The duty of the artist

[paul cowley]

Adam ....thanks for your interesting comparisons and distinctions....they make me want to re read Rand, as its probably been 35 years since I last checked in with her [just a thought, but do any of you think that Roark looks like Doak?...or Doak Roark?]

My father is a retired Artist/University Art Proffesor and I guess he became more of a designer[teacher] so we all could survive better....but he still produced very fine artWork, despite his collaboration.

My mother is a lifelong horticulturalist and I'm a cross breed that Mendel would approve of.
 [boy this reflective rambling sure makes me feel better, anyone else want to share?....it sure beats time in the chair ]

Lloyd..."Bad artists copy. Good artists steal" ....great quote, especially considering the source. If good artists steal, I wonder what great artists do?

TomD....another good quote about the artside of GCA.
Maybe I'll go to work today after all .

[Paul Stephenson]

Tom-If I recall correctly, it is JFK in a tribute to Robert Frost.

"Let the chips fall where they may" is certainly an identifiable quote (I don't even know where its from, I just remember my grandfather talking about it)

"I took the road less traveled" is another memorable quote (cliche) from that writing.

Someone used the "road less traveled" quote at my high school graduation.


[Edit]
Regardless, Mr. Doak may be making a statement with this quote (thread). I immediately think of the "Tastemaking" discussion of late:
 Are architects trying to dictate "taste" or lettings the "chips fall where they may" in opinion to their work?

Here's your frost poem that refers to the quotes above.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


Adam - I have to disagree with the comment that artist who pursues design fails as an artist.  Lots of artists used commercial and graphic design to pay the bills so they could pursue their art.  The Group of Seven comes to mind as most were graphic artists in Toronto.

As for Tom's quote.  This is very easy to say if your last name is Kennedy and you're rich.  Shakepeare wrote pieces that he could "sell" in order to have a roof over his head and food on the table.  Mozart composed mundane peices to earn a living.  I'm sure some people on this board have taken work to pay the bills.  As Maslow has found out, physical needs (eating) take precendence over self-actualization (duty).

It's the artist that isn't starving that may be bound to this quote.  He/she can afford to let the chips fall where they may.

[Lloyd_Cole]

Lloyd..."Bad artists copy. Good artists steal" ....great quote, especially considering the source. If good artists steal, I wonder what great artists do?

Paul
When I first read that I thought PP was being a wise ass. But upon reflection, a good or great artist will have their own voice, style, stamp, however you want to put it. I they steal the ideas of others, they make the results their own, bad artists don't have their own or haven't found their own voices, so they are left with plagarism.

[Lloyd_Cole]

As for Tom's quote.  This is very easy to say if your last name is Kennedy and you're rich.  Shakepeare wrote pieces that he could "sell" in order to have a roof over his head and food on the table.  Mozart composed mundane peices to earn a living.  I'm sure some people on this board have taken work to pay the bills.  As Maslow has found out, physical needs (eating) take precendence over self-actualization (duty).

It's the artist that isn't starving that may be bound to this quote.  He/she can afford to let the chips fall where they may.

Paul

Dickens, Dostoyevski, Michelangelo, the list is long. So many greats worked on commission.
JFK wight have been better confining his comment to poets, and then all artists who consider themselves poets could apply it to themselves...

[TEPaul]

PeterZ:

I believe golf course design is art or an art form. In questioning that some will go so far as to ask what is "art" after all, and I think we know defining, or I should probably more accurately say defining it in some manner of consensus, is some pretty tricky shit.  

I guess I would say art is a man-made expression that produces enjoyment, the evoking of some experience, perhaps the realization of some form or expression of beauty etc.

Of course golf course architecture is part science, agronomy etc but I don't see why that would necessarily preclude it also being art or an art form.

An F-14 jet fighter is science and machinery and such but it is also "art", at least to me. And watching one blast off an aircraft carrier, particularly into the night sky with the precise conical hot blue flame of its jet engines is truly a thing of beauty---eg "art"----at least to me.  

