This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “https://www.quora.com/Do-you-trust-the-so-called-theories-in-the-arts/answer/Antonio-Amaral-1“
No, but I always trust my instincts when I encounter dripping cynicism applied to “high falutin’” concepts like “so-called theories.”
I don’t “have to trust” art theories since they are primarily subjective analyses of movements, stylistics, and socio-political contexts applied toward individuals, groups, or random associations between artists sharing aesthetic or subject matter concerns.
Theory in art differs from a science-based theory backed up by testable methods to determine an objective and consistently predictable outcome.
They’re not meant “to be trusted” but used as a lens or a filter to focus one’s surveying of a landscape.
In the art world, one learns to trust the analysis and the analyst based on the quality of their insight, depth of knowledge, and the strength of their observations.
Art theories are less critical to artists than academics like Art Historians, whose role in society is to contextualize the whole of art production into descriptions reflecting our social evolution through artistic expression.
Most artists could not care less where they fit into the grand scheme of artistic expression within the context of social evolution. They tend to be more concerned with matters that are important to them on a personal scale.
How one feels about issues they encounter is much more artistically motivating than an academic assessment of artistic context within the creative product.
My initial response to this question was, “What are you talking about?” and that turned out to be a good prompt for me to find a theory as a basis for answering this question.
I know art theories exist from my experience in art school, but I struggled to bring one to mind in any clear focus. Sure, various movements, styles, attitudes, and manifestos vaguely touched the surface of my conscious awareness, but I immediately rejected them as “theories” that relate to the context of this question.
I found this article to be an interesting and concise representation of “art theories” that distinguishes them from scientific theories to assist with making a point in my answer. After getting this far, I find it serves less as a function for contributing to my answer than as a helpful guide for a layperson to consider when assessing a piece.
The fact that I find this a novel summation for contextualizing one’s art-viewing experience reinforces how little concern I place on art theories when considering the pieces I produce.
For the most part, art production is a process of burying oneself in the fundamentals of artmaking more so than it is about where in the vast spectrum of historical context a piece should occupy. That is my bias, of course.
Art theories are a non-existent concern when working on a piece, whereas composition, shape, balance, colour, line, and tension are foremost in my mind.
All this leads me to ask, “What are you talking about?”
Your profile doesn’t provide much context, but it has several hallmarks for being a troll profile — such as being less than one month old and sparse in detail. Unlike my similar experiences with answering questions on Quora, I won’t mute and block you, but I’m sure I will remember the red flag this question left me with.
Perhaps you have been somewhat affected by a confluence of insecurity and psychological abuse by a pretentious asshole in the arts. Sadly, there are many, as this seems to be a field of endeavour that functions like a magnet for egotistical types.
I suggest focusing more on what moves you to create and less on what others might have to say because their input is often more about them than you or your work.
Good luck.
thotbag 