For about as long as humans have contemplated the nature of life, love, and existence, we have pondered over the question of what is Art. What constitutes art, and more precisely, what can be considered good or worthwhile art? Is there a hierarchy of artforms, and if there is, how is this order determined? And what of the category of aesthetic objects like ceramics, textiles, and other “crafts” – can these be considered art, or are they something else? Beyond that, can even everyday objects and experiences be classified as art in certain contexts?
Art as skill
On a recent Sunday morning, over cappuccinos and particularly flaky-good croissants at Sea Wolf Bakers in Fremont, my boyfriend and I engaged in friendly debate over these very questions. Our conversation ranged from whether photography can be placed under the art umbrella – jury’s still out on that one – to my boyfriend’s apparent great admiration for the works of the Baroque sculptor Bernini – an appreciation which I fail to fully share.
Ultimately, we determined that a key qualifying criterion would seem to involve some measure of talent, ability, or merit. Quite obviously then, painting a landscape, or a good one anyway, requires a certain level of skill. But what takes more ability – a hyper-realistic painting of a landscape or that same landscape painted in an Impressionist style?
In my estimation, the realistic representation likely requires more nuance and subject knowledge, particularly when depicting animal and human figures that necessitate an understanding of proportion and anatomy, as well as greater technical precision in terms of placement of brushstrokes and lines. Whereas my boyfriend argued that the Impressionist painter must utilize higher order processes like associative thinking and possess a better conceptual understanding of the subject in order to know how to arrange lines and colors in a way that abstracts and approximates, say, a meadow or mountain range without actually representing it so that it will be recognizable to anyone for what it is.
While the reader can decide for themselves who won that one, we both agreed that generally, a degree of competency must be discernible in a work in order for it to be considered (good) art, regardless of the style or medium. Following this revelation, we immediately ran into another familiar quandary, which is that those trades traditionally thought of as “crafts” (woodworking, glass blowing, pottery, and the like) require a great deal of specific knowledge and technical skill, yet they have historically not been considered “art” as such. Producing practical, utilitarian objects, crafts apparently do not deal in the expressive, abstract, and symbolic realm of the so-called “fine arts.”
Difference, not degree
Photography is another one of those mediums that sits ambiguously on the line of not-quite art. To be a good photographer nevertheless requires a certain level of skill. As my boyfriend argued, there are certainly people who have a knack for finding the right light and angles and making the technical adjustments to produce great photographs. But he was quick to point out that just about anyone with enough training and practice can eventually learn to take reasonably decent pictures. That is, virtually anyone with a mind for it can become competent in photography. And as for the editing and manipulation of pictures, let alone the application of Instagram filters… don’t get him started. Using this skill-based criterion, photography is not art, or it at least cannot be classified in the same tier of art as say, painting or sculpture, because the threshold for competency is too low.
While it might be true that certain mediums are easier to work with or are more accessible and have a lower learning curve than others, it is also reasonable to assume that the same competency argument might be made of any skill or trade that is well-practiced. If someone wanted to become proficient at painting, given enough study and investment of time, there is a reasonable chance that they could do so.
It would seem then that the issue at hand is less one of degree and more one of difference. As in painting is different from sculpture which is different from photography which is different from quilting. Though they might be broadly understood as belonging to the same far-ranging category of art, they are categorically different. Comparisons of worth or value – painting is better than pottery – are thus not especially useful. It’s a classic case of apples to oranges. Individual taste and preference, of course, must still be accounted for, but these are subjective and external and cannot speak to any universal or inherent superiority of one artform over another.
Art and the domestic aesthetic
This idea of difference over degree is explored through an unusual comparison of art to housekeeping in author and environmental historian Jessica J. Lee’s “Home Life: Cultivating a Domestic Aesthetic.” As Lee notes, “art and domesticity need not be treated as part of a hierarchy or degree of aesthetic quality. Both belong to the category of that which can be considered aesthetic.” As two separate categories within the aesthetic realm, the commonality between art and domesticity is in the engagement of the individual with the object or environment – in viewing a painting in the former case or in folding the laundry in the latter. The difference then lies not in the “mode of perception or consumption” – both are fundamentally sensory – but in their “genesis and construction.” The distinction here being that art is often created with a specific category of art in mind while domesticity is performed within the course of daily life.
Now, at first blush this comparison of domestic life to art might seem odd. To further develop this idea and the broader concept of the aesthetic in daily life, we turn to the fields of environmental and everyday aesthetics. Writers in this space extend the scope of the aesthetic beyond the narrow category of art to that of common objects and environments as well as everyday activities. In this vein, Lee explores the “sensual qualities of domestic life” and how the act of performing everyday household tasks can generate pleasure and gratification in the participant. Her examination of the domestic aesthetic is an effort to expand the aesthetic beyond “the lofty feelings enjoyed when we witness a beautiful painting or sculpture” to the everyday practices of “noticing the tactile pleasure of running water while doing the dishes… [or] associating the smell of a particular soap with a grandparent and therefore taking pleasure in its use.”
Still, you might be asking what art or aesthetics has to do with washing a pile of dirty dishes. After all, such tasks are performed with the primary goal of sanitizing and creating order in a space. While there is a motive of cleanliness and hygiene to this, of course, there is also one driven by the positive experience of a clean, uncluttered, and attractive living space. We store clothes away in dressers and closets, light candles in rooms, and arrange pillows and throw blankets just-so because these practices produce a living space that is tidy and put together, but also appealing, cozy, and pleasant to be in.
