“He who works with his hands is a labourer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”
What is Art?
While studying art at college I asked my teacher the most obvious question;“What is art?” After all how can you excel at something if do not even know what it is? Her answer, to her credit was “I don’t know”. It turns out that there is either no definition for what art is or no one can agree upon one. This for a student is a terrible shock. At least for a student of history, for example, the professors can agree what defines their subject. But art is in a class of its own. No one seems to know what it is. This makes the task of the artist rather difficult. Someone once said that it is harder than brain surgery and a lot less well paid. I think most artists would agree.
Luckily one does not have to know what art is in order to do it well, because there is a secret. It is called having fun and it is very very simple. The more fun you are having the better your art will be. Now, this does not mean that you can just mess around all day and avoid all the hard ‘work’. Because this is not having fun. Fun only happens when there is satisfaction and this only happens when there is effort, that is, doing your very very best. Most artists of quality work extremely hard, not because they are so disciplined but because they enjoy it so much.
To turn something “into an art” is an expression in English that means it was done so well that it became extraordinary. Something beyond the mundane physical world.
This is telling. When we excel at something it becomes art. Even scientists talk of elegance in their highest achievements, which is an aesthetic quality, not a logical one.
When we play, we are artists. Music is played, sports are played, children play. Work is reserved for the mundane and the repetitive boring tasks, for the machines; play for the higher ones. When we play we excel, we fly, we are most human, we are most ourselves. When a civilisation is appraised, it is often it’s statesmen, scientists, musicians and artists that are named and remembered. Those who excelled, those who played.
My art has no philosophy. A philosophy pre-supposes a fixed set of ideas.
My work is predominantly based upon an exploration of the unconscious and dream state. This is only successful if one removes all preconceptions and allows the work to progress in a intuitive and unrestrained manner. My philosophy then could be defined by its absence. However this is not a rejection of thought completely, as contemplation does play a role in both the formative and completed phases of the creation process. I just don’t let it get in the way too much. Good art then is not made by trying to make good art, it is made by trying to enjoy ones self to the full. This is the compass. The art is merely a byproduct of this process like the con trail of a jet.
Luckily we can not define exactly what fun is either, so the secret of art remains opaque and obscure. This ensures that there will never be an algorithm that will do it for us, a recipe that when followed creates art, which would take all the fun and genius out of it, while at the same time filling the world with an endless supply of it. In the end then, the meaning of art is not a statement. It’s an action.
Jake Baddeley
March 2025
“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.”
Detail of “The Painting Lesson 2” – oil on canvas – 70 x 100 cm – 2019
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