Is D&D Art?

[Janx]

I didn't think I was being pedantic. I was just tryng to get at a definition that didn't use the word art or a synonym, so I could understand how he figured out if something is art. I apologize for the pedantry.

Okay. You take issue with intentionality being an element. But does that mean if I spill some paint on a canvas, without intending to, it can be art? What if there is an earthquake in a paint store, which causes paint to spill; on a canvas? Can there be accidental art?

I think anything creative... which is intended to evoke an emotional reaction is art.

I don't know why the works of Shakespeare, Homer, Victor Hugo, and Fellini should be disqualified from being included in "the good stuff" just because it won't appear in an art museum.

well, we're all probably being pedantic and nitpicky about a stupid definition...I'm basically saying, let's try to read DA's intent and move on, despite the oddness of the sentence.

On random art, people ebay and frame pieces of toast that have coincidental pictures of famous people on them. I suspect that qualifies as art. I suspect if it looks cool, and other people like it, the random paint counts as art. Especially if I don't tell you how I made it. Then the fact that it was random is not a factor in your acceptance of it as art.

 

[gamerprinter]

How about this... when I create an adventure, I almost always create one or more maps to accomodate it. Now lots of GMs create maps, and most of it is usable in game and not art, however, I actually have some artistic training, and am in fact commissioned on a regular basis by RPG publishers to create maps. Many publishers prefer my maps because all the linework is generally hand-drawn, and I finish the map in full color digitally. I would have to qualify all my maps as art.

I just finished a mega-city map for Paizo's upcoming Jade Regent adventure path as my first commission for them and before I was even finished they've told me they got lots more work for me to tackle sooner and later.

Though I'm not the writer that I am a cartographer, still I put as much effort and attempt at fine creative writing in textual part of an adventure as I do in cartography. My adventures are intended as commercial publications as often as a personal adventure for my own games.

And regarding the 'art museum' line of thinking some here are posting as representative of art. For the whole month of July of 2010, I had three maps shown in the Soho Digital Art Gallery, in New York City, in a showing of maps created by members of the Cartographers' Guild.

So where do you draw the line in what is art and what is not?

Perhaps with most building an adventure for a weekend gaming session might not qualify as art, still it is not a hard line drawn in the sand. RPG design can very well be considered art - I guess its both who is creating it and who is judging it... (and I really don't think those last two determines what is art or not.)

Edit: Here's a recent encounter scale map of mine from my Curse of the Golden Spear mini-arc... is this art?

 

[prosfilaes]

You don't like them. That does not mean they aren't art.

I didn't say I didn't like them. I said that the painstakingly exact reproduction of a flower in glass (for purposes of scientific study) is not art.

What do you think aesthetic appreciation is all about? If something generates aesthetic appreciation, it's art.

Is a wild flower art? Is Half Dome art? Art to me has to be the deliberate creation of something new as art.

(I readily admit that I do not like paint-splatter art, but art it is.)

But paint splatter isn't. I aesthetically appreciated the board, but it was the result of random action, not deliberate creation.

 

[gamerprinter]

I didn't say I didn't like them. I said that the painstakingly exact reproduction of a flower in glass (for purposes of scientific study) is not art.

Yet, many naturalists of the 19th century created illustrated journals for the purpose of scientific study and today some of those sit in museums and are considered art - even though the intent in their creation was solely for scientific purposes. The painstaking exact reproduction of a flower in glass, in my mind, is "Hell yes that's art!" no matter what the original intent for its creation was...

 

[nedjer]

Having a real exciting time at work looking at a journal when I bump into this stuff on art. Psychologists measured reactions to being told a version of a famous picture was the original and the viewers suddenly saw more features of the work and greater appreciation.

So it looks like what seems a personal valuing of art is shaped by rep; which ain't so great for reclusive artists, but does explain the financial merits of embalming cattle in formaldehyde and calling it art.

 

[wrecan]

On random art, people ebay and frame pieces of toast that have coincidental pictures of famous people on them. I suspect that qualifies as art.

I understand your definition and position. I personally disagree that art can be made accidentally. A sunset is pretty -- it's not art. But I also understand the issues with trying to discern intent.

 

[prosfilaes]

The painstaking exact reproduction of a flower in glass, in my mind, is "Hell yes that's art!" no matter what the original intent for its creation was...

How can an exact copy of something be art and the original not be?

 

[gamerprinter]

How can an exact copy of something be art and the original not be?

Because the original is a natural thing - a flower. A religious person might say a flower is a piece of art created by God. I'm not judging its just a flower, but duplicating a natural flower in any medium painstakingly exact or not is art.

If the Mona Lisa is actually a woman (there are arguments against that...) is the person Leonardo Di Vinci painted - is she art? Of course not, he/she is just a comely person painted by another. How could Di Vinci's Mona Lisa be called art, if the original (the person) is not considered art - I know that logic sound's stupid and is, but this your argument that I'm responding to.

Art is almost never the reproduction of something else that's art - who ever defined art that way, as you do? Nobody, I'm pretty sure.

 

[Ahnehnois]

How about this... when I create an adventure, I almost always create one or more maps to accomodate it. Now lots of GMs create maps, and most of it is usable in game and not art, however, I actually have some artistic training, and am in fact commissioned on a regular basis by RPG publishers to create maps. Many publishers prefer my maps because all the linework is generally hand-drawn, and I finish the map in full color digitally. I would have to qualify all my maps as art.

...

Though I'm not the writer that I am a cartographer, still I put as much effort and attempt at fine creative writing in textual part of an adventure as I do in cartography. My adventures are intended as commercial publications as often as a personal adventure for my own games.

...

Edit: Here's a recent encounter scale map of mine from my Curse of the Golden Spear mini-arc... is this art?

Already gave XP for a post upthread. Just wanted to highlight the first image to be posted to this art thread. I would certainly describe that as art (as I tuck my tail between my legs and return to my crude maps that I drew in high school).

It's an interesting perspective. While the average gamer does not produce this kind of material, there are quite a few out there who do. There are a lot of freelance game writers/artists (in the pictorial sense)/cartographers out there.

 

[nedjer]

Impractical to post my game art, as the files are too large, but I'd be interested to know which if any of these examples might be considered RPG art:

plain RPG illustration

visual roleplaying: these have in-game values

One of 144 dragons for RPG ARG Renegade: these have in-game 'actions', i.e. green indicates an active toxic state . . .

in each case: RPG art, art?

p.s. any monitor under 22" and some of the images probably scale in your browser - click and they'll size up