Depressing? Well..

Comical. That's the word I would use when reading this: comical. As I generally do with philosophers, I found him more amusing than irksome. I was practically grinning the whole time reading this and, surprisingly enough, I was a little sad it was one of our shorter reading assignments.

I really thought his idea about 'bad books' was very, very funny. I found it funny because I'm sure some...okay, most of the books I read would probably be considered 'bad' if a newspaper is consider 'bad literature'. I don't spend my time reading classics, generally, and what we imagine as classics now (Poe, Bronte Sisters, Austen, Hawthorne), I like to imagine he would possibly consider them bad authors in comparison to Plato and Aristotle. So, with them crossed off and a few other authors, I've pretty much been reading terrible books my whole life outside of some books from my literature class. What strikes me as most comical is the idea of authors shoving their ideas onto me, which I agree that they're doing, but without me being able to think. He made it sound as if I'm unwillingly accepting their ideas without giving even the slightest thought to what I am reading. I am. Besides, even if I do happen to read a so-called 'bad book' doesn't that make me more culturally aware of what the standards of my society are? Case in point: Twilight. I do consider that a terrible book (sorry).

However, I do agree with his idea that we should read a book more than once, I think more than twice in fact. I did nod my head and think that I do learn much more when my emotions aren't at their peek, waiting to see what happens next when I turn the page. I've read Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice about five or six times now and I find new, little details I always miss every single time. Fun times.

Tim Minchin's Storm The Animated Movie

Alright, my cousin just sent me this video and I think you guys are definitely gonna love it. This whole thing talks about a lot of the same stuff we have talking about all semester, in the style of a beat poem. Uh huh, you are gonna love it. I'm not going to write any of my opinions just yet because I want to wait until some of you have watched it first. Enjoy!

And if I somehow did the embed code wrong, here's a link to the video on Youtube:

Tim Minchin's Storm The Animated Movie

Can't Agree With Kant

First off, I really don't enjoy the way Kant writes his ideas. Second, I really don't like his ideas.

I found most of what I read to be really confusing, and when I could understand what he was saying I thought mostly that I didn't agree with him either. I'd like to focus on the part about art having purposiveness, but not have purpose. I disagree, and here's why.

Whenever I create art, it has a purpose. I'm a story teller, and even though my work doesn't always include speech bubbles or a definite dialogue, what I create always communicates some sort of narrative. I suppose because of this, Kant would probably just say that what I do isn't art anyway, but there are whole periods of artists that painted narrative scenes. For example, the entire series entitled Marriage a la Mode, by William Hogarth, is satiric story of an arranged marriage based on money and status instead of love. Purpose: using paintings to tell a story that comments on the business side of marriage in contemporary society. Form: FINE ART.

The end. I'm done.

Just Stirring the Pot...

Forgive me for this but I was a bit curious

As we all know, we got into a pretty in-depth debate last class about what is good art and what isn't, and what qualifies someone to make such a judgement. It seemed there was a general consensus that at least some degree of experience with the subject matter is necessary. This theory brought to my attention something I was once taught. I took a screenwriting class my senior year, and my professor constantly told us that, "the person most qualified to write a film is someone who's never seen one." He applied this to criticism as well. Anywho, I was just curious what people thought of this angle. Can someone without a hint of experience expertly criticize something? Or does their lack of influence by the cultural and social norms make them the best candidate to judge and create? Just wanted to throw that out there, stir the pot and what not.

...umm, what?

I was dreading whoever would eventually make philosophy sound confusing and, as we hadn't hit that person yet, I thought that we'd never hit them. I was wrong. Kant had to prove me wrong and decided to make everything sound far more complicated than it has to be.

As I was reading this, I found myself doing what I had to do with the first few philosophers we read: rereading sections. I also found myself trying to skim much faster, miss some important detail, and then have to go back and reread. There were also chunks of his writing that I could understand and felt great about, but then suddenly Kant decided that I understood too much and needed to word it more complicated. Thank you Kant.

for his ideas, what I could gather from this reading, was interesting and slightly amusing. I really enjoyed the contrast between science and art, which gave me a little boost to know that art was a skill one had to be born with and couldn't learn, like math or history. He then continues to explore the relationship between nature and art and how they differ, then continues on with more seemingly badmouthing science in comparison to art. It all made me smile a little bit to myself.

Stuff on My mind

Ok, so I was talking to a friend who just moved back to Kansas City. They lived here for about 7 years and they have a pretty good grip on the people of Kansas City. In particular the Plaza/West port area people! We descused how Kansas City has some people whom feel that they are "Elite" or are apart of some sort of "High Society". He also felt as though those people look down on ethnic people, and he would rather be seen as a "Fag" than a "Dirty Bum" ( his words). This kind of reminded me of the Cave of Allegory, I can only hope that people in general, step out the cave and get an epiphany and stop being jerks!

