Is there a difference between art and craft? - Laura Morelli
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Date: 2020-08-22
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Comments and reviews: 10
Cavstic
I once had a long debate on this. Here's what I think:
Art and Craft are intertwined but there are 2 main differences between them.
1- Craft is born out of a PRACTICAL necessity. Art is born out of an EMOTIONAL/INTELLECTUAL necessity. You can create a beautifully engraved chair, give a stylish haircut, serve a masterfully decorated cake, or design a cool looking car, but ALL of the crafts required to make these products are born out of practical demands: I need to sit down, I need to trim my hair, I want to eat, I need a car.
Art, on the other hand, exists purely out of a mental necessity: be it for beauty, emotion or intellectual stimulus. You can't eat a novel, you can't drive a movie or wear a painting. All of these things exist SOLELY to serve your inner self. (This is also why it's MUCH harder to make a living as an artist than as a craftsman: emotional/intellectual necessities are MUCH harder to monetise than practical ones.
2- The second difference is structural in nature.
Craft is MUCH more structured than Art, because Craft creates products to sell, so the products need to be consistently replicated again and again and again. Art, on the other hand, while still structured to some degree, has almost NO LIMITATIONS in terms of transformation and degrees of expression. An actor can rehearse his part and perform on a stage for 15 nights in a row, yet EVERY single night will be slightly different. Art is performative in nature, so it's deeply tied to the individuality of each artist.
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Every artist studies and practices his craft in order to become a better artist, but the craft itself is not the end goal: it's just a tool to create the art.
reply
I once had a long debate on this. Here's what I think:
Art and Craft are intertwined but there are 2 main differences between them.
1- Craft is born out of a PRACTICAL necessity. Art is born out of an EMOTIONAL/INTELLECTUAL necessity. You can create a beautifully engraved chair, give a stylish haircut, serve a masterfully decorated cake, or design a cool looking car, but ALL of the crafts required to make these products are born out of practical demands: I need to sit down, I need to trim my hair, I want to eat, I need a car.
Art, on the other hand, exists purely out of a mental necessity: be it for beauty, emotion or intellectual stimulus. You can't eat a novel, you can't drive a movie or wear a painting. All of these things exist SOLELY to serve your inner self. (This is also why it's MUCH harder to make a living as an artist than as a craftsman: emotional/intellectual necessities are MUCH harder to monetise than practical ones.
2- The second difference is structural in nature.
Craft is MUCH more structured than Art, because Craft creates products to sell, so the products need to be consistently replicated again and again and again. Art, on the other hand, while still structured to some degree, has almost NO LIMITATIONS in terms of transformation and degrees of expression. An actor can rehearse his part and perform on a stage for 15 nights in a row, yet EVERY single night will be slightly different. Art is performative in nature, so it's deeply tied to the individuality of each artist.
.
Every artist studies and practices his craft in order to become a better artist, but the craft itself is not the end goal: it's just a tool to create the art.
reply
Purplethermia
Is craft a noun that could (or is) used to describe an object? A spoon is described as a hand crafted spoon not craft. Craft is the method of creation, a concept which is supported by the video when they differentiated between artists & artisans. If craft is the method of creating an object then what is the term for the finished object? You can craft something, you cannot art something. Now that artisan guilds are no longer the standard, the definition presented for art seems difficult to apply to present day creations. Since things are typically mass produced is craft less valuable than art? The video seemed to devalue craft, as if somehow something lovingly & skillfully crafted is less valuable without being labeled art. I think trying to define something as craft OR art is unnecessary since both terms can be used for the same object (something the video didn't address.
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Is craft a noun that could (or is) used to describe an object? A spoon is described as a hand crafted spoon not craft. Craft is the method of creation, a concept which is supported by the video when they differentiated between artists & artisans. If craft is the method of creating an object then what is the term for the finished object? You can craft something, you cannot art something. Now that artisan guilds are no longer the standard, the definition presented for art seems difficult to apply to present day creations. Since things are typically mass produced is craft less valuable than art? The video seemed to devalue craft, as if somehow something lovingly & skillfully crafted is less valuable without being labeled art. I think trying to define something as craft OR art is unnecessary since both terms can be used for the same object (something the video didn't address.
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MrZ4X5C6V7
A few years ago(1976) at the Denver Colorado USA Art Museum someone suggested to have a showing of the local area art work and skills and talent. I think that students from the many high schools and colleges and local art galleries and a handful of individual artists submitted their work. It was an exhibition that we will never forget because of the verity of different works of art. There was one that was made from a large number of clothes that were sewn together with a large number colors and textures in great detail. There were so many great works of art and so different. Maybe we'll start showing local artist works of art at our cafe and other shops and sell them to the highest bidder. Let's make money, Honey.
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A few years ago(1976) at the Denver Colorado USA Art Museum someone suggested to have a showing of the local area art work and skills and talent. I think that students from the many high schools and colleges and local art galleries and a handful of individual artists submitted their work. It was an exhibition that we will never forget because of the verity of different works of art. There was one that was made from a large number of clothes that were sewn together with a large number colors and textures in great detail. There were so many great works of art and so different. Maybe we'll start showing local artist works of art at our cafe and other shops and sell them to the highest bidder. Let's make money, Honey.
