#Art vs Invention
64 messages in this thread
Tom,
Are you telling me that an 'inspired' work, is done from start to
finish with no going back over the work already done to make sure it's what the
inspired person wanted? Hogwash.
Don
Don, I gave you specific examples of artistic works which were done in very
brief periods of time, which allowed for very little "checking" or
"correction." I can't believe you are asserting that a novel is written by
repeatedly trying words in some methodical way until a reasonable sentence
emerges.
Look again at our ditchdigger. It is possible for ditchdigging to be safely
delegated. You can write a plan for the ditch and distribute it to a team of
journeyman diggers, even leave the site altogether, and come back and find the
ditch more or less where you wanted it. If you have delegated the job to
unreliable or poorly skilled people, you may not be happy with the results, but
that's why I stipulate real journeyman diggers, not just any loonies pretending
to be diggers.
If novel writing were like ditchdigging, it would be delegated all the time.
Some "novels" may be corporate works (Harold Robbins is rumored to be a
collective), but they're not literature. Why didn't Truman Capote or Gay
Talese or any of the other famous victims of writer's block simply subcontract
the work, if such works are simple methodical processes? They aren't. The
universe of possible china glazes is infinitesmal in comparison to the universe
of possible novels. Edison determined that the invention process _could_ be
delegated, and in Menlo Park he built the first modern research laboratory.
Despite the millions of dollars of profits earned by a Steven King book, a
proposal for a horror-thriller factory would never get a nickle of backing from
the silliest venture capitalist.
Look at the works of Alexander Dumas ("Three Musketeers", etc.) From what I
understand he had as many as forty writers working on up to a dozen books at a
time.
Jeff,
I'd consider Dumas' works to be evidence for the argument that art doesn't
arise out of collaboration. Harlequin Romances, like the swashbuckling tales
of Dumas Pere, are written to formula. I certainly wouldn't dispute the
assertion that writing a Harlequin Romance is "99 percent perspiration and 1
percent inspiration."
I LIKE Dumas' stuff. He began the entire genre of pulp novels.
Jeff,
Dumas' stuff, as you call it, is fun and likable. It's also formulaic, as
are Star Wars or Indiana Jones, or L.A. Law, which are also fun and likable.
None of this group are of indisputable literary merit, however.
Tom,
No, I never said that you could contract out 'inspiration'. Certainly
there are so called artists who have great ideas…but no talent to carry that
idea thru to a work of art.
However, what I did say was that no matter how inspired you are, and no
matter how fast it was produced…there is some trial and error that goes into
the product.
You mentioned Harold Robbins. Are you telling me that he (or multiple
'hes') sat at a typewritter, started typing and never went back over the work.
Then took this work and shipped it to a publisher who didn't have it proof-read
and simply had it type-set and printed and distributed?
Of course not, the writter got an idea for a novel, started to put that
idea on paper and in the process read and re-read it and in the process changed
what was originaly put on the paper. They didn't change each and every word,
they may have only changed a few words in the entire novel…but I can almost
guarantee you something was changed from what was first put on the paper.
A ditch is a simple idea, simple to conceptualize and simple to create.
BUT, that also presumes that the person who is to dig the ditch is able to
carry out that task. Give my 2 year old a backhoe and I don't think you'd get
the ditch you conceptualized.
Artistry is much more complex, both in conceptualization and in
creation of the final product. And thus there is a much more limited group of
those able to carry out the task. So limited, that in fact, the person who got
the idea is the probably the only one who could carry out the task, but not
without some trial and error.
Don
Don,
I anticipated your argument about having a ditch dug by a two year old, and
explicitly stipulated "journeyman ditchdiggers." Did you miss that?
Tom,
No, I didn't miss that, I was merely pointing out that not all persons
are equal at all tasks. If I took a photograph of a scene, composed it in a
method that I thought was inspiring and then gave it to an artist (paint and
brush type) to turn into a painting…I have in fact sub-contracted 'art' in
that my inspiration was turned into reality by someone more skilled than I.
