An adopted pig has learned to paint on canvas. Pigcasso’s works can sell for as much as $4,000.* And then there are the paintings made by elephant artists. They, too, have fetched more than the price of a blank canvas. So, what does a nonhuman artist’s work say about a human artist’s work, especially about human nonrepresentational art? And, shouldn’t we ask, “What does art by a pig say about humans who buy it?”
You remember that study in which people with noses and palates for wine were fooled as a researcher simply colored white wine to look like red wine? ** There was a corollary study that mislabeled wines for a test group. *** Is there a difference between one’s being fooled by packaging a cheap wine under an expensive wine label and one’s being fooled by splotches and lines painted on a canvas by an animal and not a human? Is it intent, the intent of the artist or the intent of the observer?
If art is a matter of intent, then one has to ask how to judge intent? And if it is not a matter of intent, and if critics who say that there’s more in any artwork than any creator knows, then is any judgement of art simply a matter of personal preference and guesswork. Is a cheap wine that tastes good to the taster as good as an expensive wine that tastes good to the taster?
So, who pays for artwork done by a pig? A philanthropist who wants to donate money to a zoo or rescue farm? A shrewd investor who knows that once an artwork is sold for X number of dollars, it’s price will go up in resale? Someone with so much money that buying pig art is a novelty or joke? And, here’s the question for you: Do you have any knickknacks? Any coffee table sculptures of twisted shapes (“Oh! Look at the curving lines; feel the smooth sides; it’s like a Möbius strip, just going on forever, and it’s contained within the space above my coffee table; sooo artistic”) or any paintings of Elvis on velvet?
“You’re revealing your Philistinism, Don. Uneducated in the arts, you simply don’t understand the nuances, the refinements, the aesthetics behind the art. You probably think that abstract art is child’s play, that any child with fingers can paint with chocolate icing.”
Right, I am a Philistine, somewhat practical and utilitarian in my approach to art. I’ve wandered through the National Gallery of Art’s two wings and stopped to sit on a bench to stare at a painting or two. I’ve stood before squiggles and lines, almost blank canvases and multicolored ones, in front of representational art collected over the ages and preserved on guarded walls in stark halls. I’ve looked at titles and read the captions. And I’m still hard pressed to define the difference between art by Pigcasso and some abstract artists, regardless of their—and their astute critics’—contentions that they might be turning chaos into order or showing the underlying chaos in any order or that they might be carrying on an artistic tradition that is justifiable as ars gratia artis. Hey, I’ve seen those images before: I’ve had nightmares when I was feverish as a kid; I know the mix of colors, lines, and shapes that the brain forges from every experience.
I’ve even seen a cumulus cloud that looked like Pigcasso. Should I have taken or drawn a pic?
* https://pigcasso.myshopify.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pigcasso/
https://www.dogonews.com/2018/2/5/meet-pigcasso-the-worlds-first-pig-artist
**Pomeroy, Ross. The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts across the Globe. RealClear Science. 18 August 2014, online at https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/08/the_most_infamous_study_on_wine_tasting.html Accessed September 26, 2019.
***See David McRaney’s You Are Not So Smart for an account of Frederic Brochet’s experiments with “wine experts.”
You remember that study in which people with noses and palates for wine were fooled as a researcher simply colored white wine to look like red wine? ** There was a corollary study that mislabeled wines for a test group. *** Is there a difference between one’s being fooled by packaging a cheap wine under an expensive wine label and one’s being fooled by splotches and lines painted on a canvas by an animal and not a human? Is it intent, the intent of the artist or the intent of the observer?
If art is a matter of intent, then one has to ask how to judge intent? And if it is not a matter of intent, and if critics who say that there’s more in any artwork than any creator knows, then is any judgement of art simply a matter of personal preference and guesswork. Is a cheap wine that tastes good to the taster as good as an expensive wine that tastes good to the taster?
So, who pays for artwork done by a pig? A philanthropist who wants to donate money to a zoo or rescue farm? A shrewd investor who knows that once an artwork is sold for X number of dollars, it’s price will go up in resale? Someone with so much money that buying pig art is a novelty or joke? And, here’s the question for you: Do you have any knickknacks? Any coffee table sculptures of twisted shapes (“Oh! Look at the curving lines; feel the smooth sides; it’s like a Möbius strip, just going on forever, and it’s contained within the space above my coffee table; sooo artistic”) or any paintings of Elvis on velvet?
“You’re revealing your Philistinism, Don. Uneducated in the arts, you simply don’t understand the nuances, the refinements, the aesthetics behind the art. You probably think that abstract art is child’s play, that any child with fingers can paint with chocolate icing.”
Right, I am a Philistine, somewhat practical and utilitarian in my approach to art. I’ve wandered through the National Gallery of Art’s two wings and stopped to sit on a bench to stare at a painting or two. I’ve stood before squiggles and lines, almost blank canvases and multicolored ones, in front of representational art collected over the ages and preserved on guarded walls in stark halls. I’ve looked at titles and read the captions. And I’m still hard pressed to define the difference between art by Pigcasso and some abstract artists, regardless of their—and their astute critics’—contentions that they might be turning chaos into order or showing the underlying chaos in any order or that they might be carrying on an artistic tradition that is justifiable as ars gratia artis. Hey, I’ve seen those images before: I’ve had nightmares when I was feverish as a kid; I know the mix of colors, lines, and shapes that the brain forges from every experience.
I’ve even seen a cumulus cloud that looked like Pigcasso. Should I have taken or drawn a pic?
* https://pigcasso.myshopify.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pigcasso/
https://www.dogonews.com/2018/2/5/meet-pigcasso-the-worlds-first-pig-artist
**Pomeroy, Ross. The Legendary Study That Embarrassed Wine Experts across the Globe. RealClear Science. 18 August 2014, online at https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/08/the_most_infamous_study_on_wine_tasting.html Accessed September 26, 2019.
***See David McRaney’s You Are Not So Smart for an account of Frederic Brochet’s experiments with “wine experts.”
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