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I N T R O  D U C T I O N

T O  H U M A N I T I E S

I N T R O  D U C T I O N    ART AND KNOWLEDGE

 

PRESENTATION

 

p16  The Humanities include philosophy.
Branches of Philosophy: (p 19)

 

Branches of philosophy: Aesthetics, ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, logic, theology, political, language, and philosophy of mind.

 

Aesthetics is the philosophy of beauty and art. Some questions in this field would be: what is beauty? What is beauty doing here? Is beauty a necessary component of art?

 

Beauty is an average. read  more

 

Kant shifted the focus on subjective aesthetic meaning. There are no objective aesthetic truths.

Natural philosophy become science?

 

Fine art and applied art (craft). See p 21

 

Question: Should Art exist for it’s own sake, or should art serve a function? p17.

 

PURPOSES OF ART -  p21/23 Read

Jonas Gerard

 

 

3. Revealing Metaphysical Truths
 

POINTILLISM

Georges Seurat

 A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte"

 

 

Detail of La Parade

 

 

SURREALISM (presentation)
 

Surrealist Manifesto

From Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, 1924

ANDRÉ BRETON

Surrealist Animation
Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy, 1900–1955, French painter.
Dali and Max Ernst: Salvador Dali, 1904-1989, Spanish
Max Ernst, 1891–1976, German painter, sculptor, and poet. He is a pioneer of the Dada and Surrealist movements.
Rene Magritte, 1898-1967, Belgian Painter

 

John Lock – p20 
P21 Out of chaos we create form – TED A Stroke of Insight

Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena 

 

4: Different Perspective:

 

Tom Forsythe's Food Chain Barbie
 

DADA or DADAISM (Art is not a mirror; it's a hammer.)
 

Dada
It began in Zürich Switzerland in 1916 as a reaction to World War I. They believed that “Destruction is also creation." Dada can best be defined as art without rules. It focuses on the absurdity of existence, irrationality, is countercultural, controversial, and shocking.

Fountain (1917) by Marcel Duchamp

Art is whatever is displayed as art.

Marcel Duchamp (1887 –1968) was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. He produced relatively few artworks. His output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art. He advised modern art collectors, such as Peggy Guggenheim and other prominent figures, thereby helping to shape the tastes of Western art during this period.

He said, “The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.”
 

View his work:  www.understandingduchamp.com

 

 

FUNCTIONS OF ART - p21:
 

 

SOCIAL CHANGE

 

Dread Scott - What is the Proper Way to Display a US Flag?

Banksy
 

Igor Stravinsky - THE RIGHT OF SPRING, 1912
 

Picasso - G  U E  R  N  I  C  A
 

Guernica  p 31- During the Spanish Civil War Nazis bombed the Spanish town.

- 11 feet tall by 25 feet long – you feel dwarfed by it, and like you’re within the image.
- The painting is done in black, white, and grays to create contrast (compare to 0.10 p31).

- The horse dominates the center, and represents the people  who were victimized by incomprehensible cruelty.

Watch Pan’s Labyrinth: www.panslabyrinth.com
- The bull symbolizes senseless suffering, farm animals (Guernica’s a farming community), & God (the mother pleads, & the bull ignores.  The problem of evil.
- The man holding flowers?

 

CRITICISM:

 

Gabriel Cornelius von Max, 1840-1915
Monkeys as Judges of Art, 1889

 

The Greeks believed that creative inspiration was due to a divine spirits – Damon. The Romans called it a genius. In the Renaissance we started to believe that people were geniuses – rather than saying they were inspired by a genius.

During an inspired performance people would say, ‘Allah Allah Allah’. In Spain they say, ‘Oley Oley Oley’.

 

PLATO (427-348 BCE) was the first art critic. P27 BCE means before the common era. He believed in different levels of reality, and but art at the bottom because it’s a copy (Art is a Mirror). If art is not viewed as a mirror, what is it then?

Plato’s Symposium - There is not love in ugliness. Love is the idea of the beauty of the beloved - John Carbonara. You move from physical love, to the love of a beautiful mind, and knowledge.

What is beauty?
Pleasure caused by apprehension. (Greater Hippias)
What is beauty doing here?

 

Symmetry (Timaeus)
This fails because colors, sounds, and smells are beautiful; a rotting corpse may be symmetrical.

What is a beautiful act?
M > Y , M = Y, M < Y

 

Plato believed in censoring art. We don’t know all ends, so we shouldn’t tamper with convention. We shouldn't glorify violence and vice - Collateral Club Scene with music by Paul Oakenfold. 

Canadians watch the same TV and play the same video games, yet they have a far lower crime rate.

 

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible." - Frank Zappa

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

 

ARISTOTLE (384-382 BCE) was Plato’s student. Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest-surviving work of drama and literary theory. It covers poetry, drama, comedy, and tragedy.

 

DECONSTRUCTION

This theory of art criticism was advanced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida. He believed that an analysis of any artwork would yield conflicting meanings. The meaning of a work arises from the artist and viewer, so there is no absolute meaning, facts, or truths in art. There are only interpretations.

 

FORMAL CRITICISM

Formal criticism does not consider any external information. The work must stand on it's own. This ignores symbolisms that point to things happening in the world. READ MORE

 

Criteria:

      Artisanship

      Clarity

      Coherence

      Interest

      Is it unique?
 

CONTEXTUAL CRITICISM

 

This includes external factors.

Criteria:
 

     Does the artist have something to say?

     How well does she say it?

     Is it worth saying?

     Does it make you think or feel?