7 ms·

There is no such thing as 'cheating' in art

57 points by drewvolpe 13y ago

pcmonk 13y ago
For much art, the beauty is in the skillful use of a medium to say something that one wouldn't have expected to be able to say in that medium. Art is all about limitations. Photorealistic paintings are impressive because they aren't photographs. A well-written poem may be beautiful because it conjures up vivid images in the mind. In my opinion, text adventures can have a certain beauty because they tell a story in simple words (for a great example, see Photopia). Of course, good art uses the limitations to its advantage. Most paintings aren't photorealistic because they're not trying to be photos -- they're trying to say something through their limitations. A good book or a good text adventure allows each reader to create their own images in their mind. So, is there 'cheating' in art? Of course not. It's simply a change of medium. If you want to cross photographs with painting, go right ahead. That's a new medium, capable of saying new things. Don't pretend it's the old medium, and don't try to compare it directly to works in the old medium. But also don't dismiss it as 'cheating'. Take everything for what it is, not for how it compares to what you were expecting.
- lambda 13y ago
  In my opinion, text adventures can have a certain beauty because they tell a story in simple words (for a great example, see Photopia). I never managed to get the appeal of Photopia. It just grated on me. Never could get the hang of Adam Cadre's style; always preferred Emily Short or Andrew Plotkin.
  - pcmonk 13y ago
    When I discovered it, I hadn't done much interactive fiction for a while, and for some reasons it really got to me. I had no idea what to expect going in, and the experience of exploring it, even if it's essentially non-interactive, was enlightening. I loved when it occurred to me to type "fly". It was liberating. Like all good art, the experience it gave me is essentially incommunicable.
  - JoshTriplett 13y ago
    > always preferred Emily Short or Andrew Plotkin. Likewise, as well as Nick Montfort; Ad Verbum is exceptional.
- mistercow 13y ago
  >Photorealistic paintings are impressive because they aren't photographs. I think this is the fundamental difference of opinion between people who think you can "cheat" in art, and people who don't. I would argue that judging the quality of art based on the difficulty of producing it betrays a shallow appreciation of art. A person who says that is basically saying "I have no basis on which to judge this other than whether or not I could have produced it myself." This is why you'll see a lot of overlap between people who sneer at "cheating" and people who dismiss things like modern art and found art as "not art". In other words, the two groups are essentially using different definitions for the word "art".
  - vacri 13y ago
    The definition of 'art' is always fun, because there's a corner case for everything. To date, the most robust definition I've seen in those debates are "does someone call it art? Then it's art". Not necessarily good or insightful art, but art nevertheless. And if you use that definition, you can't 'cheat' at art.
    - JoshTriplett 13y ago
      > To date, the most robust definition I've seen in those debates are "does someone call it art? Then it's art". Agreed. I've seen debates over whether various forms of "abstract" paintings are art, but that's not a particularly interesting debate. Of course they're art; the simpler and more useful question is whether they're good art.
    - mc32 13y ago
      >"does someone call it art? Then it's art" I think that's the easy answer... but if you went to the curator of the art institute of Chicago, of the MoMA, or any other art institute of renown, they would have more strict interpretations of what's art, I would think. That is there is "Art" and there is "art".
      - TheZenPsycho 13y ago
        having worked with some curators at similarly large (though not necessarily quite as well known) galleries, I'm pretty sure they use the >"does someone call it art? Then it's art" definition and have a poor opinion of anyone that attempts to be any stricter than that. This comes from a painful history of curators dismissing lots of "modern" art in the 1960's, and thus missing out on lots of extremely lucrative investment opportunities.
- moron4hire 13y ago
  I think you're missing the point of the story. Even the "old masters" used construction aids of some kind. It wasn't all free-hand on canvas. Often, nowhere near. Using a camera obscura or other such device is how you make photorealistic paintings.
  - NAFV_P 12y ago
    > Using a camera obscura or other such device is how you make photorealistic paintings. Photorealism refers to a specific period and set of artists, post Pop-Art. They used photographs very extensively, Richard Estes is one of the better known ones. http://sayforward.com/ext/images/bus-reflections-flatiron-building-1967 http://sayforward.com/ext/images/bus-reflections-flatiron-bu...
- cturner 13y ago
  Art is all about limitations Great philosophy. Maybe the digital revolution will foster a reaction against perfect industry, and we'll see an emphasis on doing confined things, for their own sake.
  - moron4hire 13y ago
    That has always and will continue to always go on. The nature of it is such that it won't ever be mainstream. But if you know where to look, it's out there. Carpenters who use hand tools. Photographers who mix their own collodion. Musicians who build their own instruments. It's out there.
- bjterry 12y ago