I could sit behind this person and tell him the color wasn't quite
right, or the effect wasn't quite right. I could not create this on my own,
but that doesn't mean I couldn't have someone else do it. I'm NOT saying that
this is normal, or even easy…but it could be done.
Ansel Adams could have had an assistant cart the camera around, told
the assistant how long to make the exposure and where to point the camera. The
assistant could have developed and printed the picture according to strict
instructions from Mr. Adams. None of that means the work was any less Mr.
Adams' work than if he had done it 100% himself. Again, not the normal method
of doing things…but not impossible.
Don
Don,
All journeyman programmers, all journeyman ditchdiggers, all journeyman
carpenters, journeyman plumbers, porcelain painters, commercial artists,
journalists, ghost writers, portrait photographers, are so nearly alike in
their ability to program, delve, woodwork, plumb, color, portray, distort,
inflate, and flatter as to make little real difference, so they compete on
price.
An anaesthesiologist is not an artist, is s/he, even though s/he monitors the
patient's vitals and adjusts the flow? Does that mean s/he is working via
trial and error? Is a comatose state an artwork?
A sentimental or sensitive non-artist could subcontract his painting to
technically proficient soulless dullard without doing serious harm to the
resultant work, because the work is unlikely to be of artistic merit in any
event. Rembrandt, Titian, DaVinci, nor Gainesborough could not. Andy Warhol's
paintings were done by kids hanging out at The Factory, but Warhol did not
claim to be an artist, and he called his shop "The Factory" for God's sake, how
could it be more explicit?!? What does he have to do, explain it? "I call it
the factory because it is not art, it is manufacture, it requires no
inspiration, just work, by workers. I take the Burpee Seed catalog and make
large blowups of the flower pictures therein and have the kids sign my name or
we use a rubber stamp because it is faster. 'Factory.' Like 'Car factory.'
Not 'Studio.'"
Tom,
"A sentimental or sensitive non-artist could subcontract his painting to
technically proficient soulless dullard without doing serious harm to the
resultant work, because the work is unlikely to be of artistic merit in any
event." Interesting.
Would you consider the Pyramids of Egypt, Great Wall of China, Eiffel Tower,
Golden Gate Bridge, the land paintings of the Mayans, and (almost) endless
other examples to be without "artistic merit"? They were no doubt
"subcontract[ed] … [to] technically proficient soulless dullard[s]".
Tom,
Andy Warhol may not have considered his works 'art', but lots of others
did. I might consider my works 'art', but probably no one else would. Does
that make any difference in this discussion? The discussion is not (to me
anyway) a discussion of what is art…but rather it is a discussion of whether
going from concept to reality requires trial and error.
Whether we are talking about low trial and error with a great artist or
high trial and error with Thomas Edison…the point I'm trying to make is that
trial and error IS required, there is nothing that is 100% inspiration.
Don
Don,
I did not assert that anything was 100% inspiration. I challenged the
general assertion that Art and Invention are the same, and the specific
assertion that Art was 90% oKJVdxerspiration."
The statement "Art is 100% inspiration" is a straw man you set up to knock
over. Plop.
Tom,
IF the very first time a great artistic painter put pencil to paper (or
whatever) that person created a work of art…then I'd agree with you.
The learning process itself is part of what made an artist great.
Talent is also a part. We can't all be inventors nor can we all be great
artists.
The learning process is 'perspiration' no matter how you look at it.
You spoke of great Jazz artists. Don't you think that they had to
sweat for years learning how to play their instrument and then all the other
stuff that Steve mentioned? Just because they can sit down today and put
together a piece quickly…doesn't meant that they could have done it in their
earlier years. It's the hours and hours of study and practice and trying that
gave them the ability to put that piece together quickly. Some folks take a
few less hours than others, and some never get there…but those that do get
there don't do it by poping up one day with no prior experience or training
with an inspiration brought to life on the spot.
