the term: Fine Art

michaelshane said:
I own a Fine Art Gallery.😉

I'm a lousy comedian....😱
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Come on, Michael... This is not personal and not against any gallery: there are lots of people calling themselves Fine Art Photographer even if nobody else thinks the same... As in everything, the best ones are very few... But if you prefer to say everyone in the world with a card that says "Fine Art Photographer" is an artist, we totally disagree.

Cheers,

Juan
 
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do you need "finer" art?

do you need "finer" art?

Would you like to show some unique fine art of Glacier National Park, which incidentally, is having is celebrating it's 100th anniversary this year/summer?

michaelshane said:
Because I show fine art...


I'm off to bed too...
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Juan Valdenebro said:
Come on, Michael... This is not personal and not against any gallery: there are lots of people calling themselves Fine Art Photographer even if nobody else thinks the same... As in everything, the best ones are very few... But if you prefer to say everyone in the world with a card that says "Fine Art Photographer" is an artist, we totally disagree.

Cheers,

Juan
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I think everyone in the world is capable of producing art.It makes no difference if anyone likes it or buys it,it's still art.No one has the right to say who is an artist and who is not.Best one's -worst one's...who gets to decide that?Do you really think the ones who make the most money are the best?What does success have to do with art?Whether photography is fine art or not...That's been debated to death.To me it is,I hang it in my "fine art gallery"
 
michaelshane said:
I think everyone in the world is capable of producing art.It makes no difference if anyone likes it or buys it,it's still art.No one has the right to say who is an artist and who is not.Best one's -worst one's...who gets to decide that?Do you really think the ones who make the most money are the best?What does success have to do with art?Whether photography is fine art or not...That's been debated to death.To me it is,I hang it in my "fine art gallery"
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That sounds sweet, but the world, the critics and the ages call art less than 1% of the works and artists who dedicate their lives with passion to try and produce art.

Yet I think calling oneself Fine Art Photographer has no real meaning about the photographs made but about one's public interests. As others said before, it's something that the rest of the people should think or not about someone, and of course, there, any opinion is as valid as any other... It's the viewer who decides to see or not something inside the image... Honestly, I have never met any gallery owner who asked me if my photographs were "Fine Art"... And even less if I had just asked them about their personal preferences for hanging...

Maybe it has some meaning in the USA... I wonder if my favorite photographers like Nadar, Atget, Frank, Bresson, Newton, are considered Fine Art... Here author and art are the real thing, and fine art has a more light, decorative, prudent touch... For me Robert Frank is an artist and never did Fine Art Photography, and any nice landscape or nude can be Fine Art Photography... Maybe it's just a language thing... Here "Fotografía de autor" is a serious, free, sometimes avant garde thing, and "Fotografía artística" is more for selling to decorate houses and offices.

Cheers,

Juan
 
michaelshane said:
I think everyone in the world is capable of producing art.It makes no difference if anyone likes it or buys it,it's still art.No one has the right to say who is an artist and who is not.Best one's -worst one's...who gets to decide that?Do you really think the ones who make the most money are the best?What does success have to do with art?Whether photography is fine art or not...That's been debated to death.To me it is,I hang it in my "fine art gallery"
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I haven't even talked about money or used that word in any moment or way... In fact I talked about Van Gogh, a great artist who never made money... I don't understand you.

Cheers,

Juan
 
Juan Valdenebro said:
Maybe it's just a language thing... Here "Fotografía de autor" is a serious, free, sometimes avant garde thing, and "Fotografía artística" is more for selling to decorate houses and offices.

Cheers,

Juan
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I think it is somewhat a language thing, with the additional distinctions within each language/culture. I know what you mean about things sold to decorate houses and offices, but most people in the US don't "decorate with art" as such it seems to me. They collect things that appeal to them, and put them around the house. Likely the same around the world, just different cultures contextualize 'it' differently.
 
Ranchu said:
'Fine art' smells fishy to me. It makes sense to me that the term is derived from the European terms though, so ok. I don't even call photographs art anyway, they're photographs.
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Not *all* photographs are artwork or art-pieces, but a lot of them are.

The interesting thing to me is that art have two dimensions of measurement, there are bad and good artwork, but then there's the matter of taste. Just like food.

For example those two photographers mentioned in this thread, their work may be considered artwork, but definitely not my taste, by far.
 
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For me fine art photogrpahy are images created purely to meet an artistic goal. This is not to say other types of photography are not or cannot be art, rather they're created to meet other goals (photojournalism is a good example) and then turn out to have artistic merit.

Cheers

Matt
 
The recently deceased photographer "Brian Duffy" nailed it when he said: "The work is the statement". And words to the effect that all the talk surrounding the work was plain bull**** which I guess includes calling your work fine art. Mind you, calling yourself a fine art photographer may well attract the types you think will buy it. So that makes it a marketing term pure and simple.
 
