Make-believe

Think back to the last time you played make-believe. Compare it to reading a book or enjoying some other narrative art-form. Are they completely the same? What are some similarities? Differences?

Creativity and Beauty

We have been recently talking about the concept of Beauty and the concept of Creativity. What do you think the relationship is between the two? Are creative things beautiful? Do we recognize true creativity through beauty? Or does creatvity perhaps need traditional concepts of beauty in order to be able to create something worthy of being labled "beautiful"?

Thursday, April 12th+19th

I just wanted to let you all know that I won't be able to make it to the library this Thursday. Next Thursday the URC is happening on campus, so I won't be there then either.

If you do have any questions or need help with something, just shoot me an email :)

Dickie

On page 431 in our book, Dickie claims that institutional formality and rules for art “would threaten the freshness and exuberance of art.” In what ways would rules and formalities do this? In what ways could these things promote and sharpen creativity? Is it possible to conceive of art without a certain set of rules and expectations?

Hanslick and Kivy

Kivy seems to propose that the subject of music is the emotional quality it brings forth in us. This seems to contradict Hanslick, who holds that only things we can voice in words are content and the emotional/aesthetic qualities of music do not belong in this.

Hanslick seems to imply, though, that there is something in music that we simply cannot put into words. What do you think this might be? Do you think he's right, that there is something mysterious and inaccessible to us in music? Does Kivy's proposal of emotional content hold against Hanslick's thesis?

Carlson

Allen Carlson quotes Hepburn in saying that people who have the wrong sort of education or aren't in the right mindset to appreciate nature will either pay little heed to it or will look at it "the wrong way". Carlson seems to imply that for each setting there is a "right" mindset to have and way to view the landscape/ flower/ summer afternoon.

Is this true? Or is it possible that there are multiple "right" ways to view a natural environment? Or is there no "right" way and perhaps only shades of appreciation?

Danto

Danto says that the existing theories on art shape our view of art and enable us to see art at all.

Give an example from your own life in which you only fully understood and appreciated a work of art after it and the theory surrounding had been explained to you. Now think of a work of art you still dislike/don't understand and assess how an understanding of the theory behind it could change your mind.