2 Chapter 3.14: Before You Move to the Next Chapter

Consider These Key Concepts

We have observed in this chapter that art is like a mirror reflecting, communicating, and interpreting self, individuals, and society. Throughout history from primitive to modern, humans have been able to express a variety of ideas and feelings and even to evoke responses from neighbors through artistic markings and with the creation of structures. Those artistic expressions have been a major source in understanding each other and the world we live in. It has communicated in many different ways and styles the practical and abstraction, the cultural and the aesthetics of a people. As we have previously noted, Immanuel Kant characterized beauty or aesthetics and the practicality of it as a systematic way in understanding the range of the arts. We have noted that art can be an instrumental discipline, a powerful social or political force by which society interprets, controls, modifies, or adapts to their environment or to their personal taste and/or beliefs. Examples include the political and social statements of Jaune Quick—To—See Smith’s “the Quincentenary Non-Celebration” or Jona Cerwinske’s graffiti and murals, or the romantic and sacred aesthetic styles of Albert Bierstadt and Maurice Denis; the genre representation of cultural identity in the Ashante Kente cloth and the hyperrealist works of sculptor Ron Mueck; and in earlier years, a holy site like the Islamic structure The Dome of the Rock that is identified and recognized as a holy place by several diverse religious groups: Muslims, Jews, and Catholics, thus representing several diverse groups all of which communicate powerful artistic messages. Each and all bring people together with like beliefs or views through an artistic structure of communicating: creativity (a substance of inventive, original, imaginative ideas); disposition (the character, temperament, formal structure qualities, and sequence); and style (communicating and delivering specific resources and physical attributes that send off a reaction).