1. 3/19

2.  Art Exposure  Aesthetic Judgments  Universal Standards  How do/should you judge art?

3.  Is this song art? Consider any discussions or notes from last week!

4.  Main Questions: What distinguishes good art from bad? How much of it is objective? How much is influenced by culture we grow up in? How much is influenced by personal taste?

5.  It is a paradox On one hand: there are STANDARDS of aesthetic judgment and some judgments are better than others On the other hand: beauty is in the eye of the beholder and there is no accounting for taste

6.  Standards of Judgment Justifies a teacher grading a piece of creative writing, or a composition, or a painting Suggests that there are criteria for distinguishing good art from bad

7.  Taste You cannot argue about tastes in the arts (similar to tastes in food, right?) You like it or you don’t. But can we educate are tastes?!

8.  “Michael Jordan was one of the best basketball players of all time.”  Is this a fact or an opinion?  How is it similar and how is it difference from the kinds of judgments we see in art?

9.  “It is a great work of art, but I don’t like it.”  How, if at all, can someone say this with consistency?

10.  Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)  Big difference between judgments of taste and aesthetic judgments  AJ = make a universal claim and have a sense of “ought” built into them

11.  1. I like this painting  2. This painting is beautiful.  Statement 1 Differences can coexist.  Statement 2 Contradicting each other “beautiful” implies other ppl should see it too

12.  In our aesthetic judgments we are “suitors for agreement”

13.  What distinguishes aesthetic judgments from personal taste?  They are disinterested.

14.  If you are going to judge a work of art based on its merits, you should not bring your biography with you.

15.  Kant – we should look at art disinterestedly.  DOES NOT mean we should be uninterested, but we should go beyond our individual tastes and preferences  We need to appreciate it from a more universal stand point.  You don’t have to like something to appreciate it.

16.  “It is a great work of art, but I don’t like it.”  What are some examples of this in your own life?

17. 3/23

18.  Art Exposure  Are there universal standards in art?  How do you judge art?

19.  Experience Through Inquiry Artwork: What do I see? Context: What else can I learn? Interpretation: What does it mean? Connections Across Art: How does it compare to other artworks? Personal: What does it mean to me? Connections across subjects: How does it relate to other subject? Connections to Quotes….

20.  Experience Through Inquiry  The Singing Butler – Jack Vettriano

21.  Write down 5-10 adjectives that come to your mind when you look at the painting

22.  5-10 adjectives again

23.  1 – Compare your lists with your partners. Similarities? Differences?  2 -What, if anything, does this suggest to you about the nature of aesthetic judgment?  Painting 1: The Lake, Pentworth: Sunset, a Stag Drinking – Turner  Painting 2: The Mud Bath - Bomberg

24.  Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid Similar universality in musical tastes Similar tastes in art – landscape paintings?  Biology? American Dominance?

25.  Do you think the world is becoming culturally more homogeneous?  To what extent do you think that your own cultural tradition is under threat?

26.  To what extent do you think there are universal standards of what makes a face a face beautiful?  To what extent do you think it varies from culture to culture?

27.  Are people seeing similarities because they WANT to see similarities?  There may be universal ELEMENTS to different parts of art, but we should be careful not to blind ourselves to the differences.

28.  How much can we learn about the way a culture sees the world by studying the art that it produces?

29. 3/25

30.  Art Exposure using Experience through Inquiry  Art and knowledge: Art as Imitation  What is the purpose of art? What knowledge can you gain from art?

31.  South African Art  “Fishing Boats” – Irma Stern

32.  Art as imitation  Art as communication  Art as education

33.  Imitation or Copy Theory The purpose of art is to copy reality. (Mimetic Theory – Mimesis)

34.  Michelangelo, Ausguste Rodin…  We expect paintings/novels to be true to life…  Throughout history, the arts have been driven by the desire to achieve a perfect likeness

35.  Photos questioned everything! (but should they…. “essential you”) Why try to copy the world by paint when a perfect image can be created w/ a click of a button? Complete revolution in arts that caused a questioning of traditional arts…. Especially music

36.  Relation to Perception – (creative interpretation?)  Sophisticated View – great art helps us to see the world with new eyes Maybe drawing attention to unnoticed aspects?

37.  Art can subtly influence the way in which we experience the world

38.  Do you think that people turn to the arts to be more challenged or to be comforted?  Should the arts comfort or should they challenge?

39.  “The camera never lies.”  Do you agree or disagree with this quote?

40.  “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” – Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)  What do you think he meant by this?

41.  When Picasso was told that his portrait of Gerturude Stein didn’t look like her, he said, “Never mind! It will!”  What do you think he meant by this?