, I don't about the math.  It's similar to photographing something in nature - clouds, trees, etc.  You need to frame what you are looking at - mood, interest, style all influence that tiny piece of the shoreline we all love to explore.  It's art.

Jules wrote>Question: Is making Fractals then 'Art'?

Yes it is art.
I agree with braderpoints and Mats posts, could not write a better english text here :-)

But I think we have a wonderful actual example here that it is art  ... http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?topic=55.0 ;)

Margit

It depends, I think. There are people that use the software and let it do almost all the work. They make random images. Sometimes nice to look at, but often not real art. Also: if it is art or not depends on the image and of course on the person that looks at it.
I am an educated artist and I use fractalsoftware just the way I use my colorpencils. I choose my colors, my composition, my shape. I give shape to my mood or ideas.

Titia

(http://excalibur.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/media/folder_32/thumb_313326.jpg)
Generalized Newton IV (no PP, as usual)

I would say making fractals can certainly be "art".  But then I suppose I have to define what I think "art" is.

I have an interesting take on the definition of art.  I asked a professional sculptor once why so many sculptors give lengthy descriptions of what they intended to accomplish with their art.  He said it was called "art speak" and is used to justify their creations as being art.  This is really important in the area of sculpture because an "artist" could set a coffee cup, a nail, and a banjo on a table and claim is was a sculpture in "found objects."  That's considered a medium in sculpture.  So what makes this bunch of stuff, however positioned, art?

The answer is: art speak!  If the artist drones on for hours in an interview about how s/he is trying to do blah blah blah, then it must be art.  And who can argue with that?

This leads to my personal definition of art.

--->  "Art is whatever the artist says it is, and the more convincing the argument, the more people who will agree that the work is actually art."

How does this work in practice?  When people first saw Piet Mondrian's paintings, most of them said, "That's not art!"  But over time, the art community accepted his work as art because of his convincing arguments about what he was trying to do.  Now people say, "Well, it may be art, but _I_ sure don't like it."

Which is about all anyone can say once a bunch of people accept a body of work as art.

So, is your fractal a work of art?  It is if you say so.  But if you want lots of other people to agree with you, you might just have to start talking like an artist and persuade people that you have created a work of art.

Oh, and a bit of suffering for your art doesn't hurt either.

Marc Brutschy

".... Oh, and a bit of suffering for your art doesn't hurt either."

:-)))))

Yes, you gave a nice definition.

Titia

(http://excalibur.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/media/folder_106/thumb_1055320.jpg)

 

Yes

No - Perhaps one individual can create, and the creation in isolation can have meaning, but perhaps that is never art - in my opinion. Art is about communication - I think.


What are you trying to communicate? Is your message received or not? If your art is never understood - is it still valid? Is the Mona Lisa in the vacuum of space still art? I would be inclined to answer NO to both questions. If we seal the Mona Lisa in a box for the rest of time - it ceases to be art. If our art is never understood (on any level) then it is never art.

Perhaps in the pathological case of split personality we can argue that the individual is his own audience, and that information can be communicated from left to right brain for example ... but is that a valid exception to my definition - or just more confusing didactic lunacy?

A more jaundiced view...if you look at the commercial side, Art is whatever sells, and you can't sell Art unless you are recognized as an Artist, that is a supreme BS-er who has sold enough stuff to rich people already - then your work is considered an Investment...in other words, it has little to do with esthetic value or communication (until long after you're dead).  LOL

Not long ago, there was a Dutch artist, who had a list of people that bought his work before he had even made it....! Of course he laughed about that. Only a straight line was already art. The buyers made it "art".

Laura H. Haglund ("Matera the Mad") wrote:
>
>    ....if you look at the commercial side, Art is whatever sells,
>    and you can't sell Art unless you are recognized as an Artist,
>    that is a supreme BS-er....

Titia van Beugen wrote:
>
>    ....there was a Dutch artist... who had a list of people that
>    bought his work before he had even made it....

This can be said for all Graphic Artists, who are hired (and sometimes payed) in advance to create "art" for a client.  Though in most cases, the client works closely with the artist to explain what it is they want to see in a finished product.  And usually, the artist has to do the work over and over again until the client finally is satisfied.

This was what I did as a profession many decades ago, before I got into working with computers and becoming a programmer.  Back then, I was not an independent artist, but worked for different companies, and got paid by the hour.      :P

Yes Paul, true, but this artist didn't work with his client. He made something and it was sold already. His name was more important than his work.


(http://excalibur.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/media/folder_37/thumb_367482.jpg)
Ultra Fractal

I'm quite new here, but firmly convinced that it is Art if the creator intends it be so.

Good Art or Bad Art is subjective.

I am just having fun.

