The Art Of Dwelling

Scott Russell Sanders writes in the passage, Making a Home in a Restless World, “Stand still, we are warned, and you will die”, demonstrating the stereotypical mindset of many Americans (Sanders 17). The passage written by Scott Russell Sanders is a response to Rushdie about the ongoing debate on whether moving or migration is beneficial or damaging towards America. Rushdie who left his Native India for England believes that it is extremely valuable for migrants to make a “new imaginative relationship with the world because of the loss of familiar habits”, insinuating that moving is valued (Sanders 47). While Scott Russell Sanders believes the contrary. He believes that when we finally decide to settle in we will make a more durable home for ourselves. In the passage, Making a Home in a Restless World, the author Scott Russell Sanders utilizes the rhetorical appeal of emotional pathos as well as the rhetorical device of hasty generalization so that he can stress his perspective on migration.

Since the beginning of time, artists have labored extensively to find innovative ways to convey sentiment, passion, and feeling. Telling stories and trying to unlock the minds of people through different avenues of artistic labors. Art touches and affects people in unique ways; it can have special or unusual meaning on the person depending on how one views it. Artists’ rendering of their art is interpreted in numerous ways by others who view it unless it is explained by the artist on its meaning giving a clear example of what they are portraying. Two people looking at the same painting, sculpture, portrait, or photo may come to different views on the arts meaning even though they are looking

gallery space. However, it is the aim of a postmodern artist to step outside these

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but maybe they are worth far more than that. Pictures, although seemingly simple in nature, are extremely complex. Far too often, people overlook what a picture truly is. When a person looks at an image, they most likely see only the image, nothing else. Many people do not look deep enough into an image to fully comprehend the true meaning of it. However, when an individual begins to truly study an image in an attempt to understand the true complexity of it, they will be surprised at what they overlooked before. As stated by French Realist Painter, Gustave Courbet, “Fine art is knowledge made visible.”

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.

Just as other works that reflect art, pieces in the category of fine arts serve the important message of passing certain messages or portraying a special feeling towards a particular person, function or activity. At times due to the nature of a particular work, it can become so valuable that its viewers cannot place a price on it. It is not the nature or texture of an art that qualifies it, but the appreciation by those who look at it (Lewis & Lewis, 2008).

Dwelling about my own feelings led the direction of frustration and anger as I grew older, feeling for anybody’s feelings or situations, almost non-existent; don’t miss-understand, I had marvelous times and a caring person to an extent. Growing slowly into a person whose true character lived in a cage, confined to prison and when released, it was madness, not intending to only injure, I wanted to see blood, tasting this flavor in my mouth before a confrontation. Choosing who I wanted to associate with and if others left me alone there was no problem, although, at the end of the sixth grade the nestling soul fell asleep. There was a boy in school that began tormenting me every day walking home; undesirable name calling. Eventually deciding to

“Painting today is pure intuition and luck and taking advantage of what happens when you splash the stuff down. “- Francis Bacon. However when I learnt more about history of art and the way each movement and happenings in the world inspired artist to make new works, I was able to see much more than just a canvas with random paints and sketches. The interesting part about this concept is that each piece of art could be interpreted in many different ways. In contemporary art there isn’t right and wrong, each of us view and find different meanings and connections with artworks.

As onlookers peer into the artworks in front of them, there is no question as to whether or not they considered what the artwork means, where it came from and what the artist was interested in who created it. The

This “hunger”, this fundamental human need, which good art satisfies is the need for man to be united. This lack of connection leaves humans hungry for real connection with those around them, connections that are not tainted with corruption, but art that makes all men feel united and same as one another. “Art begins when one person, with the object of joining another or others to himself in one and the same feeling, expresses that feeling by certain external indications.” (Tolstoy, 9). The first bite of food to satisfy the hunger begins with expression of an idea that evokes emotion in the artist, which also evokes emotion from people around the artist. “Sometimes people who are together, if not hostile to one another, are, at least estranged in

I think that the end result is truthfulness. Every artist must be sincere and truthful if he wants to be a great and true artist over and over again art is predictable to request and bond with human being feelings. Art can awaken aesthetic or ethical feelings. The amount of skillfulness that the artist has will influence over the capability they have so they can to generate an emotional response and by this means make available new insights. Art tends to smooth the progress of spontaneous slightly than coherent thoughtfulness, and frequently it is knowingly shaped with this purpose. Art calculatedly serves no other function. As a result of this forward motion, works of art are hard to pin down, refractive to attempts at arrangement, for the reason that they can be respected in more than one way, and are often vulnerable to many dissimilar interpretations. Even art that to every appearance depicts a commonplace proceedings or items may encourage manifestation upon prominent themes. Conventionally, the uppermost achievements of art make obvious a high intensity of ability or fluency within a medium. This characteristic might be considered a point of contention, since many contemporary artists (particularly, theoretical artists) do not themselves produce the moving parts they envisage, or do not even produce the labor in a straight, affectionate wisdom. Art has a capacity of transforming: predominantly confers

Art is simple. Art is complex. Art is everything. Take a moment, everyday, to find art in the surrounding world. By doing this simple task, the understanding of art emerges. This

After the destruction in Germany due to the World War 2, the struggle for survival and inhabitation had been the most and immediate business for the people. The war caused the destruction of near one-fifth of the German houses between 1939 and 1945. In West Germany, there were required almost two and a half million houses for the refugees and another million for younger families. It was where the German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s Freiburg and Black forest were located. People shared accommodation there till they could find their own. Then arose the question of termed as “Wohnungsfrage” that means “Dwelling Question” due to this housing crisis. In its response Heidegger wrote his famous “Building Dwelling Thinking”.

Arthur C. Danto in “The Artworld” provides us with the argument that, “To see something as art requires something that the eye cannot descry-an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld.” Danto shows us the importance of the artworld in order to know that a work of art is more than just what we can plainly see. Danto provides two theories he calls the “IT” (Imitation theory) and the “RT” (Reality theory). With these two theories, Danto explains how we can define art and why “The Artworld” is needed to help understand art, because after all, “these days one might not be aware he was on artistic terrain without an artistic theory to tell him so.”

The most important trait in defining art is its beauty. As complex as the term “art” can be, the term “beauty” is nearly just as complicated. In order to understand art more clearly it is important to understand beauty. “We label an object beautiful because it promotes an internal harmony or ‘free play’ of our mental faculties; we call something ‘beautiful’ when it elicits this pleasure.” (Freeland 8). As defined above, beauty is not a direct message. It is something that subconsciously allows man to feel good and pleasurable. There is “an internal harmony” when we observe something beautiful that allows us to take away a deeper understanding of a work of art regardless of it being “nice looking” or “ugly”.