What to tell someone that thinks Poser work isn't art?

you say 'First, lets define "art". can we infact quantify what is art on a non-personal level into a readily definable quotient? now, once we have this scale, where does poser, infact all CG art, fall on it, compared to the great masters such as Di Vinci?

but seeing as we're still stuck on the first part, the eternal question of 'what is art?' anyway, we could be here a long time. who's round is it?'

"Rembrandt? Rembrandt was NOT an artist!"
* - "but.... he painted some fantastic images... look for his lights... those shapes.... those wonderful structures... the heartblood he put into those expressions...."*
"Yeahyeahyeah - but he used BRUSHES to paint! Everybody can do this with BRUSHES!"

(And, being a professional in the academical threadmill for - wait - almost 25 years now, my opinion is: the question is not, "what is art" - the question is "who dares to tell me what is art and what not.")

But professional portrait painters use ready-made LIVE models!  They don't go out and selectively breed their models first!  They take the product of someone else's selective breeding and use THAT!

So, in what way does this differ from the selective using of ready made meshes?
dph

The word art rhymes with -

apart, blackheart, bogart, cart,

chart, dart, depart, descartes, dogcart,

fart, flowchart, forepart, handcart, hart,

heart, impart, mart, mouthpart, mozart,

outsmart, oxcart, part, pushcart, quart,

rampart, rechart, smart, start, swart,

sweetheart, tart, thwart, upstart...

So I guess art is - 
a cart full of farts pulled by an upstart
bogart tart without a heart who loves
Mozart....

or something like that...    lol

M
 

What an interesting idea. dirtiestpossiblegrin

"Yeahyeahyeah - but he used BRUSHES to paint! Everybody can do this with BRUSHES!"

Somehow this reminds me on discussions like

"Can comics be art?" or "Is there some artwork between all those airbrushed images?"

...and that tells me that a medium has only be old enough to be considered art.

Just think about Alberto Vargas or grandpa's dirty postcards...

What to tell someone that thinks Poser work isn't art?

"That's nice."

Then I'd go back to making some art.

this is a serious question:

Who's round is it?

I have an old book that I love called 'The Art of Fiction' written by John Gardner...  it discusses art as it pertains to fiction writing, but I think it applies to any form of art...

a few quotes from it:

'Art depends heavily on feeling, intuition, taste.  It is feeling, not some rule, that tells the abstract painter to put his yellow here and there, not there, and may later tell him that it should have been brown or purple or pea-green.  It's feeling that makes the composer break surprisingly from his key, feeling that gives the writer the rhythms of his sentences, the pattern of rise and fall in his episodes, the proportions of alternating elements, so that dialogue goes on only so long before a shift to description or narrative summary or some physical action.'

'In other words, art has no universal rules because each true artist melts down and reforges all past aesthetic law.'

'To the great artist, anything whatever is possible.  Invention, the spontaneous generation of new rules, is central to art.'

'Whatever works is good.'

Those are a few of his thoughts on the subject...  and I agree with him.   I think any tool is fine as long as it is used in a creative fashion...

M

Sigh. I understand that the OP wrote of art, but the original objecter in question meant CG art, not art in general.

If you claim to be a photographer, but you don't use a camera, you're not a photographer. You can't post oil paintings on a photography web gallery, right?  This is not in dispute, I assume, right?

If you claim to be a water color artist, but you photographed your image and used a Photoshop watercolor filter, then you can't post that in a water color artist gallery, right? Or no. Is this unclear for some reason?

OK - the CG artist community defines a CG artist as somebody who creates an image using content THEY CREATED. Period. The community known as CG artists gets to say what they mean by that.

People who do not agree with that are trying to say otherwise, and claim to be CG artists.

I'm not interested in the definition of art.

I am interested in the definition of CG artist. Which is what this is really about. So let's discuss that.

And I really don't mean to discuss CG artists. I mean, the interesting question here is this:

When an artist community (sect, subset, group, etc.) defines itself with a new term, and other people want to appropriate that term to confer upon themselves the honor and admiration that normally acrues to those for whom the term fits, without actually acquiring the skills necessary and without actually doing the work (but doing other work that falls outside the definition) then the big question is - what should happen?

CG artists define themselves around the idea that they can create anything from nothingness. A real CG artist (not a fake) can and does realize the vision by a God-like creative ability - to cause a shape to appear where none existed before. A CG artist does not "open a can of content" or "thaw a bag of content". They create, starting with vertices and edges, a shape that never existed before.

Some people want to argue about this definition. Why?

Just make up some other kind of art name involving a digital collage of 3D elements.

"Just make up some other kind of art name involving a digital collage of 3D elements."

CG Apprentice
CG Jopurneyman
CG Craftsman
CG Master Craftsman

Just to mention this: this is my personal opinion:

Well - I think that CG artwork cannot be separated from all other artistic concepts which produce a lasting, visual result.

Or the word "artist" could not longer be used.

