Category: Unit 03

1. Ellen Dissanayake talks about her word called “paleoanthropsychobiological”. In my opinion, I choose to divide the word to be three parts, which are “paleo”, “anthrop” and “psychobiological”. Paleo means old things; anthrop means mankind, psychobiological means biological and mental stuff. Her writing “What is art for?” is using a explanation to describe the word, which is “that in order to include human history, human cultures, and human psychology, art 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” (Dissanayake 1). In my opinion, I use something easy to understand to know it, which is that art is about human beings, especially from humans’ thoughts and physical things, and art originates from ancient.

2. Ellen Dissanayake uses the phrase “making special” to describe art because art is different by different people. Art has different styles, different forms, and different languages.  It combines different people’s minds, thoughts or mental ideas to a set. The name of the set is ART. According to Dissanayake’s words,” Among these tendencies, I claim, is also the behavior or propensity to “make special,” particularly things that one cares deeply about or activities whose outcome has strong personal significance.” (Dissanayake, 22), people all have their own understandings on the word “art”; therefore, art is “making special”.

3.  As the question menas, Dissanayake identifies many different theories/movement/periods of art throughout western european history. The first one is modernism. Art needs to improve every moment, and essencing absorption and drossing discarding is the necessary step to get progress. The second one is reality. Although art needs imagination and creativity, it does not mean that people can make it up, or fabricate anything. Art originates from life, and life is the direct form of reality. The second one is “aesthetics – “a concern with elucidating principles such as taste and beauty that govern all the arts and indeed make them not simply paintings or statues but examples of (fine) art.” (Dissanayake, 17) Art is a form of pretty things, and aesthetics is aim that all artists catches their steps for.

 

The most impressive novel in my life is a Chinese novel called “Never-flower in Never-dream”. It is written by a very famous Chinese writer called Guo Jingming.

The writer is the most famous, and the richest writer, especially liked by young people. Each novel he writes attracts large amounts of readers. In most of his novels, he writes about the lives among young people, and gives some suggestions of life value to young people.

In the novel “Never-flower in Never-dream”, he writes about a girl’s change after lots of things happen such as her family, her love, her friendship and so on.

In his novel, There is one sentence giving me the deepest impression, which is “One person has to go on a strange road, see a strange sight, and hear a strange song, and in an inadvertent moment, you will find that you will forget the things that you once wanted to forget.”

It is a kind of sadness, and even it is sorrowful, it is the truth. When people grow up, they have to give up lots of things even the things are their favourite, and at that time, they may think they will remember it for the whole life. However, during the step of growth, you will find that something really important in the past becomes passing clouds. people have to pay more attentions on the current things, and with the increasing of the age, people will have more responsibilities to undertake. Because in the past, you just need to care about yourself, your emotions, your feelings; however, in the future, you have to take care of your wife or husband, your parents, your sons or daughters, and these people will make you forget lots of things that you really cared about in the past. It is the value of life, and life is that know more, care more, and give up more.