Scruton and the Art of Photography

Scruton convincingly shows that the art of photography is best served when judged by different standards than those applied to the art of painting and his definition of the ideal photograph. He stated, “it is not necessary to define the subject of a photograph in terms of this causal process…the subject is so defined for my logical ideal of photography: that premise is all my argument requires” (p 222.). He claims that the intentional act involved in the ideal photograph is not an essential part of the photographic relation. According to Scruton, the ideal photograph yields an appearance, but it is only interesting as a record of how an actual object looked, not as the realization of an intention (p. 214.). While this might be true of some types of photography some of the time, I do not believe it to be true for all types of photography, and certainly not all of the time.

I can compare photographers of nature, people, and landscapes, to artists, who painted scenes of village, country, aristocratic, military, or monastic life, utilizing existing landscapes, buildings, and accoutrements to capture the essence of the times and their intent.

Scruton’s argument that a photograph lacks “intentional existence” and is incapable of representing anything unreal excises the imagination and vision of the photographer and the observer from the artistic process. We might “see” dragons, unicorns, gnomes, or trolls in patterns of cloud formations, tree bark, boulders, sand, or landscapes, and choose to photograph, and even share these visions with others. Our sense of what the photographer intended might determine our experience of what is there, in the same manner a painter’s intentions might determine our experience of the subject of the painting (p 215).

I do not believe that a painting is necessarily a complete expression of the thought it contains. If that were true, then we would not need art reviews, art critics, or art experts, and we would not have discussions about incomprehensible art.

Portraiture photographs of people, and other sentient non-human animals, which capture the subject’s eyes looking directly at the photographer, can be compelling and revealing in a time-less mode. The ability of a photograph to capture the essence of a person is the reason many aboriginal people believed that photographs stole the soul of the person photographed. Scruton did not address the powerful stories told by this style of photography.

Our reading thus far this semester has illustrated the fact that knowledge does inform our aesthetic appreciation of art. When observing a photograph of children interacting, knowledge of children adds to our depth of understanding of the relational experience of the children, and possibly even insight into the nature of the soul of the children; who they were then, and what nature of adults they will most like become. Knowledge of the subject, whether that subject is animate or inanimate informs our relationship with its representation, whether painted or photographed. While viewing a photograph of the Grand Canyon, we can appreciate the processes of erosion that sculpted it, the edaphic qualities that provide its coloration, and the enormity of its scale. Knowledge of the subject can complete the expression of the thought within an image, and provide it with that sense of permanence Scruton believes is a requirement of true representational thought. These are some of the reasons I believe Scruton failed to convincingly show photography to be lesser art form than painting.

My Questions:

1. Does digitally optimizing a picture (according to the sense of the individual photographer) alter its basic nature - making it more or less of an artistic object?

2. Can photographs "capture the soul" of the sentient-being photographed?

Edit of "Can we have immoral art; and how might we characterize it?"

I apologize for the errors in editing my questions and the hiccup in my train of thought.

Question 4 should be: Once created, does a work of performance art have its own existence, separate from its performers?

Question 5. Once created, does a work of art have its own existence separate from observers?

Can we have immoral art; and how might we characterize it?

I believe there are three theoretical categories of immoral art and that real works of art can be found in all three theoretical categories.

I would characterize the first category as art produced by an immoral person, where the judgment of immorality is based upon the artist’s character and is not necessarily related to the actual production of said art. In such a case, a value judgment of immorality levied against an artist would then be transferred to the object of art through the association of its creation from an immoral source. Examples of this category of immoral art would be the art produced by Adolph Hitler, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, and Michael Jackson. (For more of Hitler's paintings go to http://quazen.com/arts/art-history/10-paintings-by-adolf-hitler/)

The second category would be characterized as art produced through immoral actions. Here, a value judgment of immorality levied against the method of artistic production would then be conveyed to the art object by virtue of its immoral fabrication. Examples of this category of immoral art would be: art produced from stolen materials or ideas; art produced involuntarily (from coercion in any form on any sentient being, i.e., slave or child labor, blackmail, all wild animal performances, inhumane domestic animal performances); art produced or performed through immoral actions such as killing a sentient being for the purpose of using their bodily fluids or other parts as a medium in an artistic creation (blood for paint, skin as canvas, bones in sculptures), utilizing paint drenched bodies in an orgy directed on canvas or sculpting medium (this has the potential to be a painting or sculpture created from an immoral act or a performance of an immoral act (category #3) or both); and art conceived, created, or performed while the artist/s are using illegal substances, i.e. heroin, cocaine, marijuana, peyote, and alcohol (when legal age-applicable). This category would also have to contain art conceived, created, or performed in a drunken (or other legally sanctioned, mind/consciousness altering substance) stupor – a morally deficient state. Here the immorality lies in the method and the means of production.

