Introduction
Nowadays the majority of people are totally unable to explain the difference between the so called crafts and fine arts. Therefore, in order to be able to do this one may provide with examples of works and their comparative analysis that might be assigned to the categories of the interest. Moreover, to explain the vaguely difference between them, one may give the example of the art work that may be assigned to the both categories: either to the crafts or to the fine art.
Discussion
It is really hard to define what kind of art should be described as a craft and a fine art; as such definitions can not satisfy everyone and might even injure some artist’s feelings. It is even possible to spend hours on the debate over this issue and not to achieve any particular results. But, what might be noted here is that there exist some elements and rules associated with certain classical idea about the fine arts, like painting or sculpture, that are actually determining them.
There were made a couple attempts to distinguish and define those two terms. One may refer to the academic and the utilitarian way of the explanation. Those students, who graduate from the universities with a fine arts degree are not likely to study the crafts discipline, therefore they do not consider the crafts work as a fine, high level art. There is also a scholar point of view which expresses the Elliot W. Eisner’s and Michael D. Day’s idea that “art is not made to sale, you do not create art for money. Art is at a higher level, it makes a statement, and it has feeling and emotion; crafts are more functional and less academic in theories.”
Any useful or decorative hand made object might be considered as a craft work, for example a mug, teapot or vase, embellished by the artist with his or her own hands. It should be pointed out that the “craft work is skilled work: any kind of craft must involve the application of a technique … [it] implies the application of human intelligence…” (Eisner, Day, 2004).
And here, one is drawn to the point, when the difference between the crafts and the fine arts can be explained. The craftsman’s work, like the mug, teapot or vase must be capable of holding tea, any liquid or flowers. But the fine arts’ work does not usually have any utilitarian function. It might be also a tea cup, but, for example of the Chinese dynasty Min period, thus it would be guarded and of course, no one would be aloud to drink tea from it.
As for the crafts objects, they “tend to exhibit their prettiness around a purpose external to the object itself. To this extent, the crafts aren’t arts… (Sayre, 2003). If refer to the famous English philosopher Emanuel Kant in the definition of the fine arts, then it appears that “they appeal purely at the level of the imagination and aren’t good for any practical utility, except the cultivation of the human spirit” (Kant, cited from Eisner, Day, 2004).
If one would like to represent the example of the art object that would feat the definition of both: the crafts and the fine arts, then the hand made glass flowers would perform this role quite well. They can be considered the fine arts work as they create the aesthetic and admiration feeling. Nevertheless, they might be regarded as the crafts work as they are frequently used in everyday life for the decoration of common people’s houses.
Works Cited
Eisner, Elliot W., and Michael D. Day, eds. Handbook of Research and Policy in Art Education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004.
Sayre, Henry M. A World of Art. Revised 4th ed. New York, NY: Prentice – Hall, 2003.