Hey there, fellas. I threw this together a little while back.
It's aimed to alleviate some issues concerning ideation and giving and taking constructive feedback.

If you think you might be interested hop in and read it below:

Purpose In Art(please ignore the thread title,sorry)

Okay, so, at least in my opinion, there are quite a bunch of delusions surrounding arts, that modern human society wallows in. I tried to express my view on the subject of Talent a while back, but now comes the turn of of art being too subjective to judge.

Considering art subjective is the norm nowadays, since a lot of people seem to be brought up this way. The reasons for it trace back to the rise of “modern” art in 20th century, when paintings became completely abstract with a lengthy sophisticated description and reviews from the art establishment communicating their meaning. I dare say the modern art killed in people the desire to judge the works of art, elevating it “above” the level of an average Joe, who, out of fear of sounding simple-minded, will just say that he doesn't know much about art, so it's not for him to judge. And it seems that many people carry this mentality on into their artistic endeavors.

So it is very common, for beginning artists, to retort any kind of criticism with the subject following their unique and personal vision that surprisingly no one understands.

This notion carries on into professional world as well, where it creates all sorts of complicated situations. When your artists cannot satisfy your lead, because the lead is incapable of clearly communicating why does he request certain fixes all the time, while artists are incapable of clearly communicating their problems and outsourcing just makes you want to stick a couple of pencils in your nose and whack your head against the table.

Unfortunately, people living with a firm belief that art could be uncriticizeably subjective miss out on an opportunity to logically understand it more. And it makes them weaker artists then they could've been. It's like trying to compose music by ear without ever trying to grasp the musical theory. You can live without it, but knowing it would make you that much better.

But!
The notion of art being too subjective to judge could actually be proven inconsistent by logic alone in the majority of cases.

In order for that logic to hold up the artwork needs to possess just one attribute that hardly anything in the universe exists without: “A Purpose”. If you think about it, everything in the world is defined by its purpose and can truly be judged only in regards to it. You know that subconsciously: you’d never advise someone painting a fruit still life to paint a spaceship in the foreground. But being conscious about this logic allows you to apply it to every little detail, solving problems and finding answers in the places you’ve never thought of before.

To criticize an art piece (or anything else for that matter) firstly and most importantly, you have to establish its purpose. And then you try to see which features of the object obstruct the realization of the purpose or could accentuate it more productively.

That is the surest way to continuously make your work better and to give objective and productive feedback. If you are dedicated to producing the best artwork possible every single piece of you work should reinforce your purpose and if it doesn’t, then it could be redundant. From colors and composition to the smallest of details.

Sometimes artistic choice could be a torture and here’s an uncanny example from my personal experience how “the purpose” of your work could help you answer the most unexpected of questions: I was making a desert environment, that was about discovering an ancient location and I had to decide on the kind of dunes that were there and the wind direction in the establishing shot. Being inclined to reinforce the purpose I decided that the wind should be blowing right to left in screen space because in semantics of left-to-right-writing cultures the movement from right to left subconsciously means “going back” or “to the past” which seemed to “fit”. A meaningless detail became meaningful and since wind direction greatly affects the formation of sand dunes I got a lot of questions answered for me just by trying to reinforce my purpose. It’s the sort of thing when the puzzle pieces just start magically fitting together.

There’s also one very important thing to know. And that is that every artistical question has a variety of correct answers.
If I have an empty space in my concept and you advise me to put a space ship or a chunk of flying rock there - whichever I choose, they both serve the purpose of balancing out the composition objectively well. Unless, of course, there are other purposes that would require a more specific choice.

Also sometimes smaller decisions are just a matter of personal preference and don’t make any real difference. It’s important to be able to identify those, especially in a production environment. Years ago, I practiced it as an “art of letting go”. With every little thing I wanted to fix in a model I asked myself whether it was a mistake or just a matter of taste. If it was the latter I forced myself to simply let go. This kind of approach eliminates overwork and actually makes you more tolerant to preferences of other people. And this is especially crucial for someone in a lead position, because you never want to be the guy, who demands this pixel green, since it just creates progressively more overwork and irritates your subordinates. In fact, if you have subordinates, it is your responsibility before them to be as logical and transparent about your demands and criticism as possible. I’ve always thought that if a person is smart enough to be in a lead position, he should have no trouble clearly explaining reasons behind his decisions. And if not, he’s could be wasting your time and the companys’ money.