I only half grasp what's going on Mathematically, but I have great Fun using Fractal Art in my Side-Work, making Computer Games and Animations.

Is Fun an Art Form?

I think so.

Look at Performance Art.

It can be a Process and a Mind Set, as much as a finished image!

My 3 Cents worth for today...


Nice to meet you all!

If laughter is medicine, fun is an art form - anyway, art is fun ;)

Titia that is beautiful O..O What program did you use to make it?

And yes I believe that making fractals is art, I have noticed that depending on my mood and whether I am depressed or not, it will affect how I modify the flames in Apophysis... it also affects what I name them and the overall feeling I try to express through it
And I've even had people tell me that they can see my feelings in the piece when I show it to them.

This is an interesting subject and while I know I don't have "the answer", I do have some thoughts on the matter.  I think that art(small "a") is any attempt to produce, or reproduce, something in any medium which tries to evoke in the viewer a response of some kind, hopefully positive.  A student in school (1st grade or whatever) with the assignment to "draw a picture of your family" will invariably produce a crude drawing of their parents and siblings.  This is art, crude, unskilled, rudimentary, but still an expression in the given medium by an individual to express an idea.  This holds for other areas also, such as poetry, music, writing, and such, that can be accessed by any level of individual.  Art (Capital "A") is another matter entirely.  Here skill is involved with making the finished product, and the better the skill, the better the Art.  To consider that art is only what can be sold only shows the level of the buyer's understanding, not the quality of the work itself.  Art comes in many shades, colors, and levels, just as does literature.  That one can not appreciate a well written novel, or play, does not detract from the work itself, but shows only the level of the individual's understanding of what it appreciates.  And it is possible to learn to appreciate, and discern, the different levels, colors, and shades of any artform.  But, to produce quality requires skill, the more skill the better the outcome....true of anything, but especially Art.  Sales hype might produce revenue, but it doesn't produce Art.  So, in conclusion, I think that art runs the gamut to Art, and where one is on the curve, either as artist or owner, is a result of comprehension (owner) or skill (artist).  Like water, you find your own level.

Sunfish

i really like such concise and "pragmatic" definitions of abstract things! (a favourite is "reality is that which does not go away, when you stop believing in it")

thanks for the interesting link, and welcome to the forums :)

Marco Alfaro (iteron) wrote:
>
>    "Art is entertainment used to expand awareness."
>      (see http://www.see.org/e-ms-4.htm#426)

Thank you for the link on some interesting read.   :)

I don't believe which tools or which medium is used determines if a work is art.  The artist begins a journey and the viewer finishes.

What if the viewer is the artist?

I am the only one who sees most of my stuff, so is it still art if nobody else ever sees it?

    For something to be called art, it must have some qualities, otherwise, anything can be art.
    Among these qualities, the main one, is it´s meaning.
    The second one is related with the artist, him must be skilled, and, also, and more important, him must be inspired.
    Ancient art was not the work of the kind of "artista" we know today.
    It was the end result of deep thinking and hard geometric insights, provided by a well proben working system, ancient artists were wise men,
and true priests of the highest religión.
     And big amounts of money were spent in their work, in fact, the full wealthness of the nation was spent in art production in some cases.
     Art today, is just a word.
 

   To be true, art has been the motor of echonomics in the past, because the creation of those great art buildings and palaces, was in need of true artists, and artisans in all fields, and that meant that there were hundreds of artisan workshops all around, the final result, everyone had a place in the world and a job for his life.
     And this all was planned and done by wise masters of art, highly religious, and truly involved in the best for man.
      Because a man need to know his skill, his true profession, and will be free trough it.

      So, this was the aim of ancient art and artists, to keep  and spread all the workable knowledge their science provided, under art forms and with the nerve of religion , and make free men in the same stroke.

Let´s imagine the ancient Egypt streets, in a country where the main activity was the artistic production, from colossal statues, to delicate jewelry design, from stone to gold, all around you could have found any kind of art form with its associated professions and skills, most of people around you were true artists and artisans with ancient and obscure knowledge around his own field.(There are still today some parts of statues that keep the paint applied 10.000 years ago while outdoors.)
     Government was in wise men´s hands, mens that wanted the best for mankind, because, and this is important, their knowledge was universal, their same ideas can be found  in all cultures under any art form, and them all agree.
      The Hollywood visión of evil priests scamming  a stupid people, are really obnoxious.

http://reverent.org/true_art_or_fake_art.html
is it real or fake?    :dink:

There is no such thing as fake art, only good art and bad art.  And that is entirely subjective.

There will never be a universally accepted definition of art for that reason!

Similar reasoning is what leads me to define Art as a Verb - and Never a Noun!!

