The document discusses what art is and its various purposes and functions. It states that art creates beauty, enhances our environment, reveals truths about the world and humanity, immortalizes people, expresses religious and cultural beliefs, stimulates intellect and emotions, creates order and expresses chaos. Art also records experiences, reflects social contexts, protests injustice, and meets the needs of artists.

1. Understanding Art Chapter 1 What is Art?

2. Art Creates Beauty Art adds beauty to our lives. Often, the artist imitates nature because he respects it as the standard of beauty. Sometimes, the artist intends to improve upon nature and develop an alternate standard—an idealized form.

3. Art Creates Beauty Standards of beauty are not universal, though. So obsessed were the Classical Greeks with their concept of beauty that they fashioned mathematical formulas to render the human body in sculpture.

4. Art Creates Beauty In perhaps the most famous painting of Western art, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa has enchanted her viewer.

5. Art Creates Beauty In some non-Western cultures, however, the standard of beauty considers scarification, body painting, tattooing, and adornment as beautiful and sacred.

6. Art Enhances Our Environment For centuries, works of art have been used to create pleasing environments. Paintings Sculptures Mosaics

7. Art Reveals Truth Artists pursue truth and attempt to reveal what they discover. The truth about how the world looks The truth about how the world works

8. Art Reveals Truth In their search for truth, artists often reach outward to describe truths about humanity; and artists reach inward to describe truths about themselves.

9. Art Reveals Truth Sometimes their pursuit leads them to beauty. The truth that is pleasing provides a valid commentary on the human condition.

10. Art Reveals Truth At other times, however, artists respond with shame and outrage to what they find. Nevertheless, the “ugly truth” also provides insight about the human experience.

11. Art Reveals Truth Figure 1-7 Self-Portrait with Monkey

12. Art Immortalizes Conscious of their immortality, humans use art to overcome the limits of this life. To “preserve” the individual for later generations, artists create works that capture a recognizable likeness of a person.

13. Art Expresses Religious Beliefs Without physical embodiments for their deities, humans have developed art forms to visually represent them. Some deities take human form. Some deities are powerful and mysterious animals. Some deities blend both as composite men-beasts.

14. Art Expresses Fantasy Through their works, artists can express their fantasies. Dreams Daydreams Imaginary objects Imaginary landscapes

15. Art Stimulates the Intellect and Fires the Emotions Art has the power to make us think profoundly, to make us feel deeply. Beautiful or controversial works can trigger many associations within us. It is virtually impossible to genuinely confront a work and remain unaffected.

16. Art Creates Order and Harmony Artists are intrigued by and seek to discover and describe the underlying order of nature.

17. Art Creates Order and Harmony In some instances, an artist uses composition to imposes order on the disparate content of a work.

18. Art Expresses Chaos Order and harmony presume the existence of chaos. Artists portray chaos in many ways, finding analogies in War Famine Natural catastrophe

19. Art Records and Commemorates Experience Art records and communicates experiences and events. Art can also convey personal experiences in ways that words cannot capture.

20. Art Reflects the Social and Cultural Context Artists record the activities and objects of their times and places. They reflect Fashions Beliefs Crafts Sciences

21. Art Protests Injustice and Raises Social Consciousness Artists oppose injustice. Artists seek to persuade others to adopt their views.

22. Art Elevates the Commonplace Artists enhance the status of common items to make them acceptable in the realm of art. Readymades Assemblages Pop art

23. Art Meets the Needs of the Artist Many artists seek novelty, exploration, and understanding. They also seek to express themselves through art, beauty, and order. Art allows the artist to earn a living and fulfill his needs.

24. Questions to Consider What factors do consider responsible for man’s need to create religious art? Is it possible for order may pose a threat to harmony and psychological well-being? Identify two works that illustrate this. Do you consider it preferable to record an event or an experience from an objective point of view or from a non-objective point of view? Is it possible for an artist to create a work of art that is completely objective? If art can bring about change for the better, can it also be used to create change for the worse? Cite two examples.

25. Related Websites National Museum of Women in the Arts: Frida Kahlo http://www.nmwa.org/collection/profile.asp?LinkID=471 The Andy Warhol Museum http://www.warhol.org/ Hagia Sophia http://www.patriarchate.org/ecumenical_patriarchate/chapter_4/html/hagia_sophia.html WebMuseum, Paris: Edward Hopper http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/hopper/ Marcel Duchamp World Community http://www.marcelduchamp.net/ WebMuseum, Paris: Eugène Delacroix http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/delacroix/ Hood Museum of Art: Epic of American Civilization http://www.dartmouth.edu/~hood/collections/orozco-murals.html