In this way, the role of the “homemaker” is likened to that of a curator, a concept which Lee attributes to artist and philosophy professor Kevin Melchionne. The “composition” of a polished and well-furnished home invites both the occupants and their guests to view it as a work of art. The problem with this, however, as Lee points out, is that treating domesticity as art reverts to that pesky hierarchical view of aesthetics. It requires that “domestic drudgery” be elevated to the status of art in order to be recognized as aesthetic, rather than being held apart and judged for its own aesthetic merits.
On the aesthetics of laundry
To move beyond this, Lee recommends a view of aesthetics that emphasizes the full, embodied experience of the participant and an expanded view of the senses beyond the visual and auditory to include the olfactory, gustatory, and haptic, as well as the synesthesia of these perceptions. This shifts the focus away from the object of aesthetic judgment and its status or functionality to the practice of engagement and the individual’s interaction with the environment. Thus, we can speak of the homemaker experiencing “the entire gamut of sensory data” through the physical movements of their body as they push a vacuum across the floor or drag a sponge across the kitchen counter.
Lee describes how from this “physical engagement with pleasing tactile and olfactory sensations,” the homemaker can begin to engage in “imaginative play between memory or ideals and real-time engagement with an activity.” This is where the individual might begin to move beyond the purely sensuous to the intellectual and meaning-making processes that are essential components of the aesthetic experience. To understand what it means to engage these imaginative and intellectual faculties in practice, we’ll look at two examples Lee provides that are both related to the act of doing laundry. In a general sense, Lee argues that:
“it is through the practice of hand-washing our clothes that we are connected not solely with the sensory stimulation of water, soap, and cloth, but also with our shared imaginings of washer-women throughout history, the domestic ideals presented by past ages, and our own personal ideals of domesticity. These ideals are themselves expressed in and through our cultural imaginings of them in everyday life and cultural production.”
Through this initial sensory experience – the sound and sensation of hot running water mingling with the fresh-smelling suds of the soap – imaginative processes like memory and nostalgia are formed and enhanced. Our imaginings of historical and cultural images and meanings attached to clothes-washing are triggered and reinforced by this physical act that engages each one of our senses. To further highlight how the specific act of doing the laundry can be understood as an aesthetic experience, Lee pulls extensively from Pauliina Rautio’s study, “On Hanging Laundry: The Place of Beauty in Managing Everyday Life.” Referencing a woman’s letters that describe the beauty she finds in her everyday life and domestic routine, Lee recounts how the act of hanging laundry reminds the woman,
“of her environment, generates a sense of ease and belonging (her children playing, her laundry hanging on the line) and evokes an almost nostalgic sense of domestic life and homemaking for her family. As her letters describe these moments, it emerges that this sense of aesthetic pleasure or satisfaction is developed specifically from certain plays of color and light, texture, and arrangement of the laundry items. She takes pleasure in arranging her children’s clothes according to their moods, enjoys matching the clothes pegs to the items, and notices the surrounding colors of the yard across which her laundry line spans. In this sense, she is aesthetically engaged with surface qualities, tactile features, visual arrangements, and her own memories.”
It is especially interesting that it is the “plays of color and light, texture, and arrangement” that aesthetically engages the woman and gives her a sense of pleasure. One might in fact point to the very same features of a particular painting to describe why it is interesting or pleasing to look at. Naturally, not everyone will have such an aesthetic experience while hanging clothes on the line or share this particular woman’s affinity for laundry. And of course this may not be reflective of every person’s experience every time as they go about their own housekeeping rituals.
There is nevertheless a capacity for aesthetic appreciation in the simple act of tidying up. The nature and degree of the domestic aesthetic will differ from that of an aesthetic experience induced by viewing a work of art, as it will differ from that of one generated through encountering a sublime natural landscape. Nonetheless, these all posses the ability to engage and stimulate our senses in a way that opens our minds to imaginative and meaning-making possibilities.
Down with the hierarchy!
This brings us back to the genesis of this long-winded musing – ascertaining the value of the art or aesthetic object. Can and how might we extend the same skill-based criterion that we applied to the landscape painter to the judgment of the domestic? We can of course evaluate one living space against another in terms of cleanliness and order. We might count the number of piles of dirty clothes versus stacks of neatly folded clean laundry. Or we could examine the relative levels of dust on the furniture and even quantify the number of bacteria lurking in the bathroom. And this would provide us with specific types of data and information. But it would not offer any insight into the aesthetic value of the domestic, for that resides not in any quantitative measure, but in the experience of the individual engaged in maintaining the space.
In the same way, we can apply this principle to our understanding of art and how it might be experienced aesthetically. Rather than placing an inordinate focus on the art object itself and its relative status to other pieces of the same or differing kinds, we can consider the experience of the observer and the sensory and imaginative processes that arise during their engagement with the object. That is, we might examine how a particular work of art does or does not engage our senses and how this sensory stimulation might or might not trigger a kind of emotional, intellectual, or imaginative response.
Examining the quality of like works – an Impressionist painting against another Impressionist painting – might tell us something about the technical quality of the piece and the skill of the artist. But utilizing this hierarchical model of the aesthetic more broadly to compare categorically difference works – the quality of an Impressionist painting to a Baroque sculpture – is less meaningful. By removing the aesthetic from this art-centered hierarchical paradigm, we are able to engage with a far more expansive range of objects, environments, and activities that, while not “art” per se, require their own expertise and have their own aesthetic value.