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If it's art it costs maybe $100. If it's fine art it costs maybe $1000 🙂

Actually, your description FrankS is as good as any. I like it. And photography is not a craft.
 
The term Fine Art bothers me just because of its tacit deterrence that serve as an immunity, a social shield against negative criticism (not simple dislike or dissimilar taste). Take a "fine" art photo which is technically poor, aesthetically non-pleasing (not unpleasing which could itself suddenly become a desired aesthetic quality), bland, evoking no emotion, no reaction, no thinking, no context, no revolt, nothing and seeming to serve no purpose at all, regardless of how hard you try to evaluate it. And think about it as everybody feels the same about, your common sense tells it to you despite its potential for wrong appraisal, that no one would find a purpose or a joy or an aesthetic value in it. But here you are in front of a Fine Art print that the best comment you could utter still feeling yourself comfortable is it not being upto your taste. Because you are not entitled to call a Fine Art print a failure; you can dislike it, but you can not disqualify it.


This is a discussion that I see going to nowhere, similar to "l'art pour le peuple" vs. "l'art pour l'art" vs. "l'art contre l'art" ... theories. As in tastes, we are free to praise the term Fine Art or sneer at it knowing that they know that we know 🙄 Oooops, I just revealed my stance 😀

Following is from Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary published 99 years ago:
ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related as follows by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J.
One day a wag -- what would the wretch be at? --
Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT,
And said it was a god's name! Straight arose
Fantastic priests and postulants (with shows,
And mysteries, and mummeries, and hymns,
And disputations dire that lamed their limbs)
To serve his temple and maintain the fires,
Expound the law, manipulate the wires.
Amazed, the populace that rites attend,
Believe whate'er they cannot comprehend,
And, inly edified to learn that two
Half-hairs joined so and so (as Art can do)
Have sweeter values and a grace more fit
Than Nature's hairs that never have been split,
Bring cates and wines for sacrificial feasts,
And sell their garments to support the priests.
​
Cheers !
 
Give it up. Fine Art is what historians, curators and critics define.

It has nothing to do with your work, unless you wish to pursue the avenues into Fine Art, and if you do so, you are not among the ordinary, which I believe are most of us here. Ordinary is not a term that diminishes us. It just separates us from the BS of Fine Art.


Just do your thing and be happy. Or not, as you decide.
 
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Chriscrawfordphoto said:
That attitude died in the 1930s too. I've never seen someone with an education in the arts, in my lifetime, try to argue that photography, ceramics, and weaving were not fine art (there are non-art uses for these things too, but that's true of drawing and painting as well). I lived in Santa Fe several years and the galleries there displayed photography, tapestries, and ceramics right alongside paintings, sculptures, and drawings with no distinctions between them. That's the state of fine art today.
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Well...I would be happy to have that argument with you but I will admit the line is blurred....

A craft can also be art but much "craft" is just that. Much of photography is craft and a small percentage is art.

I have always felt that "Fine Art Photography" is a snotty way to differentiate the "Fine Artist" from the average Joe or jane with a camera. Perhaps the photo should say what caetgory it is in and not the title the photographer gives to themselves.

Oh yeah....I do have an MFA in the arts....not the crafts 🙂
 
atlcruiser said:
Well...I would be happy to have that argument with you but I will admit the line is blurred....

A craft can also be art but much "craft" is just that. Much of photography is craft and a small percentage is art.

I have always felt that "Fine Art Photography" is a snotty way to differentiate the "Fine Artist" from the average Joe or jane with a camera. Perhaps the photo should say what caetgory it is in and not the title the photographer gives to themselves.

Oh yeah....I do have an MFA in the arts....not the crafts 🙂
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Of course most photography isn't art, that's why we have the terms like fine art, commercial, wedding & portrait, snapshots, etc to distinguish between the different types of photographs and motives for making them. I'm at a loss to understand why you don't get that, especially when you admit that you understand that some photography is art and some is not.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Of course most photography isn't art, that's why we have the terms like fine art, commercial, wedding & portrait, snapshots, etc to distinguish between the different types of photographs and motives for making them. I'm at a loss to understand why you don't get that, especially when you admit that you understand that some photography is art and some is not.
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Chris, it's not the word "art" that causes the disconnect, it's the word "fine". Fine suggests a judgement call. To create a photograph and label it "fine art" even before it has a chance to be criticized or appreciated, seems kinda "cocky" in many people's minds. It's more neutral to say that a particular photograph or series was created as art, but to say "fine art" appears to be demanding respect - where none may be due.

Now for workers in the field such as yourself, if using the term makes for more and more lucrative sales, then more power to you. But a term of commerce is different than a term that has meaning in a critical discussion.
 
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