art and philosophy

Response to Jenna Haley's question

2010-02-14T20:15:00.000-08:00

Plato believes that an artist doesn't know what he is painting or making because it is an imitation of an imitation. When saying this what he means is that when a craftsmen makes an object he is simple trying to recreate the perfect image of what he believes to be the perfect object. Now when an artist makes a painting he is creating the image of a copy. so he doesn't understand what the copy is actually supposed to look like and can not improve on the object at hand. Now my question for you is if you were to take painting and use it to try and improve on the object then wouldn't this put art at the same level as the copy?

what is it exactly that plato despises about artistic expression?

2010-02-14T19:48:00.000-08:00

In response to Tyler Ayres, question about plato and his reason for disliking artistic expression. Plato believed that the brain was limited and unable to grow, so he thought that if you ad in artistic expression then there would be less room in the brain for realistic thoughts and you wouldn't be able to come closer to the truth of the world. Also Plato believed that art would be a pollution of a perfect society and that if art was even to be considered to be aloud inside of a perfect society then you would have to exam each peace to make sure that it wasn't to suggestive and will not pollute the brain in a negative way. My question to you is would you consider graffiti to be a pollution of are walls or to be an artistic expression of our culture.

mistakes in art

2010-02-07T20:27:00.000-08:00

In responce to Mary Marcil's question "can there be a mistake in art, which one would have to admit having made? or do the values which change overlook any mistake?" I would have to argue that there is always mistakes in art sometimes the mistake is what makes the art piece wonderful. I have heard of many stories were an artist doesn't realize that he did something or did it by accident and by doing this it ends up improving the piece of art. My question is if the artist doesn't voluntarily make the mistake then is it still concidered art even though it was not the artists intention?

Art the imitation

2010-01-31T20:30:00.000-08:00

When talking about Art in the form generally described in the 17th century we are referring to imitation art, or something that is meant to appear like something that is real even though it isn't. This brings up the debate as to the purpose of art itself. If art is just an imitation then why do we need art and not the real thing? What is the significance of even having art if it is just an imitation of something that we can have in real life like a chair? Whats the point of having a painting of a chair instead of the actual chair?

17th century art vs 20th century art

2010-01-31T20:16:00.000-08:00

I was reading the introduction and noticed that there was a comparison between 17th century style art and 20th century art. While comparing the two of them one of the things that i started to wonder is can art still be considered art if its only a line on a paper? How can you define what is still art when it is just a line or even a dot like in some of today's art?