art appreciation-impulse for art
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
Chapter 1.1- The Impulse for Art
to make, to experience, to understand
Last class• appreciation=recognizing good qualities of
something or someone, having full understanding
• art appreciation=recognizing good qualities of art and having understanding of art
• knowledge leads to increases appreciation
• knowing context (circumstances of work)
• appreciation does not mean “like”
• rationale of course (discernment of good=
being good)
Why Art?
•Making
•Experiencing
•Understanding
Utilitarian
•made to be useful rather than attractive
•attitude or method
•synonyms = practical, functional, pragmatic,
•utility
Utilitarian-plus
Ellen Dissanayake
Ellen Dissanayake
•created field of study that looks at biological and evolutionary reasons why humans make art
•only holds undergraduate degree (no PhD)
•began studies independently as housewife of biologist husband
•“first to take a serious Darwinian look at art and human ornamentation as genuine adaptation”
Dissanayake’s observations
•art is universal
•takes up vast resources and time
•gives pleasure similar to sex, food , intimacy
•young children engage in art sponaneously
Dissanayake’s conclusions
•natural selection long ago rendered art a standard component of human behavior
•evolutionary advantage for survival (Darwin had hunch with the Bowerbirds)
•art is tied to ritual
•“making-special”• how we use art today is very different than in the past
Dissanayake’s evidence
Paleolithic/Neolithic Record
The Acheulean hand axe•made by Home Erectus (500,000-200,000 b.c)•many extremely symmetrically fashioned•any intrinsic element like a fossil is featured•utilitarian-plus
Jamon period storage jar, Japan
2500-1500 BC
Socio-biological Play
• inherent in children• inventiveness, make-believe, imitation, movement• play is for its own sake• ties in with desire for novelty and entertainment• learning social behavior• art derivative from play
Socio-biological Ritual• involves all the arts (multi-media)
• elevated experience, separate from ordinary• unified experience, everyone participates• important for social cohesion of tribe• hunting, healing, life markers, religious
vsArt in Past Art Todaypart of everyday lifeseparate from everyday life
everyone participatesspecialists called “artists”
socially cohesive, unchanging
ever-changing, need for the unique
communicates a community’s ideals
communicates an individual’s ideals
“Art”“making special”
making special• Dissanayake coined to describe human
tendency to differentiate between the ordinary and more than ordinary
• root of art
• again, biologically programmed via evolution
• involved in ritual, toolmaking, symbol making
• promotes social cohesion which increases chance for survival
making special game
•Class enacted the making, experiencing and the understanding
•Introduced idea of utilitarian-plus vs art
The aesthetic experience
• Ferris Bueller video
• a feeling or set of feelings one gets encountering stimuli
• varying degrees of delight, exhilaration, increased awareness, feeling fully present
• to savor, attention is fixed, captivated
• perceiving something that you have no desire to change, just extend
• like “making special”, heightened state
Aesthetics•field of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and art
•finding agreeable definitions, broad appeal
•the “aesthetic experience” is more personal, can apply to the generally agreed beautiful (faces, nature, art) but could also apply to the irregular, grotesque, scary, unusual, perplexing, the everyday, fleeting
Johannes VermeerThe Milkmaid
c. 1658
Johannes Vermeer
The Girl with the Pearl Earringc. 1665
Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy
Tara Donovan
"Good art is not what it looks like, but what it does to us."- Roy Adzak