module 2 blog post

The Key Points of the Aesthetics: Philosophy of the Arts video:

• Aesthetics is the philosophical study of beauty and art.
• Beauty and Art are not one in the same.
• The philosophical study of Beauty and Art has its roots in 5th century Athens, with philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle both theorizing on what beauty is, how it can be categorized, and what relation it has to art.
• The foundation of Aesthetics as we study it today began in 18th century England. This is where we see the first modern system of the arts.
• The Kantian theory of the Genius Artist helped shape the movement of romanticism. Romantics believed that personal talent was necessary to be a great artist, and that a person is born with talent, therefore it cannot be taught. In the 19th century, romanticism was the canon of Aesthetics.
• The 20th century saw an increase in the interest aesthetics. The most pressing problem facing 20th century aesthetics was the notion of art itself, and the introduction of the Expression theory of art.
• Expression theory states that art is the expression of emotion.
• In the later half of the 20th century the Avant-Garde movement of art sought to pull away from traditional definitions and conventions of beauty in art. This put pressure on the rigid framework of previous theories.
• In response, some turned to the new philosophy of language. This theory stated that in order to understand a word, one must first consider its customary uses, because that word is nothing beyond those uses.
• In 1956 this theory was applied to the idea of art, stating that there are no necessary and sufficient conditions that make something a work of art. 
• As a result of the loosening of the definitions of what makes something art, the 20th century saw a massive growth in variety of the means of expression that artists used to create their work, and an expansion in the ideas they discussed with their pieces.
• By the end of the 60's there was a general agreement that a work of art could look like anything, and that it did not necessarily have to be beautiful.
• The Avant-Garde was eventually adopted by mainstream culture.
• Advances in technology allowed for virtually unlimited reproduction of an artistic object that could not have been reproduced at that volume before.
• Aesthetics had to adapt to the new reality that technology such as television could project art across a much wider variety of audiences in a way that hadn't previously existed.
• Contemporary aesthetics involves the observer in the creation of the artistic object, demanding a new sensibility for both artist and audience.

The key points of CARTA: Evolutionary Origins of Art and Aesthetics: Neurobiology, Neurology and Art and Aesthetics video:

• The discovery of tools was the first step toward humans creating art, because they were altering an existing object into something with a new purpose.
• Following the discovery of tools was the discovery of symmetry, which humans found advantageous for making effective tools.
• The discovery of symbolism lead humans to begin to create objects that served no functional purpose in their daily life, but that served purpose in an unseen way to interact with invisible forces that humans had no control over.
• The discovery of artistic composition came with the refinement and the expansion of symbolism, relating things in everyday life in a symbolic way through art and visual representation.
• "Work of art"- artifacts, human productions... specialized for inter-subjective communication that use symbolic forms which could either be genetically or epigenetically encoded.
• Works of art are non verbal.
• Through the evolution and genetic growth of the human species, art has developed and grown to be more complex. The development of art and the art world is then related to genetics and changes in the human genome. 

I feel that the most important philosophical theory comes from Alexander Baumgarten, a German thinker who lived during the height of the enlightenment, where rationality dominated philosophy. Baumgarten hypothesized that art and beauty belonged to a middle ground between sensitivity and reason. He believed that art leads us from the merely sensible, to rational understanding. He also coined the word Aesthetics, which finally gave a way to categorize the philosophical study of art and beauty.

I find Changeux and Ramachandran's scientific view if aesthetics and art very interesting. Their study of human evolution and it's correlation with the development of art and aesthetics is different from any other way I've seen art history presented. I find it interesting that art is a result of humans altering objects in their environment, and that the action of doing so began with humans creating the first tools. 

The Aesthetics: Philosophy of the Arts video is the one that I believe follows the text the most directly, and hits on many of the same points as the text. The exploration of art and how it is discussed throughout the ages, along with the focus on specific artists and philosophers is very similar.

My opinion of the films in article is that they were helpful in expanding my understanding of the subjects presented in the text in a differently organized way. They added depth to the subjects of the reading by focusing on specific evolutionary periods in human existence, artistic movements, and philosophers who focused on those subjects. They helped to broaden subjects that the text didn't touch on to specifically, or that I would have wanted a larger understanding of.