What is Art?

Fountain - Art can be anything – Marcel Duchamp

Mother & Child – Cows in Formaldehyde, Damien Hirst

An Impression of Sunset – Claude Monet La

Toilette-An intimate glimpse into the lives of others-Mary Cassatt

What is Art?

• There are no universally accepted standards because there is no universal agreement as to the subject matter of the arts.

1. The Emotional Theory

• Art should give us pleasure

(Limitations – Since we are the only ones who can be sure of the emotions we are feeling, we are the only ones capable of saying which are good and bad pieces of art)

2. Mimetic Theory of Art

• i.e. the arts imitate nature of the world. In other words, it takes great skill to draw or paint a realistic scene.

(Limitations: If we take this as a requirement of art, then photography would seem to be one of the

highest forms as art.)

2. Mimetic Theory of Art

Van Gogh’s Sunflowers A Photograph of Sunflowers

Using the mimetic theory of art, which is an accurate representation of sunflowers?

3. Art Teaches Us What is Right

• Art tells us how the world should be.

• A famous example is Picasso’s Guernica, which depicts the slaughter and mayhem caused by facists in Spain.

3. Art Teaches Us What is Right-Guernica, Picasso

The picture alerts us to a moral issue: the mass destruction of war

Which has more impact?

1. ArtPicasso’s Guernica –a monumental wall mural – many people were killedby fascists in Spain?

2. WordsMany people were killed by fascists in Spain?

OR

Art is often able to say things in a more powerful way.

3. Art Teaches Us What is Right

• Art broadens our experience• Art informs us how we should live

…the appreciation of the arts, and beauty in particular, allows us to transcend some of the

empirical and rationalproblems of the human condition; they allow us to

rise above our petty and individual selves, and that this must be the first steps towards a

meaningful morality – Iris Murdoch

4. Art offers insights into human condition

Art offers us a way • to make sense of what is a confusing natural

world• to interpret our emotions and those of others• a guide to the nature of morality

Other disciplines give us knowledge but we turn to the arts to broaden ouremotional and intellectual boundaries.

5. Art is not a tangible product but a state of mind

Beauty? What beauty? I can only see the majestic boulders in the background…

David Hume, 18th Century Philosophy Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa

Beauty is no quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind that contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty…to seek the real beauty is as fruitless an inquiry, as to pretend to ascertain the real sweet or the real bitter…David Hume

5. Art is not a tangible product but a state of mind

• Our state of mind is influenced by these perspectives – cultural, class, gender

(Limitations: Good art or bad art is indefensible)

6. Art can help to communicate a profound human truth

There may be some views of the world…that emphasise the world’s surprising variety, its

complexity and mysteriousness, its flawed and imperfect beauty, that cannot be adequately

stated in the language of conventional philosophical prose- a style remarkably flat and lacking in wonder-but only in a language and in

forms more complex, more allusive…-Martha Nussbaum, American Philosopher

6. Art can help to communicate a profound human truth

Jeff Koons’ Sculpture of Michael Jackson & Bubbles

Success & Loneliness, Relationships, Colour(Whiter than White)

Summary: What is Art?

1. Emotional Theory

2. Mimetic Theory of Art

3. Art teaches us what is right

4. Art offers us insight into the human condition

5. Art can help to communicate

a profound human truth

What is Art?

Working in Pairs• Look at the same 20 questions again and

re-evaluate your responses after browsing the powerpoint slides.

• Fill in the perspective chart with the different views of art that you have learnt

EL Ace: 2 CPsApply at least one theory of art that you have learnt to any of the art works inthe powerpoint slides, What is Art? You have to explain at length why a certainart work is a work of art based on the theory/theories of your choice.

• Emotional Theory• Mimetic Theory of Art• Art teaches us what is right• Art offers us insight into the human condition• Art can help to communicate a profound human truth

Art Works• Van Gogh’s Sunflowers• Picasso’s Guernica• Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa• Duchamp’s Fountain• Monet’s Sunset• Hirst’s Mother & Chils• Cassatt’s La Toilette• Koons’ Michael Jackson & Bubbles