Purposes of Art

1. Purposes of Art Theory of Knowledge

2. aesthetic objects express eternal forms (Mimetic) • Plato and Aristotle held that artists create an imitation, or representation, of reality. • They were not advocating the naive idea that artists strive to mirror natural objects as exactly as possible. Rather, the artist seeks to represent the essential nature (essence) of objects, the rational forms on which they are patterned (Plato) or which are inherent in them (Aristotle). • For Plato, objects of art are twice removed from the Eternal Forms, since they are only images of copies of the Forms; that is, natural objects are imperfect copies of Eternal Forms, and works of art are only "imitations" of natural objects.

3. aesthetic objects express eternal forms (Mimetic)

4. aesthetic objects express eternal forms (Mimetic) • The metaphysical idealist insists that art objects point beyond themselves to a realm where the True, the Good, and the Beauti- ful already exist in completed form. • When representing a human body, for example, a painter or sculptor quite rightly creates an idealized figure whose proportions are perfectly symmetrical. • Since ultimate reality is morally perfect, artistic productions can be judged good when they accurately depict the moral and bad when they represent the immoral. • On this ground Plato and Tolstoy argued for censorship of the arts.

5. aesthetic objects express eternal forms (Mimetic)

6. aesthetic objects express suchness (Processional) • The purpose is not to understand or morally perfect art, but to accept it and celebrate it. • The art of artlessness. • Zen poets and artists embody this philosophy best in that they feel spontaneity does not represent nature, but is nature within itself. • Asymmetry, discord, and imperfection are suchness

7. aesthetic objects express suchness(Processional) On a journey, ill; My dream goes wandering Over withered fields.

8. Aesthetic objects express a unified experience (Pragmatism) • John Dewey believed art is the enhancement of a common experience. •  When we are conscious of an ordered movement of experience from a beginning to a culmination, the experience is unified, and we say that it was an experience. When we pay attention to the pervasive, integrated quality of an experience, our experience is esthetic.  •   The artist does not reveal some ghostly "essence" of things, but rather their essential meanings in and for experience. • A work of art means not the artist’s intention, but the unified quality of experience that, through time, it can evoke in perception. • This is why I force you to read.

9. Aesthetic objects express a unified experience (Pragmatism) • http://youtu.be/H3MiaSG1SMQ

10. Aesthetic objects express feelings (Expressionism) • Expressionism • Of the Artist • Of the Art Object • Of the Audience • The above are not mutually exclusive • Art may express the artist’s feelings in a very different sense if it symbolizes a sublimated sexual impulse (Freud), or primordial images (archetypes) from the unconscious (Jung, Herbert Read), or a playful, make- believe escape from reality

11. Aesthetic objects express feelings(Expressionism) • An art object does not assert any propositions about human feelings; it is a symbolic pointing toward them. A major function of art, in this view, is to clarify the inner life. Think catharsis. • Art expresses feelings in the sense of evoking them. It is undeniable that we experience sadness, joy, and other emotions while in the presence of esthetic objects. The question is whether our feelings tell us something about the artist’s intentions, about the art object itself, about our emotional state at the time, or about the meanings and expectations we project onto the esthetic object.

12. Aesthetic objects express feelings(Expressionism)

13. Aesthetic objects express feelings(Expressionism) • http://youtu.be/IvK4N2I9w3E?t=50s

14. Aesthetic objects express existential possibilities • Art is a pure possibility: not a representation of a possibility, but a possibility in itself • The artist creates by willing into existence some value in an inherently valueless existence. •  The art object is a spontaneous utterance, an enactment, of what an individual feels and imagines existence to be. The utterance, if authentic, is novel and original. It is "truthful" in the sense of being sincere and of revealing the vision to which the person is committed •  The only test of a work of art is the originality and honesty that mark its creation. Genuine art merges authentic feeling and imagination into an object whose meaning is completely clear. • Art helps us to taste the infinite variety of ways in which it is possible to be human.

15. Aesthetic objects express existential possibilities • http://youtu.be/FEPFH-gz3wE

16. Your Task • You will find two pieces of art that illustrate each of the theories: • Expression of Eternal Forms • Existential Possibilities • Expression of Feelings • Expression of Unified Feelings • Expression of Suchness • You may use any area of the arts: visual, performing, creative writing to achieve this feat. • You must include citations in MLA format. • You will intelligently present your pieces of art. You must know the title of the art and the artist and how it fits each of the theories. • You will be graded using the IB Presentation Rubric.