[BCrosby]

 ... in the case of golf course architecture, I think being "true to oneself" also means being "true to one's perception of golf" and that does include the audience.  Tommy N's great friend Desmond Muirhead was being true to himself, but maybe not true to golf.

That's right. I might put it a little differently. Seems to me that any theory of golf architechture implies - in pretty strong sense - a view of how golf ought to be played. An architect's ideas about "how golf ought to be played" operates as a constraint on what the architect does. Or it ought to.

It's a kind of feedback loop that artists in other disciplines don't have to deal with.

Which is another reason why golf architecture is not just another art form. It has unique responsiblities.

Bob  

[JESII]

TEP,

I am one of those that questions what art "IS". Not out of contention, rather out of ignorance. Your F-14 example actually helps though, and it really works well with my long-standing position against[/u] golf courses being categorized as art.

When that F-14 is sitting on the tarmac with the engine shut down, it is science and engineering and all that other stuff. When it rockets off the end of an air-craft carrier it becomes a work of art.

When a golf course is designed and built and is just sitting there, it is a function of science and engineering and all that other stuff. As soon as someone puts a tee in the ground on the first tee it becomes a work of art. It is now an interactive work of art that each individual perceives uniquely.

This explains why I do not have a problem with a membership tweaking a golf course over time...I also wish the original "artist" were involved in that process in one way or another...

[paul cowley]

I agree Lloyd.

Good artists practice theft by conversion.

All good Architects [and GCA's], use this practice as building blocks.....designers too.

[TEPaul]

Sully:

Not necessarily---at least not to me.

An F-14 sitting stationary on a tarmac is still an expression of art to me--obviously by that I mean the very structure and shape of it and what that probably represents in some way to me. When it blasts off, when it moves as it does, it is just a more complex and complete expression of art to me.

In the same sense, to me simply looking at a golf course if its shapes and arrangements have some particular beauty to me is also "art" and an "art form".

When people play golf on it, in my opinion, it simply becomes a more complex and complete (interactive) expression of art or as an art form.

[Peter Pallotta]

A couple of random thoughts:

Jazz bassist/composer Charles Mingus once explained his goals, obsessions, struggles and musical output sort-of like this: "I'm trying to express my true self through the music. That's hard enough, but it's even harder because that 'true self' seems always to be changing."

The playwright David Mamet argued that a great play can't be about anything that the conscious mind readily accepts as true: its point can't be, for example, that we should be nice to children, old people and small dogs, since everyone already knows and agrees with that.  Instead, the 'experience' of a great play is more akin to a very personal and important dream: a series of individually striking images that don't necessarily coalesce or give up their meaning and significance right away, but linger there, being worked over for days and maybe months before the 'Aha!' moment arrives.  BUT, in order for a play to achieve this, the writer must make it his deepest goal and intention -- and if he cares more about pontificating to or 'teaching' his audience; if he cares more about how he will be judged, critically and commercially, and as a person; and if he cares more about showing off his talents and intelligence than he does providing the audience with this 'dream', then all is lost, whether the audience realizes the loss or not.

Peter

[Peter Pallotta]

[quote author=BCrosby
That's right. I might put it a little differently. Seems to me that any theory of golf architechture implies - in pretty strong sense - a view of how golf ought to be played. An architect's ideas about "how golf ought to be played" operates as a constraint on what the architect does. Or it ought to.

Bob
I think that's spot-on. I do think gca is an art-form, but one that - unlike poetry or painting or music - exists and is of value not for its own sake alone but also to facilitate the playing of a game. That's why I think that in the case of golf architects, the duty to be true to themselves is firmly linked with the duty to being true to their understanding/philosophy  of how that game should be played.  

The question, it seems to me, is whether all these "shoulds" and "duties" are of any real import, make any real difference, or are in any way binding. And I guess my answer would be: "Yes, but only for those who chose to make them so". As Camus once said, "the only sin a man can commit is one against his own nature"...or something like that

Peter

[TEPaul]

PeterZ and Sully:

I'll even go you leaps and bounds further and tell you something which I admit is sort of delusional and out there.

