Likewise the faculty of seeing a thing with pleasure appeared before making artifact.
seeing a shape is the subject to think about firstly, putting aside the idea of art.
Once I lived in New York.
One of my favorite artifacts in the Metropolitan Museum was an ancient Chinese jade with bird image, hanging upside down,being placed together with nearly a dozen of small jades in a show case.
Coming back to Japan, I found the digital image of this jade on-line recentry though I already have it as properly positioned reproduction in three different books.
Now I have three options of seeing this art work: 1 seeing the upside down original in the museum, 2 seeing the reproduction, and 3 seeing the digital image.
Collecting picture books was my passion in New York.
Now I recollect that seeing the original was not so important: the image was the one I wanted.
Collecting books is not so effective way: I often had to buy the whole book in order to get only one new reproduction.
As consequence I have hundreds of books on Klee.
This was the time before the whole catalogues of Klee were published.
The era of original art work had been outdated in my life and
it took some time to realize that the era of reproduction is going to be replaced by the era of digital image.
I trust my judgment of taste about art because it is based on my pleasure-giving collection.
And I think this neglected jade is a masterpiece.
I have found more than ten jades of this type: jade with animal image on rectangular format.
Seeing the original art works offered by the current art authorities are not big enough to give us clue to conceive solid art theory.
The memory of shape does not remain in our brain accurately.
Shape seeing is simple sense seeing, disconecting memory faculty.
To classify we need to collect many samples at hand, which no museum can offer.
To see the bird image it is upside down, but perhaps it is hanging properly as artefact because the hanging hole is on the lower part of the jade.
The design is interesting in both ways: one way is iconic and the other abstract.
The hanging condition tells us that the art authority considered this is an antique.
Perhaps the image had symbolic meaning but it was lost with the declined civilization.
Only if the viewer sees it's reproduction, the iconic meaning is noticeable.
The viewer who sees it as it is can enjoy the design in both ways.
So this object has four different statuses: collectible; symbolic artefact; iconic artefact; formal art.
Whenever I talked about art with people I noticed each person uses the word "art" in different meaning.
I suggest that art can be classified into four types of art: art of code; art of symbol; art of icon; art of form.
Most of art works have these four layers and each can be separated easily.
These are different mental activities.
Seeing an abstract image is not dependent on perception but on sense.
Sense can function alone undisturbed by the other levels: perception; cognition; imagination because sense-seeing is attentive foveal seeing.
The popular art theories skip sense level and stand on the other three levels, i,e. picture theory.
Here is the equation I introduced before: art= usefulness+ form.
The first three types of art serve for the usefulness: these work as sign an the form is not semiotic.
There are infinite shapes and original art should have new shape.
If the shape is new it cannot serve as a sign.
Later I found this method of classification is similar to Panofsky's: iconological; iconographical; pre-iconographical; pseudo formal analysis.
His interest is in the first two as the terms suggest and mine is in the last two.
So let me use my amateurish terms;
Art of code: to understand this type, we have to know the key code, like Morse code; to appreciate some contemporary art,we must join to the group called art world.
Art of symbol: this type is made for the contemporary who shares the same culture. The meaning is obvious for every member, like religious art.
Art of icon: anybody with common sense can see what it signifies, like animal shape.
Art of form: disregarding all the semiotic contents, we can pay attention on the shape of anything.
The last two are universal and perennial.
Here is a list of phrases and related terms classified into art of code, art of symbol, art of icon, art of form.
Art of code: iconology; art style; art history; any terms used as art words like fine art, modern art, primitive art; artist's manifest.
Art of symbol: iconography; religious motif; interpretation of art; reading art; "art symbol"; psychoanalysis of art.
Art of icon: pre-iconography; appearance; illusion; reality; photographic; space; figure-ground.
Art of form: pseudo-formal analysis; form; colour; tone; texture; concave; angle; round; "flat pattern"; colour patches".
In the era of digital image(art of form), image becomes free of the maker's intention(art of code).
I usually find interesting image(art of form) together not with similar shapes(art of form)but with the other similar images (art of icon) on the same page whenever I search on-line.
I may be able to collect images of this type of jade to make a big collection, which can be called digital museum.
Such a museum(art of form) is more advanced than the current museums(art of code).
Here we do not need art critics or museum people(art of code) but people to digitalize every image(art of form).
I also made a table to show the locations of these art types.
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