Art

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Art

• An area of knowledge

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Maslows Hierarchy of Needs
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Carl Jung

• The supreme goal of man is to fulfill himself as
  a creative, unique individual according to his
  own unique potentialities and within the limits
  of reality

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John Adams

• I must study politics and war so that my sons may
  have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
  My sons ought to study mathematics, philosophy,
  geography, naval architecture, navigation,
  commerce and agriculture in order to give their
  children a right to study painting, poetry music,
  architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.

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The Role of Art

• The desire to create some sort of art seems to be
  a universal (some have argued defining) human
  trait, and the artistic impulse may be among the
  loftiest of human drives.

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• A Do you -think that the notion of a hierarchy of
  needs is meaningful? If so, is Maslow's model the
  correct one? If not, why not - surely we all have
  biological needs that we must satisfy before
  other needs can be met?
• B What is the role of the arts in the hierarchy
  that Maslow has identified? Is this role
  universal across different cultures?
• C if you accept Maslow's hierarchy, which is more
  Important - the lowest level of the pyramid or
  the top level? Construct arguments to support
  both views.

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What is Art?
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Guernica Testimony of War
It is modern art's most powerful antiwar statement... created by the twentieth century's most well-known and least understood artist. But the mural called Guernica is not at all what Pablo Picasso has in mind when he agrees to paint the centerpiece for the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 World's Fair.
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Fabergé EggsMementos of aDoomed Dynasty

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Taj Mahal Memorial to Love
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Tracey Irwin Unmade Bed
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Is photography Art?
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SCENE I. A lane by the wall of Capulet's
orchard. Enter ROMEO ROMEO Can I go forward
when my heart is here?Turn back, dull earth, and
find thy centre out. He climbs the wall, and
leaps down within it Enter BENVOLIO and
MERCUTIO BENVOLIO Romeo! my cousin
Romeo!MERCUTIO He is wiseAnd, on my lie, hath
stol'n him home to bed.
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Great Expectations 
Hard Times
Martin Chuzzlewit
Oliver Twist
A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens
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"I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD" I WANDERED
lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales
and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A
host, of golden daffodils Beside the lake,
beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the
breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine.
William Wordsworth
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What is Art?

• Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh.
• A mass-produced urinal entitled fountain, chosen
  and displayed, but not designed or created, by
  Marcel Duchamp.
• An untitled white piece of canvas.
• A superb rock concert.
• The song Happy Birthday.
• A superb sportsman running 100 m.
• A perfect copy of Sunflowers sold for 3 in a
  market.
• A beautiful mountain
• An white piece of canvas entitled Hiroshima

value creativity truth Intention enlightenment
splendour reality perspective accuracy elegance
form realism novelty empathy beauty emotion
passion wisdom Interpretation education wonder awe
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What is Art?

• A poem generated by a computer.
• Einstein's general theory of relativity.
• A white piece of canvas entitled A Foggy day
• An extremely funny cartoon.
• Mozart's Clarinet Concerto.
• A perfect copy of Sunflowers hung In a gallery
  and called The Perfect Copy.
• King Lear by William Shakespeare.
• The Taj Mahal In Agra, India.
• A sheep cut in two and preserved in a glass
  container.

value creativity truth Intention enlightenment
splendour reality perspective accuracy elegance
form realism novelty empathy beauty emotion
passion wisdom interpretation education wonder awe
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Prescriptive or Descriptive?

• When we ask what art is, we need to be clear
  about what sort of answer we are hoping to find.
  If we mean 'What sort of things are called art?'
  then we have an empirical issue - the question is
  about how and in what contexts people use the
  word 'art'. In this sense, the answer will be
  descriptive of how the world is. On the other
  hand, and perhaps far more interestingly, if we
  mean 'What sort of things should we call art?'
  then we have entered a different area for this
  question cannot be answered purely by reference
  to a description of the world. In order to answer
  the question in this sense we a re required to
  make a judgement, and the answer will indicate
  how we think the world should be.

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The Worlds Most Wanted and Least Wanted
Paintings
Visit the website Click here
Survey Result

• Preferred A predominance of blue and a pastoral
  scene with a stretch of water.
• Least liked Modern abstract painting with a
  predominance of red

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So, is there GOOD art and BAD Art?

