Artisans and Artists

Abstract

Craft is a form of intelligently productive activity that’s important in its own right, and efforts to characterize fine art typically begin with efforts to characterize craft. If fine art is one particular kind of craft, we need to decide which kind it is. If it isn’t craft at all, we need to spot the decisive difference between fine art, on the one hand, and craft, on the other. For the tradition deriving from Kant, fine art is productive activity in which acquired skill collaborates with a special sort of natural gift called genius. For a later tradition, including Croce and Collingwood, fine art proper is a nonproductive theoretical activity, exploration culminating in insight. The artifacts we call works of fine art are really subsequent works of communicative craft, designed to make fine art’s insights permanently and publicly available.