But here’s an important question: How do you tell a personal preference from a legitimate fix? Pretty easy, actually. If you can’t objectively formulate how your suggestion helps reinforce the purpose of the object than it almost certainly is just your personal preference. And it, being done, will please some people a bit, but then it’ll just displease others, who have a different preference, so following with those fixes seems pretty moot.

Important to note, that I am in no way stating that art is not subjective at all, I just think that personal taste shows through mostly in defining the purposes. Because later on pretty much everyone can hop in and work in the framework you create. As it actually happens with art directors and concept artists in real games or movies. Even your junior artist, for example, can come up with something within this framework that is objectively better(relatively to the purpose) then what the art director originally planned, and not following with this idea would actually hurt the project.

So in case you’re not spreading grandmas’ poop on canvas to show your imaginary friend, you almost certainly gonna have a purpose to your art, which means it can be objectively criticized according to it. Even coming back to abstract art examples, if their purpose is to be chaotic, happy or calm, there’s still plenty of advice to be heard. And if someone gives you “wrong” feedback you don’t tell them that it doesn’t “fit your vision”, but try to communicate your purpose instead. And see it as a point in itself: If a lot of people give you “wrong” feedback then your art fails to communicate your purpose at all, which is the first major problem to tackle.

As with talent, a lot of people try to use subjectivity in art as a form a social defense mechanism, looking for an excuse for a job poorly done. It’s also quite easily identified, by the lack of clear purpose by the author himself. If you are that kind of person, hopefully, after reading this, you’ll see that art needs no excuses, but appreciates a thoughtful and friendly advice, instead.

http://artisaverb.info/Purpose.html

Cheers

Didn't read most of it but if this is a uni paper. You may want to change the opening words from Okay So,at least in my opinion to I believe or From my research and experience

I hate to be "that guy", but you need to go over and fix some basic grammar rule violations if you want it to be a serious piece. Also more acceptable metaphors

EG: don't start a sentence with "and" . quite a few run on sentences, ect. Punctuation errors.


There are a few wrong generalizations as well"

"How do you tell a personal preference from a legitimate fix? Pretty easy, actually. If you can’t objectively formulate how your suggestion helps reinforce the purpose of the object, then it almost certainly is just your personal preference."

You can easily reinforce the purpose with your own personal preference. This is what make art GOOD art, is just that; The artists, personal preference. The art director has a personal preference, as does the Creative Director. You go to art school for YEARS to tune in your personal preference to decide what is good or not.

Good thing he doesn't want to become a writer then? ;)

Good stuff buddy, read through all of it like I do with all your previous articles. A little bit too much text for simple ideas, but it gets the (long) message across.

If he's publishing and promoting articles on the web, then he's a "writer" ;)

But yeah it is a bit discombobulated

Man, this subject deserves more than an afternoon of writing. I agree with you but for completely different reasons. You need to start simplify your thoughts, find the true essence of what you're writing. Unfortunately I'm at work so I can't really elaborate, I'll send you a pm later tonight.

So, Art is objective ?

And you know that subconsciously: you’d never advise someone painting a fruit still life to paint a spaceship in the foreground.

Why not? You know how much that would improve stuffy still-life paintings from the masters?

You see half empty, I see half full. You see poop, I see chocolate. Perception can be subjective, and perception of art is far more so. I can see the point you're aiming at, but I can't agree with it.

The reason the "Canned-Shit" is worth the price of gold is precisely because he has been able to subjectively quantify his artwork, if he hadn't, no-one would understand his premise and therefore not able to 'pass on' that sympathetic/empathetic reasoning; the Art World, which you make inferences to, is itself predicated entirely on subjectivity - they are projecting their thoughts and interpretations into the 'subject', not necessarily the 'object' (it's the difference between talking about a painting done in shit "what is it about", as opposed to the process of painting with shit "has he executed that idea as well as he could", or indeed both. However, you must make that distinction, either/or/both, otherwise you end up doing what you've done here and lumping a lot of different 'stuff' into a larger slightly confusing mass.