  I agree with your premise that art comes from your medium and limitations, but wanted to elaborate a bit on a part that you and him are not explicit about (although I suspect you may feel similarly based on "Don't pretend it's the old medium"). The value of art is inextricably linked with the process used to create it. People will have a very different emotional reaction to a painting which is created by hand than a painting which is programmed into a computer and painted by a painting machine (this generalizes all sorts of ways, this is just an example). His examples were specifically of people who were deceptive about the process they used, first in the camera obscura, second in Frank Frazetta. Of course, the term "art" is so imprecise that you can essentially import anything you want into it, including, if you so choose, the notion that part of the art is the practice of deceiving patrons about the way it's created in order to enrich yourself. I will allow that you can be an artist and lie about your methods to make your art more emotionally impactful, but I will not allow that doing so is the right thing to do or makes you a good person deserving of praise. If I'm creating art by painting by hand on tiny grains of sand and the world becomes enamored with it, but it turns out I'm actually using a computer-driven process to paint them (in order to become rich and not to later reveal my actions as some sort of castigation of modern art or some other such thing; basically, take a charitable view of my example here), I think one of the following is the case no matter what your definition of art: 1. It's still art, but it's not art in the way I'm trying to suggest that it is, or 2. It's a performance art where the deception is part of the art, but I'm still a bad person for doing it. Now, I'm not certain that the author would disagree with me (or that you would agree with me), because he doesn't directly address it in these terms. But he does say "I don't care how it's created: I only care about the results." and he also says that Frank Frazetta lying about how he created his art "does not diminish Frank Frazetta's art in the slightest." Perhaps he's saying that the art is still good taking into account the methods which he knows of and keeping mum on Frank Frazetta's deception. Maybe he doesn't think very thoroughly about ethics and so he's inconsistent, or maybe he has a system of ethics where deceiving people in this instance is okay. Of course, presumably many artists are not specific about their methodology, or they could say that they want it judged by the results, not the methods, in which case I agree with the author that it should be judged as it is as an artifact. But I reserve the right to change my emotional reaction to the piece if I later learn that their method is to hire 10,000 third world artists to paint as well as they can and they select the best to portray as the result of their artistic process.
read 13y ago
Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad. - Salvador Dali
- vacri 13y ago
  Avoid commenting on downvotes - if your commentary is reasonable, someone usually rectifies it. Talking about downvotes just becomes chaff itself, encouraging more downvotes (and seems to be the fashion recently).
bmh100 13y ago
I appreciate the author's viewpoint, but I think he does not make an argument persuasive to opposing viewpoints. He does not address values, assumptions, and reasoning used by such opponents. The Wally quote and the talk of admired past painters using aids are helpful on a subconscious level, as they are appeals to authority and accomplishment. It would be much more persuasive to directly attack the naturalistic values of opponent. I would challenge the author to develop a more persuasive essay. If it is reasonable to extend the author's argument to cover music, then what sort of argument would he need to offer to convince others that Skrillex has the same artistic merit as Frank Sinatra, which in turn has the same artistic merit as Mozart? Going beyond even that, I would like to hear the author's opinions on algorithmically generated art, like the Mandelbrot set.
- rld 13y ago
  The author never mentions artistic merit, presumably because it's a result of his premise. If you can't cheat at art, it's because there's nothing to cheat for, so there's no such thing as artistic merit.
  - bmh100 12y ago
    I don't quite agree with your conclusion as written, because I think you can make the point that purely skill-based efforts do not have artistic merit. For instance, the frozen fish packager in an assembly may not be seen as having artistic merit in the his or her endeavors. This is because the effort is not creative, but following a process. It is not meant to provide any aesthetic value or entertainment, but is meant to achieve another objective. On the other hand, if you mean that nothing intended as art can lack artistic merit, making the concept of "artistic merit" useless in that context, then I fully agree.
wallflower 13y ago
I talked with an artist at length in Portland, OR once and she said that her job as an artist was to make the person who sees the art feel something. That's my generalized definition now - art is something that makes you feel an emotion. As for "copying", even copies can be quite extraordinary. http://www.evoke.ie/photograph-of-an-old-guy-no-this-picture-was-drawn-by-a-schoolgirl-from-mayo-with-a-pencil/ http://www.evoke.ie/photograph-of-an-old-guy-no-this-picture...
- moron4hire 13y ago
  You've really touched on it here. People who say "art can't be defined" are trying to limit the notion of art themselves, specifically cordon it off into this romantic notion of the futility of the artist. Art is pure, the thought process goes, and thus man is not worthy of it. It's an original sin mythos all over again. Art is easy because life is easy. I've always gone by the idea that art is all just communication of some kind. There is a speaker, an audience, an idea sent, and an idea received. The exact idea received will never be exactly the same. It is always dependent on both the speaker and the audience, and how much shared culture they have. Art is fundamentally a fractal. It is the use of bits of culture to express new bits of culture. Even people who say, "It means nothing" are saying something. They're saying, "your never-ending search for meaning in the world is inherently meaningless". Because if the artist never wanted anyone to interpret their work, they would never show it. Art is not just for artists.
  - platz 13y ago
    Although "Art as communication" has some truth that some kind of communication must happen, it seems to miss something, as there's lots of communication that isn't art.
