AREAS OF KNOWLEDGE:
THE ARTS
Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company from Israel, performing: If At All.
The Arts include a range of disciplines including visual arts, theatre, dance, music, film and literature. The ways in which meaning is encoded, evoked and played out in these various forms of representation do not always overlap and may have no exact counterpart elsewhere. The arts, from the sublime to the mediocre (and even the banal) can provide insight and provoke questions about what it means to be human. Art can be made for its own sake, or created with a functionality in mind like catalyzing social change, conveying overt political or religious messages, and even self-referentially pushing the boundaries of art itself.
Takashi Murakami (2012) The 500 Arhats (detail). Acrylic on canvas mounted on board.
Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. The entire painting is 100 meters long!
Takashi Murakami is represented by the Kaikai Kiki Gallery.
CLASS ACTIVITIES
Non-linguistic forms of representation: Shostakovich 8th string quartet
Experiencing the music
Evoked emotions in the visual arts
Gallery of powerful emotions and appetites
Picasso’s lie and Coleridge's willing suspension of disbelief
Picasso's Tête de taureau
Willing suspension of disbelief
Imagination (with constraints) and living in the subjunctive
Artistic imagination
Imagination in a tight straitjacket
Are imagining and remembering almost the same?
Do we live in the subjunctive?
Rembrandt self portraits
A recognized central case of greatness in traditional art
Duchamp's Fountain and Cage's 4'33''
Provocative artworks stack
The value of art
Artworks key and auction value
Astonishing high art brain imaging
Glass Brain and Self Reflected
KNOWLEDGE QUESTIONS
The new Theory of Knowledge Guide (2020) provides 385 Knowledge Questions for student exploration. Here are my personal favorites from the Arts section.
SCOPE
Is artistic knowledge something that cannot be expressed in any other way?
Does art enlarge what it is possible for us to think and know?
PERSPECTIVE
Can a work of art have meaning of which the artist themselves is unaware?
How does knowing more about the social, cultural or historical context of a work of art have an impact on our knowledge of the work itself?
Should your judgments about art be given the same weight as those of an expert?
METHODS AND TOOLS
Can some knowledge in the arts only be gained through experience? How does the medium used change the way that knowledge is produced, shared or understood?
ETHICS
How important is the study of literature in our individual ethical development?
Is the production and enjoyment of art subject to ethical constraints?
Can we separate the moral character of the artist from the value of the Artwork?
CONNECTING TO THE CORE THEME
What moral responsibilities do we have regarding art that has been created or published by other people?
“No one who has not seen the Sistine Chapel can have a clear idea of what a human being can achieve… The master's inner security and strength, his greatness is beyond all description…”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1786) In Goldscheider, L (1975) Michelangelo: Paintings, Sculptures, Architecture: Complete Edition. Phaidon