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.