There is no such thing as 'cheating' in art

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2014/04/cheating.html

by drewvolpe • 12 years ago

57 53 12 years ago

muddycolors.blogspot.com

pcmonk2• 12 years 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• 12 years 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.

pcmonk2• 12 years 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.

JoshTriplett2• 12 years ago

always preferred Emily Short or Andrew Plotkin.

Likewise, as well as Nick Montfort; Ad Verbum is exceptional.

mistercow• 12 years 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".

vacri4• 12 years 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.

moron4hire5• 12 years 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_P2• 12 years 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-bu...

cturner• 12 years 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.

moron4hire5• 12 years 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• 12 years 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• 12 years ago

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

  - Salvador Dali

vacri4• 12 years 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).

bmh1002• 12 years 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• 12 years 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.

bmh1002• 12 years 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• 12 years 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...

moron4hire5• 12 years 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.

platz3• 12 years 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.

subdane• 12 years ago

If art makes someone feel an idea then it's really cooking with gas.

InclinedPlane• 12 years ago

Art is just communication. We tend to hold art that is evocative, transformative, and emotional in a higher regard and more "true art" because such forms of communication are often more challenging, requiring of more skill, and have a greater potential to be life altering.

greggman• 12 years ago

That doesn't seem like all that useful a definition. My kids claim their messy room is art because it makes me "feel mad" that they don't clean it up.

There's very few things that won't make you feel something if you choose to look at them. By that I mean we ignore all kinds of stuff in our day to day lives but pull out any one thing, a spoon, a rock, a front door, a crumpled can, a beer, decide to pay attention to it and you'll feel something.

I don't have a better definition, all I'm saying is I could make an exhibit taking the next 50 things I see and just displaying them. Some would call that art. I'm sure they'll be a big debate about how collections are art, the act of creating an exhibition is art, etc. That's not really the point I'm trying to make. Rather it's that if I can pick up literally ANYTHING and display it and it magically becomes art that's not a really useful definition, at least to me.

corin_• 12 years ago

The definition improves if you add "and is created for that purpose", though maybe still not without holes.

As an example of your kids' mess, check out Tracey Emin's 'My Bed' [1], it's basically just a mess, but by deciding it is art and exhibiting it for that purpose it becomes art. But when it was in her house in the exact same state.. not art, as it wasn't intended to be.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Bed

narrator• 12 years ago

art is something that makes you feel an emotion.

It's important to remember though that confusion is not an emotion.

thaumasiotes• 12 years 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• 12 years 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• 12 years 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• 12 years ago

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

pistle• 12 years 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• 12 years 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.

egypturnash2• 12 years 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.

alphakappa• 12 years ago

You are experiencing survivor's bias. The artists from the past that you know of are the excellent ones whose art and reputation survived. If you explore enough galleries and museums, you'll know that there are plenty of contemporary artists who create mind blowing art too, and in 200 years, some fellow will talk about how artists in the 23rd century do not have the skills of the 21st century masters.

NAFV_P2• 12 years ago

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.

Not one of the old Dutch masters, one of the old Dutch masters and their apprentices, who sometimes did most of the legwork for the master. Anyways, Holbein the Younger kicks most of them into space, except for Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

I think that is why many artists today are talking about how the old masters used camera obscura.

Canaletto used a dark chamber, his paintings are considered to be so accurate that the Venice authorities have used them to assist in calculating the change in height of buildings over a two hundred odd year gap.

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.

Are you sure all those usual portraits were painted by his own hand? The number of genuine Rembrandts has dropped a lot in the past few decades.

Now maybe I am being too hard on artists.

No you are not, these days the artist can be very hard on the voyeur.

http://jakeanddinoschapman.com/works/zygotic-acceleration-bi...

the_cat_kittles• 12 years 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?

egypturnash2• 12 years ago

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

scelerat• 12 years 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_• 12 years 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.

There is no such thing as 'cheating' in art

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