Is Modelling Art?

[Paul821]

Although this thread is listed as "non modelling topics" there is no general modelling chat area in BM, so this is posted here.

 

I volunteer with a museum and currently there are a number of grants available for "ARTS" projects. Thus led to the question posed in the thread title. If we are reproducing an actual artefact in miniature can that be seen as art? Even more so if we use a injection moulded kit and paint the model as close to the original as possible.  Can even a diorama with scratch build objects be seen as art?

[colin]

Probably, but getting a grant on the back of that I doubt it,good luck if you do try for it

[RobL]

Many would say no.  There are many snobs in the modelling "community" who "appreciate art", but will not consider modelling a form of "art", ditto goes for people involved in "the arts" who would decide on grants and stuff.  And yet they would call a painting by a 5 year old "art".  Apparently it's a measure of one's intellect...

 

One of the definitions of art is - Skillful creative activity, usually with an aesthetic focus.

 

Personally, I think that if Tracy Emin can "create" a bed and call it "art" (because she's attached a pseudo intellectual story to it), then we can call assembling an aircraft kit, painting it, and putting it on display, "art".  Moreso if you've made a diorama that tries to tell a story.

 

Several BM members would of course disagree...

 

But yeah, good luck trying to get a grant for modelling.

Edited November 27, 2021 by RobL

[dromia]

Modelling can be art depending on how the subject ultimately appears.

 

However making models does not make one an artist just as owning the a piano does not make you a musician.

 

Not withstanding the subjectivity of the subject art is something that sucks you in, makes you want you see, hear, touch to the exclusion of all else and for precious moments transcends time and place to the exclusion of all else. The product of which is a flow of emotions and thoughts from simple pleasure of the experience to profound thinking.

 

Good art is very rare nowadays especially as our senses are overwhelmed and numbed by the sheer plethora of imagery and sounds we are constantly bombarded with. All this means is that there is a concentration on the mundane where the sheer quantity trumps quality and breeds a cynical illusion of familiarity where loudness and brashness are increasingly used to grab attention rather than quality.

 

So any grant making body would look at the quality of the artists/modellers canon of work to help make an assessment on its suitability for any award.

 

My work certainly wouldn't get a grant whereas the likes of Mike Rinaldi's work certainly would.

Edited November 27, 2021 by dromia

[ckw]

In general I would consider modelling a 'craft' a well made model demonstrated good craftsmanship, a realistically painted and weathered model shows excellent craftmanship, but the aim is to produce a good replica or representation of the original.

 

Art is about generating an emotional/intellectual response in the viewer - it should make the user feel something or inspire new thoughts. Good art does not necessarily involve good craftmanship.

 

So I would say a model kit on its own would not be considered art, however it may be possible to produce a diorama which is art by creating something which is more than the sum of the individual components.

 

All that said, I don't know how funding bodies would view this - sometimes arts and crafts are lumped together, sometimes not. I would say that in any application you would need to make clear what your intellectual/emotional aims for the 'work' was.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[Neil.C]

I don't consider model making an art to be honest. As mentioned earlier I think it comes under the heading of craft.

 

You are just assembling parts, the painting can be very realistic but it's not art.

 

Plastic modelling is as much art as an Art Master set is to painting. 😉

[IanC]

I'd agree that modelling is craftsmanship rather than art, although thinking more widely, the two can be connected, especially in an historical context. The Anglo-Saxon 'Alfred Jewel' in the Ashmolean Museum, as an example, is craftsmanship of the highest order. Some would also consider it great art.

 

At the time of their creation, and sometimes long after, such pieces elicited the emotional response that 'true' art provides, and in a way that may not be as apparent to many of us in our modern, secular world.

 

And I have to admit, once upon a time when I was starting out in the hobby, I venerated the dioramas of Shep Paine and Francois Verlinden in a way I wouldn't now. 😀

[Bullbasket]

It all depends on your definition of art. Over the years, there have been some odd things that some people would have you think that they are art. A pile of dirty nappies, an unmade bed and a pile of house bricks are just three which immediately come to mind. As has been stated already, modelling does sit (IMHO) more comfortably under the heading of "craft".

 

John. 

[Tojo72]

Not what I do !!!

 

But yes,I think it is,especially when I see the work of some of the masters.

 

But just like someone paints an amateurish picture,but hangs it in his den,he considers it his art,so my lesser models are my art.

[Pete in Lincs]

What is art? 

To some, a badly painted sunflower is art, as are paintings composed of dots.

