Marina Rosso – What Is An Artwork?
These artworks are by Marina Rosso.
If you want to encourage this artist, please visit and comment on Flickr:
(Click on the images if you wish to view them individually.)
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What Is An Artwork?
~ by OneMoreOption
Is it a painting? A drawing? A melody? What makes one thing an artwork and another . . . not so much?
Of course, there’s no singular answer or definition.
There’s probably no objective measure. Yet there may be objective ways to measure what more people consider to be an artwork.
This thought crossed my mind today:
An artwork is a place where we want to return.
Whether it’s an image, a memory, a song, a movie, or an idea – an artwork is often a destination we wish to recall and to experience again.
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More by Marina Rosso:
© All rights reserved by Marina Rosso.
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Most Recent Artworks - All the Artists’ Artworks Index - my43things
1 comment so far
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November 16, 2009
7:30 AM CST
@ OneMoreOption
Quote :
“An artwork is a place where we want to return.”
You entered this post on the last day of October, and it’s been bugging me since; obviously because I’ve had a life long interest in the arts, both in terms of study and participation.
I also make note that no one else has ventured where you dare to go, a feature that I enjoy most about many of your posts.
But defining art has always been a fool’s errand.
As you’ve probably have guessed by now, I bare little respect for any “art scholar” (a term which I’ll always regard as an oxymoron) who pretends he/she can can contribute any precise understanding about art.
What are the ground rules?
If all you had at your disposal was the art of the past 20th century, the usual amateur critic can (and will) self-righteously declare “Well…there are no ground rules.”
The best art of the 20th century : film/writing (especially science fiction)/music and a small smattering of the great surrealists/expressionists and later day symbolists…these are arguably the schools of art that are most likely to lend second pause to your “epiphany”.
Most of the greatest art forms of the 20th century has not so much informed our memory as to provide us with a warning :
Maybe, just maybe, art has come to illuminate a place where we do not want to go.
Giger comes to mind. Ivan Albert. George Orwell. Dylan Thomas. Germaine Greer. Dennis Potter. Joseph Campbell. Carl Sagan. Joni Mitchell. Thomas Wolfe. Michael Crichton. Christopher Hitchens. Werner Herzog. And I’ll even throw in Spielberg. The list is not endless, but these writers/artists would be a good start to illustrate my point.
Each one in his/her own way, have graciously and with concerted effort and with great intuition in their greatest works, provided us with a dire warning : Enter the future with much trepidation, vigilance and above all else, the lessons of history. Eyes wide open.
For me, this is the greatest, most life affirming contribution of 20th century art. Of course I recognize the paradox; but knowing that the greatest artists of the 20th century have ingeniously given us this foreboding insight lends more to my optimism : Stupidity feeds on darkness; the better artists among us have given us light to cross over and enter into the future.
If we are lucky, we will heed the message informed by their art.
It’s one thing to personalize and wax romantic on particular “artworks”; I do it all the time. But Western culture has been doing this particular form of internal/external projecting for well over two centuries now.
What the best of 20th century art tells us now is : OK, fine, project what we will into any work of art, but neglecting or sacrificing the message will be at our own peril.
J.B
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OneMoreOption: Excellent ideas and writing.