Aesthetics For Life - WordPress.com · [Tatarkiewicz & Kasparek(1981)] Dr. Meagan Louie. 1 What is Aesthetics? 2 The Aesthetic Response and Art 3 Course Expectations 1.1 Aesthetics

1 What is Aesthetics?2 The Aesthetic Response and Art

3 Course Expectations

Ratto di Prosperina-Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Aesthetics For LifeW1: What is Aesthetics?

Dr. Meagan Louie

The unexamined life is notworth living.

- Attributed to Socrates

Dr. Meagan Louie



1.1 Aesthetics and Philosophy1.2 Aesthetics and Beauty as Value1.3 Aesthetic Questions

Outline

1 1 What is Aesthetics?1.1 Aesthetics and Philosophy1.2 Aesthetics and Beauty as Value1.3 Aesthetic Questions

Dr. Meagan Louie




What is Aesthetics?: A branch of PHILOSOPHY

Aesthetics is a subfield of philosophy

The term “aesthetics” was first introduced into philosphicalliterature by Alexander Baumgarten, in 1750

Dr. Meagan Louie




What is Aesthetics?: What is Philosophy?

Philosophy, broadly speaking, involves thecareful and reasoned EXAMINATION of, orthought about phenomena and concepts in theworld around us

The unexamined life is notworth living.

- Attributed to Socrates

Dr. Meagan Louie




What is Aesthetics?: Philosophy and VALUE

One major area of philosophical examination isthe study of how we assign VALUE

Plato distinguished three major kinds of value (Phaedrus, 246 EC)

1 Goodness

2 Truth

3 Beauty

[Tatarkiewicz & Kasparek(1981)]

Dr. Meagan Louie





One major area of philosophical examination isthe study of how we assign VALUE

Plato distinguished three major kinds of value (Phaedrus, 246 EC)

1 Goodness

2 Truth

3 Beauty

[Tatarkiewicz & Kasparek(1981)]

Dr. Meagan Louie





These correlate to how 19th-century philosophers divided upphilosophy into three branches

1 Ethics. How do you assess whether something is good, or better?

2 Logic. How do you assess whether something is true, or valid?

3 Aesthetics. How do you assess whether something is beautiful?

Dr. Meagan Louie




What is Aesthetics?: Aesthetics and VALUE

Aesthetics

The careful and reasoned examination of beautyas a value-judgement

Baumgarten in the 18th Century:. The study of “Art, Beauty and Human Sensibility”

. (Where “sensibility” ≈ “good taste”)

Dr. Meagan Louie




What is Aesthetics?: Aesthetics and VALUE

Aesthetics

The careful and reasoned examination of beautyas a value-judgement

Baumgarten in the 18th Century:. The study of “Art, Beauty and Human Sensibility”

. (Where “sensibility” ≈ “good taste”)

Dr. Meagan Louie




What is Aesthetics?: Philosophical Questions of Interest

Q1: How do we know that something is beautiful?

Q1: Is beauty/aesthetic appeal and functionality related?. If so, how?

Q1: Is aesthetic appeal/beauty subjective or objective?

→Can an aesthetic response be predicted with rules?

Q1: What IS the aesthetic response?. Pleasure? Awe? Intense Curiosity? ...

Dr. Meagan Louie










Dr. Meagan Louie










Dr. Meagan Louie










Dr. Meagan Louie




Immanuel Kant’s Theory of Aesthetics

The aesthetic judgement

1 is subjective (a felt judgement,not an intellectual calculation)

2 is universal (...not in the eye ofthe beholder)

3 is disinterested (valueindependent ofusefulness/benefit to perceiver)

4 and engages imagination andintellect (in addition to thesenses)

Dr. Meagan Louie










Dr. Meagan Louie










Dr. Meagan Louie










Dr. Meagan Louie




What is Aesthetics?: Aesthetic Response and Appeal

“Aesthetic Response”?

“Aesthetic Appeal”?

What are these?

Dr. Meagan Louie







What are these?

Dr. Meagan Louie







What are these?

Dr. Meagan Louie



2.1 What is the Aesthetic Response?2.2 Class Exercise: Is this beautiful? Is this Art?2.3 Art Theory2.4 The Philosophy of Art

Outline

2 2 The Aesthetic Response and Art2.1 What is the Aesthetic Response?2.2 Class Exercise: Is this beautiful? Is this Art?2.3 Art Theory2.4 The Philosophy of Art

Dr. Meagan Louie




The Aesthetic Response and Art

Observation: People have responses to sensorystimuli from the world

→ These responses are the kind of phenomenathat aesthetics is interested in

Dr. Meagan Louie





Traditionally, an “aesthetic response” is a. positive response

... but aesthetics and art are

. unextricably intertwined

“What counts as art” and hence beautiful changes over time

Dr. Meagan Louie









Dr. Meagan Louie









Dr. Meagan Louie




The Aesthetic Response: Class Exercise

A: Beautiful!B: Ugly!C: Neither

“Pine Forest National Park” by Photokanok from freedigitalphotos.net

Dr. Meagan Louie





A: Art!B: Not Art!