We all come out of the womb with biological functions, beyond that…
learning is required and learning is work.
Don
Don,
Do you think there's any such thing as spontaneity? Or is everything done
methodically?
The experience of the better research laboratories is that, in fact, folks
of ordinary talent can achieve excellent results if they follow a method. Once
in a while someone has a good idea or a lucky break. "Hey, this glue we made
is so terrible, it's good. Let's put it on little yellow pieces of paper and
call it Post-It!" Most of the time it's gradual improvements of existing
products with a better mix or new ingredient.
If a group of writers under Isaac Asimov's direction continually toiled away
on the Foundation Series, re-writing and re-writing and re-writing, and every
six months releasing a New, Improved "Foundation and Empire," not a _new_
story, but the same old story, "improved" by having had more perspiration
dripped into it, you'd be sure the guy had gone crazy.
Some Jazz greats practice scales all day long, and some don't. Practicing
can be harmful. It causes you to worship pyrotechnics because it took you so
long to learn it. If you like listening to finger exercises, there are
musicians by the carload who'll twiddle them out, but I prefer someone closer
to the music than the neruomusculature.
Tom,
If you want to hear true improvisation, from the soul and not from learned
technical facility and practice, hand an instrument to a 4 year old and say
"Here, play me some dixieland".
-sja
Tom,
Tell you what…I'll leave this as a parting shot and then drop out of
this disussion. Not because I yield, but simply because this is the Amiga Tech
Forum and while tangents are fine…I think most of the members are getting
tired of this discussion.
Let's agree to disagree….the first time Asimov put pen to paper he
didn't produce a novel. He had to work at it, refine his methods and ideas to
the point where he is now able to put pen to paper and come up with an
interesting story. Work and refine == trial and error.
Don
I am telling you that the trial and error in an "inspired" work is of a
completely different nature than the trial and error in ditchdigging or
programming. Do you suppose a sculptor working in marble is able to take back
a stroke? Do you imagine Michaelangelo did fifteen thousand studies of David,
and then carved the best of the lot? Do you imagine Michaelangelo did fifteen
thousand study sculptures in a methodical approach, varying each one from its
predecessor by tiny amounts, until he happened upon one that looked like it
would be appropriate to name it David?
He did do lots of drawings.
…Dave
He also did a number of preliminary miniature studies. This discussion is
really pointless. Any human endeavor can qualify as "art." So I can delegate
ditch digging. I can delegate a painting too, or a jingle for a 30-second
commercial. I may not be satisfied with what I get either way.
Thomas' definition is unnecessarily restrictive. I believe that some
programming qualifies as art. Somewhere there is a ditch-digger who is an
artist at his work. Maybe a "genius" ditch-digger only comes along once a
milennia. So what? How many genius composers appear in each century? Half a
dozen? What if we encouraged and rewarded genius in ditch-digging like we do
genius in composing music?
This argument as to what is art and what ain't eventually degenerates into
noise. Who decides what qualifies? Who decides who decides? What guarantee
is there that anyone will agree a few generations from now? Bach was almost
forgotten until Mahler resurrected him less than a century ago. Two hundred
years from now he may be forgotten again.
Why is the sky? Argh!
Jon,
Some programs may qualify as art, but the realm of programming is not the
realm of art, because, for instance, I can give a list of qualities I want a
replacement Workbench to have to both a plodder and an artiste, and after
enough time, get what was specified. Sometimes the plodder will deliver ahead
of the artiste, sometimes the artiste will have soared so far beyond the
specification as to cause wonder in the community, but that soaring beyond the
specification is not the realm of programming.
The way Amiga will perform for both the clumsy and the adroit means people
are better employed plodding through a new version of a program than in
decrying the inadequacies of the present version.
Tom, you can also give the specifications for a painting, photograph, mural,
whatever to an artist, and sometime later such an object will show up. Whether
it will be art is open to question, but if the artist takes his 'work'
seriously, it will be.