The self-entitled intellectual inbreeding that goes on with aforementioned art world is another matter entirely .

I find it weird that you named it "Art Is Not Subjective", even though you didn't present arguments to support the statement. The statement itself doesn't even appear in the text. Instead you just wrote about "why people think art is subjective".
And your look at roots of that view is damn silly.

The reasons for it traces back to the rise of “modern” art in 20th century

Lol, seriously?

What about all those artists/composers whose works were treated like shit when they were alive, while years after their deaths they inspired next generations of artists to go in new directions?
Their works were treated like shit because for most people at the time they were too different from what was considered "good" art. Those works were percieved as an equivalent of canned shit.

Ever heard of Salon des Refuses, where common folks would come and laugh at the "tasteless" art?
Some of those paintings now appear pretty much in every art history book.
Also, you should read about how differently musical consonance and dissonance have been percieved in various cultures and ages.

Also. whenever a new medium is created the "is this art or not" arguments arise again.
Today it's pretty much normal to percieve photography as art, but it wasn't always like this.

...and so on.

Perception of art differs from person to person therefore it's subjective.
The border between "Art" and "Not Art" lies where each human puts it.
only an absolute being, a God, would be able to look at art objectively, unbound by a faulty mammalian brain.
Would a dry pile of grandma's shit painted in amazingly designed patterns be an art?
I don't know and I don't care. When i like something it's not important if majority of humans considers this art or not.



Whether someone thinks that objective beauty exists or not should be irrelevant to his professional work.
Being a pro means having the ability to distance oneself from one's views.


As for "what's the purpose" part of text, i generally agree.

Wait, so by "artist," you mean "person who makes 2D / 3D assets in the commercial game industry"? It's kind of strange to apply a huge philosophical body of thought (aesthetics) to this narrow subset of practice because it's inevitably not going to fit very well.

Neomarxist aesthetics might say that no commercial game art can be "art" because it has a clearly defined purpose to make money, and thus has been made into a tool of propaganda and instrumentation, etc. Obviously most people here might reject that notion, but it's a significant body of thought in art history and the like.

So I guess I'd say is, you're not just talking about art in general. It seems like you're talking about art assets in a video game, which isn't the same thing, and it's confusing.

A lot of people, smarter than you or me, have thought about this for a longer time than you or me, and it might be worth reading what they said and how that figures into game art.

Hey guys. Thank you very much for your feedback. I'm glad I got to run it by you.
First of all I am sorry, I chose poor words for the title and ended up confusing you. The paper should've been called Art Is Never Too Subjective To Judge. I fixed the first post to help a bit.

I am in no way stating that art is not subjective at all, but got it a bit to generalized in my head and that was wrong, so thank you again. The title's changed so now hopefully it'll serve it's purpose better.

Originally Posted by Acr0

You can easily reinforce the purpose with your own personal preference. This is what make art GOOD art, is just that; The artists, personal preference. The art director has a personal preference, as does the Creative Director. You go to art school for YEARS to tune in your personal preference to decide what is good or not.

Thanks for the feedback, Acr0. I see your point, but, speaking in the framework of the paper, I think that personal taste shows through mostly in defining the purposes. Because later on pretty much everyone can hop in and work in the framework you create. As it actually happens with art directors and concept artists in real games or movies. Even your junior artist, for example, can come up with something within this framework that is objectively better(relatively to the purpose) then what the art director originally planned, and not following with this idea would simply hurt the project.
As an art director you can't possibly hope to come up with better ideas then 20 other artists all the time, so it's not so much about carrying out your personal vision, but setting up an original and cohesive visual experience in the beginning and making sure it gets enforced and expanded upon, for the sake of a better project.

