Monthly Archives: January 2015

“Do not play with your food” is an admonishment we have heard from many generations. But base on what we read last week, Dissanayake says, art is something that is natural, such as “language, sex, sociability, aggression, or any of the other characteristics of human nature” (Dissanayake p.4).  Art  is a form of communication that is embedded into every human being on this planet, and just like all the other forms of communication, it varies greatly from one to another. Food is also a form of art that can communicate within the culture. From preparation, to the final food presentation on the table, it is an artistic process that involves different opinions from different people of various cultures. Food is an essential to everyday human life, therefore, it can be a way to express oneself’s uniqueness depending on one’s likes and dislikes about food. People communicate to each other about good and bad food, and express difference of opinions about it.

When you first go to a restaurant and want to order something to eat, what will you order?  In this sense, people will pay great attention to the aesthetics of the food displayed on the menu. That’s why people spend so much money on enhancing pictures as well as doing advertisements of food. When a dish arrivals on the table, the chef will want to make sure that is looks amazing. This is almost like an artist displaying a sculpture or a painting to the audience. Food is art which is made by the chefs and chefs want other people to look at it. Just like what Telfer says ” if something is a work of art, then its maker or exhibitor intended it to be looked at or listened to with intensity, for its own sake”(Telfer P.12).

Describe the term paleoanthropsychobiological. Who coined this term?

Human history,society and huam psychology. He explain in the text  “First, that the idea of art encompassed all of human history (i.e., as far back as the Palacolithic or even earlier); second, that it include all human societies (i.e., is anthropological or cross-cultural); and third, that it account for the fact that art is a psychological or emotional need and has psychological or emotional effects” (Dissanayake 15).

2.What does Dissanayake mean by the phrase “making special”? How does it relate to art and to human survival?

Base on the reading the “making special” means “something that is ‘special’ is different from the mundane, the everyday, the ordinary. It is extra-ordinary” (Dissanayake 22). The author believes that art is one of the way that make people different.  It is a very basic thing for human survival because it is a fundamental human proclivity or need.

3.Dissanayake identifies many different theories/movement/periods of art throughout western European history. Name three different theories of art that DiSantayanaentions 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.

She mention the Renaissance era of art during medieval times “replaced God-centered art with man-centered concerns” (Dissanayake, p.2). During this period of time, art was trying to show the ideas of that time. People’s thinking, the social and the political all of this things had a huge change at that time period. “A declaration of the end of all isms and movements” (Dissanayake, p. 5). Postmodernists are more focusing on the what the other people are thinking and their ideas about it.

Ellen Dissanayake discusses the nature of which art is supposed to bring out in people. She talks about the idea of disinterest when viewing an art piece, in which “viewers could appreciate any art” even if the cultures were far removed from their own (p.18). This idea took art to a new level, since paintings were admire without it being a reflection of one’s own nature to be appreciated. Instead the reasoning the piece was supposed to original mean lost some of its importance, and instead asks the viewer to invoke ideas that may or may not conflict. This was a struggle for critics that wanted a way to measure whether a piece was good or bad based on what it meant. Thus they believe that to truly appreciate art, you had to treat it almost like a religion, in which if the viewer must be educated about the subject before making any judgments.  But art isn’t something that can be forced by other to understand, and not even the creator dictates how you might interpret their piece, that is something that can only be relied on by the viewer’s themselves, and through their own experience and knowledge in life, they can make their own analysis of the work in front of them. As Dissanayake says, art is something that is natural, such as “language, sex, sociability, aggression, or any of the other characteristics of human nature” (p.4). It is form of communication that is embedded into every human being on this planet, and just like all the other forms of communication, it varies greatly from one to another. Art is made to ask questions that cannot be easily spoken with words. Art is a question that takes many forms of understanding, with just as many answers waiting to be spoken by people of many different knowledge.