aesthesis

A Three-fold Path

I believe that artists use one or more of three basic methods for making artistic decisions.

1. The way. When using “the way” the artist chooses one or more basic principles (usually abstract concepts) which guide and inform decisions in the art process. If the artist decides that they want to devote their art to the advancement of jelly beans for medicinal purposes this decision would impact every work they made. They would be following “the way of medicinal jelly beans” in a similar way that a Tang Soo Do student is following the way (or Do) of the Tang hand (Soo means hand but there is some disputation about the meaning of Tang in Tang Soo Do).

2. Principle (or judgment). Here the artist develops a set of basic rules for their work. When an artist is confronted with a choice of options they can return to these basic rules and make a specific decision based on the rules. Artists in the past have made rules such as: “traditional tools and techniques are the best,” “make art representational,” “paintings should be based on atmospheric impressions.” These rules could be helpful or not. Sometimes they focus an artist by limiting the range of options. Other times, they hut an artist by channeling his creative energy in worthless directions.

3. Examples. Artists sometimes choose one or more artists that they appreciate and try to make works “like” that artist. Most artists have been impressed and inspired by historical works and other artist. Often artist learn more about technique and visual communication by looking at extent works than they do reading about those work without seeing them. The principle danger here is that an artist who paints “like Picasso” may never be known for anything more. It may not be valuable to the world to have another Picasso painting.

Certainly these three strands of thought are often braded to form a stronger cord. It’s notable that these three paths include a spectrum from inductive to deductive methods.