Hey, kat, In no way did I try to bash on abstract art or doubt it's value. It has it's purpose and there's even a mention about it near the end.
It just that compared to representative art the quality is not apparent from the first sight, that's why general public stopped judging it. That was the only point I tried to make with this.
And yea I do agree that the modern art world is built entirely on subjectivity and I am actually not a fan of that. It wasn't always that way. This actually a huge subject in itself, but in case you haven't seen in I would highly recommend you to check out the "Banishment of beauty" lecture

"Banishment of beauty" lecture

though I'm terribly afraid of derailing the thread.

Blaisoid, I put 20th century there, because that' when abstract art became the norm. I never claimed to present a careful timeline of any deviations from representative art, so I see nothing worth being rude for.

Helder, buddy, thank you. I'm glad you saw through some of the imperfections. I'm sorry about the length. I'll make a point to cut up the next one like crazy, I promise.

Hey, I gave you some feedback over facebook but I don't know if you got it, so I'll paste it here:


I do like it and agree with some stuff, but I think you should avoid talking about modern art and it's purpose, and focus more on the game development part of it, studio hierarchy etc.
Modern art by itself is a very very lengthy issue and that kind of comparison comes out as a bit shallow for me, and could also be misinterpreted and end up being offensive.
Specially because that's totally different from what we do. Even though we all work with a similar skill set and produce images, we're dealing with market oriented products that have a very specific purpose ($), way different than art. It's kinda like haute couture and the clothes people actually wear. Same medium, different purposes, none of them is more important than the other. Both need to coexist.

I can't respond to this without going of topic so I'll just address the issues initially raised above. You've still confusing the 'act of execution' with 'meaning'. As someone else iterated above, you need to properly set the context for what you're trying to say because you cannot mix general commentary about "The Arts" into a piece that's also discussing how well commercially purposed material in a studio environment is done. They are completely separate arguments and when lumped together as you did initially, you just end up citing hyperbole.

[edit]fonfa beat me to it.

Thank you Bruno and kat. I see your point and I'm sorry I didn't mean to offend anyone.
I started to feel sorry for a bit about including that paragraph about modern art, but then again it had it's purpose: to make people think why they are reluctant to judge any kind of art. And I find it very useful.
But then again, the wording was a bit harsh and pulled over too much attention, so I fixed that, to just communicate the idea as plainly as possible. So thank you for pointing that out.

But I still question, how the rest of the paper does not apply to any kind of art and why they should be treated separately?
Doesn't abstract art have a purpose and artist inclined to do their best work?
If you think about it abstract art is all about it's purpose, the idea behind it. And it's recognition mostly relies on it's descriptions and reviews.

edit: I also very highly recommend to check out that lecture I linked. Apart from an alternate view on modern art it also makes a lot of very interesting artistical points.

Originally Posted by d1ver

As an art director you can't possibly hope to come up with better ideas then 20 other artists all the time, so it's not so much about carrying out your personal vision, but setting up an original and cohesive visual experience in the beginning and making sure it gets enforced and expanded upon, for the sake of a better project.

I think you might be confusing what the purpose of the Art Bible is, as opposed to what other artists in the company are for. The art bible is the Vision of the project. Vision should not be confused with personal preference. The art director/Creative director have this Vision that sets the aesthetics of the game. Concept/character/env etc can all influence the vision with their own artistic preference with how characters stand, or jungles are made. They create it and defend it and justify it, that is what makes a good artist.

I agree with the rest of the posters that you should not reference classical art. Your point gets a bit lost, and your thought process is a bit all over the place. You should focus on a breakdown of the production pipeline. The argument of comparing games to "Art" is ongoing and very complex.


Pure art has no purpose other that to express the feelings and emotions of the creator. Yet it can still be criticized, but that criticism is meaningless. Commercial art is a world of compromises and direction. I would relate commercial art more towards advertising. Even Shadow of the Colossus. Making the creatures cool looking and attractive to the player is far more important than expressing a pure vision of the Art Director. A good art director will know this and focus his skill and making attractive art.

I think extra credits covers what you are trying to talking about well: aesthetics:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/epi...vs.-aesthetics

Art is both Objective and Subjective. Arguing for either is a waste of time.