To me, an exploding shed or an unmade bed are a waste of space and smack of the Emperors new clothes.

I have an intense dislike of graffiti. 

Yet...

If David Shepherd paints a railway engine, copies will be made and hung on walls to be admired.

If Billy Britmodeller builds an F-14 model and shows it at Telford, then it's there to be admired.

So, to me, an accurate copy of a real or imaginary thing*, whether 2D or 3D can be art.

It all depends on the viewpoint of the onlooker.

 

* I scratchbuild Sci Fi models, so I'm biased!

 

[Graham Boak]

David Shepherd took great care that the technical details in in paintings were correct.  However there is still the matter of composition, which is completely lacking in sticking bits of plastic together.

 

There are of course many fine paintings of SF scenes that would count as art, providing they illustrated much the same qualities.

[Troy Smith]

11 hours ago, Paul821 said:

I volunteer with a museum and currently there are a number of grants available for "ARTS" projects. Thus led to the question posed in the thread title. If we are reproducing an actual artefact in miniature can that be seen as art? Even more so if we use a injection moulded kit and paint the model as close to the original as possible.  Can even a diorama with scratch build objects be seen as art?

Yes,  art has been made using injection moulded kits as the basis

 

and the Chapman brothers made a piece called Hell with 60,000 WW2 German/Nazi figures 

see 

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jun/16/jake-and-dinos-chapman-how-we-made-hell

 

https://cdn.theguardian.tv/mainwebsite/2015/06/16/150616hell_desk.mp4

 

Jummy Cauty of KLF fame made model scapes

 

https://nowthenmagazine.com/articles/adp-riot-tour-james-cautys-aftermath-dislocation-principle

 

"

On 25 July 2016, Jimmy Cauty’s Aftermath Dislocation Principle arrived at Catcliffe Recreation Ground, housed in a 40-foot shipping container and pulled by a 30-tonne haulage truck.

If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a huge model of a dystopian landscape. All around is the residual carnage of an unspecified apocalyptic civil disturbance. Everywhere there is debris and destruction. The only people you can see are the police, and lots of them. The rioters are eerily absent. The model is built at 1:87 scale and has the feel of a model railway. It is viewed through a series of holes drilled into the container."

 

 

and

https://nowthenmagazine.com/articles/jimmy-cauty-brings-estate-exhibition-to-sheffield

 

https://jamescauty.com/work/the-aftermath-dislocation-principle/

 

Great quote here though

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jul/17/jimmy-cauty-outsider-artist-klf-model-village-adp-tour-interview

 

"Cauty does have one final thing to say about his new thing, though: if only model-making weren’t so fiddly. “I’d be holding something and say, ‘Can you just take this?’ And people would say, ‘You’re not holding anything.’ You think you’re holding something, but it’s actually gone.” Although he had helpers, he’s the only one who could break the windows correctly and position people the right way. “It’s because of my sense of cartoon-ness. I study the way people stand in groups: usually either bored or excited.” These days, he says, if he sees a group of real police officers, he wants to go up and reposition them."

 

Though , whether a as an accurate miniature is art?     As other have stated in the thread, craft is a better definition,  but then there is a blurred line between craft and art anyway,  I mean shop have 'arts and craft' sections.... so where does one stop and the other begin? 

 

EDIT PS

this was a link from the comments in the last article, I'd not heard of this before (so apologies if old news) .... and it's bonkers! is it art?    

 

 

[Muchmirth]

I kind of agree with what ckw said but I do think that modelling can be art. The models themselves might not have a lot of room for manouvre as they are repeatedly made/moulded from the same moulds, yes they can have several interpretations, colour schemes, decals and modifications but t34 will always be a t34. This means our emotional response or thought response to this Is limited. Yet what can offer the model more individualistic interpretation and artistic license would be the scene and setting which of course is limitless and so can evoke thoughts and emotions so in this way yes I do personally believe it's an art. 

    I have definitely seen some very individual and imaginative models/dioramas and figures which I thought of as art. It's a creative process which can explore more or less anything and can include pre moulded models made by someone else. Similar to sculpture. 

  Like what everyone else has more or less said weather you actually get a grant for this would be another thing. 

Edited November 28, 2021 by Muchmirth
Added coment

[Longbow]

Yes. Of course modeling is art. 
Just look at the definition of “Art”. 
 

The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

 

Here endeth the lesson. 

