I see what you're going for, but I don't agree from the get-go. For one, I don't see learning and teaching as opposites. From my own experience as a teacher, it is often this very attitude that prevents people from getting the most of their learning experiences. Learning is collaborative, teaching is somewhat authoritative.

Furthermore, most "teachers" are also learners-- they have to be in order to be responsive and active in the collaborative learning process.

I'm not saying my friend-the-artist is doing novel, groundbreaking things with her art. But there's clearly skill there

Now, the way my conversation with fuffle was going, we weren't talking about skill. Skill is both a part of artistry and apart from whatever it is that drives artistry. Grammar is well and good, but it's not "writing" in the artistic sense, anymore than practicing lines and curves are "drawing". Technical skill contributes to artistry only if a person can combine it with those artistic instincts that so many people either lack or don't discover within themselves, which is what I think is really at the heart of the discussion that sparked this post.

Art is nothing without the audience just like art is nothing without the idea.

This, if I remember correctly, humanodon, was the basis of our first interaction about art, wasn't it? It's an idea I'm still processing. Certainly not yet ready to make any more assertions about it, because I'm not certain enough of my answer anymore.

As for art just being about externalizing the internal... I'm not entirely sure. Lemme see if I can dig around at why. Keep in mind that I'm tired tired tired and supposed to be working right now, so I'm not sure of the value of what I'm saying. Feel free to pick 'er apart. Basically, though. If art were just about taking something internal and making it external with no other preconditions, would we have any people we consider artistic heavyweights? In other words, if I have a feeling: "Work is useless," and then I paint onto a canvas a stick figure with a speech bubble saying "work is useless..." I've just externalized my internal viewpoint. Poorly, but by the above criteria, it doesn't matter. It's up to the audience to determine whether or not I'm artistically successful, even if I know I put no thought into the piece. Or else yeah, I can practice and study and work out my ideas and hone my art until, on a canvas, I can use the most exquisite oil paints to paint in painstaking detail a guy with his head in his hands... with a speech bubble saying "work is useless." And it's up to the audience to do the rest.

This example is ridiculous, I know. I'm actually kind of embarrassed to have used it, but again, tired. But it gets at something: sometimes you can practice and practice and practice and put something out that's technically well-rendered... and it still won't strike an emotional chord because a) maybe you just don't have any good ideas (you addressed this above) and/or b) you have, for all of your technical skill, no natural talent for effectively expressing your views to any audience. Which I guess gets in a roundabout fashion to the first thing I mentioned, which was the role of the audience in effective artwork. So blah.

I guess the best I can do is provide two examples- Thomas Kinkade (God rest his soul) and Chuck Close. Chose them because they both focus on the representational, both paint as realistically as they can (okay, that's an assumption), both use the same media. Other than that, arbitrary. Kinkade did landscapes, Close portaiture. They're both concise in realizing their ideas. Is Kinkade on the same level in terms of cultural value as Close? That's not rhetorical- it's a hard question. Kinkade probably has more total market value and access to popular culture? But Close's stuff probably goes for more per square inch and is more highly valued within circles that pride themselves in valuing such things. I can say that looking at the two side by side objectively as I can, Close's stuff is just incredible while Kinkade's stuff feels cheap and saccharine. But if they've both desired to convey something as much as they possibly could, and both practiced and toiled and created these works, but one retains more value than the other, doesn't that mean that there's some kernel that is totally up to natural ability, and can't be taught? That, in my mind, is the seed of artistic expression. Not impeccable technique, but an inbred ability to not just externalize the internal, but to compel a culture to empathize with your internalized thought/emotion. Which, I guess you get at above as well. So why do you think that the whole process is teachable whereas I believe that the fundamental ability can't be bestowed but only inherited?

This is exactly the problem humanodon and I ran up against in our initial PM conversation. And reading through the comments, looks like it's a common stumbling block for everybody. For almost every post, there's a different definition of what art is.

I arrived at my own definition in our conversation that I think both humanodon and I could get behind more or less, but in the end, any definition is going to run up against more or less arbitrary boundaries. Which, ironically enough, helps kind of answer the question, doesn't it? If art defies definition, if it's kind of a "know it when you see it" thing, how can it ultimately be taught? Which is I guess more or less the inverse of what you're getting at above:

if we agree upon a context for what we consider to be art... then we might say that to the extent that art can be communicated, it might be taught.

For the record, I think part of what makes art "art" and not technical writing or computer science or something is a confluence of intentional, directed movement with the presence, on some plane or another, of intuitive, a-logical design. If there's an easily defined formula to your art, then I'm not sure it's art, since art relies on a certain absence of logic. Which, leading to your question about robots and elephants- no, I'm not sure a robot can create art. But I'm less sure that the robot built to create art isn't an artwork in and of itself. Like the program that guy made to mimic classical composers. If the music itself is dictated by algorithm, then it's missing a key component of true art. But the program itself! Wow. Because it raises more questions than it answers, and it forces us to confront some uncomfortable implications about human creativity, and the nature of art. Wheels within wheels, man.

The elephant who paints? Who knows? Maybe, yeah.

That said, just because something is art doesn't mean it's good art. I can agree that anybody, including elephants, can paint without having to grant that all art is created equal. So if we allow for the presence of less effective art, it might soften the chore of defining art in the first place, and indeed offer some insight into what makes art what it is. If we know something is bad or good, and we can identify why, that implies something about the fundamental nature of the thing, doesn't it?

None of that answers anything. I don't know, This is why humanodon's question was so cool, though.

That's a pretty broad definition though, isn't it? There are plenty of deliberate actions that would elicit an emotional response that aren't generally classified as art. A slap, for instance. Online trolling. Stockhausen got in trouble a few years ago for suggesting that 9/11 was the greatest work of art ever conceived. By the above reckoning, you'd have to admit that he was right. And, I guess, that his statement was in and of itself a work of art. Which who knows, it was Stockhausen. But the gist of what I'm getting at is that it's not enough simply to elicit an emotional response. How could that definition be narrowed to weed out the obvious exceptions?

Your second assertion- "a person can be taught how to better elicit emotional responses from their work"- has something to it, I think. We can all learn how to articulate our feelings more. But again, is it enough just to hone your ability to elicit emotional response? Plenty of really mean, marginally intelligent people have learned to hone their tools for the best emotional response. Is it artwork when they do so? And there are limits, anyways. Somebody might learn to elicit a better response (whatever that response is) from practice, but only within the boundaries of their natural ability. Just like I might be able to practice until I can throw a ball better up to a point (a very low point, in my case), I think maybe somebody might be able to practice expression up to the point that they no longer have the necessary physical, mental or emotional hardwiring required to express themselves further. And that ability spans a huge spectrum- some people can acquire and retain the proper emotional vocabulary to express themselves beautifully, others not at all. And if we're only as good as those boundaries, don't we have to then grant that while technique can be taught to bring a person to their limit, the limit itself is in-born? In other words, if artistic ability is an in-born talent just like any other, doesn't that preclude the teaching of same?

Like you, I see creativity as something that is developed or cultivated rather than acquired outside of oneself. If a person doesn't have the feel for it, then all the exercises in the world won't help. I'm interested to see if you have any further ideas on how one might go about developing that instinct to create or share things.

I'll go with that. Most everyone can produce art, cook, teach, play soccer (football) and so on. Few are those who demonstrate mastery and can be considered artists of their discipline. To me it takes time and effort and must be earned. Or, maybe earned in the sense of learning through trial and error. So much so, that the learning path to art is unrecognizable in comparison to simply learning how to "do" something. It can likely be learned through vast amounts of dedication and time.