Well, it’s a bit more than that. Some of the tools are more elaborately carved than they need to be-- indicating an interest in decoration for decoration’s sake-- which is a pretty good definition of art, I think.
For example, they sometimes made items from banded slate, deliberately fashioning the piece so that the bands would make a pretty pattern, rather than just hammering out a usable tool with no thought to how it looked. Here is a bannerstone made of banded slate. I cannot but look at this piece and call it a work of art. (Bannerstones are believed to have been ceremonial artifacts, since many seem to have no practical use-- another good definition of art, I think.)
When does a tool become a piece of art? Does the fact that the craftsman apparently spent a great deal of unecessary time in fashioning the item to be aesthetically pleasing mean anything? Was he expressing himself creatively through his choice of materials, extra decoration, and extra carving? Making a flint point is not an easy task-- let alone adding extra decoration or knapping the stone in such a way as to create a pattern.
Furthermore, we have sculptures which have survives the ravages of time, which date back to pretty early in man’s history. This site has a ton of examples of sculpture, cave art and petroglyphs. (I feel compelled to note they also include stone tools. )
Here is a carving that scientists date back to 70,000 years ago. This sculpture is claimed by some to be upwards of 230,000 years old. (Though I take this one with a grain of salt, because I wasn’t able to find better cites.)
So, it appears that “art for art’s sake” was being incorporated into tools, as well as sculpture and jewelery. I’d say these were pretty artistic, creative people, just like people today who like to have pretty stuff around them.
I generally tick strongly disagree on this one (3.4, -6.7), and I totally agree with msmith on this point. From what little I know about human prehistory, art was around for a long while before business. IMHO, the process of creating or appreciating art is what makes us human.
Disagree, essentially for the reasons given by SM in his excellent piece.
However, SM loses me here:
“One might argue that there couldn’t be writers and artists without businessmen and manufacturers , but I think the converse is just as true: it is that very creativity which allows us to innovate, and business and manufacture merely subsequently proceed “mechanically”, based on that innovation, according to the law of diminishing returns.”
Could you explain a bit further? As far as I grasp what you’re trying to say here, I would say that it is the openness of a society (rather than creativity) that allows (perhaps facilitates is a better word) innovation; indeed, all the benefits that go along with, or derive from, freedom.
One problem endemic to China (and in my mind at a time when pro-reforming ex-premier Zhao Ziyang has just died), which is likely to prevent the type of material and social comfort of which SM talks, is the lack of freedom. The purges (dreadful word for a dreadful and real, attested practice) and the hagiographies, the butchering of history, the swing of the pendulum from false worship to false crucifixion, are symptoms of a closed society living in serfdom. Creative types (artists and writers) are of course muzzled and emasculated. But business and manufacturing suffers too, much more than is apparent, thanks to the control of the media by the state and the burgeoning grasp of PR among the elite.
In medieval Japan, the blacksmiths who crafted the finest samurai swords poured their souls into producing the most exquisite, perfectly balanced, strongest, and beautiful weapons seen in perhaps any time. Theirs was a work of art, not business.
It isn’t a far leap from craftsperson to artist, for any crafter who takes their work seriously.
How many important businessmen can you name from 150 years ago? How many important writers? Painters? Composers?
Strongly disagree here. Put me in line with John Mace’s reasoning.
Business means something specific in a capitalist economy. It’s not (or shouldn’t be) generalizable to include laborers or craftsmen, IMHO. It seems to me that, in human civilization, artists are as important as laborers and craftsmen.
All I was saying here, roger, is that the innovation, the new thing, is by far the most important element in this things called progress which allows these animals called humans to have these things called dedicated jobs, be it businessman or artist. Once a new thing appears, it stands or falls statistically by a mechanical, even “mindless” process (similar to how the exact type of mound which termites build is determined, say). I’m not sure one can really say that animals really engage in “business” - I think some here are conflating this with “work”.
I have a pretty broad definition of art but I’ve still got to draw the line somewhere. An eloborately decorated tool is still a functioning tool. There’s a big difference between a functioning tool and a cave painting.
I think the discussion about art and prehistoric man is just a distraction. Sure, prehistoric men had art so I’m willing to concede that art existed before merchants though not before manufacturers. Even in prehistoric times art could not have existed were it not for manufacturers and merchants. As neat as prehistoric art is it could not have existed unless man could actually produce more then he needed to survive. In more recent times it has been the rise of merchants and the specialization of producers that have allowed art as we know it to flourish.
Business isn’t usually fun and sexy but that doesn’t make it less important. The ability for art to flourish requires an economy were workers are specialized and a surplus of those goods necessary for survival. These things exist only because of merchants and producers.
I think that the end product of artists and businessmen are the same, but they do quite different things (despite that being a successful artist requires business acumen and that doing business requires a creative drive, they are still separate realms.)
I did a thought experiment.
Imagine a world without businessmen: all economic activity is undertaken by people for their own benefit or by the government. The result would be a bleak and bland, homogenized landscape with only the bare necessities provided for (since government is best at giving people what they need, not what they want.)
Imagine a world without art: all economic activity is undertaken by people for their own benefit, or by businessmen providing people with only necessities. It’s still going to be a bland homogenized landscape with only the bare necessities.
This forces me to conclude that capitalism and art are ideal for each other. Without capitalism, we could still have a functional society, but with much less pleasure. I think this is borne out in the Communist societies we have had on the earth.
Once again, government is good at providing for needs, less so for wants, especially subjective wants (or subjective needs,) such as art and entertainment.
This is a stupid question. Art and business depend on each other. Here’s a short list of things that require both to operate:
Movies
Books
Television
Radio / Music albums
Computer games
Cars
Monuments / great works
Clothing
Restaurants
Take one component away and you lose the whole lot. Also, don’t confuse “Businessmen” with “someone who makes something mildly utilitarian.” Likewise, don’t confuse “artist” with “a big gaudy oil painting hanging in someone old lady’s big ugly house.”
If you must separate them, you have the whole problem of defining what “more important” means. Business allows us to live, but art allows us to be remembered.
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