Vic,
If a painter works from a specification, don't we have a situation of 0%
inspiration, 100% perspiration? I recollect that (at least during the '60s)
Andy Warhol never referred to himself as an "artist," but only as a "painter,"
as in House Painter, painting not pictures but very tiny walls.
A craftsperson takes the craft seriously, and if the definition of "art" is
"that which the producer takes seriously" then the craftwork perforce is "art."
Fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der Autobahn.
Tom, after I sent that message, I realized that the word 'specificaton' would
be mis-interpreted. Take for example the city of Chicago's spedification to
Picasso for the sculpture. To the best of my knowledge the entire
specification consisted of:
"See this spot here, we want something unique."
Well, they got something unique. Some people like it, others hate it, so I
guess it _must_ be art. <smmiiille>
Oh but Thomas, that soaring beyond the specification _is_ the art in
programming, nor more and no less than is the soaring beyond the specification
when rendering a sunset onto canvas. It markes the difference between
functionality and art. It goes beyond getting the right answer from the program
or depicting exactly what the sunset looks like. Look at the people who prefer
one program over another, though they do the same thing in the final analysis.
-larry
Tom,
You keep making the exagerations…I never said that to create a piece
of art you had to do rote trial and error. What I did say was that trial and
error is a part of the process…NOT the only part and not even a large part in
some processes. Just that it is a part of the process.
Michaelangelo may not have been able to put back a chip of marble, but
he certainly could have chipped off an extra bit here and there after stepping
back to take a look at what he had done so far.
Don
How many rewrites do you think Oscar Wilde went through in the three days he
took to complete "The Picture of Dorian Gray?" How many did Rilke use on the
Sonnets to Orpheus? How much rewriting do you think Bach did during the time
he was turning out a complete piece every week?
These are incontrovertible examples of work that was 99% inspiration, 1%
perspiration. I don't think you can find the equivalent anywhere in
programming.
Tom,
I have no idea how much Oscar Wilde went thru, other than I can say
with some certaintly that somewhere in that 3 days he changed something from
what he had put down first.
Yes, that's a guess…I wasn't there and neither were you.
BTW, I never supported the Edison idea of 1% inspiration and 99%
perspiration…I only took the position that nothing is 100% inspiration.
Don
Don,
You have argued so forcefully that nothing is 100% inspiration that no one
will dare to disagree. In one of your first messages in this thread you lumped
art and inventi; together as "creative" endeavors. It is my posQ%=s that
Edison's estimate of the ratio of inspiration to perspiration was accurate for
inventive work but preposterous for artistic work. Edison made his little quip
specifically to counter the popular notion that all he did was walk into his
Menlo Park office, scratch his head, and then put together a lightbulb.
Your statement that a sculptor who chips too deeply can simply carve down
the surrounding area minimizes the challenge of working in stone. That
approach cannot work. I widespread availability of word processing tools have
made it rare for writers to struggle to "get it right the first time."
Sculptors in stone must.
Consider genuine improvisational music. A musician cannot backspace over a
note once it's been played, and play a different note. A musician who
rehearses a set piece and then pretends to play it spontaneously is not
genuinely improvising. People who know more about jazz than I do will be able
to name players who have stopped "practicing" altogether, that is, no longer
play dreary scales and finger exercises hours a day.
A true jazz player who no longer practices scales is not a player for long.
Jazz is not total improvisation. It is based on a deep and complete knowledge
of scales and modes and how they interact with each other depending upon the
chord changes behind (in single line improvisation). On instruments that allow
simultaneous notes a thorough understanding of theory, scales, progressive
movement is mandatory for 'comping'. Listen carefully to jazz masters of all
types, whether they be 'outside' players like John McLaughlin, Chic Corea, or
Miles Davis, or more traditional players like Dimeola, Sanborn, Bob James,
Marsalis. Their incredible knowledge of musical relationships and theory is
obvious.
