Art in the book does not have a super specific definition. It is explained to be decided by history at times but also shares that we do not even know what criteria to use when determining what is or is not art. The chapter focuses mostly on the visual arts. Some of these being paintings, sculptures, architecture, photography, and digital art. My personal favorite of the bunch would have to be paintings or photography.
The first quote that stuck out to me was "does the artist's reputation make a piece of art valuable? Or is the value intrinsic to the art" (page 92). Personally I feel like the answer to this question is both. I feel like it should be that the value is intrinsic to the work itself, but as a society we tend to put the value in the hands of the creator. I said that I think it should be intrinsic to the art because if the piece itself is valuable, then it is valuable. I understand not wanting to put value in things created by say a bad person. Bad as in murderer or such in this case, since I know the word bad can mean different things to us all. But in today's society we tend to get caught up on the reputation of people and brands more than we do the actual quality of what it produced. I attribute this to our excessive use of social media. When one person has a bad experience with a person or brand, other people are quick to find out, and tend to share that opinion.
The next quote that I liked was, "medieval art generally presents the idea, not a faithful imitation, of its subjects" (page 99). I think my interest in this quote is more so in the fact that it focuses on the idea of the art form rather than imitation. I think only making art that is imitation takes away from it in a sense. Not that works of art based on imitation are not beautiful or valuable works of art. I personally just think that works of art that are made based off of feelings or thoughts are more meaningful in a sense. The only way I can think to explain that is like when a child hand makes their parents a Christmas ornament or something of the sort. It holds more sentimental value and emotion than a store bought or copied ornament would. I once again think this might have a little to do with how much I enjoy subjectivity, but I am not ashamed to admit that.
My third quote is "Renaissance artists combined classical discipline with the demand for freedom of individual expression" (page 102). The part of this quote that really intrigued me was the freedom of individual expression part. Which in my opinion is the direct relation to the whole idea of the humanities. The humanities are how we each live our lives and the way certain things shape our lives. So art based on expression like in the quote I used above is more representative of us as people. This once again goes along with my liking of subjectivity, which I am sure gets annoying to read about time and time again. But now that I have taken an appreciation to it and understand it further, I am able to see it in more places and things. But knowing that there was a whole re birthing or new era attributed to the idea of individualized expression is really interesting and makes me almost happy. Art without expression would always just be imitation like above, which seems boring or lack luster. This chapter has really made me appreciate the ability to be able to freely express myself, and take an appreciation to art that is based off of expression rather than imitation..
Janaro, R. P., & Altshuler, T. C. (2017). The Art of Being Human: The humanities as a technique for living (11th ed.). Pearson.
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