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The Principles of Art (Galaxy Books) ReviewThis is near the top of my list of the ten best non-fiction books of all time. It is a must-read masterpiece of philosphy that will enable you to distinguish true art from mere commercialism or self-promotion. After reading this book, you likely won't ever again be intimidated into giving the name of "art" to something that's merely become fashionable with the in-crowd.Collingwood was a don at Oxford during the 1930's and 40's. Familiarity with him is waning even in England, and he is hardly known at all in the U.S. He deserves to be discovered and rediscovered internationally though. He has written a number of enlightening books defining the proper spheres of subjects such as history. But I think this book is his crowning achievement. Here he defines art in a way that can transform every casual trip to the museum or every opening of a book of poetry or prose into a meaningful experience based on the ability to appreciate what is authentic. He approaches the subject of art by the process of elimination. He will lead you to understand what art is, by recognizing what it is not.
For example, Collingwood does not deem anything that is only craftsmanship to be a work of art. If a person simply succeeds in building a table, chair, or house to blueprint specifications in fulfillment of some strictly utilitarian goal - then it is not art and its producer is not an artist. A furniture-maker is a craftsman.
Likewise, Collingwood argues that art is not propaganda. He defines propaganda broadly. It doesn't refer only to posters aimed at inciting political fervor. He also includes anything contrived solely with the intention of wringing a certain emotion out of an audience. So for example, a painting showing a dog urinating on a figure of Jesus would be a piece of propaganda if its aim was merely to provoke a sense of shock and outrage in viewers. Paintings of generic, wisteria-lined paths, of mothers baking pies, of cuddlesome dogs cavorting or playing poker - would all similarly be classified as propaganda by Collingwood. That's because these familiar productions are intended solely to evoke feelings of sentimentality, nostalgia, or amusement in viewers. In that sense, they are designed strictly as manipulations.
All such formulations may include elements of art, or may achieve the overall status of art if they are more than the mere intentions cited above. What is this "more" that will lift a thing into the realm of true art? That's what you must read this book to find out.
As a hint though, Collingwood suggests that in order to be art, a work must be an individual's deeply personal expression. It must the chronicle of a journey the artist started before he/she had a specific destination in mind. Real art conveys a sense of the artist discovering what he has to say while he is en route. Anything totally predictable and preplanned is just a tourist trap. A piece of true art usually has as its core some accidental rightness, some fortuity like a grain of sand in an oyster's shell. It may be a phrase or a color or a chord that catches into the artist as the kernel of an idea. It's the skeletal remains of a steer on a blazing desert roadside, or four portentously rapping notes of music. Then the artist's work is to skillfully grow out that idea into a fully rounded organic entity, to accumulate meaning around it, and in the process, to articulate some idea he has long held inchoate in himself. The artist manifests himself, embodies his thought, finds himself, in the act of creating his work. Art isn't the fulfilling of some intention that was clearly outlined beforehand. And it certainly isn't some shiftless posturing in an attic, punctuated by sporadic sallies out to spike sensation in an audience. It's a skillful, disciplined clarification of oneself.
Collingwood brings these ideas together in a remarkable tour de force. This book should be part of every school's curriculum. It provides the best definition of art I've read. And in the process, it will acquaint you with a lot of specific works of art, classical and modern, and the reasons they qualify as art. Collingwood also traces the development of the crucial terms he uses, such as craft, magic, and art itself through their rich linguistic histories. As they have been transformed, gathering layers of connotation, they suggest new perspectives from which to view the artifacts of the various cultures in which they traveled.
Reading Collingwood made me realize what value there could be in a classical education - what value there could be in acquiring fluency in Latin and Greek. Collingwood amazingly brings all this traditional learning to bear on illuminating his ideas. In doing this though, Collingwood won't provoke you to shrug, "It's all Greek to me." He remains highly readable throughout.
The book won't stop at guiding you in how to identify real art though. Like me, I think you will find this book informing every facet of your life, and ultimately pointing the way to how to make your life itself a work of art. We should strive not to achieve specific goals or earn specific credits or manipulate others into reacting towards us in certain ways. Again - the secret lies in not knowing the destination before you start the journey.
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