Journeying through the first week of this course and trying to take in as much as I can about art. The first video "Aestheics: Philosophy of Arts" focuses mainly on the beauty of art and how it became to be. The video talks about the middle ages and how the idea of beauty was controlled by the cultures dedication to God. There were three laws that were created the first one of these laws was the principal of formal order. This is a way that people can criticize and analyze art. The foundation of aesthetics was laid in 18th century England. The video talks about how nature is a big part of aesthetics. It helps unite sensibility and reason with means of the imagination. Nature is a natural beauty that artists can bring themselves to beatify and share with the world. Although there are emotions that go along with beauty, everyone has a feelin that is brought by with beauty, but there is no true science involving beauty. You can't make a complete scientific theory based on feeling and emotions, people can only make hypothesis's based on past experiences. The video also talked about a German philosopher believed there were three ages in art: Eastern or Symbolic art, Classical art, and Romantic art. Art is a way for someone to reflect and express someone's way of feeling or emotions.
The second video talked about the importance of the discovery of symmetry, symbolism, and artistic composition. These three important parts the make up art and have been noticed in the development of art. This video mainly focuses on the genetic and brain involvement of art. The first part talks about how the brain has developed and how we have evolved over the centuries. This relates to art because your brain processes the visual arts that you are seeing and needing to comprehend. Without the ability of your brain to visually comprehend and relate to the piece of art you are trying to relate too one can't find an emotional connection with the art. Focusing mainly on the brain and how it reacts to art is this videos idea of aesthetics. This specific video talks about how people's brains work with analyzing and gaining the emotions that one feels. It was interesting to find out that if you are conscious or non-conscious your brain works in two different ways and processes this in different orders.
The article focuses on also how the brain functions and relates to art except it mainly talks about how the brain recognizes lines, colors, and shapes. Adding specific colors, lines, and shapes makes a two-dimensional canvas painting appear to the viewer as 3D or makes it become alive if it is something that the viewer has seen before. A good example they used in the article was that when you are in a room there are no black lines outlining anything, but if someone was to take black lines and draw them out on a sheet of paper you'd be able to recognize the layout and relate it to your home and it becomes almost a three-dimensional image in the viewers head because it is familiar. It was also informative how they talked about the Mona Lisa and that when you look at the eyes she seems to be smiling more than when you look at her mouth as well as she has a pinky look to her cheeks when you focus on her eyes. The article focuses on the idea of perspective and that your brain has it's own way of working, functioning, and relating lines, colors, and shapes.
Wittgenstein from the 20th century has been one of the most influential on the world of art and society. He created a new idea of language and that for a word to be a thing you had to consider the uses of that word. So, the example from the first video that was used was that fruit such as plums, oranges, apples, and fruits of this nature are a family with common characteristics. Wittgenstein brought the use of language into art and didn't just focus on the beauty, but he brought it into the regular world as well. George Dickie was also part of the 20th century and he believed that " a work of art could be anything that the Institution of the art world declared as much." This is a big belief because back in the day it used to be paintings, sculptures, and architecture were focused on as art. But because of the new beliefs they made it possible for some artists to be considered an artist. Just like the one who took a urinal out of its normal setting and set it in a new location and was able to consider that a form of art. Dickie created a new standard of art and brought a new idea forth into the art world.
The most interesting thing I had discovered from Changeux's scientific view of art was that when you are bored with something your frontal cortex isn't activated. So when you are looking at something that has no entertainment or meaning to you that is why your brain doesn't stay invested. But, when you are surprised and your frontal cortex is active you have created the pathway for the emotions to start flowing. So, the connections you feel toward art isn't brought by an inner feeling it is actually a reaction brought forth by your brain liking the form of art, whatever form it may be in. Ramachandran starts by talking about how he prefers not to use the word 'art' because there are universal cultural meanings in which art can mean completely different things. So, he actually started just calling it visual aesthetics to make sure people can understand what he is talking about. He goes on to talk about how there are 30 areas in the brain that just focus on analyzing visuals and break them down into different areas. Our brain is actually capable of distorting the image and when an artist distorts an image it forces our brains to work in many different areas. A person's brain works as problem solving once you find the right image and it provides a sense of accomplishment.
The videos and article relate to the text that was assigned because the text talks more about the art itself and how aesthetics relates to art. The text also goes over specific artists and their type of art and what they focus on when they paint or create sculptures. But, the two videos and articles focus on how the brain functions and analyzes the art the those same artists create. With the text we read learning about the types or art and the in depth parts of aesthetics related to art, it was informative to learn about how the brain works with those aesthetics. This way you can identify not only the art but realize how your brain works when you are looking at the art and trying to figure out what that artist was feeling or what the purpose of the creation was.
For me personally, I like that idea of using the videos and article to emphasize my learning. It helped add on to what the text was trying to go over. But, I am not going to lie sitting through almost two hours of videos was not easy especially because they were very educational and informative. Your brain kind of wanders and you have to be able to keep yourself focused. I actually had to turn the captions on so I could understand what they were saying and trying to emphasize. They were not the easiest to understand during the presentations they were giving. But, the captions helped me stay focused and read along to what they were saying. In regards to the text, they went along with what we read very well and that helped me piece some things together that I may not have without them. It helped me realize why we were reading about the human experience and nature. You question at first why, but then as you get through and listen to the videos on aesthetics you realize that not only do the artist focus on how they can make their piece best seen by the viewers, but the viewer uses their brain in various functions just to figure out what the artists point was. So, in my opinion yes the videos and article were long, but they did help me understand where it was all coming from and the base line of what we are going to be focusing on and what I need to do when it comes to comprehending a piece of art.
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