1. art and knowledge?

2. How can art contribute
to our knowledge of
the world?

3. what is the function or
purpose of art?

4. Theories about the nature or function of Art

5. Theories about the nature or function of Art
• art as imitation

6. Theories about the nature or function of Art
• art as imitation
• art as communication

7. Theories about the nature or function of Art
• art as imitation
• art as communication
• art as education

8. Imitation
mimetic theory of art: the purpose is to copy reality
Michelangelo’s Pieta
1498-1499

9. Johannes Vermeer,
Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1632

10. Is it possible that one can look at sunsets or waterlilies
differently after viewing or experiencing a Turner or
Monet painting?

11. “art does not reproduce the visible; rather it makes visible”
Paul Klee
Is it possible that one can look at sunsets or waterlilies
differently after viewing or experiencing a Turner or
Monet painting?

12. Charles Dickens(1812-70), Great Expectations
I crossed the staircase landing, and entered the room she indicated. From that
room too, the daylight was completely excluded, and it had an airless smell that
was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in the damp old-fashioned grate,
and it was more disposed to go out than to burn up, and the reluctant smoke
which hung in the room seemed colder than the clearer air — like our own marsh
mist. Certain wintry branches of candles on the high chimney-piece faintly lighted
the chamber, or, it would be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its darkness. It
was spacious, and I dare say had once been handsome, but every discernible
thing in it was covered with dust and mould, and dropping to pieces. The most
prominent object was a table with a long tablecloth spread on it, as if a feast had
been in preparation when the house and the clocks stopped all together. An
epergne or centre-piece of some kind was in the middle of this cloth; it was so
heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite indistinguishable; and, as I
looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its seeming to grow, like
a black fungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders with blotchy bodies run home to it,
and running out from it, as if some circumstance of the greatest public importance
had just transpired in the spider community. [103-4]

13. can art reveal something about reality
that was unnoticed?

14. Communication

15. Communication
“art can amplify man’s short time on this
earth by enabling him to receive from
another the whole range of someone’s
lifelong experiences with all their problems,
colors and flavors. Art recreates in flesh
experiences that have been lived by other
men, and enables people to absorb them as
if they were their own.”
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, russian writer and
historian, 1918-2008

16. The Blues
"Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday, who released her first
recording of it in 1939, the year she first sang it. Written by the teacher Abel Meeropol as a
poem, it exposed American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans.
Such lynchings had occurred chiefly in the South but also in all other regions of the United
States. The writer, Abel, set it to music and with his wife and the singer Laura Duncan,
performed it as a protest song in New York venues, including Madison Square Garden.
source: Wikipedia
Nina Simone

17. Kathe Kollwitz, German Expressionist
KATHE KOLLWITZ
Poverty, Etching & Drypoint, Statliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (1893-94)
KATHE KOLLWITZ
Woman with Dead Child, Etching, National Gallery of Art, D.C. (1903)

18. Otto Dix ,
War Triptych, 1929-32

19. Education
The arts have a moral and educative role:
the arts can provoke emotions that influence behavior
Chris Jordan, photographer
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
“To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible,
not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs
was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in
any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents
of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine
sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest
continent.”
http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midway/#CF000313%2018x24

20. Education
The arts have a moral and educative role:
the arts can provoke emotions that influence behavior
Chris Jordan, photographer
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
“To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible,
not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs
was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in
any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents
of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine
sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest
continent.”
http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midway/#CF000313%2018x24

21. Stalin Epigram by Osip Medelstam
We are living, but can’t feel the land where we stay,
More than ten steps away you can’t hear what we say.
But if people would talk on occasion,
They should mention the Kremlin Caucasian.
His thick fingers are bulky and fat like live-baits,
And his accurate words are as heavy as weights.
Cucaracha’s moustaches are screaming,
And his boot-tops are shining and gleaming.
But around him a crowd of thin-necked henchmen,
And he plays with the services of these half-men.
Some are whistling, some meowing, some sniffing,
He’s alone booming, poking and whiffing.
He is forging his rules and decrees like horseshoes –
Into groins, into foreheads, in eyes, and eyebrows.
Every killing for him is delight,
And Ossetian torso is wide.

22. Mendelstam was arrested, imprisoned and eventually died
in a Soviet work camp.
"Only in Russia is poetry respected, it gets people
killed. Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a
motive for murder?" -Osip Mendelstram

23. Speak of the destruction.
This is a world destruction, your life ain't nothing.
The human race is becoming a disgrace.
World Destruction, Countries are fighting with chemical warfare.
Not giving a damn about the people who live there.
1984, Time Zone: Nostradamus predicts the coming of the Antichrist.
Afrika Bambaataa and Johnny Lydon Hey, look out, the third world nations are on the rise.
(the Sex Pistols,P.I.L.)) The Democratic-Communist Relationship,
won't stand in the way of the Islamic force.
The CIA is looking for you.
The KGB is smarter than you think.
Brainwash mentalities to control the system.
Using TV and movies - religions of course.
Yes, the world is headed for destruction.
Is it a nuclear war?
What are you asking for?
This is a world destruction. Your life ain't nothing.
The human race is becoming a disgrace.
The rich get richer.
The poor are getting poorer.
Fascist, chauvinistic government fools.
People, Moslems, Christians and Hindus.
Are in a time zone still searching for the truth.
Who are you to think you're a superior race?
Facing forth your everlasting doom.
We are Time Zone. We've come to drop a bomb on you.
World destruction, kaboom, kaboom, kaboom!
This is the world destruction, your life ain't nothing.
The human race is becoming a disgrace.
Nationalities are fighting with each other.
Why is this? Because the system tells you.
Putting people in faceless categories.
Knowledge isn't what it used to be.
Military tactics to control a nation.
Who wants to be a president or king? Me!
Mother Nature is gonna work against you.
Nothing in your power that you can do.
Yes, the world is headed for destruction.
You and I know it, cause the Bible tells you.
If we don't start to look for a better life,
the whole world will be destroyed in a time zone!