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Medium specificity is a consideration in
aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...
and
art criticism Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art. Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty. A goal of art criticism is the pursuit of a rational basis for art appreciation but it is que ...
. It is most closely associated with
modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
, but it predates it.


Overview

According to Clement Greenberg, who helped popularize the term, medium specificity holds that "the unique and proper area of competence" for a form of art corresponds with the ability of an artist to manipulate those features that are "unique to the nature" of a particular medium. For example, in painting, literal flatness and
abstraction Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or " concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abst ...
are emphasised rather than illusionism and figuration. Medium specific can be seen to mean that ''"the artwork is constituted by the characteristic qualities of the raw material."'' This would probably include the techniques used to manipulate the materials. ''"Medium-specificity is based on the distinct materiality of artistic media."'' As early as 1776 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing ''"contends that an artwork, in order to be successful, needs to adhere to the specific stylistic properties of its own medium."'' Today, the term is used both to describe artistic practices and as a way to analyze
artwork A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...
. Critic
N. Katherine Hayles Nancy Katherine Hayles (born December 16, 1943) is an American postmodern literary critic, most notable for her contribution to the fields of literature and science, electronic literature, and American literature. She is the James B. Duke Distin ...
, for example, speaks of "media specific analysis." As discussed by critic Marshall Soules, medium specificity and media specific analysis are playing an important role in the emergence of new media art forms, such as
Internet art upright=1.3, "Simple Net Art Diagram", a 1997 work by Michael Sarff and Tim Whidden Internet art (also known as net art) is a form of new media art distributed via the Internet. This form of art circumvents the traditional dominance of the phy ...
. Medium specificity suggests that a work of art can be said to be successful if it fulfills the promise contained in the medium used to bring the artwork into existence. Much debate can remain as to what a given medium best lends itself to. Art dialogue in the post-modern period has tended to steer away from medium specificity as a particularly relevant principle.http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/specificity.htm Medium Specificity
Tom Palin Tom Palin is a British painter. Education Palin grew up in Birkenhead, Merseyside, England. He graduated from Liverpool John Moores University with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art, and from the University of Manchester with an MA in Art History. He com ...
maintains the importance of a notion of medium to the practice of painting, with recourse to Heideggerian phenomenology.


See also

* Classificatory disputes about art *
Form follows function Form follows function is a principle of design associated with late 19th and early 20th century architecture and industrial design in general, which states that the shape of a building or object should primarily relate to its intended function ...
*
Medium essentialism Medium essentialism is a philosophical theory stating that each artform has its own distinctive medium, and that the essence of such an artform is dependent on its particular medium. In practice, the theory argues that every artwork should manifes ...
*
Painterliness Painterliness is a concept based on ''german: malerisch'' ('painterly'), a word popularized by Swiss art historian Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945) to help focus, enrich and standardize the terms being used by art historians of his time to cha ...
*" Ornament and Crime" *
Truth to materials Truth to materials is a tenet of modern architecture (as opposed to postmodern architecture), which holds that any material should be used where it is most appropriate and its nature should not be hidden. Concrete, therefore, should not be painted ...


References


External links


Medium Specificity


Concepts in aesthetics Modern art {{aesthetics-stub