Medium specificity is a consideration in
aesthetics and
art criticism. It is most closely associated with
modernism, 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 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
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (, ; 22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and a representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the developmen ...
''"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, 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 phys ...
. 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 comp ...
maintains the importance of a notion of medium to the practice of painting, with recourse to Heideggerian phenomenology.
See also
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Classificatory disputes about art
*
Form follows function
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Medium essentialism
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Painterliness
*"
Ornament and Crime"
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Truth to materials
References
External links
Medium Specificity
Concepts in aesthetics
Modern art
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