Aesthetics Review and Thought - Book Report/Review Example

The perception and role of Artwork For one to understand any form of artwork, he is required to grasp the basic content that the work tends to postulate and to understand the message and feelings that the artwork brings forth. This then engages the element of perception. Ideally, perception tends to differ from one person to another depending on how one chooses to represent the art forms he beholds and interpret it in a form that makes sense to him in his own unique or special way. Other elements that tend to come in play is the understanding of what role such elements as ‘exemplarization’ and self-consciousness play when it comes to understanding a form of art and making sense to their representations. Being able to make sense of these basic ideologies in art, one is then able to understand the role of art in changing how one experiences the world. Artwork incorporates the above stated elements, without the basic interaction and incorporation of them; the experience of art would be different and non-sensible. This essay endeavors to breakdown the elements of artwork experience to understand and make sense of artwork from the general perspective. The first issue that is incorporated is understanding the basic idea of what exemplarization is and the premises it is rooted. Exemplarization is the use of exemplar representation to stand in for a class of objects. The basic ideology is exemplarizarion is that when one engages in artwork, there is usually some information that he requires reception, this, by whoever the artwork is directed (Keith 2). To achieve this, the artist has to incorporate the use of exemplar elements of a group of object to enable the person who beholds the work to understand that the exemplar used stands for the intended group of objects. Isenberg’s theory contrasts the ideology of using examples to gauge the perception of the people who behold the art to the other ideology. His ideology known as exemplification entails taking a course of critical discourse in order to understand the art form in display. As one beholds the art of any form, from his own perception he creates an understanding of what information the artist is trying to relay. In the process of perception, content is created. This is to mean that the content of art as was originally intended by the artist might slightly or majorly change, according to how one perceives it. This ideology could be relayed proper form of understanding when looking at such a popular painting as the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci. The Mona Lisa portrait was associated with various controversies. Others speculated that the art was a self portrait of Leonardo Da Vinci as woman at a certain younger age, this as opposed to the ideology that the genius in the Mona Lisa painting all laid in the smile that was of a random woman. As from the above example, the people who saw the painting then saw what their perception allowed them to see, from what they perceived they were able to establish the content, which when relayed to other people could then appreciate or decline. To define any form of art, the person needs theory. The theory could be an already established one or one that he chooses to establish himself from the artwork. Using an already established theory can either create clarity or obstruct the content of art as was intended by the artist. Knowledge of artwork before beholding the artwork tends to give one an onset mentality of what he is supposed to see. What if all the speculative ideologies of the Mona Lisa painting were not true? One could then engage an open mind that whatever the Mona Lisa painting relays has, not been revealed and it would take different perception on what the premises of the painting are correctly based. In artwork, representation matters to the one beholding an artwork to engage his perception. Therefore, exemplar representation is important for the appreciation of artwork in the sense that it engages the person to generalization of the artwork using the exemplar provided by the artwork itself (Keith 2). Therefore, the exemplar in artwork can give artwork characteristics that make its sensibility ineffable. As one is able to perceive the information from the art work, the amount of content is only limited as far as his perception goes, this to mean that in artwork the representational elements can lead to establishing vast information and understanding. When interpreting the elements of a painting, one can engage the verbal description of the painting to appreciate the elements portrayed by the imagery. Verbal description is limited to the fact that it cannot show one what the painting is like. To appreciate a painting and its content, one should establish the element of visualization and from the perception make out the intended message. This aspect can be illustrated properly in a situation whereby one might try to describe the Mona Lisa painting to a person who has never seen the painting before. This would end up a fruitless task in that, from the verbal description, one would not properly articulate the elements that the artist had initially intended. Art as the tool by which most people behold the world, there are many roles that artwork tends to play in form of the day-to-day interactions of the various people. Art is such a powerful instrument that from the ideologies it attempts to construe, it can actually change the world. Through the eye of art, an artist can portray the sense of emotion, as the artist wants the world to behold. A proper example of this phenomenon would be a situation whereby an artist captures the emotional pain a hungry child is a poverty-stricken world. A person beholding this imagery transfers the sense of the emotion of what the artist seeks to appeal to the observer who consequently reacts in a way he deems appropriate. By being able to achieve the appreciative view of an artist, the world then beholds the information and then reacts. Another role that the power of can be associated with is in the creation of music. For one to be able to engage his mind and write or compose music, most of these artists need what they consider as inspiration. A music artist can draw inspiration from what he sees then choose how to engage it as from his own visual perspective. This then transpires that the power of art is that it is necessary for the creation of other art forms. More so, when a music artiste chooses what he sees and use it as his inspiration, his audience are mostly able to relate to his music at the similar platform since they also get to perceive whatever inspired this artist to write. Most people who choose to place value on such art as painting has the option to observe a painting for sometime then decide on the value of the painting. This can be then stipulated that the value of art be placed according to the perception. Through the interest that an observer appeals to, or the aspect that the observer draws fascination from, then, the value of art is achieved. A good example is “still” drawing from the Mona Lisa portrait. What if using the verbal description one was to sell the portrait to a blind person. This task would be possible, but at the end of the day no matter how good the description would be, it would be hard to attain the same value as the one it does if it were to be sold to a buyer who could actually see it. This is because after visualizing it he would determine if the portrait he sees is really worth the price it is sold. Art could be regarded as an element that creates platforms enabling people to achieve globalization. The art element of exemplarization enables people who might be understood to think alike from across continents to relate to artwork by viewing the art form and expressing their example through the common ground that the art form provides. Through this establishment, the ‘alike’ thinkers can then speculate and relate to the ideologies that the artists could have been looking to achieve. On the aspect of globalization, art form can be regarded as a tool of communication. In this aspect, art then is a language by itself and could be used as a medium by different people who are able to observe the art form and relate to what they see. Art form can also be regarded as a form of expression or identity. By this establishment, each artist gets to achieve a certain element in his way and technique of art that makes him unique. The uniqueness of art as used by a certain artist is the element that makes the artist stand out and audience to be able to identify his work among the work of different artists. As people choose to indulge in the world of art, it would be greatly non-sensible for someone to decide to venture in artwork similar to that of another artist trying out a similar thing. Artists could choose which movement of art to follow for example cubism or any other art movement like ‘elementarism’. Despite choosing the art movement and technique there is usually an element that enables the artist to stand out as his own unique style. When the artist chooses to base his art on a certain art movement he creates the platform of which type of audience he is targeting. This can be illustrated by an example whereby a new artist chooses to embrace the Mondrian art technique as his proffered form of art. The audience will definitely be those people who admire the Mondrian art who will be able to relate to this new artist form of technique. Moreover, having indulged in the Mondrian movement, the artist knows that he is open to criticism being that from the time the art movement commenced many artists have used the technique that people have appreciated in a way. As to get his based audience, the artist might be force to switch an element about the Mondrian at in order to appeal to the Mondrian audience. Art establishes the ground from where one can say it is the eye from which a person who appreciates certain elements in the world could ‘exemplarize’ from whatever art technique he deems necessary and appeals to him as a person. The overall feeling that one gets to understand from a perspective to appreciate artwork is that life itself would be meaningless without art. The world is a diverse ground that people are very different in many ways, from these differences, art creates a platform that lowers the level of differences thus enabling most people to relate and come to a common understanding. Art enthusiasts often travel around world to get first hand glimpse of the art. This is because by being able to observe other art forms, he can create his own view and share his understanding with the world. From the different opinions, a common basis can then be achieved from the different appreciative views, thus making art a tool that unifies the world. Work cited Keith Lehrer, Art Self and knowledge, oxford scholarship online, 2012. Print. Read More