    - moron4hire 13y ago
      Isn't it?
      - platz 12y ago
thaumasiotes 13y ago
Here's a satirical headline that I can't seem to find the article for anymore: "Mathematicians vote to disqualify new theorem discovered using brain-enhancing drugs"
hawkharris 13y ago
During a recent trip to a contemporary art museum, I noticed a painting that appeared to be a carbon copy of a different well-known painting. As it turned out, that was the point. The plaque read, "This piece explores the notion of originality in art. What is plagiarism? What is authentic?" On one hand, it sounded like a ballsy excuse that could be used in any field to justify ripping off other people's work. On the other hand, the painting did spark an interesting debate about originality. No matter how you look at it, I think it's pretty funny.
- neumann 13y ago
  My friends and I have a game where someone points to something, and everybody else has to quickly come up with an artists statement. The most preposterous yet sellable one wins. Often they sound like the one you quoted.
aresant 13y ago
Quick note from the comments - here's the mixed-media artist mentioned in the article http://samuelaraya.weebly.com/ http://samuelaraya.weebly.com/
pistle 13y ago
I don't know why we differentiate art from action. Some people intend for their actions to be consumed by others for a purpose of communicating or commerce, but there are no bounds to how little difference there is, theoretically, between any action and art - including inaction. Any constraints given to a "form" of art are illusory. Every constraint can be deconstructed and bent into meaninglessness. There are no forms, just our perception through living. We have the benefit of sensation - creating contexts and realizing patterns. This leads to valuing or appreciating certain presentations, but that's all arbitrary based on how we experience our existence. Art is a marketing term for what most of us would call living.
hristov 13y ago
I am not sure I would call it cheating but there definitely is an issue here, and the author dismisses it all too easily. The issue is that it seems that a lot of today's artists just do not have the skills of the artists of the past. Paul Graham actually touched on this as well in one of his old essays. Thus, when artists use photography they may not use it as a tool to expand their abilities, but as a crutch to compensate for lack of skill. And they try to argue around that by saying something like "art is not about skill it is about ideas and expression". But the thing is, when you get the skill then you can also have much more interesting ideas and expression. For example if you look at a portrait done by one of the old dutch masters, you often see so much expression and emotion and character in the face. This is often much more than you can see in the usual modern photograph to say nothing about the crude camera obscura methods of the past. How do they do it? Well they use their skill in connection with their vision in order to make painting more powerful. They make minor embellishments and subtly change this or that to make the face look more striking. But my point is, in order to do all of that you have to have the skill first. It is not that easy to separate skill and expression. I think that is why many artists today are talking about how the old masters used camera obscura. They just want to provide an explanation as to why no-one seems to have the skill of the old masters anymore. By the way that theory is wrong. All you have to do to prove it wrong is look at some rembrandt self portraits, for which he could not have possibly used camera obscura and which do not differ in technique from his usual portraits. Now maybe I am being too hard on artists. Those skills are tremendously difficult to master, even if you do have the talent. And considering people do not spend much on art anymore, it is probably unfair to expect today's artists to spend the enormous time and effort to obtain those skills. Perhaps, certain art skills will be permanently lost like ancient violin making. That's ok, and I cannot blame artists for being creative and expressing themselves with the skills and techniques they can practically develop. But lets not lie to ourselves and pretend that it is just as good. Something is definitely lost when a photograph replaces a face drawn by a skilled master.
- egypturnash 13y ago
  Google "James Gurney". Go on, I'll wait. He's far from the only artist working today who's as hardcore as the Old Masters. He's just the first one who comes to mind.
the_cat_kittles 13y ago
"You'd think that's all anyone should care about, but unfortunately that's not the case" - Totally disagree. You don't get to decide what other people care about. And I would confidently wager that virtually everyone is affected by things that so-called purists dismiss as not worth caring about. The notion that there is a concrete boundary between the art and the context is so simplistic, and it completely ignores basic psychology. Doesn't it seem a little narcissistic to think that you would know what other people should care about?
egypturnash 13y ago
My opinion as an artist: If you feel like it might be cheating to do something, then it is.
scelerat 12y ago
Since it's posted on Hacker News, this story immediately made me think of things that come up while building anything, but especially software... - choice of language for a project - the decision to use this library or that, or to "roll your own" - etc Ignoring the obvious "cheating" of plagiarism or copyright violation, there's still occasionally pressure, internal or external, focus heavily on tools and methodologies over building the actual thing and focusing on its essential traits, weaknesses, and strengths. And finding the right balance between the attention given to tools versus the thing you're building is itself an art of sorts.
Terr_ 12y ago
Sure there is: Just made a statue that secretly doses visitors with drugs to get them high. Cheating, in art, is generally linked to where the audience can later consider themselves unjustly deceived.