This is again in the context of a jet fighter---sort of, but I view it as a fleeting and ephemeral expression of art--simply because to me it is an expression of beauty or fascinating experience or enjoyment or whatever.

Shortly after 9/11 when the USA was bombing the piss out of the Taliban in Afganistan, the free-lance, ultra good war reporter, Christopher Hitchens, was reporting on the Afgan war and bombing. He was in Pakistan and he interviewed some Taliban who were so shockingly denigrating of women it just really pissed him off and he happened to hear almost simultaneously that two of the pilots bombing the piss out of the Taliban off the US aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson were women.

So he decided to march down the street in Islamabad and into the Taliban Embassy and announce in a loud voice to all there:

"Hey you f.... assholes, she's pissed, she's packing and she's heading for you!"

Anyway, that's just a necessary background and build-up to my wacko appreciation of a particular ephermal form of "art".

A few years later I found out that one of those women pilots who was part of those bombing sorties into Afganistan had been rotated over to the Middle East and the war on Iraq. And a piece was done on her for TV.

She was a young, beautiful, black women who clearly had a determination and focus about her that was remarkably impressive. During that TV segment on her they had a shot of her on the deck of an aircraft carrier in her jet and when the deck crew chief gave her the salute to blast off, she then gave him that thumb up salute that must mean in the Air Force "I'm Good To Go and Thanks."

What I'm telling you is that to me the very shape and the particular degree of curvature of her thumb as she flashed him that thumb up sign just before blasting her jet off the carrier was truly a thing of remarkable beauty---a work of "art", in fact.  

[Dan Kelly]

“Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.” Picasso.

I have my doubts about the accuracy and source of that quotation. But no matter, at this point.

Just for your amusement, do a Google (or a Yahoo, if you're the Yahoo type) for "artists steal." (Put your search term inside quotation marks.)

You will find: plenty of imitating/copying/stealing among the notable quotables.

I still say that all of this "Know thyself" and "To thine own self be true" business has nothing whatsoever to do with art, per se, and everything whatsoever to do with life.

[JESII]

I admit is sort of delusional and out there.

...that to me the very shape and the particular degree of curvature of her thumb as she flashed him that thumb up sign just before blasting her jet off the carrier was truly a thing of remarkable beauty---a work of "art", in fact.  

So long as you qualify it, as you did, I am content...

[wsmorrison]

Loren Eisley was an outstanding anthropologist (I had him as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania), but he may have been an even better poet and teller of stories.  I encourage any of you that have not read his books including:  The Unexpected Universe, The Immense Journey, All the Strange Hours, the Excavation of a Life, The Star Thrower and The Invisible Pyramid to do so.  Here are a few quotes by Eisley on art and man:

"It is frequently the tragedy of the great artist, as it is of the great scientist, that he frightens the ordinary man."

"Subconsciously the genius is feared as an image breaker; frequently he does not accept the opinions of the mass, or man's opinion of himself."

"Man is always marveling at what he has blown apart, never at what the universe has put together, and this is his limitation."

"If he is more than a popular story-teller it may take humanity a generation to absorb and grow accustomed to the new geography with which the scientist or artist presents us. Even then, perhaps only the more imaginative and literate may accept him."

"The journey is difficult, immense. We will travel as far as we can, but we cannot in one lifetime see all that we would like to see or to learn all that we hunger to know."

"One does not meet oneself until one catches the reflection from an eye other than human."

"The creative element in the mind of man . . . emerges in as mysterious a fashion as those elementary particles which leap into momentary existence in great cyclotrons, only to vanish again like infinitesimal ghosts."

[Phil_the_Author]

“Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.” Picasso.

The irony of this quote (if true) is that Picasso was arrested with his friend Guillaume Apollinaire on suspicion of having stolen the Mona Lisa on August 22, 1911.

In their possession at the time were several small statues stolen from the Louvre a few weeks before.

I guess then he viewed himself as only being a "good artist."

[Lloyd_Cole]

“Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.” Picasso.

The irony of this quote (if true) is that Picasso was arrested with his friend Guillaume Apollinaire on suspicion of having stolen the Mona Lisa on August 22, 1911.

