Cooper Vs Alan Wallach Essay

In a world that has become immune to accepting all types of art, Marya Mannes believes we have lost our standards and ability to identify something as “good” or “bad”. In her essay, “How Do You Know It’s Good”, she discusses society’s tendency to accept everything out of fear of wrongly labelling something as being good or bad. She touches on various criteria to judge art, such as the artist’s purpose, skill and craftsmanship, originality, timelessness, as well as unity within a piece rather than chaos. She says that an individual must decide if something is good “on the basis of instinct, experience, and association” (Mannes). I believe that by using standards and the process of association, we will be able to judge what makes an art piece good in comparison to others. However, Mannes forces me to consider the difference between what may be appealing versus what is actually good, and when deciding which art we should accept, which is truly more important. I believe that “good” and “bad” are two ends of a large, subjective spectrum of grey area. It is possible for a piece of art to be good in some areas and bad in others, and if something does not live up to all of our standards, it does not necessarily mean it should be dismissed. Thus, I believe my personal standards for judging art are based on which my standards are largely based on the personal reaction evoked from a piece of art. Though I agree with Mannes’ standards to an extent, I believe that certain standards, such as evoking a personal response, can be more telling of if a piece of art is good as opposed to its timelessness, or the level of experience of an artist in his/her craft.

Art History is the study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts. The history of art, we feel, can sometimes be confused with art criticism. However, Art History is concerned with finding the value of the artistic piece in respect with others in the same category of art or movement, and art criticism is more of an evaluation of art. The art examined best represents the culture during the time period, visions the artist imagined, and history behind an event. It also represents society in a specific area, beliefs the people may have, writing that tells a story, the natural world and environment, conflict between people and areas, and the human body. With these representations, artwork overall represents the life in which we live (d). Each piece has its own genre, design, format and style to it. This makes each piece extremely different, yet pleasing to the eye. They also vary between paintings, sculptures and architecture. These different types also make a variety of artwork to be seen by all people. The art pieces that I chose, Jar, Bottle and Glass by Juan Gris, The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí, and Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, seemed interesting to me and I believe to best represent the context in which they were created, along with the major artistic movements of the time. I went on to research them more thoroughly to better understand the history behind them,

I’ll be the first to admit it: I cannot understand art for the life of me. That being said, I’m somehow always tricked into thinking I do. I’ve tried my hand at being one of those intellectuals who goes to art museums for recreation, and enjoys analyzing pictures, paintings and monochromic blobs. But every time I drag myself to a museum, I end up discovering the same three truths about myself: 1. I’m horrible at grasping the artist’s message. 2. I get frustrated with things I don’t understand. 3. When I get frustrated, I get mad. That being said, it was only natural that I go to the Krannert Art Museum to see the Brown v. Board of Education exhibit.

In conclusion, these two articles are connected through the different points of view of elitism and populism. Elitists want one excellence scale, and populists want relative scales. Smith claims the public needs more guidance in art appreciation, and Reimer disagrees with elitist curriculum. These authors have contrasting points of view, but they are connected by the excellence criteria scales and the mutual belief in the importance of art

He started his article, “How African-American Artists Fought to Diversify Museums”, with an overview of the history of the issue. The article stated the importance of the initial attempts to mollify black artists and how the attempts sparked more outrage by displaying the blatant disproportion of diversity. It concluded that all of these events built up and provoked a movement to include more art as seen to this day. It focuses on how museums are still guilty of conforming to social and political views, as seen by the types of art displayed and who created them. The article then turns into an interview with author, Susan Cahan, to discuss political influences in museums throughout history and what effect it has on the art world today concerning black artists. Unlike the New York Times article, this story went into excessive detail of how the movement to include more African American artists started and the progress that has been achieved throughout the years. It granted the reader a more thorough understanding about the movement and why it has been (and still is) a serious issue today. The comparisons it brings up from the very first attempt to include black artists in an exhibit—“Harlem on My Mind”—to the exhibits today document the remarkable progress made as well as the excessive amount of protesting that accompanied it. Both articles were great sources of information for people looking into the history of black artists exhibition, but the critical difference between the two was the tone: the first article viewing the situation to be long-overdue but hopeful, while the second article spoke of the situation from the perspective of an author who felt the museums should be ashamed of their lack of effort throughout the

History has had an inarguable and behemoth impact on the trajectory of art and literature that it surrounds. Quite often, these mediums are a mere reflection of the artist's or author’s existence, and can be viewed as heavily autobiographical, regardless if the artist acknowledges this or not. In fact, many artists and authors will deny that their work is influenced by outside events, and wish to attest that their productions are sporadically born out of the creative abyss of their minds. However, this is absolutely false, since that mind is undoubtedly affected by external stimuli. Consequently, it is an undeniable premise that history changes the course of literature.