There is no such thing as true improvisation except maybe that which is played
by someone who has never learned to play an instrument. Improvisation is
knowing scales and theory inside and out and chosing, on the spur of the
moment, what to play when. Whether you're going to play an arpeggio, a broken
arpeggio, or a scale fragment against any particular musical change. Or, if on
the ii of the dominant scale you chose to play dorian (native to the scale), or
phrygian (sp) (native to the scale one full step down), or aeolian (native to
the scale a 4th up) or a modified mixolydian, or — a whole world of
possibilities and phrasing. If you were a musician I could go into some detail
on the mechanical process of improvisation as concrete examples.
The player who chooses to forgo practice of scales and 'finger exercises' soon
loses the physical dexterity needed and the mental alertness required.
Improvisation is the ability to use past experiences and knowledge and use them
'on the spot'. With only 12 notes in the chromatic scale there is nothing that
has not been played before. Interesting improvisations as formula based upon
scale knowledge, dynamics, conflict and resolution. Unless one is performing
12 hours a day (in which the performance becomes the practice) a jazz player
who does not practice is not a jazz player.
I had a feeling you might jump in on this one.
I brought up jazz specifically as bait for Steve.
Steve:
I agree with your point about the musician who forgoes scales. However, I've
found it to be the other way around. That is, when a freshman at Berklee, my
Composition and Conducting professor told me I couldn't do that because 'you
didn't learn that yet,' he was right in a stupid kind of way.
I find that a deeper understanding of theory, modes, harmony, intervals, etc.
help me attain, in practice, ideas that are already in my head, but can't get
off my fingers.
Roger
The repetition of scales and full understanding of theory gives you the
physical tools needed. If you can't get your fingers to do it it makes no
difference what you can hear in your head.
Anyone can learn the craft of jazz improvisation. Some are better than ohers
and some are truly inspired. The inspired player is truly rare. I guess
"inspired" is a subjective term. When I listen to Dimeola (rarely) only one
thing pops into my mind — Berklee School of Music. He's more interested in
impressing you with his speed and scales than he is in letting any emotion come
thru. He's got the tools and the knowledge but lacks the inspiration.
I was a studio player in LA for several years doing mostly rock session work
and some movie and TV scores. While doing that I was lucky enough to e able to
study with some very fine jazz players. After I left the LA scene and moved to
Denver I continued playing/studying for a while. Whether it was with Joe Pass,
Rick Chinichi, or Johnny Smith, the advice (no, REQUIREMENT) was scales,
scales, scales. Whether you want to do single line improv or comping behind
someone else you must have both the knowledge and the dexterity. The gaining
of knowledge is never ending. The attainment of the dexterity is unless you
keep up the practice on a daily basis.
Once you attain the physical ability to play what you hearyou always strive to
hear better things!
Aren't there cases, though, of musicians who _have_ stopped practicing (or at
least said so)? Do they all fade away, or do they just make the more
masochistic types uncomfortable?
"BB King, why don't you play fast?"
"Son, why should I play fast if I can knock you over with one note?"
That's a better quote for Clapton than BB King, however ….
Speed does not make a player. Look at Dimeola or Pat Martino. Blazingly fast.
That doesn't mean it's good (to me, it's not, but everyone's taste are
different. For me, classical music is just so much background noise and opera
is a bunch of people screaming on cue).
When you stop practicing, you don't become less of a musician, but you do
become less of a player (again, assuming that you aren't performing or
otherwise working at your craft for 8-12 hours a day, that in itself is
'practice').
Segovia practiced 4-6 hours a day until he died. Practice, repetition, honing
of your skills thru playing is what it takes to be a player.
Steve,
I don't mean to suggest that a musician can remain a good player if s/he
never touches the instrument between live performances. But I have a hard time
imagining Glen Gould playing Hanon or Czerny for six hours a day in order to
keep his fingers strong for Bach and Beethoven.
