Art and the Philosophy of...

Post Reply New Topic

So here I am doing a nice little final project on the philosophy of Aesthetics and I am presented with a whole bunch of questions. I wanted to see what you guys's opions and views are on art.

1- what is art?

2- How should we judge art?

3- What is the value in art?

In the philosophy land, there's two types of thinking presented: Rationalist; where things are discovered through knowledge we know already and certain techniques such as informational deduction.

Emperical: is where we perceive and pursue through our senses.

I've found that in the art world, rationalist thought is influenced by culture and social class influencing artistic judgement, while art can simply perceived through the senses via empirical thought.

oi...
What do you guys think?

1- Art is whatever we say it is

2- We should personally judge art about how it makes us feel. However, we are fortunate enough to have critics explain to us what we should or should not like about it.

3- The value in art is whatever the market will bear.

Art is singularly lacking in logic, at least as far as I can tell.

This probably isn't much help, but art will do that to you over time...

IMO, art is useless. It's a waste of money. Why would someone buy a painting/sculpture etc., except "to look at it"? It has no use, no function. People who go to art.. gallery.. party-things, sicken me. They agree with the person who has the most amount of money, without thought for taste. They would rather buy the name, than the actual art.

actually, art (until fairly recently) outperformed in value most stocks, bonds, even gold at times. A lot of people buy it for investment value. I find that sad, but then I can't afford art (except what 'art' I make...

All people do is look at books and films as well. Does that also render them useless?

Though as far as modern art is concerned, the second part of your statement is accurate.

Yes, they are similarly worthless, except people look at them for hours for lack of better things to do. Entertainment is taking up more and more time, when people should be learning and/or working.

Although personally, 99.999%+ movies are utter rubbish.

What exactly do you do for entertainment, pray tell?

I like looking at art. Most of it is stupid, but some of it gives me emotions, and some makes me wonder.
Art gallery party things are where a lot of art is together at one place. I don't agree with people because I am not that sociable.
The art I buy has nothing to do with artist names or other peoples money. It has to do with what I want to stare at all the time besides my bare walls.

That's very astute, Stefman.

I would say I am primarily a rationalist, though I'm not incapable of appreciating art from an empirical standpoint, either.

What's your take on this?

If you want to get something out of art you have to study it, understand its history and relationship to culture and perception and make your own judgments as to what you like and don't like. There are basically three aspects to art. That of the creator, that of the viewer and that of the market. They each have their own viewpoints and should be considered separately.

I'm a very 'emperical' learner so I would generally accept that the only way to understand things is through experience. However, I seem to think that art is a combination of both thinkings. I believe that we we should value art for is that it reminds us and shares with us of what life was like way back when the artist made that piece.

tolstoy crappled on for a few paragraphs of what the true value of art was and when I deciphered it, it suddenly made sense.

Art is the embodiment of the artist's wish to have others learn empathy.

I mean what better idea is that?
It makes sense as expression became the new focus of art in the early 19th century I believe, so the mood and feelings of the artist is embodied in the work...

Wow, I'm really sounding wanky and pretensious...

Ahem

I do believe that having art and buying it is not a waste of time. Nor is it a prohibit to our ability to learn or work. You have obvious distress with the world, and I personally would like to know what you do for fun as well.

Different philosophers have different understandings about art and it changes from culture to culture and era to era. It's like asking "What is literature" That ranges from comic books to the Bible to Shakespeare to Dr. Seuss. It's not one thing.

@Krem : Awesome picture. Link to more?

Google Zdzislaw Beksinski. (Yeah, for those of us not from Russia, it's a horrible name )

How exactly does one pronounce that? Phonetically that is...

googled him, and clipping pictures like mad. Reminds me of some of Giger's work.