While as an artist I am generally fascinated with the study of technique, and the methods of self-improvement necessary to attain it, I find myself less and less interested in art which exists solely or primarily to be a showcase for technique. The relationship between art as creation and art as a skill that can be learned is as nebulous and confusing as the relationship between the idea which inspired a piece and the piece itself: There certainly is, must be, such a relationship – but it’s hard to describe exactly what it might be in concrete terms.
In the past I’ve said, somewhat facetiously, that being good at art is a fake idea. This is a difficult concept to completely defend, so I would rather claim that being good at art is only half of a real idea: There are things you can improve at – draftsmanship and anatomy, music theory and musicianship, editing, programming, lighting, whatever – but the sum of all of these can’t exceed the bounds defined by the core animating concept of the project. Its soul, if you will. This is a finger that’s most easily pointed at large corporate-owned art, blockbuster movies and AAA video games and so forth, but while certainly many of the worst offenders land in this category there are also plenty of small independent works that consist of nothing but a shell of honed and polished technique wrapped around a completely inert core, an idea that clearly exists to be a mannequin, to display technique, rather than a living and breathing body to wear it.
The work of art is quite a different thing to the idea of it, a difference which many onlookers seemingly don’t appreciate. Everything you see in a piece was created, yes – but that doesn’t mean it was necessarily created intentionally. In much the same way as I am holding an idea here which I then formulate into words and attempt to communicate to you through text, a work of art is an idea communicated through pigment and sound – and, much as any competent writer could throw together a set of pretty words that sound nice together but ultimately communicate nothing (just watch any commercial for an arms manufacturer or oil company), you can do the same with a movie or song or game.
At the opposite end of the spectrum from empty ideas conveyed through immaculate technique, you can also have creations full of powerful idea and identity with little attention paid to technique – punk rock, zines, Flash games, crude slogans, and so forth. If, then, an idea can be compellingly realized without technique – what’s the point? Why practice?
There are a couple of reasons. First, while many big and important ideas can be convincingly communicated with crude technique, others are nuanced enough to require additional details to make sense of. Without practicing technique, it becomes very difficult to keep those fine details consistent. Technique can also add to clarity of communication: If you can make it walk like a duck and quack like a duck, your audience will more readily understand it to represent a duck. Finally, and it sadly must be said, some people have solely learned to engage with art by being impressed with technique, and your idea will never be received by that audience without first taking the form they expect legitimate thought to take – though it is, of course, up to you whether or not you want to give a shit about the opinions of such a person.
I suppose most skills and technique share the trait that it is only once you learn to use them that you can start to learn when to use them. As with the twin drives towards creative satisfaction and expressive fulfillment, us artists must learn to love both the idea we wish to convey and the means we use to convey it in judicious proportion to one another.