Tok Art Notes

Reading Notes

Chapter 11 – Arts

Name: James Park

Introduction:

Essential Ideas & TOK vocabulary:

• In our culture, humans create certain objects for aesthetically pleasing reasons rather than of practical value.

• Creativity seems to distinguish human beings from other animals (highest and most satisfying form of human life.

• Arts include not only painting and sculpture, but dance, film, literature, music and theatre as well.

What is art?

Essential Ideas & TOK vocabulary:

• "What distinguishes worthwhile art from junk?"

• Art = man-made

1. Intentions of the artist:

 Work of art by someone with the intention of evoking an aesthetic (beauty) response in the audience.

 Critics: something that was not originally intended as art may now be treated as such, and this art might simply be junk

2. Quality of the work:

 Great work of art is a perfect combination of form(depicts such as a face, a landscape, etc) and content(the way it is put together such as unity, order, etc)

 Critics: some arts show originality, but require little technical skill such as kitsch and forgeries

3. Response of spectators:

 ‘the general public' prefer the familiar to the strange and content to form

 Expert opinions guides us to decided which works of art are genuinely worthwhile (understand the meaning of a work of art; sophisticated)

• Other ideas about arts

 Everything can be looked at from an aesthetic point of view

 Inexhaustibility: ideal spectator helping us to distinguish enduring art from art which is merely fashionable

Judging art

Essential Ideas and TOK vocabulary:

• The paradox of aesthetic judgement:

 Standards of judgement – justifies certain art works (good or bad)

 Cannot argue about tastes in the arts

• Should aesthetic judgements be disinterested?

 In our aesthetic judgements we are ‘suitors for agreement'

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