Understanding Art

Chapter 1

What is Art?

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.

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.

Art Creates Beauty

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

Art Creates Beauty

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

Art Enhances Our Environment

For centuries, works of art have been used to create pleasing environments. Paintings Sculptures Mosaics

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

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.

Art Reveals Truth

Sometimes their pursuit leads them to beauty.

The truth that is pleasing provides a valid commentary on the human condition.

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.

Art Reveals Truth

Figure 1-7Self-Portrait with Monkey

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.

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.

Art Expresses Fantasy

Through their works, artists can express their fantasies. Dreams Daydreams Imaginary objects Imaginary landscapes

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.

Art Creates Order and Harmony

Artists are intrigued by and seek to discover and describe the underlying order of nature.

Art Creates Order and Harmony

In some instances, an artist uses composition to imposes order on the disparate content of a work.

Art Expresses Chaos

Order and harmony presume the existence of chaos.

Artists portray chaos in many ways, finding analogies in War Famine Natural catastrophe

Art Records and Commemorates Experience

Art records and communicates experiences and events.

Art can also convey personal experiences in ways that words cannot capture.

Art Reflects the Social and Cultural Context

Artists record the activities and objects of their times and places.

They reflect Fashions Beliefs Crafts Sciences

Art Protests Injustice and Raises Social Consciousness

Artists oppose injustice. Artists seek to persuade others to

adopt their views.

Art Elevates the Commonplace

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

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.

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.

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 Hopperhttp://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/hopper/

Marcel Duchamp World Communityhttp://www.marcelduchamp.net/

WebMuseum, Paris: Eugène Delacroixhttp://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/delacroix/

Hood Museum of Art: Epic of American Civilizationhttp://www.dartmouth.edu/~hood/collections/orozco-murals.html