1.
For each video and article list/discuss the key
concepts you learned. By watching the videos and reading the article I can
understand aesthetics better. From
watching the first video I learned that the concepts on aesthetics are changing.
As aesthetics means beauty it is hard to make one definition as beauty differs
from one person to another. What I may
find is beautiful others may not. The second video said that art is constantly
evolving. When you look at past art
history and look at today’s current art it has completely evolved. A concept that really stuck with me in the
article was that our brains make things out of art that aren’t really there.
Art and our brain become intertwined. Picasso, himself said, "We all know
that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the
truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby
to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies."
2.
The philosopher’s theory I thought was most
important was Francis Hutcheson from the 18th century. He believes ideas are brought about by beauty
and harmony. These delight us immediately. It contributes to the aesthetic
theory because his ideas display the beauty.
3.
I think Changeux and Ramachandran both have
different scientific views of art and aesthetics. Changeux breaks his
presentation up into two parts, the processing of the visual image and the
rules of art. The most interesting fact I discovered from his lecture was the
steps of discovery of tools, discovery of symbolism, and discovery of artistic
composition being the genetic envelope
for the evolutionary of art. Ramachandran talks about his eight laws of
aesthetics. These laws are, grouping or binding, peak shift principle,
contrast, isolating of a single cue to optimally excite cortical visual areas,
perceptual problem solving, symmetry, abhorrence of unique vantage points and
suspicious coincidences and finally, art as a metaphor. I thought these rules
were also very interesting.
4.
For the video Aesthetics: Philosophy of Art, I
thought it related to the text because it went into depth what Aesthetics means
in the Art world. When I read about it
in the text I was so confused. The video
really added to the text which was very helpful.
5.
My opinions on the films were that they were
quiet helpful explaining aesthetics in a different way. . The philosopher’s theories on aesthetics
allowed us to experience different views and contributions to the theory. Yet they
were very long and hard to sit through.
