- Describe the term paleoanthropsychobiological.
Who coined this term?The term paleoanthropsychobiological was coined by Ellen Dissanayake and it is a way she describes art. “Paleo” meaning from history, “anthro” meaning from humans past and present, “psycho” meaning behavior, “biological” which is life. So art comes from all of these things and therefore cannot be summed up in one area.
- What does Dissanayake mean by the phrase “making special”? How does it relate to art and to human survival?
Something that is special is as Dissanayake puts, “different from the mundane, the everyday, the ordinary” (22). It relates to art in the way that something that is mundane cannot be art because are is something that is supposed to be special. As she says “Now all animals can tell the difference between the ordinary or routine and the extraordinary or the unusual” (22). That is to say that something that is special is a natural instinct, so recognizing art as special is a natural instinct. Adaptation is an artform, and it is essential for human survival. Throughout the course of human history we as a race have created objects that are useful for our survival and that is innovation which is art
- Dissanayake identifies many different theories/movement/periods of art throughout western european history. Name three different theories of art that Dissanayake mentions in her essay. Identify the time period when each theory developed and was prominent. Provide a brief description of the philosophies and ideas that define each theory/movement/period of art. Support your answer with quotes from the reading.
Her first mention of a time period is during the Greek era. When the term art wasn’t around but instead, “Plato did not discuss ‘art’, but rather beauty, poetry, and imagemaking” (16). So art itself wasn’t a term then, but the elements of art were there. The next era Ellen talked about was the Medieval times where “the arts were in the service of religion” (16). That is to mean that most of the art of that time was about God or any other religious item
The time period that really changed things for art as we know it today was the Renaissance, because “artists gradually replaced God-centered with man-centered concerns” (16). To say that people started to see the beauty of earth and the lives here rather than that of the afterlife.