57 points by drewvolpe 13y ago

For much art, the beauty is in the skillful use of a medium to say something that one wouldn't have expected to be able to say in that medium. Art is all about limitations. Photorealistic paintings are impressive because they aren't photographs. A well-written poem may be beautiful because it conjures up vivid images in the mind. In my opinion, text adventures can have a certain beauty because they tell a story in simple words (for a great example, see Photopia). Of course, good art uses the limitations to its advantage. Most paintings aren't photorealistic because they're not trying to be photos -- they're trying to say something through their limitations. A good book or a good text adventure allows each reader to create their own images in their mind. So, is there 'cheating' in art? Of course not. It's simply a change of medium. If you want to cross photographs with painting, go right ahead. That's a new medium, capable of saying new things. Don't pretend it's the old medium, and don't try to compare it directly to works in the old medium. But also don't dismiss it as 'cheating'. Take everything for what it is, not for how it compares to what you were expecting.

lambda 13y ago
In my opinion, text adventures can have a certain beauty because they tell a story in simple words (for a great example, see Photopia). I never managed to get the appeal of Photopia. It just grated on me. Never could get the hang of Adam Cadre's style; always preferred Emily Short or Andrew Plotkin.
- pcmonk 13y ago
  When I discovered it, I hadn't done much interactive fiction for a while, and for some reasons it really got to me. I had no idea what to expect going in, and the experience of exploring it, even if it's essentially non-interactive, was enlightening. I loved when it occurred to me to type "fly". It was liberating. Like all good art, the experience it gave me is essentially incommunicable.
- JoshTriplett 13y ago
  > always preferred Emily Short or Andrew Plotkin. Likewise, as well as Nick Montfort; Ad Verbum is exceptional.
mistercow 13y ago
>Photorealistic paintings are impressive because they aren't photographs. I think this is the fundamental difference of opinion between people who think you can "cheat" in art, and people who don't. I would argue that judging the quality of art based on the difficulty of producing it betrays a shallow appreciation of art. A person who says that is basically saying "I have no basis on which to judge this other than whether or not I could have produced it myself." This is why you'll see a lot of overlap between people who sneer at "cheating" and people who dismiss things like modern art and found art as "not art". In other words, the two groups are essentially using different definitions for the word "art".
- vacri 13y ago
  The definition of 'art' is always fun, because there's a corner case for everything. To date, the most robust definition I've seen in those debates are "does someone call it art? Then it's art". Not necessarily good or insightful art, but art nevertheless. And if you use that definition, you can't 'cheat' at art.
  - JoshTriplett 13y ago
    > To date, the most robust definition I've seen in those debates are "does someone call it art? Then it's art". Agreed. I've seen debates over whether various forms of "abstract" paintings are art, but that's not a particularly interesting debate. Of course they're art; the simpler and more useful question is whether they're good art.
  - mc32 13y ago
    >"does someone call it art? Then it's art" I think that's the easy answer... but if you went to the curator of the art institute of Chicago, of the MoMA, or any other art institute of renown, they would have more strict interpretations of what's art, I would think. That is there is "Art" and there is "art".
    - TheZenPsycho 13y ago
      having worked with some curators at similarly large (though not necessarily quite as well known) galleries, I'm pretty sure they use the >"does someone call it art? Then it's art" definition and have a poor opinion of anyone that attempts to be any stricter than that. This comes from a painful history of curators dismissing lots of "modern" art in the 1960's, and thus missing out on lots of extremely lucrative investment opportunities.