"But unfortunately, people living with a firm belief that art is subjective hardly ever try to make an effort to logically understand it. And it hurts them. It's like trying to compose music by ear without ever trying to grasp the musical theory. You can live without it, but knowing it would make you that much better of an artist."

Dude that is the most narrow minded thing i've read in a while. What about um.... Jimmy Hendrix?!

thinking that you're never going to be good at something because you don't know the "basics" that SOMEONE made up... IS going against the principles of art, and that's learning from mistakes.

I MEAN LOGICALLY think about it!!! what about the first caveman that started painting on walls, did he have TUTS?! for geebuz sake!

this whole thread is kind of, off base, it feels more like you're talking about artist insecurities.

Originally Posted by Acr0

I think you might be confusing what the purpose of the Art Bible is, as opposed to what other artists in the company are for. The art bible is the Vision of the project. Vision should not be confused with personal preference. The art director/Creative director have this Vision that sets the aesthetics of the game. Concept/character/env etc can all influence the vision with their own artistic preference with how characters stand, or jungles are made. They create it and defend it and justify it, that is what makes a good artist.

But you just said the same thing that I did, only with an "art bible".

Originally Posted by Acr0

Pure art has no purpose other that to express the feelings and emotions of the creator.

How is that not a purpose? If you're painting Holocaust with abstract black brush strokes, wouldn't "add some ash flakes on the canvas" be a viable advice?
If you're painting happiness in blue, wouldn't "blue is associated with sadness a lot in english speaking cultures" be a viable concern?
I don't say that you can cover every single bit of the picture with logics, but you generally can always think of something to reinforce it's purpose.

Originally Posted by Acr0

...Vision should not be confused with personal preference...

Why so? Following you logic an artist that paints "silence" or "sadness" can not show through his personal preference, because his subject overpowers it.

Originally Posted by d1ver

...edit: I also very highly recommend to check out that lecture I linked. Apart from an alternate view on modern art it also makes a lot of very interesting artistical points.

He doesn't, not really. If you actually go back and look through history you'll find that pretty much all the great artists and art 'suffered' through the public's lack of understanding. It's a universal process that relies on 'education', not "brainwashing" as he put it. However, one could most certainly argue that today, it has become "brainwashing" because meaning (as the vid mentions) has become the raison d'être - but even that doesn't necessarily invalidate a work because reason itself, the pontifications, are also a valid expression of 'art' in the form of ideas; what we actually find offensive here is not the BS but the 'power', the imposed 'authority' of an establishment to 'neuter' the creative moment, to invalidate or validate at the press of a few keys both the artists and viewers points of view. But, as with this entire subject, that is a separate issue to the aesthetics of representations (in the broadest sense). Both he and you are not making that distinction, so whilst the video was interesting, it's not as informative as it could have been.

And by the way, nothing you posted was ever regarded as being 'offensive' and don't feel sorry about including what you have... it can be there and remain so long as the context is clarified; if you're making comparisons to the way the 'Art World' and commercially driven studio work then it's valid to make those comparisons. I don't think anyone (including myself) is really saying you're wrong or waving polyknobs about, it's simply a matter of clarity... what is it exactly that you're trying to say.

Originally Posted by Alberto Rdrgz

"But unfortunately, people living with a firm belief that art is subjective hardly ever try to make an effort to logically understand it. And it hurts them. It's like trying to compose music by ear without ever trying to grasp the musical theory. You can live without it, but knowing it would make you that much better of an artist."

Dude that is the most narrow minded thing i've read in a while. What about um.... Jimmy Hendrix?!

thinking that you're never going to be good at something because you don't know the "basics" that SOMEONE made up... IS going against the principles of art, and that's learning from mistakes.

I MEAN LOGICALLY think about it!!! what about the first caveman that started painting on walls did he have TUTS?! for geebuz sake!

Thanks for your opinion, Alberto. But I'm afraid you're taking this a bit too far on your imagination. I actually never stated that you have to know "the basics that someone made up" to accomplish anything.

