1. 1. For each video and article list/discuss the key concepts you learned.
Aesthetics: the Philosophy of Art transports the viewer throughout time to discuss multiple aspects of how philosophers have depicted aesthetics.
Information I found useful includes…
-Aesthetics involves the copy of reasoning of an idea.
-Human experience and knowledge is simply the reasoning of perfect ideas.
-Order and symmetry are preferred in composition and design
-“Beauty is harmony and perfection” So, if an artist reaches close to the exactness of an idea to an individual the more beautiful it may seem to that individual.
- Disengagement of reality is central to finding beauty in a work of art.
-At one time beauty and good were thought to be one and the same.
-Kant thought sensibility and reason is brought together by imagination through art
CARTA: Evolutionary Origins of Art and Aesthetics: Neurobiology, Neurology and Art and Aesthetics takes an anthropological stance on relating aesthetics from a scientific stand point.
-There is genetic and evolutionary backing for human preference to design and works of art.
-Art is a language of nonverbal communication to express reasoning and emotion
-The human brain has a preference for symmetry.
-Art is in constant motion and progression having its own history.
Seeing how aesthetics and art making is related to the translation of reasoning of ideas, the evolutionary expansion of the brain allows for humans to further expand on illustrating and giving form to ideas.
The article, What the brain draws from: Art and neuroscience, expanded on the neurological ways in which people analyze works of art by breaking them down into elements of design and how people have evolved to register and prefer certain visual arts over others. The article discusses how people and animals prefer exaggeration aesthetically. The article elaborates on how the scientific study of aesthetics works to evaluate art to learn more about the brain. At the end of the article it states how the reality of the brain or imagination is capable of overriding objective reality, a statement which seems to imply art has a lot of power in propelling thought and human reasoning.
2. Which philosopher's theory on aesthetics do you feel is most important? Be sure to mention the philosopher's name, era (time in history), and contribution to the aesthetic theory in your response.
Perhaps because I already have a fondness for Plato, I found his thoughts on aesthetics to be extremely captivating and useful to the philosophical branch of aesthetics. In 5th century Athens, Plato was discussing the nature of the idea and how it is the center of ephemeral experience. Additionally, he thought, most of human creation falls short of perfection but through reasoning one can imagine the idea of such. Plato expressed that ideas are grasped through reason rather than art. Plato did not appreciate artists and poets fully because he thought of art as a copy of the reasoning of an idea and that poets did know enough about an idea to express it. Plato’s strong feelings stimulate debate. While Plato perhaps devalues the artist, I find it beautiful that an artist is directly connecting with knowledge to translate and transform reasoning because that is what makes us human. I believe Plato’s evaluation of beauty and art shaped the original branch of aesthetics and helped create the origins, importance, and validity of aesthetics.
2. What do you think about Changeux and Ramachandran scientific view of aesthetics and art? What was the most interesting fact you discovered from each speakers lecture?
Changeux was highly interesting in his scientific evaluation in that he referred back to the expansion of the brain evolutionarily and directly linked the increase of reasoning to the increase of translating ideas through art. The fundamental principle of art. He also exposed the human desire for symmetry and this idea of sought perfection reflected by various philosophers as seen in the Philosophy of Art film.
Ramachandran was more exciting to me in that he is passionate about linking humanities and science. He discusses reactions to art and the human perception of specific works such as iconography. Ramachandran takes a more social evolutionary stand point rather than a genetic perspective. The most interesting fact that I discovered was that there are universal preferences of visually artistic aesthetic appeals. Ramachandran reduces and categorized eight of them.
4. How do the videos and article relate to the readings in the text?
The videos and article relate to the reading in terms of relating the term aesthetics to the concept of translating knowledge gained in sensory experience and feeling. While the book loosely explained the term and its importance in evaluating art the videos and article provided vast and specific pieces of information regarding how the human brain processes art and has specific methods of determining beauty.
Aesthetics: the Philosophy of Art gave philosophical credibility and insight. CARTA: Evolutionary Origins of Art and Aesthetics: Neurobiology, Neurology and Art and Aesthetics gave scientific and anthropological backing to the study of aesthetics by using genetic and neurological proof of human desire and preference for specific elements of composition and design in art. Lastly, the article utilized scientific depth to explain the human cognitive preferences and processes of form and design.
5. What is your opinion of the films and article? How do they add depth to understanding of the topics in your reading in the text?
I found Aesthetics: the Philosophy of Art to be extremely insightful in that it deeply analyzed philosophers conceptions of art and its function. Many philosophers agreed on art being the human way of taking reasoning of an idea and giving it beauty by trying to break down experience through order to achieve some form of perfection of a concept. The second video and article were a bit more challenging for me to relate to considering I am not a very scientific person. However, I am very interested in the human mind and how humans connect and relate to the world around us. Therefore, it was very insightful for me to discover so many ways in which humans have genetically evolved to prefer specific elements in art. Ramachandran was also a pleasure to listen to and made me laugh several times. Overall, the films and article assisted in deepening my understanding by expanding on the ideas and science of thousands of years in history in which humans have used cognitive reasoning to portray, communicate, and appreciate ideas in an attempt to expose and interpret pieces of knowledge via visualization.
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