Setting up a straw man is the last thing I want to do. If your position is
not that a player, to remain a player, must do tedious, repetitive scales for
some big chunk of the day, must "perspire," I apologize for misrepresenting
you.
Perhaps Clapton has said it as well, but it was told to me as a quote from BB
King.
Steve,
Would you agree or disagree with the assertion "Jazz improvisation, while it
is performed, is a matter of methodical trial and error. The players get a
melodic idea (somehow) and then run through scales in sequence, dorian,
aeolian, pentatonic, and so forth, until they hit one that suits that idea.
Then they play it that way. Roughly 1% of the effort is spent in arriving at
the idea, and the remaining 99% is mechanically going through the paces. The
players have no more preconception which scale is going to prove suitable to
the melodic idea than (to pick a name out of thin air) Edison had preconception
about what filament would work out well for incandescent lighting, and are
usually just as surprised an delighted by the discovery as the audience. "
Tom,
I was disagreeing with your …
"People who know more about jazz than I do will be able to name players who
have stopped "practicing" altogether, that is, no longer play dreary scales and
finger exercise hours a day."
To answer your question, for the most part, a _performance_ is little more than
rote memorization of lines you've played 1000 times before. You don't want to
make a mistake in front of the public or the mike. During a practice/rehearsal
the trial and error takes place.
True improvisation, except with friends during non-public jam sessions is very
rare. For the public, the paying ticket holder, the record producer, other
(non-familiar) musicians, the player wants everything to be 'just right'. You
may not fully anticipate what you are going to play, an arpeggio here, a
dim7thflat9 resolving to the tonic, there, but you fall back on patterns and
ideas developed outside of public performance. This is not improvisation in the
true sense.
However, that is all moot. Your theory that accomplished musicians do not need
to "play dreary scales and finger exercise hours a day" is all wet. When a
musician quits doing that it is only a matter of days or weeks before he stops
being a 'player'.
All wet, am I? Maybe for the busy-finger set of players, but what about the
balladeers? Is Paul Horn cBying rapid scales six hours a day, and then, when
he gets Inside the Taj, throwing it all over to play One Long Note?
I thought you were speaking of improvisational jazz, not New Age. Anyone can
play one note in an echo chamber with no technical facility.
oh, yukyukyukyukyukyukyuk har.
Hey Steve;
(a) Do you have any favorite (read, bizzare/difficult) scales? Can I have a
copy?
(b) Did you ever listen to that guitar fellow I told you about?
–Ben–
a) yes
b) yes — very nice stuff for a rocker. Reminds me of old Rick Derringer
stuff.
Ah, good. I'll bug you directly shortly. and (b) good. I like that stuff. It's
_exactly_ how I like to play (when I do it well) –Ben–
Who was the guitar guy you're referring to? tc
Joe Satriani.
Tom,
Believe me, I can think of many inspiring scenes that I'd like to be
able to paint…but for me, the inspiration is the easy part…putting it on
paper is the extremely hard part and in fact, for me, would be 1% vs 99%. I'm
not an artist.
Any sculptor who starts chipping on a piece of marble (whatever) and
doesn't step back and look at the whole piece before they get to the point
where taking one more chip off would destroy the piece isn't a sculptor very
long. Look at a diamond cutter. Their first cut to cleave the diamond _must_
be right. Believe me that even the most expert diamond cutter has made a
mistake along the way and learned how to minimize mistakes by trial and error
combined with lots of knowledge.
Again, they didn't sit down with $1,000,000 worth of diamonds and start
hacking away until they got one right. Just like the sculptor doesn't sit down
and randomly chip away at lots of pieces of rock. The sculptor get an idea for
a piece of sculpture, usualy draws it out on paper, picks a piece of stone and
then starts to chip away. First larger pieces and then smaller pieces. But
along the way, they stop chipping and stand back and look at the work and
mentaly compare what they see with what they want (trial). When they see what
they have done doesn't match what they want (error)..they attempt to correct it
by changing the method/way/amount of chipping done before it gets to the point
of destroying the work. Hopefully, they take off too little, not too much
during these stages.
