Questions and Topics for Your Blog Posting:

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

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.

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? 

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

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?

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1. One of the key concepts that I have learned is from Arthur C. Danto a professor at Columbia  

    university making the statement of what makes something a work of art? What is the 

    difference from everything else? this to be the beginning question when you are looking at         

    something to define what it actually is classified as. Art in era of B.C. was not viewed as 

    something aesthetically pleasing but rather looked down upon from philosophers especially 

    from Plato. He thought poorly of artists and poets because of the “fact” that their works of art 

    were just imperfect copies of the real objects and were speaking of things that were untrue  

    or unrealistic in the mind of a philosopher. Alexander Baumgarten famously coined the word 

    of aesthetic and its meaning. When it came to Changeux and Ramachandran’s lecture I 

    found it really interesting how evolution played a role in the works of art. How the origin and 

    the capacity of the brain allowed artists to only create what could have been allowed by 

    their capacity of knowledge and surroundings. I really found it strange and amusing that art 

    is a “lie.” The artist create his piece of work by what he or she perceives to be the truth and 

    we as an audience will either buy into that work of art or we will disapprove of the work 

    created. It is the job of the artist to make us believe that it is believable and acceptable that 

    the sky is painted green for example and that the tree is very unrealistic in its line drawings 

    but if the artist can make us see the whole picture and trick us into thinking that work is 

    actually a reflection from the sky to the ground then they have pulled off the truth.  

2. Francis Hutcheson form 18th century stated, “Ideas brought about in our soul by beauty and  

    harmony delight us necessarily and immediately, just like the other sensible ideas.” I feel 

    that this is really important because due to Plato giving artists a really a really poor 

    reputation and discredited their work it brought life back into artists work when being viewed 

    by others. Artists were on the rise and were given credit for their work by Aristotle creating a 

    book of poetics which showed how art was indeed for a fact constructed but with this quote 

    from Hutcheson it opened a new door in the viewing of art. Individuals were now not just 

    seeing the beauty but could related to it on a personal level and bring joy to their lives

    based off of what they were able to see and interpret from what they were able to view the 

    work of art as. 

3. From Changeux and Ramachandran’s scientific view of aesthetics and art lecture I found the 

    most interesting fact to be related to the brain. Work’s of art has made progression in detail 

    as the decades went on from the level of being able to comprehend and the advances in 

    tools. Individuals in the earliest forms of art created were only able to make stick and line 

    drawings because that is all that their brains to handle and allow the artists to create along 

    with the tools used which were usually stones. As the mind started to advance over the 

    decades and brain capacity was increasing details and new forms of art were able to 

    generate as well as the tools that could create the art.

4. The videos and article relate to the readings in the text by giving us a visual example of 

    works of art form that time, to pictures of philosophers, in-depth meanings behind the 

    decades of why art is created, the time history from where the beginning of art was created 

    up to modern day, and the history of how we got to works of art in this day and age. 

5. I really enjoyed watching the films and reading the CNN article. It really added depth in the 

    fact of how humans created art and how through the era’s were able to expand their 

    capacity of the brain and increase their methods in creating their works of art and the 

   appreciation levels growing as the era’s went by.


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