Milton Glaser Documentary

What is Milton's definition of art?

Milton definitely seems to have trouble defining art because of how inclusive it is for him. At the beginning of the documentary, he defined art as "the act of making things, taking an idea and putting it on paper." Later in the film, he used Horace's definition of art and its purpose as to inform and delight. However, it seemed that the definition that most satisfied art is that it is "defined generationally." In other words, the concept of art evolves over time.

There are certain things to him that he believes are part of the definition of art, whether people agree with him or not. To him, art is not about making money; rather, it should be completely independent of monetary goals. Without money as a goal, the focus will be focused on the way that art is supposed to be. The other major implication for art is that it provides common ground. This seems to be a rather open term since providing common ground doesn't necessarily mean during the time that it is made. Sometimes, providing ground occurs in another time period.

"We should always operate by interruption." - what does this mean?


This statement was introduced in the film when a worker from the New York magazine was talking to Glaser about a ad in which he created a design while he was talking to him and after he read three sentences of an article. Glaser was operating by interruption because he was thinking while discussing and listening to what the man had to say to him about the article. He was sort of just creating the draft as it came to him, and it worked.

The idea for the "I love New York" ad came while he was in a cab. His thoughts were interrupted while he was moving from place to place, and it was this draft - or "organic thought" as I would like to call it - that made the best work for him. He was sort of letting the idea appear without doing anything special.

The idea that nothing ever goes according to plan was something that Glaser discussed in the documentary. The reason for that is because "operating by interruption" means that one's most organic thoughts come while one is making plans for something else. As a result, the best drafts come in a split second of thought. It just appears almost without thinking.

This idea of "thinking without thinking" immediately made me think of my World Religions Class. I kept noticing how he just kept "going with the flow" and how it would result in creating his best work. I thought about how he worked in a way similar to Taoism by the way that he just lets the work flow from him without really putting work into creating the idea. The term that I thought of was wuwei, which means "going with the flow" or "less is more." By this Taoist way of thinking, his best ideas come through interruption, and his being open to these organic thoughts are what give him his best work. In other words, by "doing nothing," the work flows from him in these most inopportune moments, like when he created the "I love New York" ad. I think that he would feel at home with the Taoist philosophy/religion.