Philosophy and art

Along with photography, I am a fan of philosophy although I barely passed philosophy as a college student. As I have grown older I have realized that many things we think we know we actually know very little about. We often accept a common belief system without question. One thing many photographers may not know is there is a whole genre of philosophy about art, aesthetics. Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the principles of beauty and artistic taste. Some of the first writings on the topic date back to the days of Socrates, although the thoughts of Socrates were written by his students, Plato and Aristotle.

The whole topic of what constitutes art and beauty has existed for nearly 2,500 years and continues today. I suspect that the debate will never cease. As time goes on, views of what is and isn’t art and beauty change. This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it is a good thing. I believe it is important to remember all the past art movements (a list of past art movements can be found here). Because of the fact that perceptions of what is and isn’t art change, I choose to not worry about following the trends or what is currently popular even though I may participate in such things from time to time.

To me, the most important thing about creating art through my photography is self-expression. I didn’t always think this way. I can participate in any of the past and current art movements from photorealism to surrealism.

In one of the social media forums, I participate in there is a current trend of creating “twirl” art. This has created quite a stir. A few members of the forum have complained this is no longer photography since the original photograph. The complaints, of course, just created more of an interest in creating these works. While this may be a passing fad, the tools available to create these sorts of works in Adobe Photoshop have existed for every version I have used and I began using Adobe Photoshop in 2010.

The philosophy of art is not writing in stone. We can debate what is art ad nauseam but I still find myself participating in such debates. This is why I like photography, art, and philosophy, everything is ambiguous. If we haven’t clearly defined what is art or beauty in 2,500 years it is likely that we may never agree on what is or isn’t art past an often short-lived movement.

Create your art your way.