Unit 2 seminar art and Humanities - Research Paper Example

1. What are some of the key terms in art and architecture? Who are some of the key figures of 20th and 21st century art movements? What is the purpose of art? Some of the key terms in art and architecture are abstract art, alteration, chiaroscuro, classicism, college, fresco, modernism, realism, imitation, likeness, postmodernism, psychological realism, perspective, Golden Section, perspective, still life and Renaissance. The key figures of 20th and 21st century art movements are Salvador Dali, Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Aaron Douglas and Charles Johnson of Unreal Realism movement, Duane Hanson of Superrealism movement, Alfred Stieglitz of photography movement and Claes Oldenburg, exponent of Pop Art and Orson Welles, founder of Performance Art.

Art is the work of an artist that is based on his intentions of presenting to others certain object, opinion, view point or idea of spending life. Art does not imply similarity of work and following specific guidelines and it could vary from capturing significant to commonplace things. The purpose of art is to give some message to viewer in artist’s own way. It can be in the form of imitating real life things or creating abstract patterns (Bjone, 2007). 2. Look at the painting in the text by Wassily Kandinsky (Plate 8).

What is your reaction to this work? What do you think it means? The painting in the text looks vague and confusing with no clear cut features that could explain what is depicted in the painting. It seems to me that a barren building is being shown with an open door at the end and the impression of darkness is created which looks horrifying and mysterious. It also appears to me as the image of a mountain or a valley at night time. In other words, the work seems to be meaning different things when looked at with different perspective.

However, in my opinion, it means chaos, disorder, unrest, mystery and horror. 3. Art can often mean different things to different people. Is this a strength or a weakness?It cannot be stated as a weakness if an art looks different to different people as it depends on the perception of the viewer and approach with which he observes an artwork. Art is in fact an imitation of real life objects and it can take any form in showing its likeness to viewer (Foster, 2011). References:Bjone, C. (2007) Art and Architecture: Strategies in collaboration.

Birkhauser Architecture. Foster, H. (2011) The Art Architecture Complex. Verso. Wassily Kandinsky