The word “art” is something the West has never understood. Art is supposed to be a part of a community. Like, scholars are supposed to be a part of a community… Art is to decorate people’s houses, their skin, their clothes, to make them expand their minds, and it’s supposed to be right in the community, where they can have it when they want it… It’s supposed to be as essential as a grocery store… that’s the only way art can function naturally.
Amiri Baraka (via sade1992)
only partially accurate. The current definition of art in the West didn’t come around until roughly the 17th century, and even then it wasn’t until the 20th century that ornament and the decorative arts were so largely degraded. Ancient Greece and Rome had definitions much more close to this one, definitions which held fast in Western civilization until the rise of Imperialism.
Before this, the differentiations between Fine and Decorative, applied, folk, or ornamental arts were not so starkly made. Even in the 19th century, decorative and ornamental arts were wildly popular. I don’t say this to defend Western tastes or try to explain away inherent racism and classism that formed in the field of western art over time, I say it because disregarding the decorative arts’ popularity in the 19th century massively wipes out large swathes of modern art history: it takes away japonisme and chinoiserie, it removes blue and white delftwares, and porcelains from the west almost entirely (Porcelain comes from China, hence calling plates and dishes Fine China), it fractures the entire movement of impressionism (which copied heavily from Japanese arts, including fabrics and clothes, wallpapers, ceramics, and woodblock prints)….
This also disregards female artist’s contributions to the decorative and ornamental arts at the time (not the fault of this quote per se, but rather the fault of academe’s erasure of non-fine arts from art history classes). For example, the american art pottery movement was populated by many female ceramicists, designers, and painters — all to make pieces meant for decoration. One of the most outstanding american companies – Rookwood – was founded by a woman. Women were weavers, embroiderers, they sewed, quilted — the women’s fashion magazine is precisely this: a collection of decorative, ornamented, or wearable arts — and it’s hardly a recent creation. Having leafed through, stored, and looked up 18th-19th century magazines or catalogues on fashion and interior design before, I can promise you people valued these ideas and things. For something a shade earlier, look up Sumptuary laws. The art of clothing and appearance has been so highly important in so many societies that there have been laws surrounding them throughout history — who can wear yellow, or purple, jewelry, or gold…
It’s a pretty quote, but I don’t think it makes a solid argument or conclusion. The problem is how art gets used in a community in the west, not whether it’s used.