Video and Article review

Aesthetics: Philosophy of Art

This videos main focus is the aesthetics of art, the beauty of art. From the roots all the way up to the 20th century. The roots of art is believed to have begun in the 4th century B.C. by Plato.
Throughout the years, many philosophers interpreted art and aesthetics in many different ways. The german philosopher of the 19th century, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was believed to have created a turning point in aesthetics history, he believed art imitates nature. Hegel distinguished three ages in the history of art, eastern, classical, and romantic. Hegel rejected the representational theories of art. He believed that art ended, it was a completed process. Romantic art was the last word in aesthetics. I believe Hegel's view were most important to aesthetic history. As time went on, through the 20th century, views of art were still changing. It is concluded that art cannot clearly be defined, art can consist of anything from performances and music to poetry, to sculpture and painting.

CARTA: Evolutionary Origins of Art and Aesthetics: Neurobiology, Neurology and Art and Aesthetics

Although some of this video did not make sense to me, I do not know much about science, I found some of the views of Changeux and Ramachandran interesting. When thinking about art, I have never considered the scientific view behind it. It is interesting how much art can alter the human mind. When watching Changeux's presentation, I found it interesting when he talked about empathy. The MRI's showed the difference between men and women when influenced by empathy. Art makes us aware of oneself. Ramachandran believes in the 8 laws of art (aesthetics), which is really just explaining the simple way of how the brain interprets art. It is interesting how art is actually proven to be pleasing to the brain.

What the Brain Draws From: Art and Neuroscience

This article pointed out a bunch of aspects about art that I have never noticed before. The way artist used different techniques like equal luminance is very interesting. The article stated that there are certain parts of the brain that try to distinguish faces from paintings and recognize color contrast. Artist will then play with different techniques to bring out these aspects in their art. I enjoyed reading about famous artists like Di Vinci and Monet and the way they used different techniques in their famous paintings. When science is brought into the concept of art I tend to get a little bit confused but it is amazing how the brain works when looking at art. 

The reading correlated with the videos and the article, talking about the history behind art, dating back to the stone age and the caves of Europe with walls covered in paintings. Art can be interpreted in many different ways, especially varying through cultures. Vincent Van Gogh was mentioned frequently throughout all of the sources. I have always wondered about the truth behind him cutting a portion of his ear off. The reading was more in depth about the themes of art and what it means. 

Opinion:


I liked learning about the history of art. At times it was a bit confusing because I do not know much about neuroscience but I still feel like I understood it pretty well. The history of art is interesting, the different themes, and conceptions was cool to learn about, I didn't know much from the beginning.