Art History: Past and present in dialogue
What is the art? What requirements should a work have to be considered art? Throughout history, there have been attempts to give various answers to these questions, but, like art itself, it has been evolving and transforming, the concepts on which its definition is based – as the notion of mimesis that was vital in theClassical world, but is no longer considered relevant in modern art – they have also changed according to different cultures and different social and historical periods. The philosopher and historian Władysław Tatarchiewicz in his book History of six ideas explains that most of the theories that have arisen to explain what art is some part of truth and that, although they are "partially erroneous, historically they were necessary".
Despite the changes that art has experienced over time, there were certain well -established concepts and definitions that were obsolete with the appearance of the Marcel Duchamp source. LikeThen, since he abandoned aesthetics, technique and beautiful and opened the possibility that any object could be considered art.
This Ready-Made, which consisted of a white porcelain urinar. Mutt, caused a scandal when the New York Independent Hall of Independents was presented at the first exhibition. This initiative of the Society of Independent Artists rejected the jurors and selection committees and sought the democratization of art, since everyone who paid the quota had the right to expose, but the source was withdrawn when considered indecent by the organizers by the organizers. Duchamp is likely to simply seek.
Why was an industrial object for daily use considered an artistic work? According to Nelson Goodman, "an object becomes a work of art only when it works as a symbol in a certain way". The source is a work of art simply because the artist had declared him as such when choosing this specific object to convey his idea and because he had displaced him from his usual context and located in a privileged place such as an art gallery.
Years later, pop art artists would continue working on the concept that any decontextualized object can be a work of art, although they do not do so in the critical and combative way of the Dadaists who were looking for the provocation and rejection of the spectator. Andy Warhol’s shine boxes were identical in their appearance to the brand’s soap boxes that could be found in the supermarket;What differentiated them was their meaning, not their aesthetics. The object abandons its original condition by placing it in the context of the art world, where it acquires meaning and demands an interpretation in the same way that Duchamp urinary.
Thanks to Duchamp arises the notion that the essence of a work of art is not in creation, but in the idea. This thought frees the artist from both technique and beauty, which were two of the concepts of which we talked at the beginning and that were considered indissoluble to art. The rejection of beauty is one of the aspects that define the Dadaists, since these artists deliberately decided to make antisthetic art and not submit their work to the taste of the ruling class in an act of indignation and protest in the face of the social and political situation inthe one they lived. Dadaism, movement to which Duchamp belonged, argued that our reality is a cluster of conventions that can – and should be questioned and, therefore, there are no immutable rules. Starting from this premise, we can affirm that the choice of urinary by Duchamp was not random, but the displeasure and outrage of both the world of art and the public was sought and it was intended to use the ugliness and ordinary of the object as an instrument as an instrumentof awareness and criticism of the aesthetic tradition prevailing until that moment. The rejection of the beautiful continued in the twentieth century and influenced the avant -garde such as surrealism or abstract expressionism: a clear example is Kooning Willem Women in which rejection is immediate and enduring.
By subtracting importance from creation, the artist’s skill is also in the background. The works of art express ideas, but if the artist can create a meaning with already manufactured objects, without being limited by his technical expertise, he acquires a freedom that he had not had until then. The artist no longer has to know how to do, he must only have a good concept and find a way to express this idea. If, as Duchamp argues, the value of art is not linked to the manufacture of the object, artistic excellence is determined by the power of the idea that embodies the work, due to its underlying speech and the reactions and attitudes that cause in the viewer. A clear example of the freedom that is offered to the artist by not having to demonstrate his artistic skill is Cy Twombly’s work. Cold Stream reminds the scribbles that children can do on the board of their classroom, it is a work that generates disapproval and repulsion and that an important part of the public does not consider art because ‘a child could have done it’.
Contemporary art managed to change the viewer’s gaze, since it involves a much greater interpretation challenge than the one to do with the works prior to the source that fulfilled well assumed canons. Art had always explained stories using the necessary resources so that the people of the time could understand the message: as well as epic poems such as Homer’s odyssey that were composed to be recited and transmit stories orally, religious art, byExample, I had the function of attracting believers and explaining the biblical teachings to the population that did not know or could read.
Before Duchamp, the artistic was related to the aesthetic, but now art is no longer just an aesthetic issue. The source sought the intellectual impact and required an interest on the part of the spectator to understand the idea behind the work. Not only is it worth going to the museum and contemplating the work, you need to make the effort to know the language and reflect on the concept that the artist wants to convey to the public. The works that arise in the twentieth and twenty -first centuries do not seek to satisfy the imposing taste of the moment, so they make the viewer feel some discomfort;They challenge him and urged him to make the effort to reflect on the work and, thus, complete it. This artistic line needs the spectator’s collaboration, tries to create a dialogue between the artist and his audience.
Duchamp managed to stag. Paul Ziff determined that the work of finding a set of minimal and necessary conditions that a work must comply with to be considered art, to define what art is an impossible task since the definition will change with each artistic style. Although I agree with the changing nature of both art and its definition, I consider that there are certain aspects that every work of art fulfills: it must be the result of the intellectual activity of the human being, it has the purpose of transmitting something and has a symbolic characterAnd finally, it requires the spectator’s experience.
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