Categorie: Text general Nivel: Masterat Domeniu: Artă – Istoria artei

THE CLASSICAL CONCEPT OF ‘ART’ In a Western context, art understood as a practical, craft‐based
activity has the longest history. For example, within ancient Greek culture there was no word or
concept approximating to our understanding of ‘art’ or ‘artist’. However, the Greek word ‘techne’
denoted a skill or craft and ‘technites’ a craftsman who made objects for particular purposes and
occasions (Sörbom 2002: 24). Similarly, within the classical world, examples of craft, such as statues
and mosaics, had practical, public and ceremonial roles. În context Vestic, arta înțeleasă ca fiind o
activitate practică, bazată pe lucru manual are istoria cea mai lungă. De exemplu, în cultura greacă
veche nu exista vreun cuvânt sau concept care să poată aproxima ceea ce înțelegem noi prin ,,artă,,
sau ,,artist,,. Termenul grecesc ,,techne,, denota totuși o abilitate sau

The classical sculpture of Zeus, copy after a fifth‐century BCE original (Figure 3, p. 7), would have been
judged according to the technical standard demonstrated, and by the extent to which it fulfilled the
social and civic roles expected of craft. Foremost of these was the belief that the human form should
be represented in its most life‐like and vital sense as the union of body and soul (Sörbom 2002: 26).
The idea that a sculpture or mosaic should be judged on criteria independent of such purposes was
alien to the classical concept of craft. Within a Western tradition of art, originating from Greek and
Roman practice, the categories of art and craft have become familiar within specific contexts, cultures
and in relation to particular audiences. Throughout Europe and North America for example, cultural
assumptions about what art customarily was were closely linked to the origins and development of the
academic subject of art history itself. Of central importance to this were the social institutions such as
academies and museums which were established from the late sixteenth century onwards.
Collectively, these interests, and those associated with them, established normative definitions of art,
that is, ideas about how art should look and what it should do, variations of which have continued
today. Another point worth making is that to label something as art implies some kind of evaluative
judgement about the image, object or process. That is, it recognises the specificity of a range of
practices within a broader category or tradition with particular claims to aesthetic and/or social value.
But it is important to understand that the meaning and attributions of art are particular to different
contexts, societies and periods. Whatever the prevalence through time of objects and practices with
aesthetic purpose, ideas and definitions of art are neither timeless nor beyond history, but relate to
the social and cultural assumptions of the societies and environments which fashion them. FINE ART
AS AN EXCLUSIVE CATEGORY The academy‐based categorisation of fine art and the consensus which
underpinned it for several centuries demonstrate how durable and hegemonic such interests were.
But from the later nineteenth century onwards many avant‐garde artists began to make work which
questioned either the conventional subject matter and primacy of these distinct categories (history
paintings and portraiture for example), or the tradition of representation which they signified. For
example, the work of Paul Cézanne (1839–1906), Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) and Georges Braque
(1882–1963) underlined the importance of still‐life as a genre to the birth of modernism (Bryson 1990:
81–86). Similarly, the development of collage by Braque and Picasso, and their inclusion of everyday
objects such as flyers and tickets, explored the actuality of the flat surface, rather than concealing it
through illusionism which had been such a dominant feature of academy‐sponsored painting and
sculpture. Academy‐based ideas typically marginalised non‐Western art practices which reflected
different ideas about aesthetics, culture and meaning. Overseas trade, colonisation and imperialism
stimulated interest in tribal masks, carvings, fabrics and fetish objects from regions such as Africa, Asia,
India and Iberia. These objects, and the indigenous cultures they represented, contributed to major
ethnographic collections throughout Europe, stimulating widespread interest in non‐Western art and
artefacts (Ratnam 2004a: 158–60). Within the avant‐garde, various artists like Braque, André Derain
(1880–1954), Ernst Kirchner (1880–1938), Henri Matisse (1869–1954), Picasso and Maurice de
Vlaminck (1876–1958) popularised the cult of primitivism. Whilst such interests frequently reflected
romanticised stereotypes about what primitive art and culture actually signified, there was also
recognition of the social and political dimensions to such use (Leighten 1990: 609–30). Pooke, Grant și
Newall, Diana, Art History: The Basics, Routledge, Londra, 2008, pp. 5‐9.