moron4hire 13y ago
I think you're missing the point of the story. Even the "old masters" used construction aids of some kind. It wasn't all free-hand on canvas. Often, nowhere near. Using a camera obscura or other such device is how you make photorealistic paintings.
- NAFV_P 12y ago
  > Using a camera obscura or other such device is how you make photorealistic paintings. Photorealism refers to a specific period and set of artists, post Pop-Art. They used photographs very extensively, Richard Estes is one of the better known ones. http://sayforward.com/ext/images/bus-reflections-flatiron-building-1967 http://sayforward.com/ext/images/bus-reflections-flatiron-bu...
cturner 13y ago
Art is all about limitations Great philosophy. Maybe the digital revolution will foster a reaction against perfect industry, and we'll see an emphasis on doing confined things, for their own sake.
- moron4hire 13y ago
  That has always and will continue to always go on. The nature of it is such that it won't ever be mainstream. But if you know where to look, it's out there. Carpenters who use hand tools. Photographers who mix their own collodion. Musicians who build their own instruments. It's out there.
bjterry 12y ago
I agree with your premise that art comes from your medium and limitations, but wanted to elaborate a bit on a part that you and him are not explicit about (although I suspect you may feel similarly based on "Don't pretend it's the old medium"). The value of art is inextricably linked with the process used to create it. People will have a very different emotional reaction to a painting which is created by hand than a painting which is programmed into a computer and painted by a painting machine (this generalizes all sorts of ways, this is just an example). His examples were specifically of people who were deceptive about the process they used, first in the camera obscura, second in Frank Frazetta. Of course, the term "art" is so imprecise that you can essentially import anything you want into it, including, if you so choose, the notion that part of the art is the practice of deceiving patrons about the way it's created in order to enrich yourself. I will allow that you can be an artist and lie about your methods to make your art more emotionally impactful, but I will not allow that doing so is the right thing to do or makes you a good person deserving of praise. If I'm creating art by painting by hand on tiny grains of sand and the world becomes enamored with it, but it turns out I'm actually using a computer-driven process to paint them (in order to become rich and not to later reveal my actions as some sort of castigation of modern art or some other such thing; basically, take a charitable view of my example here), I think one of the following is the case no matter what your definition of art: 1. It's still art, but it's not art in the way I'm trying to suggest that it is, or 2. It's a performance art where the deception is part of the art, but I'm still a bad person for doing it. Now, I'm not certain that the author would disagree with me (or that you would agree with me), because he doesn't directly address it in these terms. But he does say "I don't care how it's created: I only care about the results." and he also says that Frank Frazetta lying about how he created his art "does not diminish Frank Frazetta's art in the slightest." Perhaps he's saying that the art is still good taking into account the methods which he knows of and keeping mum on Frank Frazetta's deception. Maybe he doesn't think very thoroughly about ethics and so he's inconsistent, or maybe he has a system of ethics where deceiving people in this instance is okay. Of course, presumably many artists are not specific about their methodology, or they could say that they want it judged by the results, not the methods, in which case I agree with the author that it should be judged as it is as an artifact. But I reserve the right to change my emotional reaction to the piece if I later learn that their method is to hire 10,000 third world artists to paint as well as they can and they select the best to portray as the result of their artistic process.