How does one re-work history? Do they re-work the message around it or do they re-work culture that surrounds it. In this essay we will look at two artists that reshape and re contextualize historical works. They create a meaning that forms a new genealogy around the image, creating a new subject of discussion.

While reading In Defense of a Liberal Education by Fareed Zakaria there are several references to the study of Art History, even one publicly mentioned by President Barack Obama. Among these references in Zakaria’s novel art history was perceived as frivolous, questionable and waste of a degree, not all quotes but most. I had to understand why the study of art history is how the World took it and why, along with what Zakaria himself deemed it to be and how art history just might help me among my studies. My first observation was that I myself did not know what art history even was and why it was deemed so horribly. Indefinitely I searched up the definition of art history discovering that is was the study of art objects in their historical development

Phip Murray’s art history writing, through which her lecture manifests, highlights a key concern for the advocacy of an early settler, Marcus Clarke’s, writing. In speaking through his work, she begins to deconstruct her approach in analysing art history, or more specifically art history writing.

How often do we see things in life that require a double-take, a second glance, a follow-up look, or even multiple subsequent studies? The answer is quite simple: everyday. The things we often look at a second time are often not intellectually worth the look, whether it be an irrational teenager attempting some outrageous skateboarding stunt, a monkey drinking its own urine, or even a two-headed cat, people have stopped spending their second or third glances on things that are meaningful and sensible. As a result people have lost the appreciation of evaluating and scrutinizing art and often don’t think of looking at it a second or third time to really “look” at it. Sure people go to museums and galleries, but nowadays, how many of them

Such a method of curation is noted to be driven by periodization and chronology. Postmodernist thinkers, however, have regarded this approach as a false narrative, since it offers only one account regarding the human past. In view of this, The Play of the Unmentionable was an attempt to disrupt the false narrative that many galleries and museums offered at the time. Kosuth’s show was a defiant show that sought to deprive the narrative its usual privileges. Furthermore, the curator sought to reposition his viewers in line with how he interpreted works of art (Kosuth 56). Notably, the main distinction between a display curated by an artist and another curated by a historian of art is that the artist embraces subjective duties for the extra meaning that the display adds to the presentation in itself because of the nature of such activity. Traditionally, art historians have objectified what ought to be regarded as a subjective

To excel in exams, one must memorize hundreds of artworks and compare them not only aesthetically but also within their cultural backgrounds. To prepare, I studied relevant information such as the dates, media, and artistic expressions to understand how these artworks fit within their cultural contexts. This memorization requires countless hours allocated to otherwise negligible details in order to understand the human factors surrounding these timeless masterpieces, such as craftsmanship, patronage, and audience. These factors are crucial, as professors would often include artworks that our class had never covered, and we were expected to accurately identify the piece based on the artworks our class

As an aspiring art historian who has been exposed to a variety of diverse methods for analyzing art, there are two techniques in particular that stand prominent amidst the others: the ideas of Erwin Panofsky and Adrian Piper. It is not invalid to say that both art historians share a similar view of interpreting works of art, however, they also manage to complement one another perfectly. An integration of both Piper and Panofsky's points of view would result in an impeccable approach to delving into the minds of the artists and determining the significance of the works of art that they constructed.

Throughout the vast history of art, historians can find connections throughout the centuries. Artists from the beginning of humankind have been inspired by the world around them. From the Apollo 11 stones to present day, history and culture have provided inspiration and have been the focus of various pieces. Examining artwork from the 15th-18th century, viewers can be shown a whole world that would be unknown to us without these artist’s contributions. History, religion, and cultural events have sculpted the art world, and we can observe this through many pieces during the 15th-18th centuries.

For over two thousand years, various philosophers have questioned the influence of art in our society. They have used abstract reasoning, human emotions, and logic to go beyond this world in the search for answers about arts' existence. For philosophers, art was not viewed for its own beauty, but rather for the question of how art and artists can help make our society more stable for the next generation. Plato, a Greek philosopher who lived during 420-348 B.C. in Athens, and Aristotle, Plato’s student who argued against his beliefs, have no exceptions to the steps they had to take in order to understand the purpose of art and artists. Though these two philosophers made marvelous discoveries about the existence of art, artists, and