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The
Put it this way, you get couture fashion houses making all sorts of weird and wonderful footwear that has no life beyond its critical appraisal on the catwalk. The designers are pushing the limits of their own creativity and finding new ways to express themselves. This is a form of art. But the models can't walk in them. You then get steel toed boots made for working on building sites and trainers made for sport which also have another life as fashion items but would have no critical value within the world of fashion. The value here is in fulfilling a need and the commercial viability of the product. This is a form of craft.
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Put it this way, you get couture fashion houses making all sorts of weird and wonderful footwear that has no life beyond its critical appraisal on the catwalk. The designers are pushing the limits of their own creativity and finding new ways to express themselves. This is a form of art. But the models can't walk in them. You then get steel toed boots made for working on building sites and trainers made for sport which also have another life as fashion items but would have no critical value within the world of fashion. The value here is in fulfilling a need and the commercial viability of the product. This is a form of craft.
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Valeria
Very interesting and precise documentary. About the art which doesn't evolve much in time, one of the greatest example is Bizantine art with its derivation, like the famous Russian Icons. They are almost the same in centuries. The reason was in the message they wanted the art to carry, and that was that God and the saints were powerful and somewhat the centre of the universe, while in Europe, more attention was starting to be given to the mankind and art developed somewherelse. But nobody would ever dream to say that bizantine art is primitive or that it isn't art.
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Very interesting and precise documentary. About the art which doesn't evolve much in time, one of the greatest example is Bizantine art with its derivation, like the famous Russian Icons. They are almost the same in centuries. The reason was in the message they wanted the art to carry, and that was that God and the saints were powerful and somewhat the centre of the universe, while in Europe, more attention was starting to be given to the mankind and art developed somewherelse. But nobody would ever dream to say that bizantine art is primitive or that it isn't art.
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Dayne
There will generally be craft in art, but less likely art in craft. The first iterations of current crafts could be considered art however.
Your original take on a craft can become art, but recreating or abiding by logic to a preconceived result is craft, having the end in mind in something that already exists. That's how I see it. Art is driven by intuition but quite often brought to reality through logic.
For eg. Learning guitar can be a craft and playing others songs. Writing your own music outside a traditional formulaic genre etc. would make it art.
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There will generally be craft in art, but less likely art in craft. The first iterations of current crafts could be considered art however.
Your original take on a craft can become art, but recreating or abiding by logic to a preconceived result is craft, having the end in mind in something that already exists. That's how I see it. Art is driven by intuition but quite often brought to reality through logic.
For eg. Learning guitar can be a craft and playing others songs. Writing your own music outside a traditional formulaic genre etc. would make it art.
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Virtlink
Anything intended to make you feel an emotion _is art_, but anything else is not art. That's why Newman's Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue is art, and your child's drawing is not. Or why the New York One WTC is art, and your terraced house is not. Or even why Delvoye's feces-producing Cloaca machine is art, but Coca Cola's bottling machine is not.
Whether your feeling agrees with the artists intended feeling or not doesn't matter, all art wants to make you feel _something, anything_.
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Anything intended to make you feel an emotion _is art_, but anything else is not art. That's why Newman's Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue is art, and your child's drawing is not. Or why the New York One WTC is art, and your terraced house is not. Or even why Delvoye's feces-producing Cloaca machine is art, but Coca Cola's bottling machine is not.
Whether your feeling agrees with the artists intended feeling or not doesn't matter, all art wants to make you feel _something, anything_.
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Ed
I'm amused by the number of people who think art has no functional value. If something pleases your mind, to your mind it has value. If a functional item serves it's purpose, it pleases your mind. So I'm thinking that an item that is further from physical functionality is generally more art than craft, even though you can't make art without craft processes. If an art piece doesn't please your mind you are welcome to call it bad art or a useless end result of craft applied to material.
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I'm amused by the number of people who think art has no functional value. If something pleases your mind, to your mind it has value. If a functional item serves it's purpose, it pleases your mind. So I'm thinking that an item that is further from physical functionality is generally more art than craft, even though you can't make art without craft processes. If an art piece doesn't please your mind you are welcome to call it bad art or a useless end result of craft applied to material.
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Vinay
Art exists because the West puts innovation on a high pedestal, which is a blessing to all of us eventually. The same impulse that created Art, also gave us space-ships and trains and planes. Being a Westerner, it's easy for you to denounce this innovative impulse, but being an Easterner, I see the utmost value in this break in tradition and the drive to create something new every time which speaks to its time better than a work preceding it.
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Art exists because the West puts innovation on a high pedestal, which is a blessing to all of us eventually. The same impulse that created Art, also gave us space-ships and trains and planes. Being a Westerner, it's easy for you to denounce this innovative impulse, but being an Easterner, I see the utmost value in this break in tradition and the drive to create something new every time which speaks to its time better than a work preceding it.
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Carlos
I disagree. The difference between art is a compositional manifestation of a thinking: what is the purpose of the universe? what is the mission of the human being? These ideas are reflected in the formal qualities, themes and subject chosen by the artist. Art is always breaking with traditions, not because traditions are not worthy, because art is always looking for its own freedom, its own possibilities, its own terms.
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I disagree. The difference between art is a compositional manifestation of a thinking: what is the purpose of the universe? what is the mission of the human being? These ideas are reflected in the formal qualities, themes and subject chosen by the artist. Art is always breaking with traditions, not because traditions are not worthy, because art is always looking for its own freedom, its own possibilities, its own terms.
reply
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