I play guitar and compose music, and greatly appreciate what Jimmy did. And the only thing I can say about it, and I did in the paper, is that trying to logically understand what you're doing will help you a lot. Jimmy had zero music education but he knew music theory. He might not now how other people called things, but he saw harmonic patterns that exist in music, he understood which note progressions work, he even invented a new chord. Every time he did something he took from the palette of filtered knowledge that he accumulated over the years. As much as everyone here does.
My point was that you don't just pluck around randomly everytime and hope that your "taste" will get you somewhere. You think and teach yourself.

Thanks, kat. Have you watched the entire lecture, all 4 parts?They guy actually says that abstract art deserves it's rightful place in museums and art galleries, he's just upset that representative art is banished from modern establishment completely. So it's not really so much of a conspiracy theory thing.)

"My point was that you don't just pluck around randomly everytime and hope that your "taste" will get you somewhere. You think and teach yourself."

This is exactly what i said. Art is subjective and objective at the same time. So the argument is kind of nullified by that.

To be a good artist you DO have to pluck around and develop your taste, because that ultimately drives your skills, which you DO have to think, learn, and teach yourself.

Originally Posted by d1ver

Thanks, kat. Have you watched the entire lecture, all 4 parts?They guy actually says that abstract art deserves it's rightful place in museums and art galleries, he's just upset that representative art is banished from modern establishment completely.

Again, that's about the self-imposed power and authority the establishment uses to validate the system, not about the art itself - if you want to play on their pitch you have to play by their rules, it's always been like that so it's certainly not a conspiracy (in the 'dirty' sense you probably meant that statement).

Originally Posted by d1ver

But you just said the same thing that I did, only with an "art bible".

That is pretty much the core of the issue with your post. You touch on a huge array of subjects without exploring them and diving into the issue. You flirt around some pretty huge and deep philosphies without saying too much about them. Using the proper vocabulary and explaining your use of that vocuabulary is very important. You are coving way too many subjects without saying all that much about them Say Art Bible, and explain what an art bible is to you, and how it can be influenced in the right ways and the wrong ways. Say why the art bible would not be chisled in stone, explore the proper way of changing the vision while in production. and so on.

If you're painting happiness in blue, wouldn't "blue is associated with sadness a lot in english speaking cultures" be a viable concern?

Bright blue sky with a clear blue sea? that's a pretty happy scene. Subjective

Why so? Following you logic an artist that paints "silence" or "sadness" can not show through his personal preference, because his subject overpowers it

again your mixing traditional art with commerical art. Logistically, a group collaborations Vision is far different that a crazy painter who cuts of his own ears vision. Here's a quote from a FAMOUS abstract painter that tried to explain his work:

"I construct lines and color combinations on a flat surface, in order to express general beauty with the utmost awareness. Nature (or, that which I see) inspires me, puts me, as with any painter, in an emotional state so that an urge comes about to make something, but I want to come as close as possible to the truth and abstract everything from that, until I reach the foundation (still just an external foundation!) of things… I believe it is possible that, through horizontal and vertical lines constructed with awareness, but not with calculation, led by high intuition, and brought to harmony and rhythm, these basic forms of beauty, supplemented if necessary by other direct lines or curves, can become a work of art, as strong as it is true"

Can you imagine trying to sell that, In a PURE visual medium (as the painter did) in a commerical environment, such as games?

Hey, man, I would greatly appreciate if you'd be more specific about where I failed to communicate how purpose behind artwork affects different sides of art production.
I'd love to get that fixed.

The "Bilbe" as a term is not so widely spread and even as a subject. Artists work through concept art, concept artists work through art director, so the bible is not necessary on a lot of occasions.
The term is tangential to the paper so it's not there.

I also didn't find any 'vocabulary' there that wouldn't be familiar to general audience. If you could, please, specify, it'd be much appreciated.

again your mixing traditional art with commerical art. Logistically, a group collaborations Vision is far different that a crazy painter who cuts of his own ears vision.

again, why so?
They both aim to show you their work and evoke a specific response, which is a purpose. So why does the logic not apply?