The War Brewing Between Digital and Traditional Artists

It's been my experience that most artists are open to digital technology to create art. It's also been my experience that art buyers and the general art buying public are slow to appreciate anything created digitally. I'm not making accusations - just a statement of fact - when I say that digital art and photography are often times viewed as the ugly step children in the family of art. Again, not my view but the public's. I think it's because digital mediums are perceived to be "easy" if one knows how operate a computer or digital camera, which for the most of us, we think we can.

 

But it's enough to make digital artists overly defensive of their craft. I've recently been reading some forum postings on www.fineartamerica.com from digital artists lashing out at "traditional" artists and defending their craft as the way of the future while bashing old school disciplines like drawing, painting and sculpting as outdated.

 

I work in a creative industry and have seen what real artists can do with digital technology creating single and multi-dimensional art pieces that are so captivating the viewer doesn't get caught up in how they were made - they just react to what's in front of them. So to me, it's not about the medium, it's about the art.

 

The easy side of digital art creation are the photo filters that can create some pretty interesting visual effects and the cool looking fractals which are more often than not happy visual and mathmatical accidents. But they give digital art a less than "crafted" reputation. On the other hand, kids have made some pretty interesting "spinner" art pieces by simply dropping paint onto a spinning piece of paper so painting can be easy too.

 

So the real issue is how to change customer perception of the value of art created by digital means. Artists dividing themselves into "us and them" camps is counter productive. The only answer is for artists to create great art and keep trying until the public slowly appreciates the work and thinking behind it.