Just what makes art?

What is art?
Okay, okay, that’s a way-too-heavy question to launch a column in a small town Indiana newspaper.
But I’ve got to admit it has been on my mind for the past couple of months.
It all started, as such things do these days, with noodling around on the Internet.
(Hey, if Google has all the answers, it’s only appropriate that the ’Net provides some questions.)
I was goofing around on eBay, doing some random searches in hopes of finding a few things of interest.
I’d already tried “Portland Ind.,” and “Jay County,” and “Antrim NH,” and a couple of others that sometimes provide something amusing to look at.
Then I plugged in the name of an Indiana artist, one of the prominent names from the first half of the last century.
And what popped up provoked that question: What is art?
That’s because, when I typed in “T.C. Steele” or “William Merritt Chase,” I was offered an opportunity to buy a masterpiece. Or, rather, multiple masterpieces.
Enterprising Chinese companies have set up Web sites that will provide you with a painted-on-order “original reproduction” of paintings by dozens of American and European artists.
Always wished you could afford a John Singer Sargent for the front hall? No problem. Ever wished you could have your own Monet? Just click the right buttons and let PayPal do the rest.
Now, art lovers in the West are used to reproductions. There are museum prints and posters by the thousands. And they’re viewed — not surprisingly — as something far less than the original.
They’re knock-offs, pumped out by printing presses routinely.
But this was something different.
This was a hand-painted copy, and there’s no question that the person wielding the paintbrush had tremendous skill. And your choices were as wide and as varied as you could imagine.
As I understand it, they’ll even send you digital images of the work in progress so you can approve before you agree to foot the bill.
My reaction to this phenomenon could not have been more ambivalent.
Part of me was snobbish about the idea of buying a reproduction. I’m not sure why. Artists have done copies of the works of others for centuries as a way of honing their skills.
And part of me wanted to place an order.
The idea of owning T.C. Steele’s rowing boatsman or Sargent’s “Madame X” was beguiling.
A little wacky, but beguiling.
The net result has been to wonder about that whole question at the start of this column.
If a copy is just as beautiful as the original and if the technical skills involved are just as great, by what degree is the copy less a work of art than the original?
I found myself thinking back to a moment in China more than 20 years ago. A representative of the Chinese government had shown us a lovely clay bust of a young woman.
I found myself wanting to take the thing home, but then he pointed out that the state-run factory could churn out thousands of identical pieces a month.
And suddenly I didn’t want it.
It was just as beautiful as it had been an instant before, but the moment it became a manufactured product instead of the fruit of the inspiration of an individual, its value was diminished.
Art was inherent in the moment of creation. But technical skills that can replicate the same work are strangely sterile, devoid of inspiration and insight
Does that make sense? I honestly do not know, but it’s the best I can do, having raised a profound question on a September afternoon in a small town newspaper.[[In-content Ad]]