To answer this question I will first
have to define what art is and what qualifies as art. I will source information
to try and achieve a more complete world perspective on art and computer games
as art. I will balance the argument with my own views on art and games to
attempt to come to a conclusion.
To
begin with I will take the literal Wikipedia definition and examine it in
detail. The first sentence reads;
“Art is a diverse range of human activities and the products
of those activities, usually involving imaginative or technical skill.” Wikipedia
So without further delving, by
this simple definition Computer Games are art but this is not enough, by this
definition even a basic child’s finger painting is art. I need to continue and
find what separates these forms of art.
Looking at modern triple A game
titles it is easy to see that games do contain many forms of art; the music can
be atmospheric and evoke emotions which can enhance the story, the architecture
and 3D modeling as decorative arts are a small part of these virtual worlds and
even the fine art concepts that are created to first envision these models. The
way that we interpret these art forms is based off of the viewer’s own
perspective which is driven by their personal experiences, including their
emotional reactions to these experiences.
“Art may be characterized in terms
of mimesis (its representation of reality), expression, communication
of emotion, or other qualities.” Wikipedia
So games are made from
a combination of the visual arts (2D & 3D), performance arts (music &
film) and are usually backed and given depth by literature.
Containing art does
not make games art, instead it is the individuals perception of reality that
defines what art is to them. To get a greater understanding of art to the
individual I must look to more qualitative sources.
“The aim
of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
Aristotle
“Art begins when a man, with the purpose of communicating to
other people a feeling he once experienced, calls it up again within himself
and expresses it by certain external signs”
In these quotes both Aristotle and Tolstoy
share the opinion that art is the communication of feelings and meaning, an
opinion which is also backed up through Wikipedia’s definition. Therefore using
all definitions thus far:
Art is a range of human activities and the product of those
activities, involving imaginative and/or technical skill characterized by the
expression and communication of emotion through external signs, from the
artist(s) to the individual.
Consequently by this
definition of art the child’s finger painting could well be art, since the
paintings are often a form of affection for their parents. This definition also
disqualifies a lot of computer games, even if they do contain works of art
there is very little expression or emotion being conveyed in a large portion of
games being released. With a lot of companies choosing to ditch the
storytelling elements and focus on the multi-player first person shooters,
these games cannot qualify as art. To understand how the definition of art has
been shaped I must now look to more historic examples.
In the middle of the
19th century during the rebuilding of Paris and in the midst of war,
the Académie des beaux-Arts ruled over French art. At the Académie they persevered
the tradition French painting styles, valuing content of historical subjects,
portraits and religious themes whilst still life and landscapes were not. The Académie
favored precision, clarity and realism with the colour use being restrained and
minimal. Annually the Académie held a juried art show, the salon de Paris, here
artists won prizes, received commissions and become more prestigious. The
juries held the same values as the Académie and judged the paintings submitted according
to those standards.
In the 1860’s, Claude Monet,
Frédréric Bazille, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley met under the tutelage
of artist Charles Gleyre. Sharing a passion for contemporary life and painting
landscapes rather that the accepted Académie standard of historic and mythical
scenes. The four young artist took to venturing out into the country-side
together, here they painted onto the canvas directly from nature in the sunlight
with bold use of vivid synthetic pigments rather than making sketches to
develop later into precise realistic paintings as was the usual custom. They
developed a lighter and brighter manner of painting and found themselves joined
by artists Édouard Manet, Camille Pissarro, Paul Cézanne and Armand Guillaumin for
discussions and painting.
In
the 1860’s, roughly half of the works submitted by Monet and his friends were
rejected by the Salon jury, favoring the artists faithful to the ratified style.
In the year 1863, the jury rejected Manet’s “The Luncheon on the Grass”, they
did so principally because the painting featured a nude of a woman with two
clothed men having a picnic. The Salon regularly accepted nude in historical or
mythical scenes but they condemned Manet for his use of a realistic nude in a contemporary
setting. The harshly worded rejection of Manet’s work horrified his supporters
and the unusually large amount of rejections that year troubled many French artists.
Napoleon III saw the
rejected pieces of 1863 and decreed that he would allow the public to judge the
work themselves and the Salon of the refused was oraganised. This drew
attention to the existence of this new form attracting more visitors than the
regular Salon. In the year following artist petitioned for a new Salon des
Refusés (Salon of the Refused) but were denied. Then in December 1873, Monet,
Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas and numerous
other artists established the Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes
Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs ("Cooperative and Anonymous Association of
Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers"). Here they displayed independent artists’
works who were expected not to participate in the Salon des Paris. Any artists
were invited but Édouard Manet declined, in total 30 artist participated, of all
the criticisms Monet and Cézanne bore the worst. A critic named Louis Leroy
wrote a cutting review of Monet’s Impression, soleil levant. He titled the
article Exhibition of the Impressionists, here he stated that Monet’s painting
was at most a sketch and could hardly be termed as finished work. His satiric
article read;
Impression—I was certain of it. I was
just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some
impression in it ... and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in
its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape.
This
slice of history to me highlights the fact that even works that consist of art
and the pursuit of art can be perceived as insults to the skills of those great
masters that are held with such regard. New art is often perceived this way
until embraced by the greater masses. Recently the debate of “are games art?” has
been surfacing in the media, in 2010 the film critic Roger Ebert embodied the
spirit of Louis Leroy for this debate stating
“Games can never be art”.
This was met with an uproar by the
general public, being a film critic he judged games by the same standard as
Leroy did with Monet’s work.
Games, as well as movies are some
of the best modern mediums for storytelling, all art began as a form of
storytelling. For example the Australian aborigines painted symbols from stories
on cave walls to help the storyteller remember, from which they would recount
the tale using narrative, music, rock art and dance. These four storytelling
skills are the ancestors from which all art has evolved and having diverged to
become independent forms of storytelling they have re-combined to form theatre
then film and now computer games.
Conclusion
In summation games have every
right to be considered an Art form but not all games, such as Call of Duty, the
player does not pick this game up to feel anything other than excitement at the
thrill of competitive button bashing. For a game to be considered art it should
focus on one or all of the fundamentals skills of storytelling. From history we
have seen how newer generations of artist create new art forms, with the older
generations ridiculing the new art. Louis Leroy denounced Monet’s work as art perceiving
it as an unfinished sketch and for him it probably remained this way, but the
greater masses believed it to be Art and today it is undeniable. This change is
already underway in our time, games are being ridiculed by people who haven’t
played them and don’t understand them, Roger Ebert a critic of film, who had
admittedly never played a game said “Games can never be art” and in return he
was flooded with comments from the masses with examples of art encompassing
games.
Taking all of this into account, I
believe that games are an art form but that right now no game is art, though
the movement is already underway.
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