You tell me
Art is created to allow people to interpret an experience that either the artist or viewer has come across. These ‘experiences’ are what Marcia Muelder Eaton claims to be called an “aesthetic experience” in her academic journal Philosophical Aesthetics: A Way of Knowing and Its Limits. Eaton states that these aesthetic experiences are the moments people have in nature, which they express in their artwork and the connections to nature that people have when they view this artwork. People want to express how they interpret aesthetic experiences, but sometimes words are not enough. Art is a tool people use to express the thoughts and feelings that have for an aesthetic experience with other people, and they do this by creating a mediums that someone else can relate to., but since the people and art are constantly evolving the way people relate to this art is constantly evolving as well.
People are heavily influenced by what is going on in the world around them and as artist work becomes shaped by the “aesthetic experience” they are having at that moment in time. One generations artwork is different the next since “[individuals and social groups, after all, respond and believe in very different ways when they have what they identify as aesthetic experiences” (Eaton, 12). Claude Monet, for example,was born in Normandy, in 1840 but when he grew journeyed around North France. Monet then escaped the Franco-Prussian War in the 1870s and moved to London and then after the war was over he decided that he wanted to move back to his home in France. He painted the landscapes of the places he lived in. Few of these paintings included the domestic relations that he experienced (Auricchio).This expresses how the Franco-Prussian War affected the experiences Monet had in life since it forced him to move so much, which left him without a true home, and therefore he chose to leave this element of life out of his artwork. Monet had an aesthetic experience that adapted as different events developed during the time he was living. As Monet’s works were shaped by the world around him, artist from the Baroque period were influenced by the Catholic Counter Reformation. Since artist in each time period experiences life in new ways there art develop to express those experiences.
For those living in the period that the art was created the aesthetic experience is clear and has a specific function for those people, as opposed to those looking at the work in the future, art functions as a impression of the culture that created it. According to Eaton, in order for a person to analyze an artwork they have a “deep cultural fluency- the sort that enables one to appreciate nuance of usages, the sort of experience and understanding of the concept of ‘sadness’ or ‘fear’ that only a native or nearly native speaker possesses,” (Easton, 28). Someone must be a “native or nearly native speaker” to analyze an artwork since they need to be able to grasp the emotion that the work is trying to evoke. This can only be done by a native since they have experienced life in a similar way to the artist, therefore they can feel emotionally evoked the same way that the artist does towards a subject. For, example, “The Great Hall of Bulls” in Lascaux, France; interpretation suggest that the people created it either to ensure a successful hunt, for ancestral worship or to show the religious tails of shamanism to the people that came after them. Even though we have been able to guess what the paintings on the cave illustrate, the meaning of this wall painting is really unknown to modern day people, therefore there is a limit to how far the tales move from each generation. The wall painting, was not meant for modern day people though, it was a tool meant for a the specific culture that created it to pass down their cultural tales to the next generation, and from there it just becomes a lasting impression of a culture as a whole.
Works Cited
Auricchio, Laura. "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Claude Monet (1840–1926). N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Sept. 2015. <http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cmon/hd_cmon.htm>.
Eaton, Marcia Muelder. "Philosophical Aesthetics: A Way of Knowing and Its Limits." Journal of Aesthetic Education 28.3 (1994): 19. Web.
Art is created to allow people to interpret an experience that either the artist or viewer has come across. These ‘experiences’ are what Marcia Muelder Eaton claims to be called an “aesthetic experience” in her academic journal Philosophical Aesthetics: A Way of Knowing and Its Limits. Eaton states that these aesthetic experiences are the moments people have in nature, which they express in their artwork and the connections to nature that people have when they view this artwork. People want to express how they interpret aesthetic experiences, but sometimes words are not enough. Art is a tool people use to express the thoughts and feelings that have for an aesthetic experience with other people, and they do this by creating a mediums that someone else can relate to., but since the people and art are constantly evolving the way people relate to this art is constantly evolving as well.
People are heavily influenced by what is going on in the world around them and as artist work becomes shaped by the “aesthetic experience” they are having at that moment in time. One generations artwork is different the next since “[individuals and social groups, after all, respond and believe in very different ways when they have what they identify as aesthetic experiences” (Eaton, 12). Claude Monet, for example,was born in Normandy, in 1840 but when he grew journeyed around North France. Monet then escaped the Franco-Prussian War in the 1870s and moved to London and then after the war was over he decided that he wanted to move back to his home in France. He painted the landscapes of the places he lived in. Few of these paintings included the domestic relations that he experienced (Auricchio).This expresses how the Franco-Prussian War affected the experiences Monet had in life since it forced him to move so much, which left him without a true home, and therefore he chose to leave this element of life out of his artwork. Monet had an aesthetic experience that adapted as different events developed during the time he was living. As Monet’s works were shaped by the world around him, artist from the Baroque period were influenced by the Catholic Counter Reformation. Since artist in each time period experiences life in new ways there art develop to express those experiences.
For those living in the period that the art was created the aesthetic experience is clear and has a specific function for those people, as opposed to those looking at the work in the future, art functions as a impression of the culture that created it. According to Eaton, in order for a person to analyze an artwork they have a “deep cultural fluency- the sort that enables one to appreciate nuance of usages, the sort of experience and understanding of the concept of ‘sadness’ or ‘fear’ that only a native or nearly native speaker possesses,” (Easton, 28). Someone must be a “native or nearly native speaker” to analyze an artwork since they need to be able to grasp the emotion that the work is trying to evoke. This can only be done by a native since they have experienced life in a similar way to the artist, therefore they can feel emotionally evoked the same way that the artist does towards a subject. For, example, “The Great Hall of Bulls” in Lascaux, France; interpretation suggest that the people created it either to ensure a successful hunt, for ancestral worship or to show the religious tails of shamanism to the people that came after them. Even though we have been able to guess what the paintings on the cave illustrate, the meaning of this wall painting is really unknown to modern day people, therefore there is a limit to how far the tales move from each generation. The wall painting, was not meant for modern day people though, it was a tool meant for a the specific culture that created it to pass down their cultural tales to the next generation, and from there it just becomes a lasting impression of a culture as a whole.
Works Cited
Auricchio, Laura. "Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Claude Monet (1840–1926). N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Sept. 2015. <http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cmon/hd_cmon.htm>.
Eaton, Marcia Muelder. "Philosophical Aesthetics: A Way of Knowing and Its Limits." Journal of Aesthetic Education 28.3 (1994): 19. Web.
