The video explores Judy Chicago's 1970s art installation, "The Dinner Party," which honors 1,038 women from history. This installation raises intriguing questions about the intersection of art and design, examining whether objects like Chicago’s plates, which are both evocative and functional, should be classified as art or design. The video uses a venn diagram to illustrate how objects can simultaneously serve practical purposes and evoke emotional responses, challenging the traditional separation between art and design.

In medieval Europe, the concept of art began to evolve, with artistic creations reflecting individual creativity rather than just skilled crafting. By contrasting perspectives from Enlightenment thinkers like Denis Diderot and the Marquis de Laborde, the video highlights historical debates about the value of design compared to art. It also touches on the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement and Art Nouveau, which celebrated the intricate craftsmanship of functional objects.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. abolitionist [ˌæb.əˈlɪʃ.ən.ɪst] - (noun) - A person who advocates for the abolition of something, especially slavery. - Synonyms: (emancipator, liberator, activist)

Some have seats of honor, like writer Virginia Woolf and abolitionist Sojourner Truth.

2. evocative [ɪˈvɒk.ə.tɪv] - (adjective) - Bringing strong images, memories, or feelings to mind. - Synonyms: (reminiscent, suggestive, expressive)

But of course, an object can be useful and evocative at the same time

3. venn diagram [vɛn ˈdaɪ.əˌgræm] - (noun) - A diagram that shows all possible logical relations between a finite collection of different sets. - Synonyms: (set diagram, Euler diagram, logic diagram)

To figure out the overlap between art and design, let's venn diagram this situation.

4. reverence [ˈrev.ər.əns] - (noun) - Deep respect for someone or something. - Synonyms: (admiration, veneration, awe)

To a 19th century viewer in Lampung, the tampan evoked reverence, which is emphasized by the artist's use of red.

5. opulence [ˈɒp.jʊ.ləns] - (noun) - Great wealth or luxuriousness. - Synonyms: (luxury, grandeur, richness)

While people of all classes use tampon for rites of passage, this one's opulence shows that it was made for a noble family.

6. folk art [foʊk ɑːrt] - (noun) - Art originating among the common people of a country or region and typically reflecting their traditional culture. - Synonyms: (traditional art, cultural art, rural art)

Weaving is useful, decorative, and often categorized as folk art, a broad term for handmade objects.

7. craftsmanship [ˈkræfts.mənˌʃɪp] - (noun) - Skill in a particular craft. - Synonyms: (skill, workmanship, artistry)

It celebrated the handcrafted skill behind useful, beautiful objects like furniture, textiles, wallpaper, ceramics and jewelry.

8. hierarchy [ˈhaɪə.rɑː.ki] - (noun) - A system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority. - Synonyms: (ranking, order, ladder)

Chicago used techniques often coded as craft or design, like embroidery, ceramics and china painting, all historically considered women's work and ranked below high art in that tired old European hierarchy.

9. transmutation [ˌtræns.mjuːˈteɪ.ʃən] - (noun) - The action of changing or the state of being changed into another form. - Synonyms: (transformation, conversion, metamorphosis)

Like French artist Thierry Genot with his 2010 work Green transmutation, what looks like crystal is actually hundreds of discarded plastic bottles.

10. canon [ˈkæn.ən] - (noun) - A general law, rule, principle, or criterion by which something is judged. - Synonyms: (rule, standard, principle)

I think this calls for the canon canon so the centuries long debate of art versus Design comes down to a difference of opinion.

What's the Difference Between Art & Design?

This is Judy Chicago's 1970s installation the Dinner Party. It's a setting for a banquet representing 1,038 women from history. Some have seats of honor, like writer Virginia Woolf and abolitionist Sojourner Truth. The place settings have embroidered placemats, gold ceramic chalices, utensils, and porcelain dinner plates that look quite a bit like Georgia O'Keeffe paintings, including the plate dedicated to O'Keeffe herself. Then and now. The plates can evoke strong emotions, but unlike most works of art, you could feasibly eat off of some of these. They could actually serve a practical purpose.

So how would we categorize these things? Are they works of art or are they something else entirely? Hi, I'm Sarah Urist Green and this is Crash Course Art History. We might call Chicago's plates a work of design, an object meant to improve some aspect of the world or solve a problem in the same spirit as a button or a zipper. To figure out the overlap between art and design, let's venn diagram this situation. In the design circle, curators, scholars and collectors might put objects made for a practical purpose. Think toasters, furniture, buildings. In the art circle, they might put objects created for a museum or gallery, like paintings and sculptures, meant to evoke an emotional or personal reaction. According to these definitions, it's the intention behind the objects that forms the dividing line. But of course, an object can be useful and evocative at the same time. What about fashion? Pottery, quilts, hand carved spoons or stained glass lamps? This little mug with a frog at the bottom that I've had since I was a kid is still useful and also gives me all the feels.

So if art and design have so much in common, why do we separate them at all? Well, to dig into that, we're gonna have to go back in time. Boom. We're in medieval Europe. Craft was the name of the game. Here we're talking objects with a domestic function that require technical skill to make things like metalworks, lace and tapestries that were made either collectively or anonymously. But fast forward to Renaissance Europe and the idea of art reflecting individual creativity took hold. And so did questions like, are painting and sculpting more than skilled crafts? Are they expressions of intellect, talent, perhaps even genius? The scales tipped in the latter direction and elevated artists to a whole nother level.

