Page 13 - Studio International - April 1974

Derby and others, then critically, in Blake and should add that the existence of such systems have one thing in common - the craftsman does
others. Yet since visual art in the nineteenth depends entirely upon normalizations of not seek to vary his units in order to develop
century was largely devoted to the imitation of behaviour, that is to say they're created and variety, although a craftsman will interpret the
the world of appearances this is precisely what changed only by their individual members. design according to his skills and workmanship,
we'd expect. If the factories are there, depict The three art systems that are here relevant he seeks to maintain or improve the quality of
them; if the factories produce, in Marx's to our considerations are first, the craft or guild his sequence as a whole.
phrase, 'new fangled men' depict them too. system, second, the fine-art system, or art In contradistinction to craft sequences,
Klingender reduces the problem of art and system in the special sense, and third, the fine-art sequences are not produced with the
industry to an iconographic problem; to a level industrial system considered not as an economic intention of maintaining or improving the
of discourse similar, say, to the place ofthe image system but as an art system in the general sense quality of a sequence-as-a-whole. The quality
of the sovereign state in baroque art. as in the usages, industrial art, art manufactures of fine-art sequences may indeed be
Certainly the new images of industry are and so forth. maintained and improved by the fine-art
fascinating. But the heart of the problem Now since all production is by its nature a process of production, but this is not the
doesn't, surely, lie there. It lies, I would sequential process, one way to distinguish these intention of the artist - in the special sense.
suggest, in the scope that we're prepared to give three systems from one another would be to His intention is to achieve excellence in the
the subject: for industry has not only been consider the ways in which the units (the works unit rather than maintain excellence in the
imaged by art, it has influenced art and of art of each system) are produced and how sequence. In consequence fine-art sequences
influenced our ideas of art, and produced its they're linked within their respective vary much more widely from unit to unit than
own arts, such as film. In order to confront our sequences of production.1 craft sequences. For the artist rejects the
subject, therefore, we have need of a broad and Consider the craft system. The craftsman craftsman's method of replicating from a single
generous definition of art that will embrace at reveals his skill in reproducing an artifact from design or prototype. Although the artist makes
least two of its most powerful historical a prototype by direct imitation. He follows and use of skill in the production of his units - and
connotations : art in the general sense as skill, interprets the design or prototype that is before there is an element (perhaps ineliminable) of
and art in the special sense as style. We need a him. Since human skill is not, as Ruskin skill in all fine art - he rejects skill as the
generous definition of art in order to allow all significantly pointed out, perfect, the principle by which units are linked. He
man-made objects to be entered in what might craftsman's units may differ from their replaces skill by style. Style, though it contains
be called the big art competition. This surely prototype. We might describe this possible elements of repetition and imitation, rejects
is a common-sense view. I doubt whether many range of imperfection or variation as the replication from a single prototype. In order to
of us would be prepared today to withhold the craftsman's skill variable. move from a craft sequence to an art sequence
term 'work of art' from even the most Crafts sequences may be distinguished the craftsman-turned-fine-artist must learn to
utilitarian object if we found it to possess according to their mode of employment of the employ what we might call, for the sake of this
colours, textures and formal relations which prototype. If the same prototype is used in the discussion, plural prototypes. Whereas the
delight or intrigue us. Such a definition makes production of a sequence each unit will be as craftsman seeks to maintain excellence in a craft
it possible for us to include in our discussion like the prototype as the craftsman can make it, sequence by employing one prototype in the
not only the 'ready-mades' of Marcel Duchamp variations being limited to the limits of the skill production of each of his units, the artist - in the
but also works by the anonymous artists who variable. In such sequences, assuming the special sense - seeks to achieve excellence by the
made Marcel Duchamp's 'ready-mades'. craftsman's skill to be constant, the last unit of employment of at least two and often many
My dissatisfaction with movement models and a sequence will not differ from the first by, at prototypes in the production of one unit of a
Marxian models has led me to seek an most, the limit of the skill variable. We might sequence.
alternative. Although the model that I shall call such a sequence a static sequence, because This ability of the artist, as distinct from the
now describe may be said to be sociological, I the sequential process of production does not craftsman, enables him to invent a method of
am less interested in its sociological implications, increase the difference between the prototype procedure by means of plural prototypes which
as explanatory of social structure, than in its and each succeeding unit. gives to each of his units a variety one from
potential value for providing a balanced and A craftsman may, however, adopt the practice another, and a linkage only by participation in
adequate account of art and the industrial of using each unit of a sequence as the the artist's style. Failure to achieve a personal
society. prototype for the next unit. In this case synthesis by means of the use of plural
The model or conceptual framework that I variations produced by the skill variable will be prototypes might be described as an eclectic
propose for an historical account of the subject compounded by the production process. Since style, success as a mature style.
posits the presence in England since the mid- this method bears a resemblance to an organic An artist - in the special sense - may
eighteenth century and in most, if not all, process of multiplication we might by analogy pluralize prototypes in various ways. He might
advanced industrial countries since the describe it as an organic craft sequence. symbolize, i.e. take an object and imagine it to
nineteenth century, of two distinguishable and In both static and organic sequences the Craft be something else which is or was, or is not nor
interacting art systems in the general sense. variable is, however, not consciously introduced never was, in the world. Here the prototype is
Since the term 'art system' is not, to my into the production process, it is simply given transformed into art by conflating it or
knowledge, much in use among art historians, as a characteristic of human skill. But a third identifying it with an image in the mind. The
let me explain. By art system I'm here move is still available to the craftsman as identification between prototypical object and
referring to associated groups of professional craftsman. In copying his prototype he may image does not have to be complete for th of
people who are concerned with the production, become aware of an accident or mistake which transfigured prototype to function as a work
interpretation and distribution of works of art. pleases him and which he decides to incorporate art. But awareness of an apparent difference
An art system, it seems to me, develops from into the production process, by using the between the 'look' of the physical prototype
and maintains its historical continuity by means affected unit as his new prototype. That is to and the 'look' of the envisaged image, by which
of, the participation in and contribution of its say he becomes aware of the possibility of it has been transfigured, may cause the artist
members to a more or less coherent set of making use of his skill variable. Since this bears to make a second move, and to fashion his art
beliefs, values, dispositions and expectations. an analogy to an evolutionary process we might from the kind of comparative activity which
In consistency with these coherences the system by analogy describe it as a mutational craft Gombrich has described as making and
evolves specialized components which often sequence. matching. Or yet again he might take one or
develop institutionalized forms. Perhaps I The craft sequences we have discussed all more works by other artists and match them
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