It's the process, not the final product.  Nothing you can point to is Art.  It's just, at best, the leftovers from Art.  Art Droppings, I like to call it.   :gum:

By "fake art" I mean cases of forgery; then "good and "bad" have less subjective meaning, I guess. In that context we are only confronted with the final products and the process must be kept hidden; a good copy is a convincing reproduction.
More recent artistic hoaxes or historical forgeries made ​​by  forgers who were contemporary to the biggest artists  are maybe now indistinguishable from the originals.

Ah.

I only glanced at the page   :embarrass:

I suppose that would qualify as "fake art" if somebody tries to pass it off as the original, but if it's a student effort  (many students are assigned to "copy" fine art as part of training) then I think another word is needed. 

   A few words about inspiration,
  In the ancient world, inspiration was the greatest gift a man can have in this world, and such inspired men were greatly appreciate because of their connection with higher levels.
   But these men knew the way to reach such higher levels, and taught  this way to others, this is what was called Art, and they were known as Masters of Art.
   I mean inspiration is not a free gift, but the result of really hard work managed with a clear aim, and inside some system they called "schools".
    
  

   The main tool used for directing the mind while keeping a grip in reality was Geometry, from this viewpoint , Geometry is the only Objective Way,  Geometry can´t lie, and can´t be wrong, and there´s  nothing around from which you can say the same.
    And Geometry is the son of drawing.
    Some years ago, here in Spain, occurred the Ummo case, Ummo was supposed to be the home planet of some extraterrestrial visitors.
    These "Ummites", provided a big amount of documents, the journalists that received them talk about  incredible high tech and scientific stuff.
    Some months ago I had the chance to read some of these papers, ummites claim their civilization developped photography  very soon, so they don´t need  art.
     Strangely enough, there was not a single photo in all their stuff, but a lot of very bad drawings depicting buildings and vehicles, too much for a civilization based in photography.
      Obviously, their claim against art was just a way to escape the obvious impossibility to draw they had.
      Moreover, they are unable to explain how they could build their photo cameras if they don´t have any kind of art, who designed the cameras?
      Well, that´s all really awesome dude, but you can´t imagine the amount of ink and paper journalists wasted in this thing.
       A single geometric approach shows all the inconsistences of this kind of things, that´s why ancient people trusted Geometry as the only true way.

    There aren´t artless cultures on Earth, in fact, art is the main human activity , and the first one.
    Of course, there are levels, as there are different kinds of men, but it´s imposible to find any culture without art, in fact, WE are near to this condition, as most art we can see today ,was done centuries ago.
      .
     

HA!

Toldja all Art was a Verb!   :spgloomy:

lol

Got your point and laugh a lot too, but have I mentioned that I talk about HUMAN activity?
This leads to the idea that the only thing that is strictly human, is artistic creation, we share with other animals almost all of our features and behaviours, except this one.
     And in our world, there are a lot af activities that are directly non- human, or directly against  mankind, so there are probably very few true humans among us.

Well, birds sing, isn't music a form of art?  :dink:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MgLXeaf3zc
IMHO decorating a nest is also a form of art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPbWJPsBPdA
and dancing is another example.

This topic has been split from this point - it strayed very far from anything close to a definition of art and became ...  something else.

The split posts are here, in their own thread now: http://www.fractalforums.com/art-discussions/re-definition-of-%27art%27/

I wrote about the definition of art on my blog.
https://chronologicaldot.wordpress.com/2013/04/16/what-is-and-isnt-art/

It's too much to copy here, but the spark notes summary is that I view art as requiring skill. That said, using fractal software to randomly generate something beautiful (notice, I said "randomly"), is not art, or at least not human art.

I always thought in such cases the Art lies in a combination of choosing the right color palette and mapping functions for the generated parameters. 

And even then, there is skill in spotting a nice choice from the many randomly generated bits.

But much of the final products created are not entirely random.  There are choices to be made all along the way which influence the outcome.

I still define Art as a Verb, not a Noun.  And under that definition the process of making fractal images is still Art, whether guided by hand written equations or randomly generated.  Attempting to define any "thing" as Art or not is always going to be a subjective value judgement.  Neither any physical item, nor any digital image, is Art.  The Art is over by the time we see a finished product.  Finished products of this process are nice, but don't count as anything more than Art Droppings in my definition.

Can you give us some examples of the use of "art" as a verb?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190590/
 ;D

You know what human art is? It the same as everything, it's universal, it's the big whole compressed in a "piece" .... and you know how everything works? Do the same thing over and over, but change some details every time. Thats art. Thats nature. Thats progress. Thats evolution. Thats copyright ... ehm, wait. Something goes wrong here. Skip that. It's science, music, lyrics, chords progressions, life, the shape of rocks, the forming of crystals, galaxies. I'm drifting off a bit and it might all be hard to relate, but try. It just all copy, change, publish. Whether it's information in melodies, shapes, DNA, bits, light or anything else does not really matter. This is also why DRM will never work. It's against the nature of the universe.

