Really was something to think about this. So we talked over Plato and Aristotle and all the way up to 18th Century stuff, I hope I got it. I certainly was entertained by the talk of these two philosophical giants and their work.
There were three things that Jennie got us to look over once we’d left the class, the nature of the work, the meaning of the work, and the value of the art.
I’ll begin with the value of the work as thats the topic I find most current. It was interesting to see that art was undervalued by Plato to such a great extent, he saw it as a terrible thing which influenced the nation in a negative way. He saw it as making people act differenty to things which were fated, such as the Oedipus story. Plato also believed that art, especially painting, was holding up a pale mirror to society, reflecting it, but all wrongly without any thought as to knowledge and the intellect. In Jospeh Kosuth’s work “One and Three Chairs,” he refers to this theory, playing around with reality and representations. From left to right we read that that the first is Mimetic(a copy of a chair) in the second we can see an impression of a chair, and according to Plato the final definition is the only real chair there, the others are illusions and concepts.
This must have led to the value of art being extremely low until his successor and student Aristotle exclaimed his tutors teachings to be wrong, he saw it as a means of helping people learn from their mistakes and having catharsis, a sort of intense emotion, but managed in a setting (such as a play) so we may see a broader scope on emotions. This is true when saying you can only understand great happiness with great sadness. The value of art really increased with the Italian Renaissance when the capitalist art market expanded greatly. This was between 13th century and the 17th Century whenst art was bought by the noble bourgeois, who saw art as a way of making them look even wealthier. The artist started to become celebrities and to know one, or be associated through a piece of work would have brought tremendous social standing, this would have dramatically increased the value of art not only in money to to society as well, it changed and developed the whole way everyone did things. I am incredibly keen to learn more about this as I have used value of art before in my works and will be happy to continue researching it.
The Nature of the the art work is something very tricky to comprehend, the philosopher Aristotle believed art was more than just something to look at, it was seen by him as a way in which we could have communal empowerment and mass catharsis. This meant that in the arts world, the play was highly regarded as the strongest form of work. Comedies and Tragedies ruled the world back in those days. This is due to the work, even though it was unreal, it was able to provoke real emotions. This concept was a huge dividing point between Aristotle and his tutor in the subject of Aesthetics. As time went by though, arts became more about paintings and sculptures that people could claim ownership over due to the heavy emphasis on social classes. During this time, beauty became a very important part to the subject matter of art. The divine representation was “in mode” and all artists were trying to replicate the holy loveliness.
The third topic we are to look into is the meaning of the work. Mainly the artist is always the bearer of the concept, but this changed quite dramatically in the 18th century, when art was “allowed” to be made for art’s sake, it became about a feeling which pleased the senses; sensuous. This was very much due to the; philosophical thought at the time being one of an open type; the individual experience, which moved away from the communal feeling that Aristotle wanted to have exist; there was also the beginning of people questioning religion, this was hugely influential to the artists of the time and many artists went on to work on different subjects such as landscape or still life.
So so far, its been very interesting to hear about these philosophers, I think I could have made quite a good one if I wasn’t so fond of art. I do however feel a slight pull towards Plato’s talk of art being a very bad influence on society, which I do agree with. Its incredibly hard to find potent works which have a happy undermessage, most works are there to poke at society and spot its weaknesses.
Oh well, til the next Seminar adios
gordon douglas 