Re: [DISC] Is Language Creation Art?

En réponse à Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>:

>
> It most certainly is not.  Watching TV shows a hobby? Sounds more like
> vegetating to me  ;)
>
Depends on what you watch :)) .

>
> I agree.  In my book, all the truly great artists have been skilled in
> their craft.  What distinguishes them, it seems to me, is that
> indefinable
> stroke of genius - the vision to reach beyond their craft.
I'm a little difficult on that one... Do we have to be a good crafts(wo)man to
be a good artist? Do you need to know about painting technics to be a good
painter? Do you need to know music notation to be a good musician? One of the
best French song writers, Serge Gainsbourg, was admittedly absolutely
analphabete when it went to poetry and music technics. Yet his texts are
masters of modern poetry and his melodies are some of the best you can find in
French music, daring to do things people didn't dare before, full of talent and
strong. He was surely not a craftsman. Yet he was absolutely an artist.

I must emphasize I'm not against your idea. I just find it a little
restrictive. It's true that most artists are or have been skilled craftsmen. I
just disagree on the idea that "all the truly great artists have been skilled
in their craft". To take back Gainsbourg, he was a "truly great artist" (he
just revolutioned so much French popular music that we can say that there was a
before and an after Gainsbourg) without being a craftsman.

>
> Fortunately, really great artists have had rather more than this
> narrow
> view.  I forget the name of that painting Picasso did depicting the
> suffering of the people of Gerona after Franco had the luftwaffe bomb
> the
> town, but it was hardly what I'd call an aesthetic painting.  Yet I
> consider it great art - not just craft - making a statement that needed
> to
> be be made.
>
It's called "Guernica".

> But then Picasso did test things, did try different ideas to see how
> they'd
> work, did push his craft and his ideas to their limits.  To me real
> art
> communicates and _challenges_ - is not mere airy-fairy aesthetics.
>
I absolutely agree! That's why I consider that you can be an artist without
being a skilled craftsman. Even a poorly executed painting can be art, if it
succeeds in communicating what it wants to communicate.

>
> Surely the strength of this list has been its _openness_. It has
> welcomed
> novices, it has welcomed the hobbyist (and IME hobbyists are usually
> serious minded about their hobby), it has welcomed the experimenter; it
> has
> welcomed both artlanger and loglanger and even, provided they refrain
> from
> Auxland politics, auxlangers; it has welcomed the linguist and the
> non-linguist.  Long may it do so!
>
Amen!

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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