[Giorgio N]

No, modelling is not art. Particularly the kind of modelling that most of us enjoy, that is building a kit and painting this.

For a starter the level of "creativity" involved in building and painting a model is limited, afterall we start from a commercially available product and mostly end up with a representation of something that follows the indication of certain instructions. I may paint a Spitfire kit in a very realistic way but where is the original content ? It would be like making a copy of the Mona Lisa, no matter how well I reproduce Leonardo's masterpiece, the original is art, the copies much less so.

Even on a scratchbuilt model I struggle to see art, the level of creativity is here higher but again the aim is to build a replica of something, not creating a work meant to generate certain emotions or push a certain ideal.

Art involves much deeper content than the reproduction of something or the creation of an object that may make people thing "this looks nice". Michelangelo's David is art, one of those fake greek statues that decorate Vegas casinos is not art, even if the latter may be very well made and look pleasing to the eye. A work of art is the result not only of the skills and creativity of the artist but also of the ideas, concepts and philosophy that the artist draws on to produce such work. Without these, even a painting is not art, it's a decorative object.

 

This doesn't mean that certain techniques we use in our hobby can certainly be described as "artistic" and some have a lot in common with techniques used by artists.

At the same time this doesn't mean that a plastic model can not become art if used as part or even the core of a work of art. Troy has shown a couple examples, I can add an italian artist named Maurizio Mochetti, who made a series of works based on the use of models of the Bachem Natter. His works do not represent a real Natter, the aircraft however becomes a symbol for the artist and he introduces this symbol in his works. Very different from the kind of use that we make of the same model.

[Longbow]

30 minutes ago, Giorgio N said:

No, modelling is not art. Particularly the kind of modelling that most of us enjoy, that is building a kit and painting this.

For a starter the level of "creativity" involved in building and painting a model is limited, afterall we start from a commercially available product and mostly end up with a representation of something that follows the indication of certain instructions. I may paint a Spitfire kit in a very realistic way but where is the original content ? It would be like making a copy of the Mona Lisa, no matter how well I reproduce Leonardo's masterpiece, the original is art, the copies much less so.

Even on a scratchbuilt model I struggle to see art, the level of creativity is here higher but again the aim is to build a replica of something, not creating a work meant to generate certain emotions or push a certain ideal.

Art involves much deeper content than the reproduction of something or the creation of an object that may make people thing "this looks nice". Michelangelo's David is art, one of those fake greek statues that decorate Vegas casinos is not art, even if the latter may be very well made and look pleasing to the eye. A work of art is the result not only of the skills and creativity of the artist but also of the ideas, concepts and philosophy that the artist draws on to produce such work. Without these, even a painting is not art, it's a decorative object.

 

This doesn't mean that certain techniques we use in our hobby can certainly be described as "artistic" and some have a lot in common with techniques used by artists.

At the same time this doesn't mean that a plastic model can not become art if used as part or even the core of a work of art. Troy has shown a couple examples, I can add an italian artist named Maurizio Mochetti, who made a series of works based on the use of models of the Bachem Natter. His works do not represent a real Natter, the aircraft however becomes a symbol for the artist and he introduces this symbol in his works. Very different from the kind of use that we make of the same model.

Making a copy of the Mona Lisa, is still “art”. 
Art is creativity. 
Modeling is creativity. 
Modeling is art. 
 

Cave paintings, are decorative “art”.

[MagpieFNQ]

Oxford dictionary : Art: the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power

 

Modelling is most definitely art. 

[Paul821]

Some interesting points made to date:

 

Views:

Yes = 8

No (unqualified) = 1

No (craft) = 4

Probably = 2

[ckw]

34 minutes ago, MagpieFNQ said:

Art: the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination

I think "imagination" is the key word here - which Oxford defines as "the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses." Which I don't think modelling usually embraces, although there would be special cases as in dioramas or arguably "what if" builds, though even these are usually an extrapolation of existing knowledge.

 

Indeed, many (most?) modellers would pride themselves of closely replicating an existing object. Craftmanship - yes; Ingenuity - yes. Imagination - not so much.

 

And in my view copying an existing work of art (Mona Lisa) again fails the 'art' test as imagination is not involved - unless of course the copy is deliberately altered in some way to carry a new message.

 

At the end of the day, I don't suppose it matters much. Some seem to think that 'Art' exists on a higher plane than 'Craft' ... never saw it that way myself - they are parallel, and each should be appreciated in its own right - i.e. how well the creator achieves his/her objective.

