Quote - Hi Jon,

That's quite insightful what you said there. Although I never thought of CG as another medium, I think that likening it to photography is right on target. It is a new technology that offers a chance for people to express themselves and their vision. I can go along with that.

Long ago I used to teach art history. One thing that is striking about art history is that originally there was no distinction between artists and non-artists (cavemen all painted, even medieval church frescoes were painted by all monks together, etc.).  The Renaissance, with its technical sophistication created the true division between artists and non-artists.

What I fancy with CG (and especially Poser) is that it may well erase this technical gap and allow those who are artistically inclined to express themselves at a level that is on par with schooled artists. Thus, your analogy with the camera is correct – photography indeed can enable someone to create artistic value without a formal training.

(In a way of disclosure: I am the Marketing Director of e frontier and as such responsible for charting future directions of its software development). You see, it helps me to get up in the morning and think that my work is important because it may help people to regain something that was lost - their capacity for artistic expressions. If this sounds too self-important, please have my apologies.

Laslo

And let's not forget about the thin line between 'artiste' and 'artisan'.  For millenia, artisans have been 'specially trained' workers in making simplistic objects (weapons, armor, clothes, furnitiure, architecture, etc.) and applying centuries of discovery, years of apprentiship, and long periods of innovation to make functional things into 'works of art'.  Banging out crude functionality is very rare - there is almost always a level of pride and skill involved in going beyond this and cultivating beauty in the simplest objects.

The Renaissance certainly divided the artisans from the artistes - but not completely.  Michaelanagelo created world-renowned frescos and sculptures, but he also engineered beautifiul architecture.  Asians have always mixed functional skill and craftsmanship with results 'pleasing to the eye'.  The Japanese sword, for all of its technological innovations that make it unique and superior in function, has always been decorated and constructed with symbolism, spirituality, and beauty in mind.  Not only is it a deady weapon that serves its master well, it is something to be displayed and revered on its craftsmanship and beauty!

Even the most mundane, functional object can be embued with beauty and artistic expression by a skilled craftsman - and this is someone who isn't considered 'an artist'.  The phrase 'that is not art' is for people who don't understand the difference between 'art' (in the most banal, snobbish definition) and 'expression'.  They define art as some esoteric and idealistic set of limitations - such as'depicting ideal beauty' or 'must have philosophical meaning'.

Art is what evokes you emotionally - pleasing, soothing, grandiosity, depressing, repulsing, whatever.  The argument about 'what is art' reminds me of the creationist/ID notion of the evidence for design in nature.  They propose that design by a 'higher power' is evident in life.  But they forget that this same 'higher power' must also be attributed to the design of other things - stars, planets, rocks, water, clouds, light, dirt, you name it (or did some other power create everything else?)  Since the 'higher power' created both the rock and the sentient human, how can one so entangled in the system being examined make a determination about what was 'designed' and what was not?  Similarly, art exists in our sensory apparatus - anything can be art - a sunset, a photo of a sunset, a painting of a sunset, a sculpture of a sunset, a structure dedicated to a sunset (think Stonehedge), an abstract representation of a sunset, a 3D rendering of a sunset.  What does it matter - except to those who have preconceived notions of what the 'beaulty of a sunset' is?

Anon

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

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