read 13y ago

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad. - Salvador Dali

vacri 13y ago
Avoid commenting on downvotes - if your commentary is reasonable, someone usually rectifies it. Talking about downvotes just becomes chaff itself, encouraging more downvotes (and seems to be the fashion recently).

bmh100 13y ago

I appreciate the author's viewpoint, but I think he does not make an argument persuasive to opposing viewpoints. He does not address values, assumptions, and reasoning used by such opponents. The Wally quote and the talk of admired past painters using aids are helpful on a subconscious level, as they are appeals to authority and accomplishment. It would be much more persuasive to directly attack the naturalistic values of opponent. I would challenge the author to develop a more persuasive essay. If it is reasonable to extend the author's argument to cover music, then what sort of argument would he need to offer to convince others that Skrillex has the same artistic merit as Frank Sinatra, which in turn has the same artistic merit as Mozart? Going beyond even that, I would like to hear the author's opinions on algorithmically generated art, like the Mandelbrot set.

rld 13y ago
The author never mentions artistic merit, presumably because it's a result of his premise. If you can't cheat at art, it's because there's nothing to cheat for, so there's no such thing as artistic merit.
- bmh100 12y ago
  I don't quite agree with your conclusion as written, because I think you can make the point that purely skill-based efforts do not have artistic merit. For instance, the frozen fish packager in an assembly may not be seen as having artistic merit in the his or her endeavors. This is because the effort is not creative, but following a process. It is not meant to provide any aesthetic value or entertainment, but is meant to achieve another objective. On the other hand, if you mean that nothing intended as art can lack artistic merit, making the concept of "artistic merit" useless in that context, then I fully agree.

wallflower 13y ago

I talked with an artist at length in Portland, OR once and she said that her job as an artist was to make the person who sees the art feel something. That's my generalized definition now - art is something that makes you feel an emotion. As for "copying", even copies can be quite extraordinary. http://www.evoke.ie/photograph-of-an-old-guy-no-this-picture-was-drawn-by-a-schoolgirl-from-mayo-with-a-pencil/ http://www.evoke.ie/photograph-of-an-old-guy-no-this-picture...

moron4hire 13y ago
You've really touched on it here. People who say "art can't be defined" are trying to limit the notion of art themselves, specifically cordon it off into this romantic notion of the futility of the artist. Art is pure, the thought process goes, and thus man is not worthy of it. It's an original sin mythos all over again. Art is easy because life is easy. I've always gone by the idea that art is all just communication of some kind. There is a speaker, an audience, an idea sent, and an idea received. The exact idea received will never be exactly the same. It is always dependent on both the speaker and the audience, and how much shared culture they have. Art is fundamentally a fractal. It is the use of bits of culture to express new bits of culture. Even people who say, "It means nothing" are saying something. They're saying, "your never-ending search for meaning in the world is inherently meaningless". Because if the artist never wanted anyone to interpret their work, they would never show it. Art is not just for artists.
- platz 13y ago
  Although "Art as communication" has some truth that some kind of communication must happen, it seems to miss something, as there's lots of communication that isn't art.
  - moron4hire 13y ago
    Isn't it?
    - platz 12y ago

thaumasiotes 13y ago

Here's a satirical headline that I can't seem to find the article for anymore: "Mathematicians vote to disqualify new theorem discovered using brain-enhancing drugs"

hawkharris 13y ago

During a recent trip to a contemporary art museum, I noticed a painting that appeared to be a carbon copy of a different well-known painting. As it turned out, that was the point. The plaque read, "This piece explores the notion of originality in art. What is plagiarism? What is authentic?" On one hand, it sounded like a ballsy excuse that could be used in any field to justify ripping off other people's work. On the other hand, the painting did spark an interesting debate about originality. No matter how you look at it, I think it's pretty funny.

