"Miniature Painting: Art or Craft?" Topic

Here's the definitions I'm operating under:
Art attempts to say something beyond what is being portrayed. A statue of a woman is more about concepts such as beauty, youth, form, etc, whereas craft is simply representations of a known or imagined thing.

So my answer is wargame miniatures, and even display miniatures, while employing tools and techniques an artist would use in their creation, are just crafts and do not rise to the level of art.

Some of both depending on what the painter is trying to accomplish. If it's a three dimensional paint-by-numbers or just slapping paint on the fig to get it on the table in other than a raw state, that's a craft. If effort is put into the painting and presentation of the figure to add dimensionality, etc., I'd say that's art.

Like Sundance said, it depends. I've seen Art, Craft, and Cra…

It's just competency in one aspect your chosen hobby. Which I don't have, I am a 'three dimensional paint-by-numbers' gamer.

If I was proficient in painting figures I wouldn't consider myself an artist or a craftsman unless I was making money from the endeavour.

Art attempts to say something beyond what is being portrayed. A statue of a woman is more about concepts such as beauty, youth, form, etc,

That makes no real sense. Concepts from generalization are not extrinsic, they are subjective. When I say "beauty" it means something different to you than it does to me. You are confusing definite conceptual relations e.g. 2+2=4 with nebulous illusory ones, "beauty is truth, truth beauty".
The former are useful for modeling reality the latter only produce self-referential sensations. It's the difference between calculating the load of a bridge and eating a piece of pie. Pie is doubtless enjoyable to most people and well worth eating but it's flavor has no significance to external reality and there is no real way to communicate it's savor. People say art 'changed their life' and undoubtedly this is so, but so does pie.

Making a quasi-religious cult out of contrived sensation is what fine art has been about since it stopped serving the purposes of religion, it strikes be as mostly rather unhealthy, a kind of aesthetic onanism. I suppose there is a redeeming quality to it in the way a mnemonic device helps you remember the order of the planets or musical scales, perhaps at best a work of art could function like a Zen Koan but it would be less because of the art itself than the body of analysis encasing it. The real 'art' in modern art is not the object but the review.

Everything, art and nature should be enjoyed in the same way. There is no ranking only, if it must be imposed, classification into that which is constrained by necessity to the rigor of conforming to the external world (science) and that which is free of material purpose (art). Craft is not a valid classification. If there is creative scope in how to make the thing it is art, if not it's engineering.

I guess you could sum up my position on 'high' or 'fine' art by reference to the psychology of the placebo effect.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

Flashman14 – you just been told….

Had an Art professor tell me it was craft cause all you doing is coloring . His Boss told me it was Art . We are just a stage in the Art . Sculptor and painter .

To quote my son…

"Miniatures are art that people play with."

Personally I describe myself, in relation to my painting, as a craftsman. I apply skills learned by a combination of example and experience to produce a finished item which has value to my customers. The fact that its appearance pleases people is an added bonus – but that doesn't make it 'art' for me.

In earlier times the distinction between the two was a much greyer area than it seems to be today. There is a finer line between Craft and Art than is appreciated by some but to elevate Art above Craft is not only wrong, it is mildly insulting. Inbuilt in that assumption is that creative skills are in some way less important than creative 'vision' – not so IMHO. The greatest art comes from an inspired combination of the two and art with either missing is a mere fashionable 'fad' of limited worth and little durability.

Well, consider this: Is photography an art or craft? I rest my case. Now I will get back to doing something useful, which right now happens to be inventorying my large Star Wars CCG collection. :-)

…to elevate Art above Craft…

The 'elevation' is the whole point of 'fine' art, it's the nurse telling you this pill compounded of chalk and sugar is powerful medicine.

My painting is Fine Art, which I abbreviate as F.Art, I can't speak for anyone else.

Art existed long before the ability to afford it caused the epithet 'fine' to be added – that was just a class thing. You had to be 'educated' to appreciate 'fine' art and, of course, you needed money to get educated – hence the hoi-poloi couldn't be expected to appreciate it. Fatuous drivel that has little or nothing to do with the CREATION of art.

Looking at 'art' from a purely western perspective and from a post mdeieval prospect is going to load the argument with pre-concieved ideas and values that end in circular arguments – just like talking about religion to a believer in just one.

I know what you mean Tom but 'real' art and artists existed and still continue to do so, however cynical you (or I) may be about what we are presented with labelled as 'Art'.

CPBelt – good point and it emphasises my description of great art needing both the skills of using the medium effectively as well as the creative vision. Find me a great photographer who doesn't know his tools and materials very well – but you will find plenty of photo enthusiasts who have all the same knowledge and skills with the equipment but don't take those photos that stun.

Craft focuses upon skill sets and the exicution of quality for its own sake. Craftwork is generally repedative involving the making of the same item over and over often for sale where the item may be valued for its esthetic appeal, but usually has a functional or decrative purpose.