Most of us are foreign to Kansas City, If you Have left our Sheltered Art Nest and viewed the real Kansas City I would like your Feed Back

P.S I'm not going to lie, I didn't come to class because I need a mental health night :)

Perception and Ethics

Out of all of the philosophers we have studied as of yet, Hume was the first, as far as I can tell, to deal directly with the topic of my paper: perception and ethics. Chief among the key issues in my paper is the idea that people see the world, not as it is, but as they are. I was greatly pleased to be reading a philosopher's view on a relatively similar issue, although his conclusions are not exact with my own. Perhaps I misinterpreted, but to my understanding, Hume applies a very similar idea that the moral values of men, although seemingly unified on general issues, when actually broken down into their true intentions, differ in many ways. This is where my topic comes in, looking into the roots which grow these different conclusions, and what such an error in vision can catalyze. In any case, I have received a bit more food- for -thought for this paper.

i just finished watching the video, i have to say that the videos help me so much, just because im a visual thinker. ok so i think that relying too much on the senses is not so good because sometimes they can be incorrect. i like how the ideas he has are scientific liked.

Hume

I agreed with some things that Hume said. Basically what I got out of it was that all people have differences in taste that affect how we judge art. These differences are cause by differences in culture, brain chemistry, and experience, but there is still auniversal standard of morality shich we must remain faithful to. the best art is art that has been admired through out all times and cultures regardless of taste. Only some people are fit to judge what makes art good or bad, and they have the trait of delicacy, meaning that they can judge what ingredients that artist added to the work, no matter how subtle and see how those ingredients relate to one another and know what ingredients make a work good or bad. These ingredients are accepted principles of art, and if a viewer doesn't agree with these principles it is because he lacks delicacy. Someone with delicacy is able to judge how all the elements in a work of art are interrealted and how well the work fulfills its indended purpose. They can also acknowlege that a work may have come from a different culture so he must consider this differnce when viewing the work, and let go of all their prejudiced instilled in them by their culture and brain structure, and be as unbiased as possible when judging a work. in order to be qualified to judge what makes a work good a viewer must have experience in art; they must be practiced in the feild in order to know what goes into creating good art. while I agree with alot that Hume says, alot of it seems to be untrue of contemporary art. I agree that we are all different because our brain structure, culture and experiences affect how we see art, and we shoud judge art without prejudice, acknowleging other cultures, and be as unbiased as possible, I don't agree that only some people are fit to judge art. firstly, while alot of the works I acknowleg to be great are also considered great by my culture, I still think we should think for ourselves. When looking at art nothing is more important than our own emotional reactions to the work, and no emotional reaction can be considered more valid than another. We shouldn't let out own reactions to a work be tainted by the views of those who proclaim themselves to be experts in art. Secondly it would be very difficult for any practicing artist to become an expert in art to a level that they know what makes a work good or not. One person can't be an expert in all of art, because art is a very diverse feild. If one artist does reach an expert level, they only have limited time to perfect their technical skills so they are likely only an expert in one particular discipline, and that is never enough to know about all kinds of art. An artist can become as good as humanly possible in the art of drawing realistic charcoal still lives, and this experience can give them some idea what whether or not another artists charcoal still life drawing is good or not, he can never be sure that he is right and the other artist is wrong. contemprary art emphasizes the abstract concept of beauty, and every person has a different idea of beauty, so there is no way of telling for certian which work is better. The charcoal artist still has no absolute idea what makes work good in other disciplines, and even in charcoal drawing, he and another artist could both be right, because they may be using the same medium to express different ideas and emotions, so no two "experts" will ever have the exact same idea of a good work of art. This essay is true in many ways, but alot of it doesn't, in my opinion, apply to the modern world, because there are less rules in the feild of art today than when this was written.

I can taste Beauty?

Alhello?!

After reading the assignment I really enjoyed it! It related a lot to the museum Lab we did over the weekend! If you missed it to bad it was a spectacle! I thought the reading was kinda a manual on viewing art, which I found really cool seeing how lots of people dont know muesum edicate. Example: The Lady taking a FLASH Picture of Rembrandt Portrait of a young man! Hey Lady!! I cant have you ruining that painting, I'm writing about it next week! Haha See yall in class!

I think Hume has good taste concerning good taste

I was pleased with Hume's dissection of precision and accuracy in analyzing and discussing the operations of visual elements and intellectual faculties in any given work of art. Many of his assertions run parallel with my own ideas that concern judging a work of art based on sentiment and judging it based reason. I agree with Hume's assertion that maintaining an unbiased and considerate vantage point when contemplating a work of art is absolutely necessary to interpret its formal qualities. Allowing the merit of a work of art to be corrupted by a stagnant, static point of view is discrediting more to the viewer than to the art for he imposes his personal preferences on the art and inhibits himself from ever gaining a new, true understanding of what beauty really is. One must appropriate himself to the vantage point the artist to gain a clear understanding of the artwork's significance. I never deeply meditated on Hume's statement that it is unreasonable to argue about taste because everybody's taste is different! But I believe that is why inherently I have always tried to be tolerant, patient, and even admirable of others attributes because I consider uniqueness beautiful. Even his method to approaching a bad critic is tasteful because it does not insult the personal preferences of the other viewer but only brings him to consider a new view point other than his own which is beneficial to gaining knowledge. I would consider that TWO favors, one for yourself and one for him.