Welcome to Seminar 1: The Arts In New York City!
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Welcome to Professor French’s Seminar 1 Course Site! Add yourself as a user to this site by going to the “Login” option on the left side of your screen.
We began our first class by discussing how we define art. The problem with defining art is that each person does so differently. For example, Professor French defines art as the moment when someone sees another person’s work and has a reaction, whether positive or negative, to it. In my opinion, art is when any person, either the artist herself or an observer, declares a creation a piece of art. Other students in the class defined art as any form of expression. Forms of expression that were mentioned included painting, singing, sculpting, playing an instrument, and writing. We began then to discuss the first three chapters of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing. Professor French pointed out the main ideas in these chapters. These included: how we see things is affected by what we know and what we believe, how we only see what we look at, how we see things as they are in relation to ourselves, how images outlast what they represent, how images are not completely accurate depictions of a moment but instead how they are accurate depictions of the way an artist viewed a particular moment, how learned assumptions about art can affect our reaction to it, how the camera impacted art, how sacredness and religiosity relate to art, and how the social presence of women and the social presence of men are different. During this discussion, we related these major points to ourselves and our own perceptions of art. We discussed how different interpretations of art can change what the artist originally intended. For example, a screenwriter may write a play. This play is then interpreted by the director, the actors, and the audience. This process for just one play may occur thousands of times across the world. Therefore, an innumerable amount of interpretations are possible. We mentioned how art can also be used as propaganda to support various leaders or causes. One student mentioned how Hitler used William Shakespeare’s character Shylock to support his own Anti-Semitism. Somehow we began discussing Miley Cyrus’ VMA performance, which brought up the question of who owns art. We discussed whether or not we own celebrities. And similarly to when we tried to define art, we could not come up with a single correct answer. Overall, this discussion led me, as well as the other students, to continue to think about and discuss the many topics that were mentioned in this first meeting. It also set the stage for an exciting Macaulay Night at the Museum during which we would further analyze our perceptions of art as discussed in class as well as our perceptions of actual pieces of art themselves.
Ryan Livote 9/1/13
I found Friday’s class discussion about the first four essays in John Berger’s Ways Of Seeing fascinating and enlightening. Prior to my entry into the Macaulay Honors Program, I have had little experience with “art.” Excluding music, I have no idea what makes art be considered “art” or why certain people praise or detest pieces of artwork.
However, both this book and Friday’s class showed me a whole new perspective on looking at and enjoying art. I realized I have much to learn when it comes to appreciating art.
This novel showed that there are several ways to view art and how it has different meanings. The way how I see a work of art is going to be different from how someone else will interpret it. For example, the way that I would interpret a painting would be the same way that I interpret a song or musical piece, what the artist was feeling when he or she created the piece. However, the essays in this novel showed there are multiple facets to this. I had no idea that a reproduction of a painting could take away the luster the original had. If anything, I thought it was a good thing for it to be reproduced in that the image gets seen around the world, spreading its influence across a wider range and demographics of people.
I look forward to being educated more about the arts in the upcoming weeks and how I can broaden my tastes in culture and fully appreciate art for what it is.
Upon first hearing about the mandatory Night at the Museum event, I was not at all thrilled. I do enjoy museums, but I have never been to the Brooklyn Museum, and the mandatory project assigned to us at first seemed pointless. I was pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong. The collections at display were interesting to me, and the fact that the Macaulay class were the only ones in the building added to the overall experience. The biggest surprise was how much our group actually had to say about the works we saw. At first the discussion was somewhat slow, and we only talked while recording. We did not have much to say and just made obvious observations about the details of the work we were observing. After a while we started to get a feeling for what those many details and stylistic choices could mean, and soon we could talk about a single painting for 15 minutes or more. Observations facilitated discussion, and discussion made obvious the things that one did not previously see. The trip to Brooklyn museum had shown me how important discussion could be to see all the facets of the work, enabling you to better grasp it’s true meaning.
The work that has prompted the most conversation in our group was a painting called “A Ride for Liberty” by Eastman Johnson. The picture portrays a family of fugitive slaves on a horse, but does so in a way that allows the viewer’s imagination to complete the picture. In the painting, the faces and the surroundings of the family are unclear, which shows how there runaways could be anyone, anywhere. It was painted in 1860s, but is said to never have been exhibited throughout the authors lifetime, possibly due to it’s controversial, at the time, nature.
I’d like to think of art as analogous to the proverb “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” because in essence, art too is in the eye of the beholder. The only problem I have with stating that the two are analogous is, is art really the synonym of beauty? Can something only be deemed art if it is beautiful? By my own preconceptions of art I don’t stand by that statement because I am amongst those who say that art is anything that evokes emotion, good or bad. I believe that the best form of art however, is that which is created from passion, as in the artist’s passion for his work of art.
On our first session of the Arts in New York seminar we touched upon many of the things that were discussed in John Berger’s Ways of Seeing. Amongst them were some of the issues that really hit home with me but also some things that I didn’t agree with at all. One such topic was the act of seeing something v. being able to describe it in words. Berger spends a good three or four pages talking about how he believes that words can never match up to the power of actually seeing something, which to me is completely absurd! I mean the guy is writing this book, in words! (and then there’s that chapter with nothing but pictures of naked women, but that’s not the point.) You would think he’d have a little more appreciation for words considering he himself is a writer, instead it just seemed to me like he was discrediting the power of words and elevating the power of pictures.
There was also another idea Berger brings up that is perhaps even more ridiculous than the one aforementioned, that a man’s presence suggests “what he is capable of doing to you or for you” while a women’s presence “defines what can and cannot be done to her”. I don’t know if I’m being overly sensitive about this but that statement personally offended me. I mean when did I become this passive object that is affected by the “presence” of man?? Last time I checked a woman has the ability to do anything a man does. Clearly that statement did not sit well with me, to say the least. I then remembered that this book was published sometime in the early 70’s, which only slightly justified Berger’s outrageous opinion of women.
Ultimately, although Berger’s book does not fall in exact accordance with my personal views, I am glad that we are discussing it in the seminar because it has allowed us to be expressive about some pretty weighty topics (Miley Cyrus twerking, weighty indeed!).