Sure!

I say Art is a Thing To Do, not a thing unto itself.

It's the process, not the final product.  Nothing you can point to is Art.  It's just, at best, the leftovers from Art.  Art Droppings, I like to call it. 

So if you want an example related to Fractal Art, Art is what happens during the time spent setting up something to render, and what happens during any post-work.  What you get in the end is a picture.  The picture is not the Art.  The Art is the process of making it.

Some people try to do a thing they call Performance Art, but that is just Art in my world.  They just do it for an audience.

I believe anytime somebody calls any thing Art, they are misusing the word.  The phrase "a work of Art" is quite common.  That implies that Art is Work.  Work is definitely a Verb and never confused with a noun!

Frankly, I'm surprised this is not the universal definition of Art, as it would quell thousands of debates over whether or not something is Art.  I see such questions as meaningless misuses of language. 

Here's a motto for us all - Ask not whether a thing is Art, ask instead if you like it!

Thou art not quite so smart as thou thinkst...   :nastyteeth:

  :D :D :D

Stop. That's the problem. When the definition becomes too encompassing, it becomes meaningless. When you try to define "art" by what it is in a tangible sense, you get... well, tangibly, a bunch of atoms, but when you define "art" a process or part of a process or criteria in a process (as I do), the definition becomes more limited and thus more clear. If you define "art" as simply any entertaining concept, even that definition is more limited than "everything" since not all things may be entertaining (though they could be, and, notably, it is still a broad definition).

Thou art trying to make art meaningless.

moot discussion as "art" is a perception "in the eye of the beholder"
what I did at work was, to me, just work, but to some observers it's an art that produces something artistic...
a finely crafted violin is just a  few pieces of wood and string, art to some, but crafting one is an art, as is playing one (well)
because it's largely subject to personal opinion and trying to define it diminishes it.
is the code art? is the image it generates art? is the hardware that it runs on art? yes to all, but only for those who view them as such.

so far, Mother Nature is the best artist (s work) I've ever seen.

I see it the other way around. Art makes everything meaningfull.

Thou art?  What kind of art is that?


^ That.

I believe Art is the Process, not the finished item.  My opinion and I don't expect others to accept it, just as I don't accept what other's believe Art to be.

We all have our own definitions for things like this.  No single one of them is right.

Or wrong.

Provided the definitions are real and believed rather than contrived.

i agree that the process is the most important (p)art

saying fractal art is not art because you use a computer and a formula and in the end it is the computer who draws the image is like saying to paint is not art, because you use a brush and colours on a canvas, and in the end it is the brush that puts the colour on the canvas and makes distinct brush-patterns there.

and the best 'proof' can be found in the mset itself.
because it is every single decicion that you make that forms the elements that appear in the 'final' picture, as i tried to show here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxkNEvcU8cY

of course you can zoom randomly, just as you could paint abstract and randomly, only driven by intuition or lust, deciding where to go on the base of how your unfinished picture looks at the moment.
but if you zoom totally randomly, let a computer do the decisions, you'll be landing in the black mset or infinity without any picture whatsoever.

a fractal images(or the process leading to it) isn't art per se, but can be if it was created with intention and skill.
else it's just another "my little child could have drawn that"

Well, at least we agree on your last statement.  To my mind, defining "art" as "the process, not the final product" is just shifting the noun (from "product" to "process"--both of which are nouns).  To say that "art" is a verb means that it can be used as that part of speech--instead of, "I created that image," one could say, "I arted that image."  Doesn't make sense to me.

Here is part of the Google definition of art:  "creative activity resulting in the production of paintings, drawings, or sculpture."  This defines art is the activity, which seems to be what you're getting at.  Still, "activity" is a noun--the activity (or the process) is still a thing, albeit not necessarily a tangible thing, like a painting.

Thanks for proferring an interesting concept.

Well, I still maintain that there is no Art at all on this site, or any other!

Just what I call "Art Droppings" - Art is an activity - not a thing - which is why I say that Art is a verb.  An irregularly conjugated verb, but a verb nonetheless!

Dont think I can define art. As a designer i normally go by "serves a function = design. purely for expression = art."


I follow this philosophy on what to do when im creating art, that i read in an essay by an artist i used to like called Laurent Lemoigne on the old Raster art group - Take something that's impossible and make it look natural. Or take something that is completely ordinary & normal and give it a touch of the unreal. Seems to work great :)

Art might be everything creative and estethic (it's subjective of course) with a think after it. Fractals needs creativity, you can't just "sit, write some math and then come up with a piece of art.