Can Art Change the Way We View the World
Can Art Change the Way We View the World?
Susan Agee
Classics in Philosophy of Art - P346
Gregory Steel
Fall 2012
For centuries, art has been interwoven throughout the history of mankind. From primitive carvings on cave walls and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, to the Sistine Chapel and the Mona Lisa, artistic creations have enthralled the human race. Art may be a window to the creator’s world; it has potential to instill desire in the viewer to do something they have never done, be somewhere they have never been and inspire to fulfill a dream or goal. Additionally, Art may possibly allow the artist to illustrate their own perception of a place or even attempt to deceive the viewer. However, to truly understand how we see the world we must delve a little deeper than the obvious, which is through our senses, particularly sight. In order to comprehend the world around us, we must first realize that thoughts are based on perception foremost and that those ideas then create a subjective model of the world, constructed from experience, memory, logical inference, and our brain's ability to map out its own internal representation of our individual surroundings. Therefore, whether it is through visual art, literature, poems, sculpture, photography or cinema, art may very well be able to change the way we see the world, by changing our perception.
The first recognizable art dates from at least 38.000BC in Europe, Africa, and Australia. They are the products of minds as intellectually capable and sophisticated as our modern ones and they were just like us, despite the fact that their society was slightly more primitive than ours. Works of this early period are not simple, as if created by a child, but in fact they are quite complex pieces depicting animals, humans and symbols. Additionally, drawings similar to maps, as well as carvings, portable art and elaborately decorated animal skulls have been found in caves all over the world. In the book The Mind in the Cave:
Susan Agee
Classics in Philosophy of Art - P346
Gregory Steel
Fall 2012
For centuries, art has been interwoven throughout the history of mankind. From primitive carvings on cave walls and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, to the Sistine Chapel and the Mona Lisa, artistic creations have enthralled the human race. Art may be a window to the creator’s world; it has potential to instill desire in the viewer to do something they have never done, be somewhere they have never been and inspire to fulfill a dream or goal. Additionally, Art may possibly allow the artist to illustrate their own perception of a place or even attempt to deceive the viewer. However, to truly understand how we see the world we must delve a little deeper than the obvious, which is through our senses, particularly sight. In order to comprehend the world around us, we must first realize that thoughts are based on perception foremost and that those ideas then create a subjective model of the world, constructed from experience, memory, logical inference, and our brain's ability to map out its own internal representation of our individual surroundings. Therefore, whether it is through visual art, literature, poems, sculpture, photography or cinema, art may very well be able to change the way we see the world, by changing our perception.
The first recognizable art dates from at least 38.000BC in Europe, Africa, and Australia. They are the products of minds as intellectually capable and sophisticated as our modern ones and they were just like us, despite the fact that their society was slightly more primitive than ours. Works of this early period are not simple, as if created by a child, but in fact they are quite complex pieces depicting animals, humans and symbols. Additionally, drawings similar to maps, as well as carvings, portable art and elaborately decorated animal skulls have been found in caves all over the world. In the book The Mind in the Cave: