I am an artist and a damn proud one at that. I’ve spent my entire life drawing and painting and the last four years in particular have been concerned solely with acquiring a degree in the field of Illustration. My viewpoints on art and its value however, would probably make other men of similar ilk cringe and foam at the mouth. Women too.

You see, I believe fine art is dead and has been since the Impressionists made their way out. I think cubism is pointless, and most people who live in this fanciful realm are really just playing at how-much-can-we-squeeze-out-the-next-gullible-bugger. I say this not because the people are untalented or stupid, but because they’re incredibly lazy. All you really need to do is pretend that the colour red and a wavy, badly painted line has some significance in your life, make it sound good, and then sell it to whatever bleeding-heart asshole has enough money.

That is not to say there aren’t some very talented, honest people in the realm of fine art, there certainly are, but by and large the true spirit of art resides in the commercial realm. Art tends to be at its best when it is painted not for one’s own ego, but for someone else and their purpose. You see, I tend to view fine art as useless. It serves no more purpose than vain decoration and artistic snobbery these days, both of which I despise. Commercial art is removed by and large from its own personal ego and is therefore a bit more honest about its place in life. It wants to be used, to be developed, refined, and ultimately serve something more than itself.

Why am I bringing this up? Because I had a conversation not that long ago wherein one side asserted that anime was not art, merely because it was made for a profit in a commercial realm. My stance is that anime can be art, depending on how well it delivers what it promises, and if it serves a purpose beyond visual masturbation.

We gloss over the definition of art a lot. Most people are just happy to disagree about it, firstly because it’s a lot of trouble to argue over, and secondly because you offend so many people in the process. But since I’m in the business of offending people (have you read my blog?), and I like a good long-winded argument, this one seems right up my alley. Besides, I’m an artist, I like to think I have some perspective.

Let me make my position incredibly clear: I am not talking about ‘art’ in the general sense. Wildarmsheero makes ‘art’ in that sense, but I’d be hard pressed to call his comic ‘art’ in the realm I’m about to explore. He creates comics about a subculture, and while it is useful, that is not the only criteria I’m about to enter into this argument. No offence of course, sir, but then I’m fairly confident you wouldn’t be outraged by this discussion anyhow. If you are, feel free to get out the molotovs.

Art, in my view, must have at least three of the following five components to be qualified as worthwhile:

1. Relevance – The material must be relevant to its audience, even if it does not obey or follow their actual opinions. Revolutionary art has been like this, art of protest has been like this, as well as the art of Star Trek. Star Trek is in fact our proof of relevance. Enterprise was highly irrelevant which led to its demise. It lacked the ideals and spirit of adventure the older shows had, and so it became useless to its audience. It made them question nothing, think about nothing, and so lost the following it was supposed to keep.

2. Craftsmanship – This is where a lot of art falls off. You do not have to be a painted in the sense of the Renaissance to have good craftsmanship, but there must be a demonstration of technical skill and hard work behind what is forged. Technicians work hard every day on movie sets, on informational diagrams, on costume designs, and logo creation. How dare you paint a stripe on a black canvas and pretend your bleeding-heart sob story is worth money.

3. Idealism – The whole purpose of art should be to make people think, to make them marvel, or to express something of deep emotion. If you cannot do these things, your work lacks idealism. That is part of what the new Star Wars movies lack versus their older counterparts, and why both Episodes I and II are so stilted. They cannot figure out their ideals. Sadly most bad art is sold on the premise of false idealism, where the painter’s ego masquerades as his or her ideals. It takes a very keen eye, refined mind, and profound heart to know the difference.

4. Intent – What does your work set out to do? Make it clear — even if it is unclear as a means of clarity. Do not require your audience to stretch their imaginations on your message. It is one thing to make your audience inquire and explore your piece, it is another to have them paint in an emotion where you yourself forgot it. Everyone may react to works in a different way, but it should not be so obscure as to give you an excuse to lethargy. Lain, for instance, is a horrid offender here, never quite clear on what it’s trying to do. Haibane Renmei by comparison is very clear on its ideas of friendship and guilt vs. forgiveness. Both from the same hand. One is pretentious bullshit, one is art.

5. Integrity – Any real art has to have some integrity. Being created for money does not violate integrity, that much is a popular misconception. The issue is: Does the art do nothing but pander, or does it have its own ideas? Returning to Enterprise, the whole issue with the show was non-stop pandering. It had no ideas of its own, and in the end suffered because of it. The same thing applies to Cutey Honey Flash versus earlier and later incarnations. Even in its own context of shallow, bubblegum sentai, the show must have its own ideas about identity and purpose. It must have integrity.

These five criteria are, I feel, the most important to determining if a work can be considered ‘art’. It’s utterly pointless to contain art to a specific medium like some people try to do. The whole idea that video games cannot be art is beyond ludicrous. All it shows is a narrow-minded, hind-pointing conservatism which has no place in the world of art (that does not mean conservatism itself has no place, but merely that this particular form doesn’t). Anime and video games can be art. That does not make either medium art in and of itself. Macross Plus is art because it fulfils all five of the five: It has integrity, idealism, relevance, craftsmanship, and intent. It suffers a little on the last note because of its meandering mid-way through. However, all other criteria are quickly and ably met, with a high calibre of execution.

On that note, I do feel the need to justify ‘relevance’, because someone has asked me about this. Macross Plus is not relevant due to its setting or its political ideas. It has few of the latter, and the former is by and large a fiction. Relevance arises because of the human drama playing out in the midst, and meets at a climax when Isamu yells at Myung that “Life without pain isn’t real!”. The quote itself carries a fair bit of truth and weight, but it is made even stronger by its context. It’s an extremely compelling scene, and I would encourage just about anyone to watch it. It is not relevant in a contemporary way, no. It is relevant in a timeless way.

For contrast’s sake, I should note that I do not consider Mobile Suit Gundam (the original) to be art. If your eyes just bugged out and your furore is building, good, because I like a reaction. But simmer, simmer. Let me explain. MS Gundam is not art because it lacks in certain areas. It does not have a clear idea of intent, it does not have a high degree of craftsmanship, and its integrity is rather thin. Some would say MS Gundam is telling an anti-war story, but I have never felt that to be true. I think Gundam meanders too much and takes a few too many scenic routes in its narrative to deliver with clear intent. Further, its animation is rather pedestrian and typical, even for its own time. While the machines are always nice to look at and carry more realism than some other shows, the show’s overall rendering suffers from some very shoddy work.

Before someone makes the argument about demands of animation versus budget: I know. I know. But Dennou Coil did magic on this front for a limited budget, so there’s no real excuse. Craftsmanship was by and large not at a high point with MS Gundam. Zeta fares sufficiently better, and I think we can qualify Zeta as art, because its story has intent (very anti-war and descriptive about the horrors of war), integrity (Tomino continued a fine tradition of killing off everyone and their donkey), and yes, a fairly high degree of technical craftsmanship. Even if the last point can be argued against, Zeta also delivers on the front of idealism (Bask Om is a bastard). Zeta Gundam is art.

I’ll leave it here and ask for reactions to this. Do you agree with my proposal on the matter of art? Argue with me, if you will.