Art or Entertainment?

[yovargas]

For a long time I've maintained that there is a difference between Art and Entertainment. One is not necessarily better then the other (I'll take great entertainment over ok art) nor are they mutually exclusive (great art can also be great entertainment), but I strongly feel that they are two separate concepts, to separate purposees, perhaps. The problem is, I have been utterly unable to articulate what that difference supposedly is. So I was hoping some discussion would help:


Do you think there is a difference between Art and Entertainment?
If so, what do you think the difference is?
If not, why not?

[vison]

Heck, I have a hard enough time with the difference between Art and Craft, yovargas. (I can' tell what the difference is.)

But I think this is a good topic and will return to be serious when I have the time!

[axordil]

It's like the separation between high and popular culture...in some ways it's arbitrary and in others it's obvious. As much as anything else I think it's a matter of intended audience, and audience repsonse.

[Primula Baggins]

In my experience the distinction is chiefly used by other people to inform clods like me that everything we thought was art is mere entertainment and that we have never read or seen the "real" stuff.

[vison]

In my experience the distinction is chiefly used by other people to inform clods like me that everything we thought was art is mere entertainment and that we have never read or seen the "real" stuff.

My gawd, if YOU are a clod? What am I?

Dust below the feet of Art, that's what.

Lower than the lowly worm.

Lower than a snake's belly.

Lower than fish poop.

*is sad*

*but is really happy because is so low doesn't know what is missing*

[Primula Baggins]

vison, what part of "I am a science fiction writer" did you not understand?

Of course I'm a clod. I write to entertain people.

Maybe the point I'd like to make is that cloddiness has its place in the world.

[yovargas]

Perhaps I shoulda said it louder:

"One is not necessarily better then the other"

No clods here, goshdarnit!

I have a hard enough time with the difference between Art and Craft

They are different...but for the sake of this discussion, let's pretend they're not.

It's like the separation between high and popular culture...in some ways it's arbitrary and in others it's obvious.

Ok, how bout we start with the obvious, then?

[axordil]

The obvious: as a general rule, art is less ephemeral in terms of being considered relevant and worthy of attention. People keep coming back to things that qualify as art in a way they don't come back to "mere" entertainment. What makes it that way?

That's where things start becoming less clear, or at least less universally accepted. Technical mastery can be a component...perhaps it should always be. Depth (of subject matter, of theme, of effect) is at least as important for many.

[Whistler]

I'd just like to point out that Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Dickens, Mozart and practically every other artist, for hundreds of years, has had as his primary motive the making of a few bucks by giving the public what it wanted.

[vison]

I'd just like to point out that Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Dickens, Mozart and practically every other artist, for hundreds of years, has had as his primary motive the making of a few bucks by giving the public what it wanted.

Yes, even genius must eat. Like I did, they formed the habit as infants and found it hard to break.

[PrinceAlarming]

I agree that there is a difference between art and entertainment.

I'm easily amused, and that makes me easily entertained. A football in the groin on some funniest home videos show is entertaining to me, albeit for 15 seconds. In no way, shape, or form would I consider a football accidently careening into the unsuspecting testes of a middle-aged man art.

A war memorial on the commons is art. But it is not entertainment.

But, I guess if an artist wanted to use a clip of some poor chap getting pelted with sports equipment in an installation it could be art and entertainment.

I guess it also depends on the viewer. Or the artist. Is something entertainment if it entertains only one person? Andy Kaufman's comedy was based a lot on what entertained him. But lots of other people found it funny too. Entertainment can be an accident. Can art be an accident?

[Primula Baggins]

I wonder how much capital-A Art is consciously created as such?

Or is it just people doing their work as well as they can and hitting gold? (Which possibly won't become clear until long after they're dead—see van Gogh.)

At least, the writers I've known who were confident they were creating great art were profoundly wrong.

(To clarify—most of what's written and created, most definitely including my own work, clearly will never qualify for the Eternal Pantheon. But maybe what does isn't necessarily created with that in mind.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'd just like to point out that Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Dickens, Mozart and practically every other artist, for hundreds of years, has had as his primary motive the making of a few bucks by giving the public what it wanted.

And Whistler. (Both of them.)

[Frelga]

I'd just like to point out that Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Dickens, Mozart and practically every other artist, for hundreds of years, has had as his primary motive the making of a few bucks by giving the public what it wanted.

Well, I don't know about the primary motive... You listed geniuses, and a genius (or even a mere "talent") has a primal need to find an outlet. But yes, giants in every form of art have been tremendously entertaining.

Clod that I am, I suspect that the haughty stance and the toss of the head as one declares that one does not strive for entertainment of clods like me but for the art's sake... well, those are signs of someone who is not very good, in my very humble opinion.

If I had to make a distinction I think I would put it thusly: most art is "entertaining". Not amusing, necessarily. But great art touches something deep inside a clod and engages mind and emotion on a very deep level.

However, I would submit that art is distinguished from entertainment by some level of innovation rather than a mere recycling of the same old with a different wrapper. So, there are some very entertaining action movies that are identical to other entertaining action movies only in the fine detail of who's slashing whom with what appliance, or where the final confrontation is stage. They can be fun, but I would not call them "art".

[PrinceAlarming]

I find a difference between being "touched" and moved by a work of art, and being entertained. I am not entertained during worship or a good sermon. I am moved.

There are things that I find artistic, entertaining and moving.

LOTR for one.

And Die Hard III is art, yoou're just not looking deep enough.

[axordil]

Surviving is always good for art.

It should be noted, though, that "the public" has meant different things in different times and places. Shakespeare wrote for the mixed throngs at the Globe (of which he was part ownere...talk about media consolidation ) AND for private theatres and royalty. And his sonnets weren't written with cash in mind at all...

Similary, Mozart wrote commissioned pieces for nobles, the Masons, AND the popular stage.

And then there are those who never worked with money in mind...weirdos. Austen, Milton, some of the Romantic poets...

[Whistler]

All true, Ax. I believe the puzzle we have today comes down to this: in past centuries, "the public" meant something different than it does today. The term today means literally everybody, including the hopelessly ignorant. In past centuries, "the public" usually meant the minority of people who had the time and money to enjoy the arts. Nowadays everybody enjoys some sort of art, often for free. The assumption we make is that somehow, the art that so-and-so enjoys must be of low quality simply because we regard so-and-so as unsophisticated.

[axordil]

True enough. Conversely, someone who watches--and "gets"--Shakespeare can also enjoy, say, Fawlty Towers, or even Benny Hill. But that doesn't mean the three are equal in content/quality/"artisitic" merit.

[vison]

How true, ax.

Because Benny Hill is to Shakespeare what Shakespeare is to Fawlty Towers.

How I miss Benny. What a class guy.

[baby tuckoo]

Where is John Ruskin when we need him?

I can't remember: was it 7 pillars of architecture and 5 pillars of wisdom? Or the other way around?

Anyway, we won't resolve this here, but good test cases are Warhol and Rothko, in the visual arts. I think the depth that is needed to qualify for "art" status comes from three qualities: concept, commentary, and execution.

We expect the concept to be worthy, the commentary to be novel, and the execution to rise to the occasion. Entertainment can survive on any two of the three.

This last is crucial: limitations of the artist's skill shouldn't weigh down his vision. Craft first; vision later.