Beyond Words:

The Nature of Art and Artistic Development

Robert J. Sullivan

ARE6933: 04HE, Fall 2012

Professor Delacruz

September 4, 2012

Beyond Words: The Nature of Art and Artistic Development 2

Abstract

While mere speculation, it seems the mystery that is life is quite possibly what has

always created the impetus or actual need to develop art. Art, as a tool of life’s natural

proclivities to create and learn as well as the attempt at the manifestation of thoughts

and ideas that cannot so easily be articulated, is the centerpiece of this review.

Identifying art as a natural inclination for human communication that goes beyond

words, even if words are being used to make art, is perhaps what all art movements

have been about. Arguably, this notion has been more evident in the modern and the

post-modern era we find ourselves in today. However, the certitude that modernism and

other art movements have had, has given way to the doubt and uncertainty the post-

modern era seems to embrace. These ideas, as having always been art’s nature which

results in artistic development, is examined in this review.

Beyond Words: The Nature of Art and Artistic Development 3

Introduction

There has been a concerted effort over the last 100 years or so to codify and

define how artistic behaviors, motivations, and development are manifested in

individuals and in culture. This hasn’t been the easiest of tasks. The “ill-defined” nature

of the category “art” (Kindler, 2004) makes it that much more difficult. The nascent fields

of art education, psychology and sociology have all attempted to try to give us clearer

definitions about creativity and human intelligence, as well as how these things are

meted out and developed in an individual’s life. Their foray into the delicate and hard to

define areas of the human psyche has had, in many cases, an immense effect on

people’s self-image and life choices. This burgeoning group of scholars has also had

some impact in terms of policy making on how we as a society perceive others and

particularly how teachers perceive and try to teach and/or engage students. It seems as

though there should be a tangible connection, or at least a linchpin, we can intellectually

grasp that will give us unblemished and defining notions about artistic motivation, but in

the end it seems too aloof a feat to try to accomplish in part, much less in its entirety.

We are given glimpses, and what can at best be described as fleeting theories.

Nevertheless, it seems we are no closer today in this so-called new Age of Doubt

(McEvilley, 1999) or Post-Modern period than we ever have been to a cohesive

philosophical consensus about artistic behaviors, motivations, and development.

Ironically, this “great unknown” is perhaps what defines art better than anything else, as

well as what makes art so alluring. There is something that words cannot articulate and

the need to go beyond words is what triggers in many the call to be involved with visual

art in some fashion, whether it’s the development of it, or simply appreciating it on some

varying level.

The Fulcrums

Beyond Words: The Nature of Art and Artistic Development 4

Two key concepts, the nature of art and artistic development, kept surfacing

throughout the articles I read and are quite possibly the fulcrums on which all the

articles rely upon for their inspiration. As previously stated, defining art is not an easy

task, nor is defining its nature or its development. Therefore, is it an “I know it when I

see it” proposition, or is the nature of art such that we can never particularly know for

sure what it is?

At the root of our inquisition about art’s place in society and its benefits, or not, to

the learner, is certainly its dubious nature. According to Weitz, the great theories of art

are formalism, voluntarism, emotionalism, intellectualism, intuitionism and organicism,

of which he finds all to be lacking in some measure. In regard to defining art Weitz

contends, “we are no more nearer our goal than we were in Plato’s time” (Weitz, 1956,

p. 27). Weitz explains:

Even if art has one set of necessary and sufficient properties….no aesthetic

theory yet proposed, has enumerated that set to the satisfaction of all

concerned….that aesthetic theory is a logically vain attempt to define what

cannot be defined, to state the necessary and sufficient properties of that which

has no necessary and sufficient properties, to conceive the concept of art as

closed when its very use reveals and demands its openness. (Weitz, 1956, p. 30)

Weitz’s inability to define art is possibly a testament to the fact he was at the

precipice of a new era (the 1950’s). His acquiescence to the idea that art cannot be

defined occurred just prior to the post-modern period. This is an era and art movement

that has accepted, and is predicated on, the idea that there are no absolutes, especially

when it comes to art. Because it’s a movement generally acknowledged by all of today’s

academia as defining this age after modernism (who’s “certainty” could not be

questioned (McEvilley, 1999)), it does not make the idea that we are living in an age of

“unknowns” any less an uncomfortable place for us to inhabit. Many of us still want

answers and we want closure, but we are living in a time “where the definition and

Beyond Words: The Nature of Art and Artistic Development 5

potential for ‘art’ remain open-ended” (Kindler, 2004, p. 238). This begs the question, if

the nature of art cannot be contained and is indeed a mystery, then doesn’t that mean it

is a meta-physical problem we’re being asked to consider? Why else would it be so

difficult to define?

In his essay, “What Are Humans For”, Aike succeeds in spooking us with his

cyborg predictions when he has us ponder the possibility that we are about to arrive at a

point in our history where even our technology might be able to contain our souls. Aike

points out that even meta-physics is evolving with technology to where we will one day

be able to download or upload our “souls” to an “operating system” rendering this

sacred aspect of our humanity a future “engineering problem” (Aike, 2001. p. 448). That

probably doesn’t get us any closer to art’s nature but it does lend itself to the notion that

ideas are, without a doubt, in flux and cannot be encapsulated in nice and neat

compartments of philosophy or theory.

