Module #2:

ART & AESTHETICS 

1. For each video and article list/discuss the key concepts you learned. 

(Aesthetics: Philosophy of the Arts) I think the key concepts of this video were really showing how the definition of art and art aesthetics are ever changing. It started with Plato saying how the artist does not know what he is doing (mainly talking about poets). Plato also said art is only a copy of a copy.  Then we were taken through Aristotle's view on aesthetics and saw his work "The Poetics" which was a rebuttal and critic of Plato's view. Aristotle thought that art and poetry was good for the city of Athens because it aroused strong emotions. Then we were taken through the Renaissance and Neo-Classical ideas and so on. The main concept being how the definition and what philosophers thoughts were changing based on culture. 

2. Which philosopher's theory on aesthetics do you feel is most important? Be sure to mention the philosophers name, era (time in history), and contribution to the aesthetic theory in your response.

I thought that Emmanuel Kant's, from the 18th century, contribution was most important because of his saying there was no exact science of the beautiful. That the judgement of beauty could not be determined by concepts because they were simply guesses. It was a guess on how one would feel and react to spending time with that piece. 

3. 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? 

I thought Changeux and Ramachandran's scientific views of aesthetics were interesting because they explained the chemical and factual side of how we see and understand art. the most interesting thing I thought from Changeux's lecture was the distinct difference of how our brain interprets visible words from masked words. Our brain lights up different areas and some much more prominent when we see visible words from those we have to interpret. (Honestly, I had a vary hard time understanding this lecture and the subtitles on Youtube made it much more confusing.) 
I really enjoyed Ramachandran's lecture, he was funny even though he was still talking about aesthetics from a scientific view point He explained how our eyes and brain pick up the images and process them and how art works because there are so many areas of the brain that work on visual aspects of the image and process them. Artists then distort images that are pleasing to the brain and activate all those centers. 

4. How do the videos and article relate to the readings in the text?

The videos and article related to the readings in the text by both exploring why. Why we like art, why there is art and where it started or where we think it started. The book as well as the video(2) showed the cave drawings of lines and how the earlier humans could pick up what those lines were showing and expressing. Other animals do not do this. We can see a sketch of the room we are in and understand that even though they are only lines they represent and show much more. We understand reason. The article, videos and readings in the book talk about what aesthetics is and what is has to do with beauty and art. We see in all three too that beauty and art do not necessarily match and that what is beautiful may not equal art because of how images can be distorted to seem pleasing to the eye and not convey what we may think beauty actual is. 

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?

The films and article were interesting to me because they explained a lot about what I had not really thought too much about. I had never thought of why we can see lines and understand them, it was just something that was. Or why we can see faces and images in clouds and stains, because as babies we used that distinction of faces for our benefit. I enjoyed the assignment because it made me think about what aesthetics was and how it related to art and beauty and it also made me realize that there is much more a connection between us and art.