What is Art?

Dissanayake coined the term paleoanthropsychobiological in her piece about Art. It means that art exists in all of human history (paleo), societies/cultures (antho) and is emotionally and physically (psycho/biological) necessary for human life. Dissanayake also uses the phrase, “making special”, in her discussion of art. She uses the phrase to explain that humans use art to convey importance or values such that art is the process of “making special”. She argued that “making special” was part of a human need to express the importance of individual and societal values to such an extent that it was a fundamental part of life.

In her piece on art, Dissanayake identifies several periods of art with different theories and understandings. The medieval times, from the 5^th to the 15^th century, was a period in which most art was rooted in religion. During this period art was a service and expression of religion. Art was evaluated more on its divine content than the aesthetic nature of its appearance. 18^th century modernism viewed art as its own universal ideology more concerned with the “…taste and beauty that goven all the arts and indeed make them not simply paintings or statues but examples of (fine) art” (p. 3). Finally, postmodernism became prominent in the late 1900’s. This movement evaluated art beyond its appearance and considered the perspective and intention of the artist. Dissanayake wrote that, “artists, just like everybody else, do not see the world in any singularly privileged or objectively truthful way, but rather – like everybody- interpret it according to their individual and cultural sensibilities” (p. 5).