“Pine Forest National Park” by Photokanok from freedigitalphotos.net

Dr. Meagan Louie






A: Art!B: Not Art!

“Waterfall In Forest” by Porbital from freedigitalphotos.net

Dr. Meagan Louie






A: Art!B: Not Art!

“Daffodils” by James Barker from freedigitalphotos.net

Dr. Meagan Louie






A: Art!B: Not Art!

”View of Toledo” by El Greco , c. 1596–1600, oil on

canvas, 47.75 × 42.75 cm, Metropolitan Museum of

Art, New York, Licensed under Public Domain via

Commons

Dr. Meagan Louie






A: Art!B: Not Art!

”The Calling of Saint Matthew” by

Caravaggio, c. 1599–1600, oil on

canvas,340 × 322 cm, Contarelli Chapel,

Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, Roma,

Licensed under Public Domain via

Commons

Dr. Meagan Louie






A: Art!B: Not Art!

”Ratto di Prosperina” by Gian Lorenzo

Bernini, 1621-22, Sculpture in Marble,

225 cm, Galleria Borghese, Rome

Dr. Meagan Louie





A: Beautiful!B: Ugly!C: Indifference

A: Art!B: Not Art!

”Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier)” by Picasso, oil on canvas,

100.3 x 73.6 cm, Museum of Modern Art New York Licensed under

Public Domain via Commons

Dr. Meagan Louie






A: Art!B: Not Art!

Dr. Meagan Louie






A: Art!B: Not Art!

Dr. Meagan Louie






A: Art!B: Not Art!

”Fountain” by Marcel Duchamp, , Urinal ”readymade”

signed with joke name; early example of ”Dada” art. A

paradigmatic example of found-art. Photograph by

Alfred Stieglitz. Captions read: ”Fountain by R. Mutt,

Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz, THE EXHIBIT

REFUSED BY THE INDEPENDENTS,” Licensed

under Public Domain via Commons

Dr. Meagan Louie




Q: What makes you judge these as beautiful or not?

Question: What makes you judge these as beautiful, aestheticallyappealing, visually-arresting, or not?

. Are there formal properties that cause beauty?

Possible Factors: Complexity, simplicity, regularity, symmetry (orasymmetry), proportion, harmony, contrast ...

Dr. Meagan Louie




Art Theory

Q: How can we describe what makes something beautiful?

→We’ll discuss how to describe formal characteristics of art:

Form and composition

Colour (hue, value, chroma, local vs perceived)

Light (types of light sources, types of shadows)

Dr. Meagan Louie




Art Theory: Beauty as Mathematically Calculable RatiosFibonacci’s Golden Mean and Archimedes’s Spiral

Fibonacci’s Sequence:. 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, ...

Fibonacci’s Golden Mean: 1: 1+√

52 (≈ 1:1.618.

Dr. Meagan Louie





This 1+√

52 mathematical ratio

is found in nature :

Pictures accessed from http://io9.com/5985588/15-uncanny-examples-of-the-golden-ratio-in-nature

Dr. Meagan Louie

http://io9.com/5985588/15-uncanny-examples-of-the-golden-ratio-in-nature





Classical and High Renaissanceart/architecture often used this ratio asa compositional principle:

Accessed from http://www.world-mysteries.com/sci_17.htm Accessed from http://seispontozero.blogspot.com.br/

Dr. Meagan Louie

http://www.world-mysteries.com/sci_17.htm

http://seispontozero.blogspot.com.br/




Are Art and Beauty the same thing?

Question:Did you always have the same response to thequestion “Is this beautiful”? and “Is this Art?”

Dr. Meagan Louie




Q: What makes you judge things as art or not?

Questions: What made you judge those pictures as art or not-art?

Are there formal properties that determine whether something is art?

What other sorts of properties factor into whether something is art?

Dr. Meagan Louie




The Philosophy of Art

Q: How can we decide what makes something art?

→ We’ll also discuss theories that aim at answering this question

Representational/Mimetic Function of Art

The Expressive Nature of Art

The Value of Art as

AestheticContextualistConstructivist

Dr. Meagan Louie



3.1 Course Syllabus3.2 Course Project3.3 Course Website3.4 Course Instagram

Outline

3 3 Course Expectations3.1 Course Syllabus3.2 Course Project3.3 Course Website3.4 Course Instagram

Dr. Meagan Louie




SWU 252: Course Syllabus - Content Overview

1 Theory I: Aesthetic Concepts and Theories

Subjective VS ObjectiveFunctionality VS DisinterestIntellect/Imagination/Curiosity

2 Theory II: The Language of Visual Art and Aesthetics

Form, Composition, Colour TheoryRepresentation VS ExpressivenessWestern Art Movements (Brief on Art History)

3 Application of Theory: For life!

Selfies! Foodstagramming! App design! Television!Manga/Anime/Video-Games! etc.Assignments, Resumes, advertisements, etc.,

Dr. Meagan Louie











Dr. Meagan Louie











Dr. Meagan Louie




SWU 252: Course Syllabus - Format Overview

1 In-Class Expectations:

Lecture and Class DiscussionStudent DebatesMidterm, Final

2 Outside Class Expectations:

Class Instagram: Weekly Instagram “Assignments”Course Video Project: Aesthetic Analysis of .................

