Thursday, July 9, 2009

object day #6

fungus/sea urchin:






There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists. Once these were men who took coloured earth and roughed out the forms of a bison on the wall of a cave; today some buy their paints, and design posters for hoardings; they did and do many other things. There is no harm in calling all these activities art as long as we keep in mind that such a word may mean very different things in different times and places, and as long as we realize that Art with a capital A has no exhistence. For Art with a capital A has come to be something bogey and a fetish. You may crush an artist by telling him that what he has just done may be quite good in it's own way, only it is not 'Art'. And you may confound anyone enjoying a picture by declaring that what he liked in it was not Art but something different.

The Essential Gombrich: Selected Writings on Art and Culture, E.H. Gombrish (page 65)

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