Me n Art: The Science of Art

Philosophy Forums Psychology and Mind
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Me n Art: The Science of Art

I am a retired engineer with much formal education. Also I have five children and seven grandchildren. Thus, I speak with some extensive first-hand experience with the educational system in the United States.

Until a few months ago, when I began studying the science of art, my only educational contact with art was a few late Friday afternoon classes in third and fourth grade, which dealt with using crayons to color drawings of turkeys, pumpkins, and pine trees during the holidays. Beyond this early formal contact with “art” I had only that which adhered to my mind via social osmosis.

Only after reading parts of a few books on art basics have I discovered just how deficient was my early education. From all that I can ascertain the present conditions of elementary and high school education have little improved. My evidence indicates that our (USA) educational system has perhaps deteriorated from its very low level that I personally experienced.

I have discovered that to study art is to study human nature. I have known for some time that our educational system has little regard for such matters because such matters add little to our ability to produce and to consume. Financial shenanigans are not the only means that CA (Corporate America) has used to take advantage of a naive population with little or no CT (Critical Thinking) knowledge or skills.

A recent BBC series “reveals art to be not the product of culture, but the producer and shaper of culture…how art changed the world, our ideas, and even our humanity itself…like science and technology, [it] has altered our environment and our identity…We are art.”
kk.org/truefilms/archives/20 … ade_th.php

[b]“Vision is an active grasp…A human face, just like the whole body, is grasped as an over all pattern of essential components…if we decide to concentrate on a particular person’s eye, that eye, too is perceived as a whole pattern…When the thing observed lacks this integrity, i.e., when it is seen as an agglomeration of pieces, the details lose their meaning, and the whole becomes unrecognizable…The young child sees “doggishness” before he is able to distinguish one dog from another.”

“The shape of an object we see does not, however, depend only on its retinal projection at a given moment. Strictly speaking, the image is determined by the totality of visual experiences we have had with that object, or with that kind of object, during our lifetime.”[/b]

Non BBC quotes are from “Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye” by Rudolf Arnheim.

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Thanks, coberst.

v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjAxNDcyNDg=.html
v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjkyOTkyNTY=.html
v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjAxNDcyNjQ=.html
v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjAxNDcyNjg=.html
v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjAxNDcyNzY=.html

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Theres some stuff on art and aesthetic pleasure in some of the books about human nautre I read. Suggesting that part of the reason people enjoy art is all bound up in human nature (besides human and environmental beauty which is a bit more obvious for why we’d enjoy it) they mention that some artwork that people enjoy, when viewed by a healthy person anyway, very much displays how well your vision systems are working, diffrentiating hues/colors and etc.

Plenty of people who have vision problems/brain problems which influence their vision, a lot of these people claim that art is pretty ugly to them.

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For example, I think my avatar is beautiful, not only because of the beautiful scenery(which i may be adapted to enjoy) but like, the fact that I can see the dozens of colors/hues that make up the picture, it could be ‘pleasure-inducing’ merely to use a properly functioning visual system.

We gain pleasure from using plenty of other adaptations in working function, as well.

I’m sure thats only part of it though.

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The manner in which the brain constructs percepts is fundamental to the manner in which the brain constructs all thinking. To understand art is to study how we perceive and from that knowledge we can gain a comprehension of cognition.

I have, in recent months, been studying SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science). This study has made me conscious of the systems of perception, conception, and thinking structures of human cognition. An understanding of these structures has made it possible for me to comprehend the importance of visual perception and its fundamental nature in all of human thinking.

The accomplished visual artist must be a student of human visual perception in order to use that knowledge to create visual art that is in accordance with the peculiarities of our system of visual perception. The artist is using the art medium to express meaning and to communicate that meaning. Just as Shakespeare must be a student of human nature and of the English language to move the emotions of his reader. An analogy might be that the expert propagandist who must understand human nature and how the framing of issues makes it possible to best manipulate human behavior.

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Art: having the ability to conceptualise and capture what one sees/has conjured up in one’s mind - a fine artist has to have an eye for seeing things as they actually are in order to create a true-to-life representation of their object(s) of choice: capturing the shapes, perspectives, ratios, angles, shading etc. of the object/scene.

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There are a number of contemporary works of art are left UNTITLED by the artist. The works are usually abstract in nature and leave the audience pretty much on their own. I am sure that every artwork does contain knowledge (perhaps in a form of a stimulus that bypasses reasoning and affects subconscious parts of the audience…either though medium or color, spacial arrangement, etc.), but I don’t believe that it must always have a meaning. (similar to Freudian Dream’s Navel)

For example, what is the meaning of the below painting by Selormey? This work is untitled and it does not seem to represent anything in the real world, so how would you acquire meaning from it and what would it be? For me, I picked it primarily because I was attracted to this hue of blue. I do not know what the meaning of the blue is (in any sense that I could adequately verbalize it, anyways), or this blue and red combination, or the gently sweeping lines juxtaposed with rigid etched ones - and yet I have knowledge of it.

