Identity of Art

But what is art, and what sets it apart in terms of approaches to seeing/reading visual culture? It is
important to note initially that individual artworks are not necessarily qualitatively different from
other objects of visual culture. If an artwork and, say, an advertisement were placed side by side,
there would not necessarily be any obvious difference in their content, their value or even the media
used in their production. Nor, if an artist and an advertising designer were interviewed about their
ideas, would the things they say necessarily be markedly different. All the same, as a society, we
generally understand the two forms and the two professions as having very different identities.

Consequently we treat them differently, and typically look at their products differently. Art is
assigned a cultural value that advertisements lack, so it attracts a long, slow gaze, while adverts are
there for the sweeping glance only. Art historians are trained to look closely and patiently—to
absorb the work with their eyes, and make out its various elements, values and qualities. Even
people without art training tend to stand quietly in front of works in a gallery and look at them with
a more prolonged gaze than the flickeringly impatient or tacit looking we apply to most other visual
elements in our everyday lives. But what do we mean by ‘art’? Centrally, it is something peculiar to
human culture. The word itself is etymologically related to ‘artificial’, or produced by human beings.

While a landscape may be staggeringly beautiful, or terrifying in a sublime way, it is not art—not,
that is, unless it has been ‘artificialised’: transformed by an artist into a painting or photograph or
other art form. This doesn’t mean that everything humans do to transform nature is art; the
definition only applies to those things and practices identified as art because of the contexts of their
production or location. This is not necessarily fixed once and for all; the not-art can become art
through a sleight of hand or reallocation of identity because, as Raymond Williams shows, ‘the
distinctions [between art and other human works] are not eternal verities, or supra-historical
categories, but actual elements of a kind of social organization’ (1981: 130).

Consequently, the meaning of art constantly evades firm definitions. In earlier periods the word ‘art’
was used very promiscuously: anything people did that required skill was an ‘art’. Medieval or
Renaissance writers, for instance, refer to the arts of war, conversation, or smithing, and what we
now call ‘artists’ were then just artisans—ordinary workers who applied their specialised skills within
collectives or guilds (Williams 1981: 59). We are more selective now, using the term to signify those
things associ106 visual art, visual culture ated with the making of creative works: plastic and visual
arts, crafts, creative writing, music and the performance arts—that is, objects and practices which, as
Panofsky states, ‘demand to be experienced aesthetically’ (1955: 11).

Art vs. Culture

The word ‘culture’ is also often applied to specifically ‘artistic’ practices and objects—as when
someone refers to a ‘cultured’ person who prefers to spend time at the opera than the football, for
instance. But, strictly speaking, the terms ‘culture’ and ‘art’ are not interchangeable. ‘Culture’ is
more sociological than aesthetic; it refers to what Raymond Williams calls the ‘whole life of a
society’, and includes everything we do as collectives of human beings: intellectual and spiritual as
well as aesthetic mores, tangible and intangible expressions of a community’s social life.

So, while ‘art’ provides techniques, structures and mechanisms for the production of individual
artistic statements, ‘culture’ provides the social and ideological conditions in which works of art can
be made and disseminated. And when people use ‘culture’ for ‘art’, they are usually referring to
those things otherwise called ‘high art’: Italian opera, atonal music, experimental theatre, modernist
paintings— material that is culturally important because of its antiquity, or because it has been
designated as such by a relevant authority, or because it requires a special set of literacies to make
sense of it. This does register a distinction between ‘art’ and other social products: contemporary
artworks often seem to be obscure in their communication, but anyone should be able to make
sense of, say, an advertisement.

As an example, recently a flyer for a major finance company arrived in my mailbox. The company
logo in the top lefthand corner of the front fold anchored everything else in the text to that
organisation: the exclamatory encouragement to EARN BONUS REWARDS POINTS WITHOUT
SPENDING A CENT! took up the top half of the same fold, making it very clear what the purpose of
this document might be; and the bottom half contained a photograph of a credit card zooming in
from the left.

Very foreshortened, and with a forced linear perspective (the card disappearing towards the
vanishing point), it gave the impression of speed (imagine how quickly you could earn those bonus
points!) and movement (imagine how widely your card will be accepted!). And because the image of
the card was so large relative to the whole flyer, it also gave the impression of stability, strength and
magnitude (you can trust us!).

Advertisements like this one are easily read by pretty well anyone. Some of the more creative
adverts may make intertextual references that require other literacies, but even so their central
message will be very accessible. Art does not necessarily work this way. Medieval and Renaissance
works may have been intended to communicate clearly and directly with their audiences, but in the
twenty-first century we often lack the sorts of general understandings and knowledges that obtained
back then, and so may not really ‘get’ the whole story without additional historical information.
Moreover, the twentieth century was dominated by art that became ever more obscure and
internally referential, so that in many cases without a very good knowledge of the field the works are
impenetrable—or at least do not communicate easily with anyone not fluent in their codes.

Explanation sa last.

But, strictly speaking, the terms ‘culture’ and ‘art’ are not interchangeable. ‘Culture’ is more
sociological than aesthetic; it refers to what Raymond Williams calls the ‘whole life of a society’, and
includes everything we do as collectives of human beings: intellectual and spiritual as well as
aesthetic mores, tangible and intangible expressions of a community’s social life. And when people
use ‘culture’ for ‘art’, they are usually referring to those things otherwise called ‘high art’: Italian
opera, atonal music, experimental theatre, modernist paintings— material that is culturally
important because of its antiquity, or because it has been designated as such by a relevant authority,
or because it requires a special set of literacies to make sense of it.