Technique / Craftsmanship

poetix

we murder to dissect
"Technique should not be equated with craftsmanship. Technique is
psychological know-how. The technician assumes that poems can be
constructed like explosive missiles and aimed at a given target; he
despises mere craftsmen for their intellectual sloth. Eliot, Pound,
and the later Yeats (still praised by English and American literary
journals as the 'real masters') have technique; Hardy and Frost had
only craftsmanship. Technique ignores the factor of magic;
craftsmanship presupposes it." - Robert Graves

I would say:

Alan Garner - Craftsman
Philip Pullman - Technician (for all the Blakean imagery)

Ted Hughes: Craftsman (Crow)
Geoffrey Hill: Technician (Tenebrae)

P.J. Harvey: Craftsman
Diamanda Galas: Technician
Bjork: ???

Beefheart: Craftsman
Zappa: Technician

Marina Abramovich: Craftsman
Stelarc: Technician

Any more?
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
Alan Garner - Craftsman
Philip Pullman - Technician (for all the Blakean imagery)

Ted Hughes: Craftsman (Crow)
Geoffrey Hill: Technician (Tenebrae)

lovely Dominic, i thought the two i've highlighted from your list were particularly canny.

(incidentally i might catch the Marina A. performance at the upcoming Manchester biennial.)

Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman? Newman the technician i suppose.

heh-heh; i know which Robert Hughes prefers..

...Juan Muñoz: craftsman
Jeff Koons: technician ?

isn't WB Yeats on record somewhere as esteeming the talent of his brother Jack as far 'greater' than his own?
(i may have made that up but i seem to recall something like that following a visit to the WB place in Sligo once.)
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I think it's interesting that our words 'technique' and 'technology' come from the Greek τέχνη, meaning 'art'. Think about it: technology as art, and art as technology...what a wonderful synthesis! If 'technique' is to be set in opposition to 'craftsmanship', then recall that 'craft' is cognate with German Kraft, which means 'power'. So although Kraftwerk sounds like 'craftwork', i.e. the product of craftsmanship, it actually means 'power plant' - viz., that which powers technology.

Sorry, I don't really have too much to add to to the discussion of particular writers/musicians mentioned so far (although D. Galas as a 'technician' seems odd to me, from what I've heard of her) - just a little etymological meander, brought to you in the spirit of Robert Pirsig. :D
 
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scottdisco

rip this joint please
I think it's interesting that our words 'technique' and 'technology' come from the Greek τέχνη, meaning 'art'. Think about it: technology as art, and art as technology...what a wonderful synthesis! If 'technique' is to be set in opposition to 'craftsmanship', then recall that 'craft' is cognate with German Kraft, which means 'power'. So although Kraftwerk sounds like 'craftwork', i.e. the product of craftsmanship, it actually means 'power plant' - viz, that which powers technology.

my second example is possibly ass-backwards in light of Tea's wonderful intervention :D cheers T!

incidentally i think i prefer 3 (or maybe even 4) of the craftspeople poetix offers up, and only one or two of the technicians.
 

poetix

we murder to dissect
i dont think i understand. would anyone care to elaborate?

Seeing as the quote's from Graves, my guess is that what he's really on about is the White Goddess, the muse etc. "Craftsmen" work primarily from inspiration (even if they use technique to shape the results); "technicians" work towards goals conceptualised in advance (even if they permit inspiration to guide them in the process).

You're a craftsman if you see a host of burning angels sitting in a tree, and write a poem about it; a technician if you decide to write a poem about the immanence of the divinity, and decide that a host of burning angels sitting in a tree would make a good metaphor.

Craftsmanship doesn't exclude the application of technique, or the use of intellect (Alan Garner would glower at you very fiercely if you tried to suggest to him that it did) - it just "presupposes", in Graves's words, something else that gets everything going.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Not sure if these really work, but here goes...

Aphex Twin - Craftsman
Squarepusher - Technician

Velvet Underground - Craftsmen
David Bowie - Technician

Billy Childish - Craftsman
Jack White - Technician
 

you

Well-known member
1984 - craft
brave new world - tech

protest the hero - craft
human abstract - tech

artists are tricky - I think i prefer mine to be technicians - , nauman, hirst, cattalan, koons, barney, gordon, - as opposed to hirschhorn, mccathy, emin, ???
 
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