Category: Assignments

The most unique characteristic of art is that it will never be the same. People who create it express different emotions, feelings, values, and beliefs into their work, truly making it their own. People can interpret it in different ways, but only the artist knows the true meaning behind his or her art. Science, on the other hand, must meet a unanimous consensus with everyone before it becomes truth. To create a mutual understanding of the world around us we cannot have various interpretations of it (for example, when understanding the shape of the earth, there cannot be 3 varying answers [“It’s flat!” “No, it’s a sphere!” “I bet $5 that it’s an octagon!!!!!!!”]). Accepting that there can be interpretations of the scientific world would bring development and the evolution of technology and academics to better enhance our world to a standstill.

So, why is Art? It is because its one of the few ways in which we can defy logic. One can be correct and wrong, brilliant and an idiot, simple and complex. Insanity is welcome; miscalculations and wrong measurements can add depth. The only limit to one’s creation is the limit of their imagination. No one has to agree on a mutual understanding because there doesn’t have to be a set definition. Art comes from the heart, not from the head.

In  perusing a form to replicate our understanding of the world around us why do we chose the sciences over the arts?  Are they different?  Maybe we can measure emotions and are unable to explain a mathematical theorem.  I could not ask you what is Art, but I can ask you why.

Art can describe personal, abstract and subjective things in our world. Science can explain the concrete and evident things in our world. Emotions, which are sometimes explained by art , are abstract. Everyone feels, describes and experiences an emotion a differently. Gravity, however, feels and has the same effects on everyone around the world. In order to understand the world, we need to view it objectively and in a language everyone will be able to understand and apply. This is where numbers, scientific theories and formulas come in. It is hard for art to replicate our understanding of the world because, as we have seen, art can be interpreted so many ways. Each person will come up with his own reaction, meaning for a work of art. Every person will drawn his own meaning from it. With science there are concrete answers. If you drop something in the lower portions of the atmosphere of the earth, it will fall with a rate of acceleration of 9.8 m/s^2. There is not many ways you can interpret that other than the fact that it simply is 9.8. We choose science because eventually science will yield answers, whereas art will continue to nebulous and open to interpretation. Art is a form of expression, a way to understand and show beauty, ideas and experiences. Science is a form on understanding the physical things in our lives.

Their purposes aside, each subject can have parts of the other. Science can become an art as one begins to theorize and play around with numbers and formulas. Symbols begin to represent different concepts in science, formulas are manipulated for their purposes. Working with science can be an art. In this same light, art can be scientific. Proportions in painting or ‘rules’ that make things more visually appealing to the eye. An artist can paint according to a special method, with special tools much like a scientist can reach an answer using a certain formula and tools (calculator, protractor, balance beam, chemicals).

In trying to describe our world, science is easier to understand and easier for many people o understand the same way. Art can be subjective, an unreliable narrator in our world. Science can offer definitive answers to questions that need to be answered.

When trying to figure out whether art or science is a better medium through which to explain the world, one must look at their inherent functions and components.

Art by nature is expressive. If it loses it’s element of expression and becomes something pragmatic or structural, it ceases to be art. This is because art conveys. It conveys opinions and is thus subjective. It exclaims rather than explains. Science, in contrast, is explanatory. It attempts to say what is and what is known.

While “measurement is not always imperfect,” that does not take away from the goal. Any part of art that attempts to do what science does, to explain something to a degree of fact, becomes structural, and thus does not go any lengths in defining that piece as “art.” Measurements are only imperfect because the goal has not been met, not because science is the wrong tool to use in explaining the world.

Math was created to quantify; when quantifying we use math. Similarly, science was created to explain the world, and thus when we explain the world we use science. Art on the other hand was created to express, so when one wishes to express, he uses art.

While there are limitations to science’s ability to explain, they are only birthed from the limitations of what science claims to be able to explain. Science only explains the world. It does not explain interactions. Sometimes it attempts to explain the world at point of interaction, such as the chemicals that are released in moments of love or fear, it does not attempt to explain anything beyond the structure and nature.

Art comes to explain our interactions with that structure and how we live with nature- what does war feel like? What happens when few have much and many have little?

And so, if we wish to replicate our understanding of the world, we should do so with the tool used to explain it, for understanding is gained through explanation. That tool is science. If we would like replicate elements of life in our explanation of the world, if we would like to explain how we interact with the world, certainly that is where art comes in.

Why is there such an emphasis on explaining how the world works instead of how we interact with it? Because our understanding of how the world works is something that would not be known if not for the time taken to study it, and after studying it you can understand how it works. However, a full understanding of how we interact with the world can not be fully known unless experienced- all the art in the world will never be able to truly convey what it feels like to have your heart broken or what it feels like to witness a sunset firsthand.

It is certainly true that people will flock towards science when given the choice between these two. Why? Let’s start out with the basic reasons. Science is something grounded in facts and experiments; if you have a theory, you must form a hypothesis, and then list the materials and what experiment you will conduct with constants and variables and come to a logical conclusion. Art…is more about the interpretation. With science, you can have supporting evidence and references, while with art, you can have similar styles but never the same piece of art ever again. It cannot be proved or supported in any tangible way, just by feelings and interpretation. Most people are not okay with this because they need security, they need to be sure about what they know and thus, science is the place to go. The question does always come back to “what is art” since this is where art jumps into ambiguity and the unknown. There is no formula to create art, and no table of requirements to surely say that yes, this painting is art.

If one can release the need to be grounded and have everything confirmed, however, art is clearly the better choice (or maybe I feel this way because I hate science). Art provides much more freedom for expression and while nothing is for certain, that’s not always a bad thing. Art allows room for others’ opinions and beliefs while science doesn’t really do this. While both methods are representations of the outside world, I feel like art gives it more meaning because it asks how each person perceives that outside world, while science simply provides explanations for why the world is the way it is (also very useful.)

