Daydreaming out the Window into Another World

This post is a response to Skyla's post, "Daydreaming." The question was, "Do you agree with the idea that all daydreamers are dissatisfied with their lives and do you want all of your daydreams to become a reality? Why or why not?"


I do not agree with the idea that all daydreamers are dissatisfied with their lives.  I like to understand daydreaming as a way to channel out negative energy that I feel during the day.  For example if I were having a terrible day that was stressful and the day felt like it was dragging on, I will start to drift off and think about what I would rather be doing.  It motivates me to finish my work so I can spend time with my friends and family or play guitar and relax.  


And as far as my day dreams go I do not think I would want all of them to come true.  I would love the ones where I see myself playing guitar and being with loved ones to come true but there are others that I do not want to come true.  For example if I were sitting in bumper to bumper traffic and could not move I might daydream about getting out of my car and walking up to whoever is causing traffic jam and yell at them to get a move on.  But I know that wouldn't work in the real world because you can not act like that in public if you want to get anywhere in life but this is where art comes into play.  Watching a movie or reading a book where a character does overreact about a traffic and getting their way will make me laugh and happy about what dissatisfy me which is in this case a traffic jam.


We need art as a window into a fantasy world where life can be more uplifting and enjoyable but it does not mean that enjoying the art means that you are not content with your own life.

First Impressions

This post is a response to Aditi's response to Shawna's post on beauty.

When an observer first looks at a work of art they immediately have a first impression and, in this case, the impression is a emotion that is evoked. Be it, 'This is stupid,' 'This is beautiful,' or 'This is confusing," these immediate feelings we have are unavoidable.  But we can not just judge a book by its cover, we need to look into it, read the book or in this case, the work of art.
Using the example of the painting of a flower, if the observer looks at it and thinks, "Wow! That is a beautiful painting and I love it!" but the artist intended it to be ironic and that they found the flower hideous and hated it then the painting would not be doing its job.  And that job is to transport the emotion felt by the  artist to the observer.

Tolstoy Defines Art

"Through the use of such devices as color, sound and movement, art communicates to its audience a feeling or emotion that the artist has previously experience." This is Leo N. Tolstoys definition of art.   One can asses this and say that if what he says is true than the artist is using pathos (which is when the emotions are appealed to) in order for them to create their own definition of art.  This would mean that everyone's definition would be different.  But can one say that because we use far more emotions than we do logic that this is not valid?


Thank you for reading and I'd like to elaborate on this if anyone would like to say what they think about this.


Zach

Imitation of the Gods in Art

http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/1400/1447/zeus_1_lg.gif
Imitation of an imitation is used to describe art. Well what would Plato make of works of art that depict the gods?  Above is a link to a drawing of Zeus, the Greek God of the sky, thunder and lightning and he is also the most important of all the other God's.  What would Plato say of this? It is an imitation of the artist's concept of the god, does it hold the truth it was meant to or would he take a route similar to the Muslim beliefs where depicting Muhammad is not allowed.

thank you for reading!

Comments

I was recently informed that my comment setting was set far too strict and no one was able to comment so I just changed it to anyone can comment.


On that note I'm looking forward to hearing from people!


thanks for reading!
-Zach

If someone were to believe that art is something we all have different definitions of and it is still true, then wouldn't the chances of two or more people's definitions of art contradicting each other to be very likely?  And because of this the corresponding theory of truth, stating that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world, would mean that every definition would be false since it does not correspond with the how others in the world view the meaning of the word?
- This is something i found myself getting confused on while reading the text for class.. I would appreciate some input on clearing this up for me.


thanks for reading!!
Zach

If a painting falls off the wall in an abandoned museum does it make a noise?

My personal feeling on art is that anything can be a work of art to someone for any reason they have.  It is somewhat of a 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' theory.  But once I started reading The Nature of Art by Thomas E. Wartenberg for class I realized that every theory is questioned.  So I would like to pose a question for not myself and anyone who reads it... If a well known artist were to paint a mural on a wall in a private room that they never allow anyone in is the mural still a work of art?  It is in the eye of the beholder (the artist) but no one else can see it.

Thanks for reading!
Zach