According to Bagginsbills theory - transferring this to "classic" artistical techniques - Michelangelo would not have been an artist ( he used a marble block which he didn't create himself ) and also the great Rodin who defined scultpures totally new would not have been - he neither digged for clay himself, nor did he cast the bronze that made, when taken out of its mold,  artwork that can take a human heart apart.

If Bagginsbill follows the direction he has entered here, than a CG work could only be art if

• the artist made his own models, his own textures and his own plot
• the artist wrote the application for the creation of models and textures
• the artist wrote his own 3D application and renderer
• the artist build his own computer
• and the artist made his own electrical power

And even if the efforts of (groups of) artists go the way above pretty far, then they still can fail in a, well, glorious way - such a failure just went through the theatres of the world.

"Art" always has to do with a process of modification - modifying the surface of a piece of marble, the shape of bronze, the surface of a canvas or paper or a caves wall, the way a TFT colours it's pixels or a piece of light-sensitive material is toned.
I totally understand the concerns about people who use pre-created material - but before I even think about the question "how did s/he do it?" I ask myself: "did s/he see what s/he tries to tell me?"

If CG art is discussed with the same terms we use for all other artwork, then she same measures must be used. And every piece of art(work) tells an idea - beginning from the cavemans painting to contemporary techniques.
And, I, very personally, can respect someone who tells a story - or "talks" about emotions, dreams, or his personal reality using pre-shaped paterials at least as well as I can respect somebody who made a glorious 3d model with a wonderful texture and a *** render for an advertisement of another car that will stand - stinking - on a trafficlight next year.

An artist is not somebody who started to work so-and-so-long ago or had this-or-that exams and/or successes in the past. The "material" can be just everything that, in any way, communicates. An artist is somebody who bets his life on the fact that what he is doing, in it's results reaches other people, for good.

And, of course: "All art is predecessed by craftsmanship" (J. W. v. Goethe)

typo

Attached Link: gilgamesh

Not plugging, but if you're interested, check the link. WARNING; nekkid people.

look.
for a discussion like this, there is a serious lack of alcohol.

who's buying???

who's buying???

You. Absinth for me and my buddies Auguste and Vincent-

Jack on the rocks here. Make it a double -- it's gonna be a long night.

Quote - Bagginsbill wrote:

OK - the CG artist community defines a CG artist as somebody who creates an image using content THEY CREATED. Period. The community known as CG artists gets to say what they mean by that.

People who do not agree with that are trying to say otherwise, and claim to be CG artists.

I'm not interested in the definition of art.

I am interested in the definition of CG artist. Which is what this is really about. So let's discuss that.

And I really don't mean to discuss CG artists. I mean, the interesting question here is this:

When an artist community (sect, subset, group, etc.) defines itself with a new term, and other people want to appropriate that term to confer upon themselves the honor and admiration that normally acrues to those for whom the term fits, without actually acquiring the skills necessary and without actually doing the work (but doing other work that falls outside the definition) then the big question is - what should happen?

CG artists define themselves around the idea that they can create anything from nothingness. A real CG artist (not a fake) can and does realize the vision by a God-like creative ability - to cause a shape to appear where none existed before. A CG artist does not "open a can of content" or "thaw a bag of content". They create, starting with vertices and edges, a shape that never existed before.

Some people want to argue about this definition. Why?

Just make up some other kind of art name involving a digital collage of 3D elements.

BB, I usually enjoy and find valuable the info you impart, but I have to respectfully disagree on this as I have found and believe otherwise.

The community at CG Talk/CG Society did not create the term CG art.
CG art comes originally from a Japanese term. And it's defined as artwork created with the assistance of a computer. A pretty wide encompassing definition if you ask me.

I really don't care what a bunch of wannabe modelers think. Modelers are the only ones who seem to think that CG art should only include models created from scratch. Professional commercial CG artists do not create everything. They'd never meet their deadlines if they did. Most pros I know do not have a problem with Poser or DAZ models. They think some of the artwork made by users stink, but some of the art made by alleged CG artists (usually punk kids) who roll their own is sub-par as well.

When I think of CG artists I think of the pros who are getting paid a lot of money for their work, because the work they are producing is at a level of quality most of us can only dream about..  

but none of them do it alone...  

they work in teams; one team does the modeling, another the animation, another the texturing, another the lighting, etc..    The finished product is a blending of the effort of all of them, which when combined creates a single piece of work...   so how can only the ones doing the modeling be true CG artists?   if it weren't for the animators, texture artists, etc., it wouldn't work at all...   I just don't agree with that line of thinking at all..  

I do understand the reason for it though - sticking some canned content up there, adding in a couple of lights and clicking 'render' doesn't make someone an artist..  but my point is it can if it's done tastefully with feeling and the simple belief that the reason for it matters...