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Then, according to your definition (of what I see as a ‘technician’), a photograph would be a “fine artist” (as opposed to a “not-so-fine artist”?) par excellence!
Not an artist, are you.

And a “science of art” seems like an oxymoron!

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I guess photography would be a sub-set of art: along with fine art, still life, etc.

I’m not an artist per se, but I studied art and it’s varying forms for 5 years (from 16 to 21) but took the Graphic Design/Advertising route in the last two years of that.

…the eye to hand to canvas relationship is a beautiful one indeed, and takes many calculations and measurements in the mind in order to turn those elements into an artform.

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:laughing: Sorry Magsj… I just had to post it…

Nude in an armchair - Picasso, 1929

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:laughing: I can’t see the image, but I know which one you are on about - yes, an example of perfect perspective and ratios, hehehe

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Did an artist tell you that?
Calculations and measurements are beginning technique, technology, a left brained process.
Creative ‘art’, genius, is a right brained, ‘heart’ activity, mindless Zen. That is ‘my’ experience.
But the definitions of ‘art’ are so legion and personal that I feel strange even replying here.
But historically and classically, art is not a science in the ‘performance’, but perhaps in the intellectual study of the end product of that ‘performance’. I’d rather eat the brownie than scientifically study it, but, to each his own. *__-

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…no, that is my analysis of art.

…that all depends on what one is creating: a still, or an abstract.

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It appears that you are ‘analyzing’ the mind of the artist. That is not analyzing the product, ‘art’. You are making assumptions regarding the artistic mind, that is why i asked you if you had first hand (or?) information on which to base your analysis. You might be able to personally discern/interpret the product in a mathematical or scientific context, but to assume that is what is on the artist’s mind/intention seems rather … ‘assumptive’.

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…er, I guess you missed the part where I said that I studied art for 6 years: to near degree-level - my assumption is based on experience and not just assumptions.

Art starts in the mind, and ends in the finished project, or do you think there is no transition between the thought and the end product - art is not a mindless thing, but involves thought-processes/analysis/calculations/vision: the amounts of which would vary depending on the artform being undertaken…

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Studying art is not being an artist, nor is it knowing the processes of the artistic mind.
You assume what goes on in the artists mind/heart without being an artist which is why I asked if artists have reported this to you. You can study a cup of coffee for years and have no idea what it tastes like without actually trying it.
Studying art allows you to ‘interpret’, as you might, twhat you see, to enjoy as you might, to ‘critique’ as you might, but it does not enable you to taste the coffee of the artists mind without an actual artist imparting what goes on in his head, or are an artist yourself.
And if you interviewed a dozen artists and they tell you what is in their minds, and it seems consistent (fat chance) that is only a dozen artists among millions, a very small data set from which to draw such conclusions and make such assertions as you have here.

Sometimes… far from always. And, I’ll allow a very loose definition of ‘art’ for this.

Sometimes there isn’t.

Quite often it is. Especially the best. Quite often, some of the finest works are a spontaneous ‘doodle’!

Sometimes. It seems to me that you refer to the ‘techniques’ of ‘technicians’, while thay are still in learning mode, before they can create real art (they have to know which end of the chisel is for cutting and how to sharpen); often the ‘thoughtless’ (timeless, also) interpretations of vision into the medium. A Zen flow unhindered by ego/thought.
And I offer this not because I have formally studied ‘art’, but from the direct Perspective of an ‘artist’.

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:laughing:

Without trying to include my ego in this, my final post here: let’s just say that I was an ART student, which means having to be an artist, and a good one at that - I chose the path of print/advertising because that’s where my interests led me: rather than remaining an artist in the classical sense of the word.

Ever wondered why artists need inspiration to create? guess you haven’t, huh?

I saw an angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

~ Michelangelo ~

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No it does not necessarily mean that at all; it just means that you were a student, the rest is a non-sequitur.

Okey dokey, then… later
Peace

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I said I studied ART - what do you think art students do? ](*,)

Perhaps the form of art you create is more conceptual/abstract: than actual/still? but art can be anywhere along this scale of the abstract/actual…

Art students in class:

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And the difference between an art student and an artist, if any? (Rhetorical)
You said that you were a student and you were not an artist, yet you were speaking for the artist’s mind. i was pointing out the logical incongruity (this being a philosophy site and all), the non-sequitur. Unless you are an artist, you are unqualified to speak for the mind, the Perspective, of the artist in terms other than idle speculation; certainly not ‘assertively’.
Assuming that you are a female and I a male, how would it be for me to be telling you all about what childbirth is like, what goes through mom’s mind at the moment of… etc… Especially if you have personal experience in the matter. Would you not challenge my ‘right’ to speak definitively on the subject?
Ok, I’m bored…
happy trails
nameless out