But the boundaries between art and design were far from settled. In 18th-century France, decorative furniture became all the rage. Porcelain factories churned out extravagant creations that wealthy collectors just had to have, like this swan candelabrum. Or this vase of fake flowers, both made with porcelain. Or check out this Wedgewood vase with handles carved to look like snakes fighting over an egg. I mean, that's so fancy, I think you have to pronounce it vase. But Enlightenment thinkers debated what to call these functional yet expressive objects. Did they count as art? In one corner, French author Denis Diderot drew a hard line. It took brains to make art, he argued, placing it on a higher plane than design, which was, quote, more of the hand than the mind. Like those people who only like highbrow or art house films, where everything is sad and nothing really happens. But it gets nominated for lots of awards. But the Marquis de Laborde, a French banker and politician, thought it was time to get rid of the distinction between art and design altogether. He thought art should broaden to include all of life, supporting both our intellectual and physical needs. Clothes, furniture, swan, candelabrum. It all counts. He's more like those who can appreciate art films, but can also appreciate all the great fantasy, sci fi and comedies that rarely get nominations.

By the 19th century, the industrial Revolution had taken off, and the Arts and Crafts movement was big. While that phrase might call to mind friendship bracelets and crocheted potlifters, it was much more elaborate. It celebrated the handcrafted skill behind useful, beautiful objects like furniture, textiles, wallpaper, ceramics and jewelry. And the Art Nouveau movement blossomed at the same time. It featured soft, wavy lines inspired by nature in the artistic designs of cabinets, houses, Paris Metro signs, and this incredible coffee pot that looks like a fennel bulb with a beetle for a knob. These objects, meant to be both functional and expressive, complicated the art versus design debate. It wasn't easy to put a door like this into just one category.

So those ideas that began in Renaissance Europe, praising some materials as art and others as lesser, started to break down. Actually, lots of artistic design exists outside of this Eurocentric story. Think about weaving, a method of textile production that combines two sets of threads to form a fabric. Weaving is useful, decorative, and often categorized as folk art, a broad term for handmade objects and materials that often serve a function or reflect a shared culture. Weaving has been a form of art making for millennia, and we know this because ancient tools and even thread have survived. And in some cultures, woven textiles signify important cultural values and ideas. Take this work from the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It's called Tampan, a woven image exchanged by families in the Lampung province to celebrate important life stages, from births and deaths to building a new house. This one depicts an enormous ship manned by a captain, crew members, and musicians. It floats across a sea filled with fish, turtles, and even a crab, symbolizing safe passage to the next phase of life. To a 19th century viewer in Lampung, the tampan evoked reverence, which is emphasized by the artist's use of red, a sacred color in that region. While people of all classes use tampon for rites of passage, this one's opulence shows that it was made for a noble family. And while tampan is mainly an art form of the past, wealthy Lampung women have continued wearing woven tapis skirts for centuries, usually for ceremonial purposes.

So textiles are an excellent example of meaningful art that serves a purpose. You can wear it. But the different ways people wear and style clothing can also convey artistic meanings. Let's head to the drawing board. Meet the Sapeurs. Clad in designer clothes, they strut the streets of Brazzaville and Kinshasa, mixing colors, patterns, and luxury labels. Sapurs command attention in the mostly lower income communities where they live. They're local celebrities vying to outdo each other while projecting confidence and joy. They're part of a movement called La SAP, short for Society of Ambiance Makers and Elegant People. It's also French slang for clothes.

La SAP's origins hark back to the 1920s, when wearing European clothing was one way Congolese people could garner respect while living under French and Belgian colonial rule. But la SAP truly took off after independence. In the 1960s, some Congolese started traveling to Europe, bringing back expensive designer clothes. And remixing French fashion became a way of expressing identity and political resistance at once. Sapeurs have been playing with their image ever since, inventing themselves and inspiring others. Through art you can wear, the sapeurs curate functional clothing that expresses complex ideas and cultural identity.

So while the art and design worlds argue over boundaries, artists keep doing whatever they want to do, creating innovative forms of culture that blur the lines between both. Like French artist Thierry Genot with his 2010 work Green transmutation, what looks like crystal is actually hundreds of discarded plastic bottles collected in Mexico City and formed into a functional light source. It's actually kind of similar to the swan candelabrum we saw earlier, with its wavy lines that take inspiration from the natural world. But the two works speak to very different cultural contexts. While the 18th-century artist was inspired by nature, elevating it to the level of art and design, the contemporary artist peels away that illusion of art as luxury objects made of fine materials in order to highlight environmental concerns.

And finally, let's return to Judy Chicago's Dinner plates. Some denounced the work as over the line, even pornographic. Influential critic Hilton Kramer dismissed it as failed art that was crass, solemn and single minded. But the plates are just one element of a densely layered and meaningful work of art. Chicago's installation makes space for women who had been largely left out of history. She gives them a seat at the table. Literally. Chicago used techniques often coded as craft or design, like embroidery, ceramics and china painting, all historically considered women's work and ranked below high art in that tired old European hierarchy. By merging elements of art and design, Chicago pushes the boundaries of both, and she raises fascinating questions about how history itself gets constructed and told.

I think this calls for the canon canon so the centuries-long debate of art versus design comes down to a difference of opinion. It's a battle between what's considered highbrow and lowbrow, not unlike arguments you find in the depths of Reddit. But when we spend so much time trying to define something as subjective as art and design, we can miss the amazing stuff that falls in the middle. The experimentation with form, the innovation with new materials, and the messy, complex and always shifting messages that art can convey. These label-defying works show us this kind of black and white thinking isn't a useful measure for all times and places. Because if there's one thing we do know for sure, it's that human creativity is too vast and varied to be limited by our pesky urge to define it.

Next time we'll explore how colliding cultures set off an explosion of new styles collectively known as modern art. I'll see you then.

ART, HISTORY, DESIGN, INNOVATION, EDUCATION, PHILOSOPHY, CRASHCOURSE