Art Lesson #4: It's not proper art unless it's fine art

Have a look at these five paintings. 

They are (top row): The Hold House, Porthmear (1932) by Alfred Wallis, Woman V by Willem de Kooning (1953) and Take care of the environment by Nino Gotsiridze (2007). The bottom row are The Great Lion by Eric Tournaire (2007) and Big Dog on the Back Seat of the Car (2009) by Emma McClure. 

Which is the odd one out … and why? 

Nino Gotsiridze’s painting is the odd one out. Because he painted it when he was eight years old. 

Did you get it right? 

Some people do, some don’t. But it doesn’t matter. Putting aside whether you like them or not, four of these pictures are considered to be fine art. One isn’t. Why? Because a handful of experts have said so. And what criteria do you suppose they used when making their decisions? Probably the fact that some millionaire liked a painting so much that they were willing to pay big money to own it. 

The Alfred Wallis picture (top left of that group of five) alone is worth in the region of £50,000 – but would you hang it on your wall? Some would, some wouldn’t. But that’s the point. Unless we are serious collectors or investors, what we usually care about most is whether we like a picture, not whether it’s considered Fine Art or otherwise. 

So how do experts decide what falls into the category of fine art? Sometimes it's because the work is part of an art movement like the Impressionsts or the YBAs (Young British Artists). However, very few individual pieces of art fit neatly into any one single, rigidly defined category. 

Image: MoMA, New York/Scala, Florence

Every profession has its own language. Nuclear physicists use terms among themselves that we outsiders would probably not understand. Bankers use terms and references at work that would make no sense to non-bankers. It’s the same for doctors, builders, police officers, brewers … and for people in the art profession. Having a professional language makes communication easier (it can also be elitist, of course). For people in the art business, categories of art are part of their professional language . However, the categories are pretty meaningless outside of the rarefied worlds of art criticism or art history. While the labels can be handy for tracing the evolution of artistic styles and movements, most of us don’t really care if something is classified as Fauve or Constructivist or Fluxus or Bauhaus. 

The philosopher Kendall L Walton once said: ‘Paintings and sculptures are to be looked at; sonatas and songs are to be heard. What is important about these works of art, as works of art, is what can be seen and heard in them’. Who made them, what medium they used and which category a piece of art falls into should always be of less importance than the art itself. Besides which, the categories people insist upon don’t always hold up to scrutiny. 

For example, many experts will tell you that anything produced for a common or practical purpose – knitting, furniture making, flower arranging etc. – is a craft or a skill, rather than fine art. But that’s a rather snooty attitude and it’s insulting to anyone who has conceived an idea and then spent many hours turning it into a reality. Of course, if you’re already a famous artist or celebrity, anything you do will end up in a fine art gallery because it's bankable. Secondly, when it comes to crafts not being fine art, history begs to differ. 

That's Nike of Samothrace (or the Winged Victory), a 2nd century Greek marble statue now on display at the Louvre, Paris. Modern excavations suggest that it was once an altar decoration at an open-air theatre. The artist is unknown. And, more importantly for this discussion, they were not considered to be an artist in their lifetime. In classical Greece and Rome, statues of gods, goddesses and other minor deities served the same purpose as hanging a horseshoe over the door does today. Most homes had one and the bigger you could afford the better. But they weren’t works of art. They were knocked out by the thousand as ornaments and good luck charms by unnamed craftspeople who were seen as mere manual labourers, little better than slaves. For the Greeks, the arts were the domain of the Nine Muses. Art was epic poetry, hymns, love poetry, comedy, tragedy, song, history, astronomy and dance. There was no Muse associated with painting or sculpture. Consequently, those works were not considered to be art. Nowadays, of course, they fill museums and galleries and exchange hands for a small fortune. 

So how about this item?

That's a Shaker ladderback chair circa 1850 from Maine, USA. Like Nike above, the maker is unknown. And they were not considered to be an artist. The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (known as the Shakers due to the ecstatic and animated nature of their group worship) believed that making something simple and well-constructed was, in itself, an act of meditation and prayer. Consequently, the furniture they made for their insular communities was designed to be plain and austere in keeping with the lives they’d chosen to lead. However, in the 1950s, many architects and designers found themselves hugely inspired by the clean simplicity of Shaker design and began to incorporate it into their own work. It is now seen as a major influence on the development of art and design in the USA and original pieces can be worth thousands of dollars. 

Neither Nike or the Shaker chair were considered 'fine art' until some influential people said they were.

I also have a particular issue with the categories ‘commercial art’ and ‘graphic design’. These are labels generally applied to artwork created to a brief for a client, rather than art created on an artist’s whim. Should such artwork ever be considered fine art? Of course it should.

Look into the history of the world’s greatest symphonies and you’ll soon discover that they were composed to a brief. Many of the artworks on display in the world’s most exclusive galleries were painted for paying customers. Professional artists don’t work for free.  Any number of classical artists had patrons who paid them a living wage if they turned out artwork to order. 

Those are Henri Toulouse-Lautrec’s poster for Le Divan Japonais (1893) and Mucha’s Biscuits Lefévre-Utile (1897). Many of their best known images were created for use in advertising. 

Now consider Sir Peter Blake’s LP cover for The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or Andy Warhol’s screen-printed sleeve for The Velvet Underground and Nico’s first eponymous album. Would we call these people commercial artists rather than fine artists? 

Incidentally, I’d argue that there are many other LP covers (or even paperback covers) that are just as iconic and as important to the history of art and design as these two – but they don’t get the same accolades because they weren’t created by established fine artists. Consider Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, or Close to the Edge by Yes, or the Sex Pistols’ Never mind the Bollocks, or Nirvana’s Nevermind. These were albums that helped to define and inspire a generation and you probably know the artwork for each very well. But could you name the artist in each case? 

(They were Storm Thorgerson and George Hardie at Hipgnosis, Roger Dean, Jamie Reid, and Kirk Weddle.)

It seems wrong to me that they don’t get the same accolades as Blake and Warhol just because the album covers were ‘jobs’. Michelangelo didn’t just break into the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City and start daubing the ceiling you know. It was a paid gig. 

There is a small group of people who hold an extraordinary position of power over the world of art. They make a career out of telling us what fine art is and which artists we should all be watching. They are gallery owners, art buyers and critics. They are unquestionably knowledgeable people. They are also obviously lovers of art. But they also have a vested interest in maintaining their dominance and control because, without that, they would have no jobs and their collections/businesses would be worthless.

However, as we’ve discussed, you cannot define what is or isn’t fine art because there is no universal benchmark. Opinions and tastes vary. You also cannot say that a piece of art is either good or bad art because every piece is different and you can't compare unlike with unlike. Thirdly, this small group of people may have several lifetimes of experience looking at art but they only get to see a very, very small proportion of all the art created. Therefore, 99% of art never gets to be appraised and valued by them. More often than not, the only work they see has come through the university/art school system or is produced by celebrities. Anyone outside of that system is excluded. Does that mean the work they produce isn't fine art? Of course it doesn't.

I therefore contend that the term 'fine art' is almost meaningless.

If you make a piece of art and you love it, it's fine.