The Arts

Responding to and Understanding Art

Bruno Catalano, Les Voyageurs, Marseilles

 Knowledge framework
Scope
● Do the disciplines in the arts diverge from one another more fundamentally than
disciplines within other areas of knowledge?
● Does new knowledge in the arts always build on what is already known?
● How have new technologies changed the nature and scope of the arts as an
area of knowledge?
● Are the arts best seen as a system of knowledge, a type of knowledge or a
means of expressing knowledge?
● Is artistic knowledge something that cannot be expressed in any other way?
● Is the relationship between “knowing how” and “knowing that” different in the
arts compared to other areas of knowledge? Does art enlarge what it is
possible for us to think and know?
Perspectives:
• Can a work of art have meaning of which the artist themselves is unaware?
• How does knowing more about the social, cultural or historical context of a work of art
have an impact on our knowledge of the work itself?
• Can art change the way we interpret the world?
• What are the justifications for, and implications of, claiming that there are absolute
standards for “good art”?
• Who determines what art is valued, and on what criteria?
• What role does the history of an artform play in evaluating present work?

Methods & Tools:

● Does convention play a different role in the arts compared to other areas of knowledge?
● If the language of an art form is non-verbal, does this free it from being limited to
propositional knowledge?
● Can some knowledge in the arts only be gained through experience? How does the
medium used change the way that knowledge is produced, shared or understood?
● To what extent are the methods of justification different in the arts compared to other areas
of knowledge?
 Just for Fun
Bob Ross painting
clouds
Activity: With a partner, choose a type
of art and generate
a “List of Criteria by Which to Judge It”
Some possible genres of art:

Music
Drama
Visual art–paintings
Visual art–photography
Literature
 Example 1
• Rene Magritte’s The Lovers,
1928

• Belgian surrealist painter,

1898-1967
 Criteria for
Evaluating Art
• Must have quality; skill
(originality)
• A sense of aesthetic–
must create an impact on
the viewer
• Convey a message /
purpose
• Use of Medium
• Evokes emotion
• Context in which work
was created Rene Magritte’s Son of Man
Wheatfield with Crows
 Context for the Painting
• Van Gogh (1890’s)
• One of the final paintings in his life (but not the last as sometimes
claimed)
• Artist committed suicide
• Artist is considered to be great
• Artist’s own words about the piece:
• They are vast fields of wheat under troubled skies, and I did not need to go out of my
way to try to express sadness and extreme loneliness. I hope you will see them
soon--for I hope to bring them to you in Paris as soon as possible, since I almost
think that these canvases will tell you what I cannot say in words, the health and
restorative forces that I see in the country.
 Leo Tolstoy’s Perspective on
Purpose of Art: Infecting Others
• “Condition of human life”

• “To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having
evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colors,
sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that
others may experiences the same feeling-this is the activity of art.

• Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man, consciously,

by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has
lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and
also experience them.
 On Blues & Authenticity
Wynton Marsalis: That means you would probably tell a younger musician or the person
who’s interested in playing or listening to the blues or enjoying the blues that you don’t have to
create a situation where your wife has to leave you, or where you get shot or something, to get
in step with the blues idiom statement.

Albert Murray: That’s a very big fallacy in dealing with art. You see, art is a matter of
mastering the devices of expression. Just because you suffer doesn’t make you an artist. It’s
the mastery of the means of expression that makes you an artist. People say, well, Bessie
Smith sang the blues because she suffered and this and that. Why is she always suffering in
the twelve-bar chorus? You know what I mean? [laughter] Twelve- bar chorus, eight-bar
chorus, four bars. Art is a stylization of raw experience. It is not like cinema verité or something
like that. It’s how you stylize it into aesthetic statement. We could say that art is a means by
which you process raw experience into aesthetic statement. Then, when you get the aesthetic
statement, that feeds back into general human consciousness and raises their level of
perception of their possibility in the face of adversity.
 On Blues & Form in Art and when
to shift the “convention”
Albert Murray: Well, you know, one of the basic fallacies with so much twentieth-century art journalism is
that they confuse art with rebellion and revolution. Art is really about security. The enemy is entropy, the
enemy is formlessness. Art is about form. Art is about elegant form. If you’re going to be just for tearing
down something, that is as ridiculous as trying to embrace entropy, then you’re gonna embrace chaos. If
you want to try that, go down to the waterfront and try to embrace some waves coming in. You’ll do much
better trying to surf on the waves. You’ve gotta be elegant to surf. You go out there and hug those breakers
coming in, that would be exactly the same thing as hugging a monster from the depths of the earth, or
hugging a dragon and whatnot. They are always defeated by what Thomas Mann calls “life’s delicate child.”
And man prevails through his style, through his elegance, through his control of forces. Not through his
power, but through his control. People who confuse art with attack forget that what art is mainly concerned
about is with form, and adequate form, and the artist is the first to know when a form is no longer as
serviceable as it was. You see? And that’s what innovation is about. He’s trying to keep that form going and
he finds it necessary to extend, elaborate it, and refine it; to adjust it to new situations. That’s what
innovation is about. It’s not to get rid of something simply to be getting rid of it, or to turn something around.
It’s to continue something that is indispensable.
 Kara Walker
A Sublety, or the Marvelous
Sugar Baby
 Find an interview with an artist in which
they discuss their work

What knowledge can you identify in the interview in regards to artistic

endeavors/processes? Does the artist speak to their intent? Message for the
audience? Does the artist speak to the process of making art? The form
itself? The context? Critical views on the art? Think about the the critical
perspectives if they help

Any type of art is available for this - you will write a short reflection about
your choice and some key takeaways - in particular, I want you to focus on
the knowledge that your selection uncovers for you in terms of the arts