Art involves the creation of things that approch a subject with new concepts and interpritation. It asks the audience to understand the subject in new and different ways. Art usually involves on-of-a-kind pieces or a series of studies involving the same subject and media. Once art begins to deal with a subject in repedative ways, as art it become cliche or darivitive and conciquently less appreciated as art.

Art and craft can exist in figure painting. Since much of what we do is paint the same figure over and over to create armies or to sell, I would have to say that it involves more craft than art.

…'real' art and artists existed and still continue to do so…

Yes, but aesthetic appreciation is more like humor than enlightenment. A work of art is akin to a joke, it may work for some people and not for others, it is largely culturally dependent, it can be carefully contrived or occur spontaneously in a situation, it can perhaps seem to have a significance beyond the immediate pleasure it gives but that is not it's essential characteristic.

Wanting to make a distinction of 'fine' art and craft is like trying to elevate spoof over slapstick. The best art is the art you truly enjoy without pretense of it being more than simply enjoyable.

You got it, Gildas! :-)

There is a movie where an art dealer states to a painter – we tell you what art and what is not!

If you can describe it with fancy words, existentially effervescent catharsis- it's art. If you describe it in simple words – it's craft.

My figures get used, craft. I see some here that shouldn't, art.

Another one of those 'know it when you see it' things for me.

Also a 'know when you're doing it'… because I've quick painted minis to get them on the table with very little thought put into the process = craft… but when time allows… I'll swim over to the artistic end of the pool.

Usually I know when I'm making art because there's a certain amount of mental torment and self-doubt involved.

Painting figures is a skill. That being said it is a skill I have been steadily perfecting, or trying to perfect for years.
Some people call what I do art and I can't disagree, it is much more than just painting a figure, it takes time ,patience, and an understanding of color, light, shadows. I was an art student and I am one of the few from my actual class who can make money with my "art".
Art in of itself is a creative expression, and painting my figures is an expression of my creativity.
And it always seems to me that those who criticize and say that painting figures is not an art, don't paint figures.
Has anybody ever known an art critic who was an actual artist? So I guess what I'm trying to say is that painting figures is an art.

Another perspective on what I'm trying to say is to ask why we seek out and enjoy art? It's not for the enlightenment at least not for any objective improvement this sort of enlightenment makes. Rather it's for the feelings we get from appreciating art and these feelings are basically the same whether we are appreciating Tarzan or Madame Bovary.

Where there is a difference it comes from the feeling you get contemplating the superiority of your aesthetic sensibility that only comes when you make a distinction of high and common art and then of course, prefer the former. This self-congratulation is powerfully moving and very seductive but I think it's a bad thing on the whole.

The sculpting of figures is certainly an art, and I do seek out the best sculpted figures so I can bring such art to life.
Art is subjective, it is something different to everyone. Art to me is not only found in sculpture and painting, but in the poems of Robert Frost or the music of John Lennon, art is something that touches one in such a way that it leaves something within you. I can look at an Ansell Adams photograph or Michaelangelo's David and feel something, but when I look at abstract art I usually see nothing that moves me, even though the artist who created such a piece felt a flurry of emotion. And I am in know way someone who can criticize what others call art.

Has anybody ever known an art critic who was an actual artist?

Yep, a fair number actually. Also, most of the better artists I've known have been capable of delivering great critiques if asked.
One of the better classes I had at art school was about understanding aesthetics, on various levels, and developing skills in communicating about what works/doesn't work for a piece of art.
Beyond certain basics it seems mostly subjective to me, but worth talking about anyway.

I agree with Mr. Meier that taking on the title of 'artist' can be poisonous for some folks if they put too much loft into it.
Luckily I can find just as much artistic enjoyment in a Jackson Pollack painting as I can an episode of The Herculoids.

Some of it depends on the use to which the figure will be put. A diorama figure will br more artfully done than a gaming piecs.

Craft-noun
1.
an art, trade, or occupation requiring special skill, especially manual skill: the craft of a mason.

2.
skill; dexterity: The silversmith worked with great craft.

Good acting is an art that requires good craft. Good miniatures painting is an art that requires good craft.

It's tempting to call it art, but I would feel pretentious saying so. Whatever it is, I enjoy it very much.

The question isn't WHAT art says about subjective idealism but THAT it says something other than what is depicted.

I've heard that the greatest insult a fine artist can say about another is that they are merely an "illustrator".

Google the controversy around Andrew Wyeth's contribution to art to see what I mean.

And as I said above we use the tools of artists but we are but illustrators. Even the best painters, award winning painters, succeed because they make the non-real seem real (look at how natural the skin is, or how light reflects, etc etc.) They chronicle "reality" but they don't really do more.

Art can say something about the method – like Impressionism and photography. But the subject isn't the part that's creative but the way the viewer must look at it.
Again, its not What it says but That it says.