“Measurement is always imperfect, and explanations are easy to invent”.   (Lehrer, Proust was a Neuroscientist,  p.3)

In  perusing a form to replicate our understanding of the world around us why do we chose the sciences over the arts?  Are they different?  Maybe we can measure emotions and are unable to explain a mathematical theorem.  I could not ask you what is Art, but I can ask you why.

How do we determine beauty in our culture?  Is it a necessary component in Art, in humans?

Standards for beauty change. They change based upon the types of images we are bombarded with in media and our views. The majority of opinios about something will come together to form beauty in culture, but it is each person’s own standards of beauty that matter. Different types of art forms exist so that each person can find some art that is beautiful to them. Some might think that modern art is beautiful, some might think that Michelangelo’s sculptures are. Of course if many people’s opinions match up, something can become classical beauty, or even a standard. During the Renaissance, curvaceous plump women were the standard of beauty. Some of our reasons for attraction to certain things are biological. The curvaceous woman was thought to be a good child bearer and a healthy woman. Thus this became the standard of beauty. In our present time, when working out and being skinnier is thought to be more healthy, thus slimmer women now seem to be the ones featured in magazines. Yet our standards of beauty can also be influenced by popular media icons like celebrities. Certain hairstyles, or body types, that look beautiful on them might seem attractive just because it is in the media.

I think beauty is not always necessary in art. Sometimes beauty might detract from the message of the piece or simply not belong. If an artwork is trying to depict dirt, grunge, dark moods or simply the ugly, then beauty would have no place. Personally, I prefer art that has beauty in it, whether it has a message or not, because artistic beauty can be an escape from the everyday scenes. Beauty will always be an important component in humans because from the beginning of time man has been attracted to some things, and repelled by others. We like shiny things,  we like beautiful landscapes, and we will always consider the face of the person we love as ‘beautiful’.

On Thursday, November 19, the New York Philharmonic held an open rehearsal for their performance occurring the next week, on Tuesday the 24th. The high attendance, even of its practice session, speaks to the well-earned renown of the orchestra. The works, played in fragments, repeated and corrected and repeated, were beautifully played to the ear of a student with no musical education. For several hours, the orchestra performed slices of Liszt’s Les Préludes, Symphonic Poem No. 3, Elgar’s In the South, and selections from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the rehearsal, particularly to the untrained ear, was the ability of the members to change so quickly. It was plenty surprising to watch them simply follow the music, as it rose and as it plunged with the seemingly capricious moods of three quite dead composers tugging the musicians bows and sending their fingers flying along their instruments. Working off each other, the relentless conductor, and the music, the musicians could rapidly alter their pace, from creeping to galloping through the notes, the volume, from whisper to great booming noise that bounded through the hall and against hundreds of ear drums, the mood, from melancholy, timid, sweet, to dark, foreboding, passionate, triumphant. In one moment, their instruments could evoke peace and nature, in another, violent uproar.

Almost as impressive as their collective path through the music was the way these many individuals, so human-seeming in their pedestrian dress, could pull together faster than iron filings on a magnet. Some older men wore tweed suits, brown shoes, wire-rimmed eyeglasses. One women on the right wore purple mary janes; a matching sweater was draped carelessly over her chair, from which it gradually slid to a puddle on the floor by intermission. Some hair was neat, some messy, pushed up, to the side. Make-up was undone, and the colors of everyday life splashed across the stage. Before the conductor arrived, the stage emitted so many different noises of instruments tuning and adjusting that the sound of all the papers rustling and chairs adjusting and greetings slipping between breaths were barely audible. But upon the raise of the conductor’s energetic hand, instruments were poised, hands steady and the entire stage near still. So quickly, these disparate elements of humanity, at first glance no different the average person on the subway, created awe-inspiring sound. The first moments of In the South seemed to lift a person’s heart, entrance their mind with some great and captivating landscape of sound. And the slightly chilling opening of Romeo at Juliet’s grave, before the thunderous landing of doom, seems to absorb the oxygen out of the air, leaving even the musically ignorant breathless.

Beauty is a fascinating attribute due to its relativity; something “beautiful” to an ape would certainly not be considered beautiful by a human being. Even amongst humans, the term beauty can differ: an object may be considered beautiful by one human being, but not the other. Beauty can be linked to attractiveness. Scientists believe that our attractiveness to one another originates as an evolutionary predisposition to be attracted to those who are most able to produce healthy offspring. Common “attractive features,” such as a muscular body for a man, indicates healthiness and the ability to produce offspring, making women biologically attracted to this feature. Common “unattractive features,” such as large amounts of acne or skin lesions, place the individual’s health into question and cause people to not be attracted to these features.

A common psychological study dealing with beauty usually involves pictures of many different women shown to men (or vice versa). The men are then asked to determine which female in the pictures is the most beautiful. One of the pictures, however, will be a computer-generated woman consisting of the “average features” of all the other women. In other words, the computer will superimpose all the faces of the women and produce a composite photo of a female with the average traits of all the other women. The men will almost always pick this computer-generated photo for being the most attractive, proving that we find normality to be most appealing.

Beauty affects our judgment, although we may not realize it. Subconsciously, we feel more comfortable around “beautiful” people/objects and have a greater disposition to liking them more than “ugly” people/objects. We are essentially hard-wired to both reproduce and find the best suitable environment for ourselves. Because of this, a beautiful person or piece or artwork will instantly affect our judgment towards that person or artwork. Obviously, however, exceptions do exist, with people finding someone with “unattractive” traits to be beautiful and “ugly” pieces of artwork to be amazing. The trends described in this essay, however, refer to the majority of judgments made by people toward other humans and artwork based on their physical appearance.