Well then, it certainly must be true that the American school system has dumbed down the populace!
How in the world can one person be called an artist when all they've done is assemble a menagerie of other peoples parts and then have yet another person finish said pile of parts??
Ladies and gentlemen let's get a grip on reality shall we?
Tell, me ... are the photographs of paintings printed in your coffee-table magazines art? How can you call someone who merely compiles a bunch of pictures that other people took of someone else's design and then sent it to a publishing house to be printed an artist?
Or maybe you aren't calling the person who actually compiled or printed the book artists, but the originators of the pictured designs themselves. In much the same spirit, I don't think that others in this thread are referring to Gun Assembly Worker #5 (Joe Smith) as the artist. They're talking about the designers, and even some of the better 'smiths who can turn a hunk of steel (or wood, or plastic, or ivory or whatever the medium) into something pleasing to the eye and functional at the same time. They're not talking about the 'smiths that buy a bunch of "Drop in" parts and replace the internals on someone's 10/22 for a few hundred bucks.
Believe it or not, there
are good gunsmiths.
Korth builds a gun from a block of steel that far exceeds the quality of any American gun I can think of yet comparing a machinist to a Leonardo is beyond my comprehension.
In the cold hard light of day one has to admit that many of the name gunsmiths are not so much as machinists much less a tool and die maker and damned sure not Artists.
Fact, an apprentice machinist can easily make a simple screw quickly and easily with a lathe.
Care to guess how many smithys I've visited that couldn't run a screw without much complication?
Da Vinci
was a machinist, after a fashion. An inventor of not only beauty, but of weaponry and tools. Surely you are familiar with his mechanical inclination as well.
But I'm confused by your reasoning here.
1. Comparing Leonardo da Vinci to a machinist is ignorant.
2. Gunsmiths aren't always trained as machinists.
3. Therefore, gunsmiths deserve less artistic appreciation than a machinist.
Don't follow.
Can an architect be an artist? Certainly! Whether or not he could actually wire a breaker-box, no?
"Art" is not only the pretty pictures of paintings in expensive, glossy magazines to impress visitors. "Art" is not merely a shaped lump of clay, nor a meaningless jumble of colors or welded scrap metal with an obscure title. "Art" need not be misunderstood, exclusively owned or rarely seen, nor need it be enjoyed with fine wine or $10 coffee.
Yes, a gun can be art. Even a gun that is reproduced a hundred thousand times. Reproduction does not diminish the creation, it merely allows more people to appreciate it first-hand.
So I grok.
Here's mine
