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Aesthetics + Creativity

Aesthetics + Creativity


This week we we're assigned two videos and an article to read, all dealing with aesthetics and creativity, and how they tie into what we consider art. Below I will review what I've learned from each source and extrapolate on how I understood the material. 

First up is the CNN article on the neuroscience of art and aesthetics; "What the brain draws from: Art and neuroscience". This article talks about why + how: we recognize art, and its ability to please us. The most easily recognized form in art is faces, in fact we seek them out. "Our brains have a special affinity for faces and for finding representations of them..." This phenomenon occurs in everything, from modern-day emojis, to Impressionist paintings where a discreet patch of color may be recognized as a face. 
The other thing our brains recognize more easily then would be thought are lines. Lines are a made-up thing, so how can they be assembled into a recognizable form? Though life in reality does not have our surroundings outlined with black lines, this drawing technique can recognizably resemble depth due to the way our brains interpret light and dark next to each other in a way that defines the shapes of our everyday life.

Next I will discuss the "Aesthetics: Philosophy of the Arts" video. This video talks about the roots of aesthetics, and the differences between art and beauty. The philosophical study of art and beauty began in 5th Century Athens with the theories of Plato and Aristotle. Whereas the study of aesthetics (as we recognize it today) didn't begin until much later in 18th Century England. The first belief about aesthetics was the notion of Romanticism and the belief that great art could only be made by great artists who were born with natural talent, this is also referred to as the 'Genius Artist' theory. This theory stated that art was a talent and not a skill and therefore could not be taught. The theories on art and aesthetics then began to evolve in to the Expression theory states that art is the expression of emotion.

 Finally I will discuss the "CARTA: Evolutionary Origins of Art and Aesthetics: Neurobiology, Neurology and Art and Aesthetics" video. This video talks about the origins of art being the discovery of tools because it was the alteration of something already existing into something else with a new purpose. This then led to the discovery of symmetry and the making of items for purely aesthetic reasons.

 These videos help develop the text by going more in depth about different ideas of the origins of art. They help engage us students in a different way however I felt the readings were much easier to digest than the videos but I appreciated the way that it developed what was in the text. 

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