neumann 13y ago
My friends and I have a game where someone points to something, and everybody else has to quickly come up with an artists statement. The most preposterous yet sellable one wins. Often they sound like the one you quoted.

aresant 13y ago

Quick note from the comments - here's the mixed-media artist mentioned in the article http://samuelaraya.weebly.com/ http://samuelaraya.weebly.com/

pistle 13y ago

I don't know why we differentiate art from action. Some people intend for their actions to be consumed by others for a purpose of communicating or commerce, but there are no bounds to how little difference there is, theoretically, between any action and art - including inaction. Any constraints given to a "form" of art are illusory. Every constraint can be deconstructed and bent into meaninglessness. There are no forms, just our perception through living. We have the benefit of sensation - creating contexts and realizing patterns. This leads to valuing or appreciating certain presentations, but that's all arbitrary based on how we experience our existence. Art is a marketing term for what most of us would call living.

hristov 13y ago

I am not sure I would call it cheating but there definitely is an issue here, and the author dismisses it all too easily. The issue is that it seems that a lot of today's artists just do not have the skills of the artists of the past. Paul Graham actually touched on this as well in one of his old essays. Thus, when artists use photography they may not use it as a tool to expand their abilities, but as a crutch to compensate for lack of skill. And they try to argue around that by saying something like "art is not about skill it is about ideas and expression". But the thing is, when you get the skill then you can also have much more interesting ideas and expression. For example if you look at a portrait done by one of the old dutch masters, you often see so much expression and emotion and character in the face. This is often much more than you can see in the usual modern photograph to say nothing about the crude camera obscura methods of the past. How do they do it? Well they use their skill in connection with their vision in order to make painting more powerful. They make minor embellishments and subtly change this or that to make the face look more striking. But my point is, in order to do all of that you have to have the skill first. It is not that easy to separate skill and expression. I think that is why many artists today are talking about how the old masters used camera obscura. They just want to provide an explanation as to why no-one seems to have the skill of the old masters anymore. By the way that theory is wrong. All you have to do to prove it wrong is look at some rembrandt self portraits, for which he could not have possibly used camera obscura and which do not differ in technique from his usual portraits. Now maybe I am being too hard on artists. Those skills are tremendously difficult to master, even if you do have the talent. And considering people do not spend much on art anymore, it is probably unfair to expect today's artists to spend the enormous time and effort to obtain those skills. Perhaps, certain art skills will be permanently lost like ancient violin making. That's ok, and I cannot blame artists for being creative and expressing themselves with the skills and techniques they can practically develop. But lets not lie to ourselves and pretend that it is just as good. Something is definitely lost when a photograph replaces a face drawn by a skilled master.

egypturnash 13y ago
Google "James Gurney". Go on, I'll wait. He's far from the only artist working today who's as hardcore as the Old Masters. He's just the first one who comes to mind.

the_cat_kittles 13y ago

"You'd think that's all anyone should care about, but unfortunately that's not the case" - Totally disagree. You don't get to decide what other people care about. And I would confidently wager that virtually everyone is affected by things that so-called purists dismiss as not worth caring about. The notion that there is a concrete boundary between the art and the context is so simplistic, and it completely ignores basic psychology. Doesn't it seem a little narcissistic to think that you would know what other people should care about?

egypturnash 13y ago

My opinion as an artist: If you feel like it might be cheating to do something, then it is.

scelerat 12y ago

Since it's posted on Hacker News, this story immediately made me think of things that come up while building anything, but especially software... - choice of language for a project - the decision to use this library or that, or to "roll your own" - etc Ignoring the obvious "cheating" of plagiarism or copyright violation, there's still occasionally pressure, internal or external, focus heavily on tools and methodologies over building the actual thing and focusing on its essential traits, weaknesses, and strengths. And finding the right balance between the attention given to tools versus the thing you're building is itself an art of sorts.

Terr_ 12y ago

Sure there is: Just made a statue that secretly doses visitors with drugs to get them high. Cheating, in art, is generally linked to where the audience can later consider themselves unjustly deceived.