What is art? How does it fit into the humanities and sciences? Week one presentation for a class, "Survey of the Arts."

1. SURVEY OF THE ARTS
An Introduction to the Arts and Humanities
Laura Loveday

3. Art and the Eye of the Beholder
• Art and Audience
• Art and Artist
• Art and Intention
The arts strive to weave our
experiences into coherent
bodies of knowledge and to
communicate them to
others

4. Art within humanities
• Art is how our ancestors recorded
the world around them in a time
before cameras
• We record things the same way
today: in how we dress, what
music we listen to, the buildings
we work and live in, or what we
write
• You can tell what a culture valued
by their artwork

5. Science vs. Humanities
• Seeks to describe reality
• Attempts to create a
universal concept
• Measurable and
quantitative
• Seeks to describe
humankind’s experience of
reality
• Gives form to emotion
• More analytical approach

7. What would you guess about the person
who owns these items?

8. Concerns of art
• Creativity
• Aesthetic communication
• Symbols

9. Fine art and applied art
• Fine art is lauded for its aesthetic quality
• Applied art includes architecture or handicrafts with a
decorative purpose

10. Art’s purpose and function
Among art’s purposes:
1) Provide a record
2) Give visible or other form to feelings
3) Reveal metaphysical or spiritual truths
4) Help people see the world in new or innovative ways
Among art’s functions:
1) Enjoyment
2) Political and social commentary
3) Therapy
4) Artifact

11. Aesthetic perception and response
1. What is it?
2. How is it put together?
3. How does the work appeal to our senses?
4. What does this work mean?

12. 1. What is it?
2. How is it put together?
3. How does the work
appeal to our senses?
4. What does this work
mean?

13. Picasso believed a
painting was a “sum of
destructions”

14. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1f7nHsQMFk
1. What is it?
2. How is it put together?
3. How does the work appeal to our senses?
4. What does this work mean?

15. Criticism of art
• Plato vs. Aristotle
• Renaissance examined moral worth of art and its
relationship to nature
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vufba_ZcoR0

16. • The late 1800s disregarded traditional criticism
• Today, we evaluate art based
through a “lens”

17. • Formal criticism – considers no external conditions or
information
• Contextual criticism – considers related information
outside the artwork, such as facts about the artist, social
and political conditions, etc.
Evaluating art

18. • Artisanship – Is the work well made? Understand the
medium and the style
• Communication – Evaluate what the artwork tries to say
and if it was worth the effort. Does it offer a profound or
unique insight?

19. Art brut, or “outsider art”
• Idea developed by Jean
Dubuffet in the 1940s and
Roger Cardinal in 1972
• Work created by those
outside of mainstream art
culture
• Artists may be self-taught
• May illustrate extreme mental
states, unconventional ideas,
or fantasy worlds

20. Style