 

This has always been a topic in the world of photography - consider a perfectly composed and exposed landscape image compared to a blurry under exposed image with enormous emotional impact. Both are photographs, yet cannot really be compared without separating the 'craft' from the 'art'

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[MagpieFNQ]

1 minute ago, ckw said:

I think "imagination" is the key word here - which Oxford defines as "the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses." Which I don't think modelling usually embraces, although there would be special cases as in dioramas or arguably "what if" builds, though even these are usually an extrapolation of existing knowledge.

 

Indeed, many (most?) modellers would pride themselves of closely replicating an existing object. Craftmanship - yes; Ingenuity - yes? Imagination - not so much.

 

And in my view copying an existing work of art (Mona Lisa) again fails the 'art' test as imagination is not involved - unless of course the copy is deliberately altered in some way to carry a new message.

 

At the end of the day, I don't suppose it matters much. Some seem to think that 'Art' exists on a higher plane than 'Craft' ... never saw it that way myself - they are parallel, and each should be appreciated in its own right - i.e. how well the creator achieves his/her objective.

 

This has always been a topic in the world of photography - consider a perfectly composed and exposed landscape image compared to a blurry under exposed image with enormous emotional impact. Both are photographs, yet cannot really be compared without separating the 'craft' from the 'art'

 

Cheers

 

Colin

So a still life painting isn't art? 

[Longbow]

6 minutes ago, ckw said:

 

 

And in my view copying an existing work of art (Mona Lisa) again fails the 'art' test as imagination is not involved - unless of course the copy is deliberately altered in some way to carry a new message.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

 

Not all artists make good forgers, but all forgers are good artists. 

 

Same with cartoonists. Not all artists are good cartoonists, but all cartoonists are good artists. 

 

 

[ckw]

3 minutes ago, MagpieFNQ said:

So a still life painting isn't art? 

In any meaningful sense I would say no, IF the purpose of the painting is simply to closely represent the subject, no more than your average selfie is. You can find a lot of interesting discussion about this if you look up the infamous 'Gorilla selfie'

 

A still life can be art if the artist is adding their own message to the image - we see this in a lot of modern art where the message is often to do with perception or the concept of art itself. An important question for any work of art is "what is the artist trying to say?" If the answer is nothing, then it isn't art (but it might still be a beautiful picture). This question has to be asked if 'art' is to have any real meaning. Otherwise we end up saying slapping a coat of paint on a wall can be called art.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[ckw]

5 minutes ago, Longbow said:

but all forgers are good artists

No. Extremely good craftspeople. Indeed, if the were artists and added their own imagination to the work they would likely not succeed as forgers.

 

5 minutes ago, Longbow said:

but all cartoonists are good artists

Definitely not - and this is a good example about messaging. Even if the cartoon is beautifully drawn but fails to get the point across, it has failed as a work of art. Conversely some brilliant cartoonists make their point with just a few pen strokes, and would be considered 'artists' despite an apparent lack of craftmanship.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

[Longbow]

1 minute ago, ckw said:

No. Extremely good craftspeople. Indeed, if the were artists and added their own imagination to the work they would likely not succeed as forgers.

 

Definitely not - and this is a good example about messaging. Even if the cartoon is beautifully drawn but fails to get the point across, it has failed as a work of art. Conversely some brilliant cartoonists make their point with just a few pen strokes, and would be considered 'artists' despite an apparent lack of craftmanship.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

I beg to differ.

Even a bad cartoon is an expression of creativity. Therefore, a bad cartoon is still art. 

 

Making sandcastles, is a creative art. bad cartoons, creative art. A hand print on a cave wall, creative art. Modeling, creative art. 

 

 

 

 

[Longbow]

14 minutes ago, ckw said:

In any meaningful sense I would say no, IF the purpose of the painting is simply to closely represent the subject, no more than your average selfie is. You can find a lot of interesting discussion about this if you look up the infamous 'Gorilla selfie'

 

A still life can be art if the artist is adding their own message to the image - we see this in a lot of modern art where the message is often to do with perception or the concept of art itself. An important question for any work of art is "what is the artist trying to say?" If the answer is nothing, then it isn't art (but it might still be a beautiful picture). This question has to be asked if 'art' is to have any real meaning. Otherwise we end up saying slapping a coat of paint on a wall can be called art.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

 

Sooo.... You're saying that this is Not Art ?

 

 

It's a Rebrandt, by the way. 

 

Do you have something against Artists ??