Re: RHIZOME_RAW: BOOK: Is "Art" is Misused?

Harvey Newstrom (harv@gate.net)
Tue, 09 Jun 1998 08:59:50 -0400


Natasha Vita More (fka Nancie Clark) wrote:
>
> "Throughout the dialogues of Plato and the treatises of Aristotle, the word
> 'art' is used as frequently as 'science,'?. Science and art are for the
> Greeks the two fundamental forms of knowing - the former, knowing that,
> what, why and wherefore; the latter, knowing how." But don't let this
> confuse you! It's not as simple as it sounds -:)

Is that a new transhuman smiley? Or is it a typo, witht the eyes and nose
transposed? Or is it art? (or am I trying to function on too little sleep
again?... Sorry!)

> "Is not the art they [artists] possess the power to produce this or that
> object, this or that performance? Is it, therefore not reasonable to use
> the word 'art' for the skill that makes a human being an 'artist,' and to
> use the phrase 'work of art' [objet d'art] for the product of the artist's
> productive activity?"

If art is the power (or method?) to produce certain works... Does this imply
that there is a scientific method for one thing, and an artistic method for
something else? I always felt (with no supporting documentation) that science
is the technical method of creating a work, but artistic talent was the
creative genius leading one to decide what to create. An idea for something
new is art, the executiion of making the idea real often is technical
application of the idea.

In otherwords, I have assumed that the mixing of paint was technical and
scientific, but the choice of the exact shade one is trying to acheive was the
art. Photography is a scientific process of captuing and image, but finding,
choosing and framing the image, and setting all the paramaters to get the right
shot, that is the art.

Of course this may be overly simplistic. I often refer to Bloom's taxonomy of
knowledge. It classifies "learning" or "knowledge" into six increasing levels
of difficulty, with each higher level requiring mastery of the previous
levels. Naturally, I can't recall the first two levels which have to do with
memorization, so the first two may be confused in my recollection given here.

(Lowest level of understanding.)
1 Recognition of something as being seen before.
2. Knowledge/Memorization the recall of information without a trigger
stimulus.
3. Application is knowing how to use the information in a new situation.
4. Analysis is scientific study of how the information or methods work.
5. Evaluation is deciding if knowledge of methods are accurate, useful or
better/worse than other knowledge or methods.
6. Synthesis is creating new information or methods.
(Highest level of understanding)

--
Harvey Newstrom  <mailto:harv@gate.net>  <http://www.gate.net/~harv>
...author of the "ultimate nutrient reference book" --American Libraries