• personally I love the material room in poser the most..  I know that's where your expertise lies Bagginsbill and I have learned a great deal from just listening to you talk about it..  and I thank you for sharing your knowledge with everyone...   it's what has kept me interested in the program all this time...

honestly that's the whole reason I use the damned program..  if it wasn't for that aspect of it I would throw it away, or give it away or something...   I've learned a lot about the material room since I started, but know I have a very long way to go to really understand what is possible and how it can be used...   it is such a powerful part of poser that I know I'll be using it for years and always love it...  unfortunately I have a very limited amount of time with it because my 'day job' is so all-consuming it leaves me only a precious few hours a day to myself...   

M

I agree with you, Marcus - that IS the most exciting part of Poser. Creating a visually-appealing image is truly secondary. So, since I'm not inspired to create a meaningful scene depicting something emanating from my soul but rather want to see how Vicky's legs reflect in the procedural water, I voluntarily disclaim being of artistic bent.

Oh, and I'm way a novice, still. But having an ginormous amount of fun!

To the folks from CG's credit, making a model is tough. I do it at my job on a regular basis, and it's hard work. So I can understand they're thinking "Oh, it's just one from Column A and two from Column B".

Problem is, they, like us sometimes, confuse art with craft.

Quote - Can anyone answer "are we welcome on Deviant Art"  I read their agreement and it seems since we are not making our meshesd and textures, we are not.

I've posted most of my images on Deviant Art and have had no ill response.

Quote - To the folks from CG's credit, making a model is tough. I do it at my job on a regular basis, and it's hard work. So I can understand they're thinking "Oh, it's just one from Column A and two from Column B".

Problem is, they, like us sometimes, confuse art with craft.

I agree with this having tried my hand at modeling with 3D max..  the program still tries my patience even after many hours of working with it...  but I will keep trying to learn it even if it takes years..   lol

Another thing I'm still trying to learn is after creating the model taking it into poser and adding the bones and so on to make it poseable...  a tedious process at best, but one that can have satisfying results when it does work...  

I have a lot of respect for those with excellent modeling skills, but also for the great texture artists, animators, etc..

M

Another thing is that the people getting paid 'big bucks' for their work are using extremely powerful machines and software far beyond what most of us will ever have access to...   they have programs written specifically to do the tasks they need to do..  I have a feeling that if most of us sat down at one of those machines and looked at the interface we would basically scratch our heads and think - 'where do I begin..?'   lol

Kind of like looking at the blender interface..  I wish I could get my hands on a book or something....    lol   

M

My one experience with the folks at CGTalk was done on a bit of a dare. I posted an image there, without really talking about how it was developed, just what it was (which was an early draft of one of my CANDIDE images). Lots of nice compliments, a few pointers on lighting and texturing -- but the overall consensus was that it was a pretty nice piece of work.

I wonder if they'd say the same thing if they knew it was Poser.

Eh. Probably not.

*I'm not interested in the definition of art.

*But it's important! Because we are talking about CG art. So what we have is Computer Graphic - the computer and the graphic application can be called the tool, like canvas and brush, clay and knife! No you can go and create a complete scene with all it's content by yourself. Definitly a challenge and definitly skillful but not per se art. I think that we acknowledge about that - although I saw indeed more art amongst those works where everything was made from scratch.

But IMHO it's not the tool that makes the art, it's what you get in the end. I've read the same comment several times: We've seen this 3d-model over and over meanwhile", (now what model may that be...) - and people are right. But that's not what seperates art from trash.

And whatever a group may define as art and allow in it's holy halls is okay - it's their group, they make the rules. But that doesn't mean that they are right.

I wonder if they'd say the same thing if they knew it was Poser.

Hmmmm.... "Paint over the Poser model by hand, post the image again and turn it into art!"??? LOL

...and I think that the initial question is almost answered by all the postings here. What to tell sombody who says "Poser-work isn't art"? "That's one of three different opinions: It is - it isn't - It depends on whether... (insert 1000 more arguments here)!".

And ultimately, who cares?

Just make the damn images and be done with it. If someone doesnt call it "art", fine. If they do, bonus points.

But tell me, what are we looking for here? Validation? Is that what it really comes down to?

Quote - And ultimately, who cares?

Just make the damn images and be done with it. If someone doesnt call it "art", fine. If they do, bonus points.

But tell me, what are we looking for here? Validation? Is that what it really comes down to?

Nope, don't need that, but facts are facts....   

hey, never meant to derail the conversation with above posts....  

I'd rather stay out of it than do that...  

M

But yet this stuff is called art :
http://wiggz.com/paintings/minimalist-art-gallery.php

To me ,even the most basic use of Poser 5 produced better Art with a load and render approach.

Quote - *I'm not interested in the definition of art.

*But it's important! 

 

Nope.  Only to critics, dealers and those shallow enough to believe an image/sculpture/tune/whatever is inherently better than another simply because one is labelled as art.

The only valid definition of art is: It's something which avoids definition.  I could write a million word essay on why I'm right but I can't be arsed so you'll just have to take my word for it.