An interview with David Hockney caught my eye this week in The Guardian. The world-renowned artist had turned his hand to a spot of CG art and seemed to be quite impressed. For me the interview was a mixture of encouraging signs of a 'traditional artist' starting to grasp the titanic opportunities of computer graphics, mixed with a few wrinkled brow moments as the same traditionalist misconceptions crept back in.
Read the article yourself and I'd be interested to know what you think, but for me it started me thinking...
Computer Graphics vs Traditional art
As computer art has grown increasingly powerful and broad in its capabilities, artists have often sought to recreate works by the masters both as homage and as a sort of benchmark - and it highlights the extent of development in the CG world.
It is clear that computer graphics is already juggernaughting along the path to being a massively dominant art form that rivals all the traditional forms, yet this actually raises a more interesting question. Is CG art a media at all? David Hockney's observed this issue himself, 'The phrase 'digital art' I always thought was rather debatable. It's like saying pencil art.'
The phrase 'digital art' I always thought was rather debatable. It's like saying 'pencil art' - David Hockney
Certainly CG software has long since dropped its identifiability - it's no longer the 'pixelly one' next to the oils, the watercolours and so on. Oils can be mimicked almost imperceivably as Hockney notices, as can watercolours, sketches, sculpture, no problem. Even photos themselves are being infringed on by the creep of CG.
Where does CG belong?
This is part of the problem I've been trying to get my head around. If you were to draw a diagram of the world of art covering all the styles, the medias and the formats, where would CG sit? Have a look at the thumbnails throughout this page, I've deliberately picked CG art to complement or directly copy a traditional equivalent.
It's a tough one, but my best conclusion is that maybe we're at the point where the CG should just be dropped entirely for description of style. It may be a description of method, but it simply doesn't hold the same limitations and trademarks that other media have like oils and pencils. It becomes them.
"People think of computer art as having a certain look – it doesn't" - David Hockney
A good demonstration of this is to think what's happened in newer art forms, like cartoons, comics and animation. Here artists painstakingly sketched each frame and painted each strip. But more importantly they developed the art forms. From this emerged the distinct styles of D
isney films and Manga animations, the individual techniques of Jack Kirby, Jim Davis and so on. Yet without exception these have all been taken over by CG today, but the techniques, the styles have remained.
CG has facilitated art, not altered art. But if you compare Snow White to Finding Nemo, boy has it facilitated it!
The legends of CG art
Now we are most certainly at the formative stages of CG as an art form, so the pioneers are all around us, that are discovering, inventing and innovating new methods and techniques for utilising this form. So in 100 years' time when people look back at this period, how do you think CG art will be viewed?
Which artists' portfolios will be held up in the same way Picasso's are now? For every decade of art for the last 750 years you can pin a precise canon of artists who have become legends of their time, so it seems silly to consider that there will be none for an artform with the growth and ubiquity that CG is demonstrating.
The catch...
But just before you start frantically downloading the Stahlbergs and the Ponsonnets to gift to your great children as a Picasso-like inheritance, the big sacrifice of CG art is the reproducability. Unlike an original Michelangelo, a million users can download a perfect copy of your art. The real high-value money in traditional art lies in its artificial bottleneck. You can't reproduce it, so the price rockets.
CG art however, is truly for the masses...
David Hockney is aware of this, he's launched a gallery of his CG art, but hasn't decided whether to destroy the digital copies of his works and thus create an artificial market for his works.
But at the age of 72 to still be diving into new art forms and trying your hand is something to truly be admired.
Now anyone want to critique his first efforts?
A question for you
Many of will have, or will be, attending art schools for your computer graphics training. It'd be very interesting to hear your opinions on how you have found CG art is viewed compared to traditional forms. Is a CG degree seen as 'less professional' than a fine art degree?
