Is Painting Warhammer ART?
Added 2023-02-10 18:09:36 +0000 UTCJust me rambling on about art, what people consider 'their art' and Art Vs Artist.
Comments
There certainly is art in Warhammer, but it's concealed behind a 'solid' marketing strategy.
Jeroen Brugman
2023-02-16 14:40:52 +0000 UTCNice to learn a little bit about your background. I've worked as a graphic designer for about 25 years, and almost never considered what I did art, even when I created new things. I guess the question is for the viewer of a work to determine and for the insecure creator to angst about...
Jeroen Brugman
2023-02-16 14:39:17 +0000 UTCI probably should have said more that I definitely consider the SETTING to be art, or to contain some elements of art. The writing, invention, themes, messaging, even some of the novels are definitely intended to examine the human condition in the same was as 'serious' literature.
ArbitorIan
2023-02-15 08:46:50 +0000 UTCI suppose one of the other things this video doesn't cover is any difference between decoration and 'art'. Like, is painting models to be pretty ART or just decor??
ArbitorIan
2023-02-15 08:45:45 +0000 UTCYeah, or Midwinter's recent 'what does a model look like with 100 coats of paint' stuff.
ArbitorIan
2023-02-15 08:44:41 +0000 UTCI'd like to posit that under the definition of art as Meaning, and especially within that as a reflection, critique or commentary on the time and society that it is situated within, 40k miniatures are a collaborative artwork created by GW writers, sculptors/designers, and miniature painters, with each contributing a facet of that critique or commentary based on their perspective. (Possibly more readily identifiable at the time you've given the "punk being arrested" example of, when it was a more outspoken critique of its social circumstances; but even now a commentary on how our society relates to the themes it focuses on.)
Johannes Meyer
2023-02-14 00:03:57 +0000 UTCVery good points. I do not always paint minis as art, but sometimes I feel I do. As I would do a painting or poetry. Not art for showing, even if others liking it is nice, but art for myself.
Filkarion
2023-02-13 14:22:04 +0000 UTCThis was lovely, really nicely thought out and presented ideas, thank you!
Callum Smith
2023-02-12 10:20:38 +0000 UTCAs a coda, I think it's always important to remember that the art that we consider to be 'art' (and certainly great art) tends to be the stuff that we as a species have fairly arbitrarily consider to be the best, and we've discarded or overwritten or forgotten the rest. For every Mona Lisa, we've lost, ignored and destroyed hundreds and thousands of fairly pedestrian pieces of work which weren't deemed up to it (and a few exceptional pieces which probably would be held up high but for bad luck), and indeed a huge number of jobbing artists who were their equivalent of painters and decorators who went town to town and painted the same church scene over and over again. Ultimately, you'd still call them artists in some respect (admittedly using some of the different definitions in the video as opposed to others).
IronConsul22
2023-02-10 20:17:02 +0000 UTCI would tend to use as a starting point on a definition of art as serving no purpose beyond its own value. Painting up to a certain level can be argued as being for a purpose, even if that's to make it obvious on a field which side is which and which models are which. To make a comparison, yellow lines on a road probably aren't art (although they're arguably a craft) because their primary purpose is to instruct and delineate rather than be pretty. Go beyond that utilitarian approach of one/two/three colours which tends to be the basic standard of tabletop legit, and arguably everything is art at that stage - you're trying to imbue the plastic with some meaning beyond what is needed for playing the game, and whether that is attempting to evoke and mimic realism or to go completely abstract and make a different point, you're still going above and beyond a 'primary need' of making a little figure different from another. Once you get beyond that, it's more a question of how good the art is, but that will be almost entirely subjective and indeed personal to the individual - some people will value technical skill but some people will value the ability to bring forth meaning, in the same way that some people will chose a Caravaggio as their favourite picture and others might pick their child's first picture.
IronConsul22
2023-02-10 20:13:16 +0000 UTCThis was really excellent; thanks for making it. Though now I'm running into about a hundred mental rabbit holes. Something that struck me once I put myself in the 'art' mindset was that the 'worst mini ever' Ultramarine is arguably closer to pure art than things that are technically competent. Outsider art maybe, but I think it'd be a comfortable fit in a gallery in a way that a GW house style mini would not.
Kurtz
2023-02-10 19:18:18 +0000 UTCMy miniatures aren't painted badly, they are anti-art.
Scavvon
2023-02-10 19:00:27 +0000 UTC
