As a university student you are taught to challenge and question most of what you read or see, if you are quick to criticise you are quickly told to have an open mind, but more importantly if you do question or challenge at least have the evidence to back it up with. As a photography student I found myself doing this often, even if only to satisfy my own curiosity, I started university under the illusion that all photography was art and yet had never really given any thought as to why it had been placed under such a heading. It was at the start of my second year when my own thoughts really began to be challenged, my brief was to put on an exhibition showing my own work. Placed in a group of five students we immediately began our search for a venue, ideally its proximity needed to be near the university to ease the transportation of framed prints. The first two venues could accommodate us but not in the time frame that we had, the third a well known local shop for supplying raw materials for artist run by a rather obnoxious woman, who clearly felt we were from another planet. We enquired about the gallery space and were directed up stairs to meet her, consulting the diary she enquired as to what we would be exhibiting, street photography we replied, she shook her head, ‘we don’t display photography’ One of my peers thanked her for her time and turned to leave, but I didn’t, I felt compelled to ask the question, you don’t regard photography as art do you?…….My question was not answered by words, but with a stare of disgust, as if I had uttered some kind of profanity, I smiled nodded and uttered the words, thought so as I left. At the end of my second year I spent a good deal of the summer reading and researching in preparation for my dissertation, what I uncovered during that period not only changed the way that I viewed my own photography but the way that I viewed art.
Art has become complex in relationship to what is considered art and the reason for this lies deep in it roots, I refer here mainly to the one of painting because this is the area that is as closely related to photography as any, and is the one that most people are generally referring to in relation to photography. But often I have seen people struggle when asked to define it, but the answer is really quite simple, in order to define something it is necessary to reduce it to its lowest common denominator. By doing so in this case, we need to go back to pre renaissance guilds of Florence of which there were 21. From the beginning, not all arti were equal: to the original seven Arti Maggiori were added fourteen Arti Minori as the guild system spread. . These guilds included seven major guilds (collectively known as the arti maggiori), five middle guilds (arti mediane) and nine minor guilds (arti minori). The key here is the word arti or art, a definition used to cover everything and anything that contributed to the infrastructure of social life at that time, ambiguous terminology that covered everything from shoemakers to lawyers and ordered according to their validity to society, presided over by Arte dei Giudci e Nota, (Art of Judges and Notaries), the number one guild. The vast majorty of these guilds were crafts that were passed down from father to son or by way of apprenticeship so that each guild could teach its own skill according to laid down tradition, while some gained entrance by way of association as suppliers to each individual guild. Painters or Artist, were no exception to this and gained entrance to these guilds by way of association, as they bought their pigments from the apothecaries, they were therefore granted permission to share the same guild as Doctors and Apothecaries being elected in 1314, before being granted their own in 1378. But as early as 1400 the argument to elevate art to status above that of other other crafts already had its champions, Cennino d’Andrea Cennini (c. 1370 – c. 1440) an Italian painter, who had argued that painting should be regarded as a liberal art and not a mechanical one, liberal arts such as poetry, discourse, logic and grammar required theory and scholarship, the mechanical arts required practice. ( Pooke and Whitman 2008:13). Cennini’s argument however is flawed by his own hand when he authored ‘Il Libro dell’ Arte’ The Craftsman’s Handbook, aimed at the apprentice painter, the book offered advice on technique and methods as well advice on lifestyle to young painters. But are not the very methods he described in his treatise one of practice and is not the art of producing anything worthy of note one of repeated practice and therefore mechanical by nature. The use of liberal thinking is one that follows after you have mastered your craft. A child does not become a mathematician by learning trigonometry, it learns to add, subtract and multiply first.
Paintings rise to prominence was brought forth by rapid economic growth of the ruling merchant classes,such as the Medici and the patronage of Holy Roman Emperors, the Popes and the King of France. Such classes wanting a visual means of displaying their power and wealth, it was also considerable cheaper than alternative methods such as sculpture. The prestige of having of having such patronage is something that the artist held onto tightly in its attempt to elevate their status to a higher platform than that of other crafts. In the later part of the sixteenth century academies of Florence, Milan and Rome were founded, the word ‘academy’ is significant here because its use implied one of intellectual status rather than one that was practical or mechanical. An attempt to once again to challenge the craft guild and elevate the status of painting above the level of other crafts, and it would gain further support.
Using Italian examples as models in 1638 a group of influential painters persuaded the King of France, Louis XIV, to support the creation of a French Academy. It would be instrumental in not only establishing painting as an academic vocation but its influence would spread throughout Europe where by 1790 there were over 100 academies. The first director of the French academy Charles Le Bron ( 1619-1690) laid the foundations for the teaching of formal painting, he considered composition and drawing as the basis of good painting and that colour was of secondary importance. Subject matter was categorised by way of hierarchy with history being the most prestigious. What Le Bron had achieved was proving that painting could be taught by applying a set of rules, but it could also be influenced by applying a hierarchy to the various genres. But what he unwittingly proved was that painting was no different to any other craft if a set of similar rules were applied and it was privileged to be supported in the same way.
The definition for me then at least is clear, that painting at least can be defined as an elevated craft, I can almost hear the howls of discontent at least from the some quarters of the art fraternity but all of what I have written here is based on fact via history, unlike most art work that incorporates fiction as part of the fabric of its make-up. Christopher Frayling, Rector, of The Royal College of Art wrote on the website of the Victoria and Albert Museum ”The American Customs & Excise definition of ‘a work of art’ is that the owner must be able to prove it is completely useless. Craft work is something else, though it can produce objects for contemplation as well as objects for use”(2012) Is not then the very fact that paintings are bought as investments, hung on walls to complement the décor proof that they are objects are for use and therefore nothing more than craft.
