Have you ever listened to a sports event--say, a baseball game--on the radio? The sports announcer calls the play-by-play, while his associate, the "color commentator," adds additional facts to "add color" to the conversation. Good commentators enable listeners to "see" the game. To do the job well, these sportscasters have mastered the vocabulary of the sport--all the parts or "elements" of the game--and the rules or "principles" that govern how the elements of the game are put together. The same is true for art: to be a good "commentator" of art, you have to master the vocabulary (the parts or elements) and understand the rules (principles) by which the elements are put together.

Listen to a clip of Larry Munson, "Voice of the Dogs," calling game highlights for his (and MY) beloved Georgia Bulldogs. Imagine what his comments would be like if Larry didn't know anything about football. Munson is able to describe what's going on in the game because he understands the vocabulary and he knows the rules. If he didn't, the game wouldn't make sense to him and certainly not to his listeners.

Now listen to Peter Schickele ("PDQ Bach") acting as color commentator for Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. This may be the most unusual version of Beethoven's Fifth you've ever heard, but it's a wonderful demonstration of how knowing the vocabulary (the elements or parts) and the rules (principles) helps bring a subject alive. Both baseball and music have essential parts or elements and rules that govern how these elements should be used to make each meaningful. Without parts and rules to dictate how these parts should work together, the baseball game would be meaningless. And without parts and rules to govern them, music would be chaotic.

Art works the same way. Think of art as an event with its own vocabulary and rules. There are parts (elements) and rules (principles) that describe how the parts work together to form a meaningful event--a composition. When the player(s) use the parts according to the rules, an organized game results. When an artist uses the elements of art according to a ..........................

What are the "parts" of baseball--the essential elements needed to play the game? Let's make a list: a ball; a bat; 3 bases and a "home plate." What about players? Are uniforms essential? No, not really. Gloves? They're nice but not necessary. Now, can you play a game of baseball with these essential elements? Maybe you can play at baseball, but without some rules, you won't have a game, because a game requires rules that dictate how all the elements relate to each other.



Elements of art
1. Learn the elements by viewing the Powerpoint presentation "Elements" (For some reason the last 2 slides won't show in Vista; this is not a problem. Slide 16 is just a recap of the artwork; slide 17 is just references.)
2. Read "A quick reference guide to the elements of art." The small black rectangles are hyperlinks to images on the Web; be sure to visit the links! NOTE: If you have trouble opening the hyperlinks in the PDF, right-click on the link and choose "Copy location," then right-click and "Past" into your browser to open the link.
3. Learn the principles by viewing the Powerpoint presentation Principles of Design"
4. Read "Principles of composition." Again, the small black rectangles are hyperlinks to images on the Web; be sure to visit the links!
5. In realistic art works, the elements of art are used to describe nature as we naturally see it. But in abstract and non-objective art, these same elements, free from describing reality, can be used to express emotion, movement, or even to create a new reality. Study carefully the following images and how the elements are used (you'll use them in your "Talking about art" assignment):

Ever wondered what makes something "art"? Or whether something called "art" shouldn't be? These are aesthetic questions with no easy answers. Let's start with what "aesthetics" means. Defining it is almost as difficult as defining "art." From its Greek origin, the word "aesthetics" has come to mean how we perceive something--how we feel about something--not intellectually but emotionally. Closely related is the word "anesthetic"--something that causes a loss of sensation or feeling. The Encyclopedia Britannica refers to "aesthetics" as "the philosophical study of beauty and taste."(1) It is closely related to the philosophy of art, which is concerned with the nature of art and the concepts in terms of which individual works of art are interpreted and evaluated....Aesthetics is broader in scope than the philosophy of art, which comprises one of its branches. It deals not only with the nature and value of the arts but also with those responses to natural objects that find expression in the language of the beautiful and the ugly."......[eventually I hope to finish this....}


Introduction This week we continue our study of art aesthetics and the questions "What is art? When is art?" We'll read brief summaries of the philosophies of several philosophers of art. Click on the link below for a brief podcast on this module's topic. And yes, the "video" part of the podcast is so small you can hardly see it! We're working on the problem. Meanwhile, just listen to the audio.

Here's a link to "What is art? When is art?" or, if that doesn't work, you can also link to it using the link below:

What is art? When is art? You may see a window asking you to select iTunes to open the file. If you don't already have iTunes on your computer, you should go ahead and install it. Objectives 1. Study/review the art theories of philosophers Abbe Batteux, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Danto, and M. A. Staniskewski.
2. Begin to think about your own definition of art Preparation Great philosophers of art
1. Read "Abbe Batteux"
2. Read "Kant's Critique of Judgment"
3. Read "Arthur Danto"
4. How would you summarize the contribution of each to the definition of "art"? Be prepared to discuss how each would define art. This question may come up later in the course.

Defining "art"
1. Listen to "The definition of art" (podcast) by Derek Matravers, author of Art and Emotion...in conversation with Nigel Warburton in this episode of Philosophy Bites (www.philosophybites.com). (Reference is made several times to this pivotal artwork, "Urinal" or "Fountain," by Marcel Duchamp.) Matravers pleads for reasons for what makes something "art." NOTE: Clicking on the link will take you to a web page; on the right hand side is a list of names; scroll down the list to select "Derek Matravers" to hear the podcast.
2. Read "Believing is Seeing." Here Staniszewski gives a brief survey of the ways in which the definition of "art" has changed.
Assignment(s) 1. Review Aesthetics quiz and find correct answers to any questions you missed.
2. Take the Art theories quiz. Be sure to read all the articles and listen to podcast carefully before you take the quiz. A little extra... 1. See if you can tell which painting is by an ape or an artist at "An artist or an ape?"--a quiz by Mikhail Simkin. (See images below.) Here's another similar quiz: "Bremen Artists" by Graydon Parrish & Mikhail Simkin. How did YOU do on the quizzes?


