Artifact 2: What Is Art? Discussion
Learning Unit Objectives
- Consider the origins of art
- Explore a brief history of Western Art
- Examine multiple perspectives for evaluating art
Original Post
Ellen Dissanayake develops a provocative idea addressing with an old question around arts. She does not agree with the old approach and thinks it doesn’t provide a fresh and accurate look at the origin, nature, purpose and value of arts. In her paleoanthropsychobiological view, “arts must be viewed as an inherent universal (or biological) trait of the human species, as normal and natural as language, sex, sociability, aggression, or any of the other characteristics of human nature” (p.15).
Along with her explanation, she expands her view to many aspects and levels. First of all, she examines the common concept of art among western countries. She claims that the incomplete and imprecise translation of techne leads to some problems of our understanding of arts. God-centered and man-centered concerns mean only a shift of “primary patrons” from Church and court to public (p.17). Artists in this period emphasized standards of beauty, harmony. Then she moves through to the discussions of Modernism in the 18th century and Postmodernism in the 20th century. The era of modernism focused more on “disinterested” art, which implies “viewers could appreciate any art, even the artwork of eras or cultures far removed from their own, whether or not they understood the meaning the works had for the people who made and used them. In this sense, art was ‘universal” (p18). She states that Modernism is a form of arts, which needs more knowledge basis to understand and appreciate. The art became more abstractly constructed and thus was aimed for well-educated group. As for postmodernism, in her opinion, is about broad art. She describes, “Rather than assuming that art reflects a unique and privileged kind of knowledge, postmodernists point out that any ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ is only a point of view – a ‘representation’ that comes to us mediated and conditioned by our language, our social institutions, the assumptions that characterize individuals as members of a nation, a race, a gender, a class, a profession, a religious body, a particular historical period” (p.19). At long last, this era actually got rid of the “high” art standard of the modernists.
Ellen tries to explain the nature of arts from a bio-evolutionary perspective. She proposes that “making special” is an inherited characteristic as intrinsic to the human species as ay other basic ones. This relates to art and human survival. Sometimes if we want to make a break or survive in our routine life, we need to change ordinary into extraordinary.
In some sense, Ellen’s bio-evolutionary point about arts is very appealing and unique. However, I come up with some questions while reading it. Do arts, even if it could be considered as a inherited tendency, have to take the shape of a preliterate characteristics? As a matter of fact, I kind of doubt. There are so many arts across countries which are formed by a pure imagination and thinking. Admittedly, human behaviors play a big role in art, however, we cannot interpret every human behavior related to art as a inherited traits. I really do not think there is a certain correct approach to understand or appreciate art.
Reflection
Ellen thinks “art must be viewed as inherent universal (or biological) trait of human species”,arts can be a means of inspecting different culture in different era, since “the idea of art encompasses all of human history” (p.15). And this unique opinion provides a full picture of the origins of art based on the “Paleoanthropsychobiological” view, and I was able to . By examining Ellen’s viewpoint, I also learned the brief history of western arts development. “Renaissance”, “Modernism”, and “Postmodernism” are the major periods Ellen discussed. Each of them stands for different definition and evaluation standard for art. By reviewing multiple perspectives for evaluating art, I think there is no such an absolutely correct and unmodified standard. I can relate to “Postmodernism”,which challenged the normal definition of art, and supported an idea that art is everywhere. So it focused on the broad definition of art.
The most fincianting point offered by the author is “making special”. I absolutely agree with her point. We are actually living a life, which a lot of things have already been usual habits or actions for us. However, at some special moment in the history of human life, we have to make an extraordinary move in order to survive.
Future Intention
This unit’s topic offered me a question: what is art? And this question gives me a idea about what kind of piece should be considered as an art. I think I would like to know more theories related to this topic in future and get a more comprehensive view. Even if I like what “Postmodernism” maintains. I do wnat to see more aspects of this theory. And maybe it’s position will be challenged by other theories. Thus, I would like to examine it from diverse angles, and explore many other different evaluations of art.
Bibliography
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