Intentions and Impetuses 2

I believe it is not art that has not been generated with impetuses and intentions.  This does not define what art is; indeed, such a criteria includes many things that are not art for various other reasons.  Some shy away from asserting anything that smacks of an exclusionary definition for art.  I do not for two reasons: first, as an artist I cannot avoid entering the fray of this discussion; second, doing so formally is a formative critical exercise for the mind.  It is unhelpful (to put it far too mildly) to insist on art being a boundless void or endless clutter—especially for learners just embarking in the arts.

Many artists (especially continuing since Modernity) have intended to defy or expand conventional aspects of art.  In so doing, they have mounted evidence that human intentions are not a dispensable convention of art, but one of its inextricable members.  These artists, perhaps more directly than any, have necessarily shown the fact that art is art in part because someone has intended it to participate in this great human discussion.

Now one might rightly note that virtually every complex human act has an impetus and is to some degree intentional.  Several good questions result:

• Do any impetuses or intentions disqualify a work from the realm of art?
• What other aspects of art are inextricable from art?
• How can we tell the difference between a convention and an essence?
• Does an artist have to be aware of her impetuses and intentions?
• Can a work be art because of a viewer’s intentions?

Artists and viewers of art ought to consider questions such as these over and over.  They are the kind of questions art educators ought to put to their students regularly.  They are the kind of questions art critics, art historians, and philosophers of aesthetics ought to engage with deeply in the medium of words.  In the scope of this book, I do not attempt full answers to these sorts of questions, but I raise them because they are fundamental to both the making and the understanding of art.

The questions my book on Relief Printmaking deal with are these:

• How can I identify and harness my impetuses?
• How can I clarify and accomplish my intentions through relief printmaking?

Intentions and Impetuses

An artist wants to make a work of art that memorializes the 9/11(2001) attacks on the World Trade Centers in New York City because her father died in the second collapse.  Her intention is to memorialize the 9/11 attacks.  Her impetus is that her father died that day.  The same intention could have many other impetuses, such as criticizing the Bush administration of that time, comparing that event to Luke 13:4, or producing a work for a thematic exhibition on that topic.  Similarly, the same impetus could lead to many other intentions.  For example, because the artist’s father died in the 9/11 attacks, she might decide to render objects that belonged to her father, or produce an abstract composition that affects its viewers with qualities like her father had or emotions she supposes he may have experienced that day, and so on.

In recent times, some people have attempted to produce unmotivated art—art that is not referential or purposeful but is devoid of intentions and / or impetuses.  To produce art without some goal is, by definition, impossible.  Perhaps you realize that having that goal sets up a paradox.