In their possession at the time were several small statues stolen from the Louvre a few weeks before.

I guess then he viewed himself as only being a "good artist."

Some variation on a translation, I'm sure is true. I found this also -
'Good artists copy. Great artists steal.'

PP is a treasure trove for quotes
he's also credited with -

'If there is something to steal, I steal it!'

My favourite - 'Art is not made to decorate rooms. It is an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy.'

And check this out for GCA - 'Nature does many things the way I do, but she hides them!'

T Doak might like this - 'All I ever made was made for the present and in the hope it will always remain in the present.'

[Kirk Gill]

I firmly believe in the artistic validity of golf course architecture. The fact that a game is played in the space is only a specific limitation to this art form, and each form is subject to its own limitations (which artists, particularly in the modern era, are continually trying to escape).

In golf course architecture the rules of the game as well as the history and traditions of the game are limitations in just the same way as the use of pigments and a flat surface and its own history and traditions limit the art form of painting.

That the interaction between the golf course and those who play on it is different than the interaction between a painting and those who view it doesn't prevent gca from being an art form in its own right. And it's merely the value judgement of a person or of a civilization and the ways those judgements have changed throughout history that make one art form appear more eminent than another. If TEPaul's experience watching that aircraft take off has affected him more profoundly than looking at a Picasso painting, then who am I to say that he's wrong? It's probably fair to say that over time painting has had a more substantial effect on people than the construction of golf courses, but again, what does that matter, if the people that do interact with golf courses and appreciate their artistic value are getting what they need there?

William Carlos Williams said "it is difficult to obtain the news from poems, but people die miserably every day from lack of what is found there." If I don't "get" poetry, but get artistic value from an airplane taking off, or from a particular par four then so be it.

And if the creator of art is true to themselves, and the chips fall in such a way that there just aren't that many people around who give a damn, then they might end up being an economic failure. Of course, it's a lot cheaper to create a painting than it is a golf course, so it's probably a lot easier for a painter to be appreciated after death than for a gca ! And all that money that Van Gogh has generated after his death frankly didn't do him any good.

[George Pazin]

[just a thought, but do any of you think that Roark looks like Doak?...or Doak Roark?]

It's been awhile since I read The Fountainhead, but my recollection is that Ayn had Roark as a tall, angular, reddish haired guy, which doesn't seem at all like the photos I've seen of Tom D.

There was once an entertaining thread on here a looooooong time ago about whether Tom was Roark or Keating. I'll try to dig it up, it's a fun read.

[Rich Goodale]

Hilaire Belloc once said:

"The first duty of a wine is to be red.  The second is that it be a Burgundy."

I would say:

"The first duty of a golf course is to be fun.  The second is that it be a Scottish links."

[Marty Bonnar]

What I'm telling you is that to me the very shape and the particular degree of curvature of her thumb as she flashed him that thumb up sign just before blasting her jet off the carrier was truly a thing of remarkable beauty---a work of "art", in fact.  

I think I saw Sissy Hankshaw and Bonanza Jellybean at Pasatiempo.

You Ameerikans R zoooo CRAZE-EEEE!!!!

FBD.

[Matthew Hunt]

Tom-If I recall correctly, it is JFK in a tribute to Robert Frost.

We did him in English

[TEPaul]

"You Ameerikans R zoooo CRAZE-EEEE!!!!"

You've got that right Martin Glynn!

We sure are and the scary thing is we are proud as punch that we are.

[Andy Levett]

Hilaire Belloc once said:

"The first duty of a wine is to be red. The second is that it be a Burgundy."

I would say:

"The first duty of a golf course is to be fun.  The second is that it be a Scottish links."

Rich, that Belloc was a great straight man. But as nobody else has bothered I feel obliged to question whether, like Burgundy,  Scottish golf links are always overpriced and disappointing?  
PS Welcome back, though how you think a name like 'Good Ale' will be accepted as genuine is a puzzle.

[paul cowley]

GCarch is really a nuts and bolts business and its kinda like cookin....it really depends on who's in the kitchen.

Is it OK if I have a glass of wine now?