Art serves many functions including assisting with rituals, reflecting customs, communicating ideas, educating people, glorifying power, commemorating the dead, celebrating events like war, protesting war, and entertaining. It has content related to imagery, location, symbols, beliefs, and text. Art can be categorized as fine art, pop culture, or kitsch. Styles include naturalistic, idealized, expressive, classical, non-objective, and impasto. People encounter art daily and are drawn to either its aesthetics or meaning, and some judge certain types of art as more valuable.

1. Lecture 1
A Human Phenomenon

2. What is art?
• Assists us in rituals
• Reflects customs related to food, shelter, and
human reproduction
• Communicates thoughts, emotions, ideas
• Visualizes deities
• Educates us about the surrounding world

3. •Art glorifies the power of the state
Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius, Rome, 175 CE

4. •Art commemorates the dead
Maya Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington DC, 1982

5. •Art celebrates war
Trajan’s Arch, Rome, 114 CE

6. Art is also used to protest war
Nina Berman, photograph from the series Purple Hearts

7. Art entertains
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Gates, Central Park, 1979-2005

8. Can you think of any other functions of
art?
What function does art take in your life?

9. Olow of Ise, Veranda Post, pre-1938

10. Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius, Rome, 175 CE

11. Jeff Koons, Puppy, 2000, Rockefeller Center, NY

12. Art has content, which is the mass of ideas
associated with the work.
The content can be expressed through the:
• Imagery
• Location or surroundings where it is displayed
• Symbols
• Customs, beliefs or values in the culture in
which it was made
• Text associated with the work or writings
about the work

13. Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907

14. Ceremonial mask known as Mboom or Bwoom, 19th-20th c., Zaire

15. Left: Shaiping, Lotuses on a Summer Day, 1684
Right: Georgia O’Keeffe, Black Iris, 1926

16. Shahzia Sikander, Hood’s Red Riding, 1997

17. Categories of Visual Arts
• Fine Art
• Pop Culture
• Kitsch

18. Fine Art
Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius, Rome, 175 CE

19. Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic, 1875

20. Paul Cezanne, Mt. St. Victoire, 1885-1887

21. Pop Culture
When you hear the words “pop culture,”
what do you think of?

22. Pop Culture
When you hear the words “pop culture,” what
do you think of?
• Television
• Movies
• Magazines
• Comic books
• Advertising
• Tattoos
• Websites

24. Andy Warhol, Marilyn, 1968

25. Kitsch
Art, writing, etc. of a pretentious but
shallow kind calculated to have popular
appeal.
Thomas Kinkade, Nature’s Paradise

26. Jeff Koons, Michael Jackson with Bubbles, 1988

27. Fine art derived from craft
Miriam Schapiro, Anatomy of a Kimono, 1976

28. Style Vocabulary
Naturalistic
Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, 1899

29. Idealized
Michelangelo Buonnaroti, David, 1501-1504

30. Expressive or Expressionistic
Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893

31. Expressive or Expressionistic
Vincent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889

32. Classical
Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius, Rome, 175 CE

33. Non-objective or Non-representational
Frank Stella, Empress of India, 1965

34. Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907

35. Vincent van Gogh
Impasto--a thick application of paint

36. Assignment 1 Questions
• How do you encounter art on a daily
basis?
• When looking at art, are you drawn to it
by its aesthetics or by its meaning?
• Do you judge some art to be more
valuable than other types of art?
Explain your response.