(i) Project Proposal (Research Question, Hypothesis) - Week 3(ii) Project Progress Report (Methodology, Data Analysis) - Week 6(iii) Project Storyboard/Script - Week 11(iv) Final Project - Week 15

Dr. Meagan Louie




SWU 252: Course Syllabus - Format Overview

1 In-Class Expectations:

Lecture and Class DiscussionStudent DebatesMidterm, Final

2 Outside Class Expectations:

Class Instagram: Weekly Instagram “Assignments”Course Video Project: Aesthetic Analysis of .................

(i) Project Proposal (Research Question, Hypothesis) - Week 3(ii) Project Progress Report (Methodology, Data Analysis) - Week 6(iii) Project Storyboard/Script - Week 11(iv) Final Project - Week 15

Dr. Meagan Louie




SWU 252: Final Project

Course Project (Group or Individual)

Q: What are the aesthetics of...

foodstagramming?

video games (RPG vs FPS vs etc.)

kinds of music, poetry, literature, web-design, ...

...etc (whatever interests you!)

Dr. Meagan Louie





Course Project (Group or Individual) - Example Project

Research Question: Does the angle of the horizon line in foodstagramsaffect the number of likes that a picture will get?

Dr. Meagan Louie






Hypothesis: Pictures where the horizon line is diagonal, as opposed tohorizontal, feel less planned and more “authentic to life.”This will induce more of an emotional aesthetic response in viewers andreceive more likes.

Dr. Meagan Louie






Methodology:

1 We will create an Instagram account and post a foodstagram pictwice a week, always at the same time, with the same hashtags.

2 Half of these will have diagonal horizons, half will have horizontalhorizons.

3 We will tally up the number of likes and for each type, to determineif the hypothesis was supported by the data, or not.

Dr. Meagan Louie






Results Diagonal horizon photos on average were liked twice asmuch as horizontal horizon line pictures.

We also observed that pictures with contre-jour lighting were likedthree times more often than pictures with three-quarter or frontal

lighting.

Dr. Meagan Louie






Theoretical Discussion We hypothesize that contre-jour lightingtriggers the viewer’s imagination regarding the setting of the photo(eg., in a cafe by a bright window) more than planned studio-style3/4 and frontal lighting.

The results can be analyzed in terms of Kant’s approach toaesthetics. Kant argued that the engagement of the intellect or

imagination is a crucial factor toward inducing an aestheticjudgement...

Dr. Meagan Louie




SWU 252: Course Website

Course Website: https://mlouieling.wordpress.com/SWU-AFL

Class Syllabus

Class Requirements (eg., assignment information)

Class Notes/PPTs

Link to Class Instagram

...

Dr. Meagan Louie

https://mlouieling.wordpress.com/SWU-AFL




SWU 252: Class Instagram

Weekly Instagram “Assignments”

(1) Find something that fulfills the assignment’s goal. - capture it on Instagram and post as. @SWU LC AFL (Password: swulicafl)

(2) Explain how it fulfill the assignment’s goal in the caption

(3) Make a (course-content relevant) comment on someone else’s post

Week 1: Instagram Assignment Goal. Option 1: →Find/create something aesthetically pleasing to you. . - explain what you like about it in the caption

. Option 2: →Find something that illustrates Fibonacci’s Ratio

. . - annotate, or discuss the composition in the caption

Dr. Meagan Louie





Weekly InstagramAssignment Examples

Option 2: Find somethingthat illustrates Fibonacci’sRatio

- annotate, or discuss thecomposition in the caption

- “sign” with your personalstudent code

Dr. Meagan Louie





Weekly Instagram Assignment Examples

1: Find/create something aesthetically pleasing to you, or illustratingFibonacci’s Ratio

2: Find/create something that fits into the aesthetics of one of thehistorical art movements, eg., high renaissance, mannerism, baroque,impressionism,...

3: Find/create something that illustrates a concept from colour theory,eg., hue vs value vs saturation/chroma

Dr. Meagan Louie




References I

Stecker, Robert. 2010.Aesthetics and the philosophy of art: An introduction.Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Tatarkiewicz, Wladyslaw & Christopher Kasparek. 1981.A history of six ideas: An essay in aesthetics .

Dr. Meagan Louie

Documents

Aesthetics For Life - WordPress.com · [Tatarkiewicz & Kasparek(1981)] Dr. Meagan Louie. 1 What is Aesthetics? 2 The Aesthetic Response and Art 3 Course Expectations 1.1 Aesthetics