Don
Edison invented the lightbulb, not with sketches or standing back and
cogitating (inspiration) but by building 15,000 lightbulbs of different
materials and marketing the one that burned the best.
Josiah Wedgewood re-invented white porcelain without the secret of the
Chinese (that's why the English call their dishes "China") by trying something
like 473 different formulae. You can see his notebooks in the Wedgewood
museum. It's easier to re-invent something, you can guess what the folks you're
copying are starting with by talking to sailors. His black glaze took another
decade or two.
This is invention-to-order. Not tap tap here, tap tap there, but build a
prototype, and another, another, or make a batch of different glazes and fire
them, and another, until you get one you like. Jazz, sculpture, literature,
are _nothing_ like that. When Edison tries a new filament, he does not know
until he turns on the electricity whether it's going to finally be the one.
When Tolstoy writes a paragraph, he is _not_ exploring the unknown.
I believe, but don't know how to prove, that the difficulty non-artists have
with realizing the images in their minds is that the image is "really" much
less defined than they think it is. What one learns in art school in addition
to draftsmanship is how to fool the viewer into seeing richness and detail in a
painting by suggestion, so that the picture is completed in the viewer's mind.
Gosh, I sound like an Infocom ad. If you have never experimented with the grid
method of copying a photograph used by the photorealists, you may be surprised
at how well you can do on your first effort. If you had the knack for holding
in your imagination the image you wish to copy the way you can hold a grid over
a photograph, you could "copy" the mental image in the same way. But you'd
also have a visual imagination that worked differently from your eyes, since
your eyes do not see much more than a little disk of the field of view in full
focus, while you'd be making a painting that would be all in focus wherever you
look. That's rare.
Tom,
Yes, I have copied photographs via the grid method. It works, but I
don't consider it art…just slowly duplicating the function of a Xerox
machine.
Certainly all else being equal, those who have special talents can do
more with the material and tools at hand than those without those talents.
That's not an issue is it?
Thomas Edison and the lightbulb is an example of someone who had an
idea, and perservered at the raw trial and error method until he got it right.
So was Alexander Bell. Both had some background that gave them some insight
into the direction to take…but both had lots and lots of efforts that failed
before they got their ideas from their head into a workable form.
The great artists probably started out making lots and lots of
mistakes. As they grew older, and their talents were 'fine tuned', it didn't
take nearly as much effort as it had for them in the past.
That's all I'm saying, and have been saying. I seriously doubt that
any 'great work' was done with no prior experience, no mistakes along the way
and no testing along the way (in one form or another). There was trial and
error somewhere in the beginning, and along the way that lead to the knowledge
of how to do a great work with minimal trial and error.
Thinking of a great work is not trial and error, but going from thought
to reality is in one form or another.
Don
Don,
Does that mean you agree that there is a fundamental difference between
invention and artistic creation?
Tom,
No…that doesn't mean that. While I agree that invention is usualy of
a 'thing' and artistry is usualy of a 'work' (painting, photograph, etc.) I
also feel that the process is the same:
1. Think of what is to be done
2. Think of how to do it
3. Do it via some form of trial and error
Depending on the project and the person…the amount of trial and error
can be great or little.
Don
Don,
Does this mean you think Edison "made up" electric light in the same sense
that Chaucer "made up" the Canterbury Tales? That determining what materials
are suitable for cheap incandescent light is a process of introspection?
This is to confuse Edison with God-the-Creator, a major blunder.
Tom,
Are you trying to say that God spoke to Chaucer and inspired him to
write the Canterbury tales? Our so called God Given talents vary from person
to person. If Edison's talents were in the idea and implementation fields and
Chaucer's were in the 'artistic' fields…is either any less than the other?
