Writes Valentina Kotsuba, Teacher of French
The Merchant Taylors’ Divisions Scholars spent the mid‑term break undertaking a challenging and thought‑provoking project: a two‑page essay examining Marcel Duchamp’s controversial readymade Fountain. This assignment formed the culmination of a lecture series on Tolstoy’s treatise ‘What is Art?’’, delivered by Ms Kotsuba.
Selecting the winning essays from a field of twenty‑nine entries proved no easy task. Scholars were required to meet a number of specific criteria in order to qualify for a Commendation‑worthy submission – namely, depth of research, clarity of structure, effective cross‑referencing to the lecture material, and sophistication of expression.
After careful consideration, the results are as follows:
First place – Aaryan P., whose essay is published below.
Second place – Zack A.
Third place – Matthew L.‑A.
Congratulations to the runners‑up, who are Aditya L., Avyan G., Ethan D., Ishaan N., Jeevan T., Lithum A., Roshan P., and Yogesh P.
Each of the submissions reflected diligent scholarship and mature engagement with one of modern art’s most provocative questions – what truly makes something a work of art?
What is it art? – by Aaryan P. (Divs)
Marcel Duchamp’s most prominent work, Fountain, arrived in 1917 as a symbol of what art could – or rather could not – be; becoming the salt rubbed into to the haphazardly treated wound that was the question of what can be defined as art? For to the average observer, Fountain would just appear as an upturned urinal, signed “R. Mutt 1917”, although Leo Tolstoy’s “What is art?” provides an opposing perspective that brings new meaning to the field. Tolstoy believed that art was an “organ” of human life, which transmuted the reasonable consciousness of people into tangible feeling, while rejecting “beauty” as the true definition of art, believing that the purpose of art must be found in its utility to life, not its capability to please.
In Tolstoy’s essay, he argued that defining art purely by the pleasure it delivers to the observer is comparable to defining food on the basis of how much we enjoy consuming it1. He believed that the prioritisation of aesthetics was of the lowest moral development and those that consider the aim of art to be purely pleasure would not be able to recognise its true meaning and purpose. Similarly, Duchamp’s creation of fountain was purely to oppose the idea that visual beauty is essential to art. Through his choice of a mass-produced object – a “readymade” – and the stripping of its functional significance, Duchamp wanted to move away from “retinal” art which was only intended to please the eye, and wanted focus only to lie on perception and intellectual ideas2. However, this raises the contradiction that if Tolstoy defines art through its ability to communicate human feeling, would Fountain be considered art through this reasoning if the primary purpose of it is the provocation of thought? For Tolstoy, art is not only the transmission of ideas, but the deliberate communication of feelings and experiences from the artist to the observer3. In this sense, Fountain challenges Tolstoy’s definition due to the fact that it does not communicate a clear emotional experience the same way that a painting or composition of music may. Despite this, the controversy surrounding it did create, albeit antagonistic, feelings; including those of outrage and confusion. It was refused entry by the Society of Independent artists in spite of them stating that any artist who pays six dollars may exhibit4, showing how effectively it stretched the already established boundaries of art. Therefore, it could be perceived that Fountain does not just communicate a single form of emotion, but brings people together with collective expressions of frustration with the institutions responsible for determining with finality what art should be.
Furthermore, Tolstoy’s repeated emphasis on art’s utility to all aspects of human life presents another way of understanding Duchamp’s intentions. If the value that possesses is because it unites individuals through shared emotions and feelings, then Fountain can be considered successful as it forces observers to reconsider their assumptions. Through the presentation of an ordinary urinal placed in an artistic backdrop, Duchamp shows the extent of which our understanding of art depends on our surroundings as well as the creator and the authority of the organisation that is displaying it. While the object itself has gone through few physical alterations, its meaning has been altered through the decision of exhibiting it as art. This goes back to the distinction between art and everyday objects not lying in appearance, but the ideas and experiences that they are capable of evoking. In this respect, it could be argued that Duchamp’s work fulfils Tolstoy’s belief that art should serve a purpose beyond visual pleasure even though the two disagree on what that purpose should be.
Yet perhaps the most significant question that is raised by Fountain is whether the definition of art should truly be determined by the artist, the observer or the organisation displaying it. Duchamp’s use of a “readymade”, as explained by the Museum of Modern Art, disrupted long term thinking about an artist’s role as a skilled creator of original handmade objects5. This raised the question of whether the artistic values that an object possesses (or alternatively does not possess) resides within the physical object itself, or whether it is acquired through the context of which the object is presented in. For instance, if the urinal were to remain in a lavatory serving its original purpose, it would be unlikely to trigger any consideration relating to its artistic significance; however when it was submitted to an exhibition of art and signed “R. Mutt 1917”, it becomes the centre of a debate about the very nature of art. This suggests that the distinction between ordinary objects and art is not necessarily dependent on physical properties, instead dependent on the meanings that have been attributed to them by their creators and observers.
Ultimately, however, it would be diminishing to conclude that Fountain cannot be considered as art due to the fact that its significance is conceptual instead of overtly emotional. Although Tolstoy argues that art gains its meaning from the transmission of feeling between individuals, Duchamp shows that artistic meaning may also develop through the questioning of already established conventions and the reconsideration of ordinary objects6. The controversy surrounding Fountain does arguably fulfil Tolstoy’s belief that art should serve a purpose beyond aesthetic pleasure, as it forces observers to reconsider the assumptions from which artistic values are determined. Overall, Fountain clearly exposes the limitations of any single set definition of art, not only showing how its significance may lie in the emotions that it transmutes, but also in its ability to challenge the very boundaries through which we attempt to define it.