• What are the criteria we would use to judge?

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Weekly Telegraph September 2003
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The Arts are a way of expressing emotion

• Think of several pieces of art in different media
  (for example, architecture, music, painting,
  poetry, plays, sculpture), good and bad, which
  evoke emotion.
• lf the purpose of art is to evoke emotion,- then
  what are the best forms of art?
• Would this definition of the purpose of art
  include things which we would not wish to
  include, or exclude things we would not wish to
  exclude?
• In light of this, to what extent is communication
  of emotion a useful characterisation of art?

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The Arts imitate nature or the world the
mimetic theory
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Art teaches us what is right
Guernica Testimony of War
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The Arts offer an insight into the human
condition ie more than just a moral statement

• Perhaps this explanation allows us to see why the
  arts are regarded as a mark of civilisation, why
  they offer something glorious and profound. If
  they offer us a way to make sense of what is a
  confusing natural world, a way to interpret our
  emotions and those of others, or a guide to the
  nature of morality, then they are indeed to be
  valued! This characterisation of the arts seems
  to encompass the others so far suggested.
• Perhaps other disciplines give us 'knowledge' but
  we turn to the arts to broaden our emotional and
  intellectual boundaries.Look at the examples of
  Art you have seen. What do they tell you about
  the human condition?

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The Human Condition

• Look at the examples of Art you have seen. What
  do they tell you about the human condition?
• Describe some Art that has moved you profoundly
  in some way.
• According to this model, what are the highest and
  lowest forms of Art?

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Does it all come down to opinion?

• Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
• Beauty is no quality in things themselves it
  merely exists in the mind that contemplates them.
  i.e perception
• Is Art and Beauty necessarily connected?

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Personal Opinions If the arts are about personal
opinions then why do we, as a society, rate some
art as much better than others? Why are some
pieces that were created centuries ago still well
known today? Could the sound of my pet dog
vomiting really be great art? Objective
Standards If there are objective standards by
which to measure the arts, then what are they?
Do you think your standards are universally
applicable? What is the basis for your choice
of those particular standards?
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• Are the arts Important? If so, is this despite or
  because of the problem of finding the standards
  by which to judge them?
• What place does rationality have in the arts?
• What are the standards of artistic judgement?
• Which people are best qualified to judge the
  arts? What qualities should they possess?

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The arts, experience, and the nature of artistic
truth.

• a work of art is not necessarily the worse for
  the fact that ... it is ... literally false ...
  If the author writes nonsense, it is because he
  considers it most suitable for bringing about the
  effects for which his writing is designed A J
  Ayer (philosopher)
• 'Art is a lie that gives us the truth, at least
  the truth we are given to understand.' Pablo
  Picasso

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Literature

• A tragic ending for Verona lovebirds after
  mistakenly thinking his sweetheart dead, a young
  man took his life. Having discovered the fate of
  her lover, the woman killed herself in turn.
• Its a hard life on the streets of London A
  young orphan runs away to London where he falls
  in with thieves led by a wily Jew. He eventually
  rises above all this and discovers his real
  origins.
• A poor but noble young hero falls in love with a
  rich heroine on board ship They struggle against
  social pressures and intend to make a life
  together, but disaster strikes and the hero dies.
  The heroine goes on to live a happy life but she
  never forgets.

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So, where does that leave us?

• The arts have proven to be at least as slippery
  as the sciences! As we were hoping to use them to
  fill the gaps left by the sciences, this is
  probably no bad thing. As to whether or not we
  have succeeded in doing so, that's up to you.
• However, we cannot deny that the arts offer us
  something different to science. They seem to
  connect with us, and to allow us to connect to
  each other in a very human way. This benefit has,
  however, come with a cost - we have lost much of
  any objective claim to certainty that we may once
  have had. What can we do about this? Probably
  little, as far as the arts go, but perhaps we
  should look elsewhere. If it is certainty we seek
  in our quest for truth, what things are most
  certain?

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Louis Armstrong

• If you gotta ask you aint never gonna know!!
• Writing about arts is like dancing about
  architecture