The third category would harbor any art offering for consumption representational, or actual, immoral objects and activities, including vocal and verbal communication. Art (including literary works of art and opera) depicting killing, maiming, raping, pillaging, war, crucifixions, slavery, domination, classism, prejudice, elitism, sexism, ageism, species extinction, lewd and lascivious dancing, music, or performances, acts of love-making or fornication, elimination of bodily wastes, expletives, or artistic performances involving any immoral language, gestures, sounds, or activities fall into this third category.

All three categories share one thing; we are not judging the morals of the art itself. Instead, we are judging the morals intrinsic to the art’s creators, or judging the morality of the manufacturing methods these creators employed to produce their art, or judging the morality or immorality of the ideas, objects, sounds, and actions, i.e., the content presented by the art’s creators.

Richard Westwood-Brookes, a historical documents expert at Mullock's of Shropshire auction house, on being questioned about the sale of Hitler-related artifacts said, "I don't take any moral position. You can't say this guy was a bad guy, so I won't sell his memorabilia, this guy was a good guy so I will sell his. If you do that, where do you stop?"
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/04/23/hitler.auction/index.html

Morals and art are interpreted through the different perspectives born of culture, educated by life-experience, curiosity, and reflection. Art, which is itself an object and therefore lacks agency, is morally neutral. It is only within the context of the interaction between the art and its observer can the question of morals be raised. Moreover, that context will either be informed by, or ignorant of, the personal morals of its creator and/or the morality or immorality involved in the production and presentation of said work of art. It is within the framework of that context our reflections on morality should be deliberated. That context is ripe with “eyes of the other,” opportunities for Socratic Moments, and self-and societal-enrichment.

My Questions:

1.Do moral considerations, whether they concern the artist or the artistic object itself, have any relevance to whether or not a thing qualifies as a work of art?

2.Should the moral or immoral actions of artists effect how we evaluate their art?

3.Once created, does a work of art have its own existence, separate from its creator?

4.Once created, does a work of performance art have its own existence, separate from its performers?

Classifying Art in Nature

A response to Tania's question: In regards to art, how does one classify nature, clearly nature is functional, and as far as intention one may need to first consider a divine force in order to follow the question out a bit further, but if one were than where would it fit?

Some non-human sentient beings intentionally create architectural structures, others intentionally create (or recreate) music (performed solo, in duets, or in a chorus), some perform elaborate dances, some purposefully seek out specific objects that they then intentionally arrange in a unique pattern (“found art”), some adapt human-made instruments to create visual or musical arrangements. Given these facts, we should consider these types of non-human creations from an artistic point of view.

I believe beings with certain capacities far superior to human beings exist, however, I do not think that would necessarily make them divine beings. I do believe these meta-human beings intentionally create and express themselves in what human beings would consider artistic modes.

My Questions: Why do you think most human beings are so reluctant to consider the intentional artistic expression of mammals and birds as art?

Self-consciousness and Others

I believe the understanding in class is that, thus far, we have been discussing art philosophy from the anthropocentric perspective (a perspective I find incomplete in certain ways). After reading "Personhood and the Paradoxes and Challenges of Cultural Progress" I found myself wondering why many philosophical discourses continue to omit the potentially valuable inclusion of sentient non-human others. I assume there is a logical explanation for this purposeful omission, but I believe this omission interferes with our personal exploration and understanding of our world, with attending negative consequences for society.

Yake's discussion of Hegel's insight "we are what we can become as we see ourselves reflected in the eyes of those who look on us," was prefaced with the statement that "the flow and growth of personhood via self-consciousness is primarily the consequent of human interaction..." In today's disjointed society, with its incohesive families, estranged by divorce, physical, generational, and moral distances, more human beings find solace, companionship, and community in the company of non-human beings.

I am aware of how much I have grown (and seek to continue this self- and other-consciousness) from seeing myself reflected in the eyes of other (not human) beings. I believe that self- and other-consciousness would lead to moral considerations of others, creating a system of compassionate ethics that would encompass all sentient life forms.

My Question:
Can a self- and other-consciousness ethic be implemented in art?