If what Edison did was so easy…why didn't someone do it before?
Electricity was known long before Edison's day.
From hindsight…the making of an electric light bulb was a relatively
easy task….just try lots of materials until something workable was found.
From Edison's viewpoint…it may in fact have been that easy, but obviously
from other viewpoints (Edison's comtemporaries and those before him) it
apparently wasn't that easy since no one bothered to try it.
You place 'artists' on too high a pedestal. They were people just like
you and I with talents different than mine (and I suspect yours). They were
not gods or even god like…just plain old folks who directed their energies in
directions that have provided future generations with various forms of
pleasure.
Don
Another part of the creative process that hasn't been mentioned yet, is the
ability to adapt one's intentions as the process continues. Taking this
example of the sculptor accidentally cutting a bit more stone away than
intented. At that point, he has two choices – either abandon the effort and
start over again, or to adjust his plans and find a way to make this last cut
"work". This is not a rare occurance in any creative process. It is part of
the "artistic" temperament to be able to find a way to make it "work", whether
the craft is sculpting, painting, writing, or programming. Not all sculptures,
paintings, prose, or programs are artistic, but similar artistic skills can be
and are utilized in the creation of all of the above.
As far as programming goes, theres a very big difference between writing a
program from an extremely detailed specification and creating a program. The
former may (but most likely won't) perform its intended functions, but almost
never will contain any added functionality that is "discovered" in the process
of writing it. It probably won't be nearly as usable as the program that
"evolves" as part of the process of creation. I've not seen a program spec yet
(written BEFORE the program(s) were written) that really had a complete handle
on the problems that said program needed to solve. It is because of this that
most of the software developed by large teams of programmers doesn't tend to be
great software – at best its "functional". Just look at most of the software
that is used in Corporate America. Unfortunately, it takes too long for a
software artist as an individual to create the amount of software that many
projects require, hence the team-approach.
Just another perspective….Bob
Bob,
I just went thru a class discussing exactly that problem. And you're
right. Yes, done from scratch and an idea…a program must evolve to become
more useful.
A proper design approach before line one of code gets put on paper
should be, but rarely is, used when a team of programmers work on a project.
What normaly happens is that a few people do the design and then give a group
of programmers sections to write, and perhaps even some pseudo code. Since
none of the programmers gets to work on the whole, and the whole isn't done
until each of the programmers is done…there is little, if any, ability to
mold the program along the way.
Don
Sculpture? Nuthin' to it… you decide what you want, say a cat, and then just
remove everything from the stone that doesn't look like a cat. If you go too
far, just change what you want. I usually end up with a sort of a bent thing
about toothpick sized.
-larry
After starting with a 4 ton (long tons) boulder, right? <grin>
At least!
-larry
Michealangelo (sp?) said something similar, that all he did was to remove the
part of the stone that was not part of the sculpture within it. And good old
J.S.Bach said "playing the organ is siplicity itself; all one has to do is
press the right keys at the right time, and the instrument plays itself".
-tc
(Ahem…) comments about improvisational music, as an improvisational musician.
You are correct, you can't backspace over a played note, and play a different
note, but you can certainly use that "wrong"note to change the context of the
piece, and thereby use it as part of the music. I suspect sculpters can do the
same, i. e., if they do an oops on the stone, they "think around it", and
incorporate the bad cut into the design. Improv of any kind requires some
basic skills, a quick imagination, and the courage to make a mistake… and not
much more. And its fun!
-tc
I remember a rule of one music instructor was "If you are going to play a wrong
note, make it a good one!" He was struggling against the tendency of the
player to realize the error early into the note and suddenly clamp back on it,
resulting in a puny, ugly, unmistakeable wrong note. Play the errors with the
same attack and diaphragm support, he argued, and the audience will blame the
composer.
According to Perry Kivolovitz VD0: was substantially done in a day and
completely finished in a weekend.