(1)Encyclopedia Britannica. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/7484/aesthetics>. Accessed 6/7/2015.

Come back soon....

Let’s talk for a little bit about a very neglected part of art: the frame. The frames of artworks are rarely noticed; have you ever heard of a famous frame? But if the frame were absent, we’d probably never hear about the artwork itself. Wonder why? Because the frame tells us what to look at. We’re all familiar with the traditional wooden or rectangular frame. We see these all the time on paintings, drawings, and prints. But have you ever noticed the frame on a piece of sculpture? I can hear you saying, “But sculpture doesn’t have a frame.” Actually it does; and just like the wooden frame around a painting, the frame of a sculpture tells us to pay attention to the artwork. It’s just that the frame around a piece of sculpture doesn’t look like a traditional frame. In fact, the only way that you know it has a frame is because you’re looking at something as if it were a piece of art.

There are all sorts of frames or perhaps we should say “frame qualities” in art. Take this refrigerator note. Isn’t it just an ordinary note stuck on the fridge? Then look at the same words in a slightly different format and context. Those ordinary words have become a poem. They’ve been transformed by a more rigid structure to look like something much more deliberate, something that says “Look at me.” The structure, lack of punctuation, type-set words, the title, the author’s name, all these tell us that the words are not just for one person but are for a much wider audience. These structural changes act as a frame, telling us that we need to pay attention to the words—that the words are for us as viewers, for the world at large. The structure has taken the refrigerator note off the refrigerator and turned it from an ordinary note to an extraordinary group of words: a poem. The structural presentation—the frame—has given the words a separate reality--a "psychical" distance--that allows us to see the words as something more than just a note.

So, anything that directs our attention to something and asks us to view it as an object outside our own reality can be a frame. Think about a vase sitting on a table. This vase appears to be a part of the ordinary world that you and I live in. But what if that vase was over 2000 years old? What if it was a collector’s item, too valuable to be used, so valuable that it was kept in a locked case? This vase, removed from the context of ordinary use, has become an object of value whose role is to be looked at, admired, and treasured rather than used like an ordinary vase. The glass cupboard can be considered its frame. The cupboard has literally moved the teapot from its ordinary place, the kitchen table, and placed it where it can't be used, where its primary  function is to be valued and and of itself.

What are some other types of frames? Maybe a better question is what are some other things that can act like a frame, putting distance between you, the viewer, and the object, the artwork? Think about sculpture; for instance, the "David" figure by Michelangelo. How do we know this is not a real person? How do we know it’s an object that commands our attention instead? First, the location of the figure in a museum, a place where we can expect everything to be an artwork, or at least something that can be considered by someone to be an art object. What about the replica of the figure outside the museum in the Florence plaza? The fact that there’s a huge white figure standing above the crowds tells us this is something out of the ordinary, something to be paid attention to. And the size. The sculpture of David is 13.5+ feet tall, not including the pedestal. The incredible size commands our attention and tells us this isn’t real. What about the color? [should address Dwayne Hansen’s figures here.] Well, the David figure is white marble. Both the color, material, and texture tell us that this isn’t a real live person, but the image of a person. Finally, the image is on a pedestal, and the role of a pedestal is to elevate whatever is on it to a position of prominence. 

So, all of these things, the size, color, material, texture and pedestal of Michelangelo's "David" all act as frame qualities, demanding that we pay attention to this incredible sculpture.  Now that the frame qualities have gotten our attention, we’re able to explore and admire the incredibly skillful stonework of Michelangelo. Changes of size and scale are frequently used to create a difference between our reality and the reality of the artwork.  Fantasy works as a frame as well. Think about cartoon figures or science fiction figures. There’s just enough similarity between the real and the fantasy that we can relate to the figures but not enough that we confuse the figures with something that’s actually real. And sometimes, just changing the context, the surroundings of the object, creates enough distance between ourselves and the object that we’re compelled to pay attention to it to examine it for qualities other than usefulness in our immediate reality.


All of these frame qualities separate the object viewed from our own reality of ordinary usefulness and demand that we pay attention to the object, not as ordinary but something apart from the ordinary, something extraordinary. When there’s not enough psychical distance—not enough frame quality—then we have trouble seeing the object as something other than a useful, or in some cases, useless, object. Take for example the teapot we talked about earlier. If that 400-year old priceless antique teapot were just sitting out on a kitchen table during breakfast, we probably wouldn’t recognize it as anything other than just an ordinary teapot. Why? Because of a lack of frame quality. There’s nothing setting the teapot apart as anything other than ordinary. On the other hand, let’s put the priceless [can price/value create a frame quality?] teapot back in the locked, glass display case. For those of us who don’t know much about antique teapots, we may still see it as just another teapot, even if there’s a sign by the teapot that says how old it is, how valuable it is, etc. Why? We don’t have enough knowledge to appreciate its worth. Sometimes a lack of information creates too much distance between us and the object [for instance, Arnolfini Wedding]. In this case, there’s TOO MUCH psychical distance between us and the object. This is why a good [educational?] museum will give you information to help you understand what you’re looking at. [Perhaps through a docent or an audio-guided tour] And good information to tell you why you should pay attention to an artwork. Without a frame, without the right amount of psychical distance, we won’t recognize an object as something out of the ordinary, something extraordinary. This is why we occasionally [work on this] hear that a priceless painting by Picasso has been purchased for $25 at a garage sale after sitting on someone’s attic for 50 years or more. Don’t we wish we were the ones who discovered it?