With definitions of the nature of art having so many variations one can only

conclude that the same dilemma would surround the concept of artistic

development. Anna Kindler writes:

The concept of “artistic development" becomes highly problematic in the absence

of systematic and consistent criteria, requirements, or values against which it

could be assessed. The ability to achieve mastery in pictorial realism is neither a

necessary nor a sufficient condition for artistic success….interest in cultural

pluralism has incorporated into the domain of “art” (at least the Western

understanding of the term) objects and actions that require understandings,

abilities, and skills increasingly diverse and hard to trace along a developmental

continuum. (Kindler, 2004, pp. 233,234)

Kindler embodies her discussion with a litany of explanation as to the difficulty in

trying to gage artistic development. She uses the term artistic thinking to exemplify

today’s art making process. She posits this to be considered:

Beyond Words: The Nature of Art and Artistic Development 6

One does not need to resort to examples of conceptual art to argue that the

quality of thinking and ability to identify, pose, and solve problems within the

realm of artistic creativity are fundamental to art. If the meaning and message in

art can be regarded as equally or, at times, even more important than the form,

then a question regarding developmental pathways guiding growth in “artistic

thinking” becomes central to the concept of “development in art”. (Kindler, 2004,

pp. 244)

Eisner, in his article Artistic Thinking, Human Intelligence and the Mission of the

School (2000), reminds us that even Plato regarded the arts as an inferior form of

knowledge. Eisner paraphrases some of Plato’s ideals when he writes:

To base one’s knowledge on material objects or art forms was to base it upon

what is ephemeral and in a state of decay. No, what was needed was freedom

from the material world so that the mind could clearly comprehend what is eternal

and non-material: pure form. (Eisner, 2000, p. 326)

Eisner then proceeds to deliver Plato’s contention that it is mathematics and

logic, not “emotionality nor the material” that has a “place in the journey upward”

(Eisner, 2000, p. 326). This was quite prophetic of Plato because despite our culture’s

appreciation of art over the millennia, we have arrived at a time in our history where

society still quite possibly has deference for the mathematical mind over the artistic as

evidenced by the salaries technical and mathematic based jobs earn in our economy.

Enter Aike’s macabre predictions into the equation and we have the defining algorithm

of which Plato had predicted thousands of years ago, as what could be more non-

material and eternal than a soul being transformed into “software” for perpetuity?

Learning Beyond Numbers, Beyond Words, Beyond Belief

One might wonder what all this really has to do with art education, and I would

have to say everything. Life, if nothing else, is a mystery. No scientist, philosopher,

Beyond Words: The Nature of Art and Artistic Development 7

mathematician, or theorist could really disagree with that statement, because no one

really knows in a holistic and absolute way what life is, or if some type of energy

continues after life as we know it. It’s an age old dilemma that has boggled the minds of

any reasonable thinking and doubting person. But one thing for certain is that what we

do in life, whether we want to or not, is “learn”. Bruner explained Edward Tolman’s

research about learning when he wrote:

Tolman claimed that trial and error is not so much acting out habits to discover

which are effective, but rather a looking back and forth to get the lay of the land

in order to construct a solution. (Bruner, 2004, p. 18).

Art learning or education is probably most like life in that it accepts trial and error

as well as “mystery” and the “unknown” as its main components and even as

accruements for trying to “construct solutions”. In that respect art

learning/involvement/engagement is perhaps more life-like than any other learning

discipline; disciplines for the most part that are mostly based on absolutes and closed

systems. The nature of art and artistic development revel in this hinterland of the

unknown and openness, which has been its saving grace as far as its place in culture,

albeit, its near death knell in today’s high schools.

What we really need to begin to do is respect learning beyond numbers, beyond

words, and beyond belief. As Arike suggests when he quotes cyborg researcher

Warwick as saying, “we won’t need to code thoughts into language, we will uniformly

send symbols and ideas and concepts without speaking” (Arike, 2001, p.450). This may

happen whether we want it to or not, it may be the natural human trajectory of which the

visual artist has had an instinct for since time and memoriam.

The famous 20th century philosopher and writer, Ludwig Wittgenstein, is quoted

as saying “the limits of my language are the limits of my mind” (no citation available).

This may have been true at one time, but not today. Art educators are at the forefront of

being able to deliver and encourage ideas that are beyond words and beyond belief, as

Beyond Words: The Nature of Art and Artistic Development 8

there really are no limits to what the mind is capable of doing. It’s the nature of the artist,

I think, that has sensed this all along.References

Arike, A. (2001). What are humans for?: Art in the age of post-human

development. Leonardo, 34(5), 447-451.

Bruner, J. (2004). A short history of psychological theories of learning. Daedalus,

133(1), 13-20.

Eisner, E. (1978). What do children learn when they paint? Art Education, 31(3), 6-10.

Kindler, A. M. (2004). Researching impossible? Models of artistic development

reconsidered. In E. W. Eisner & M. D. Day (Eds.), Handbook of research and

policy in art education (pp 233-252). Reston, VA: National Art Education

Association.

McEvilley, T. (1999). Sculpture in the age of doubt (aesthetics today).New York, NY:

Allensworth Press

Weitz, M. (1956). The role of theory in aesthetics. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art

Criticism, 15(1), 27-35.