We talked about what art is. So what is art? Is it a
way of showing feeling, expressing yourself, or just for the sake of doing it.
Look at the object below.
Is that art? It looks like art, don’t you think? Aristotle, a famous Greek philosopher agrees that anything that represents something is art. He came up with the idea that if it represents something than it is art.
Is that art? It looks like art, don’t you think? Aristotle, a famous Greek philosopher agrees that anything that represents something is art. He came up with the idea that if it represents something than it is art.
Aristotle
- Philosopher from Ancient Greece 469-399 BC
- Student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great
- He and Plato were great friends despite their disagreements
- Aristotle was interested in the physical world and focused on scientific study
- He promoted the representationalist view of art in which art imitates nature
- He wasn’t an artist but wrote about art in Poetics
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher but he disagreed with Aristotle's representationalist theory. He felt that art was meta-physical (beyond the physical) and should go beyond the literal representation of the world around us. He thought that tragic myths are art. His theory is that experiencing unhappiness is good for humans and he thought that it forces us to have courage and strive toward greater accomplishments. He is also famous for saying "God is Dead".
We thought this was funny!
