High vs.

Low
 What is on Batteaux’s original list of the fine arts?
o
 What are some examples of high vs. low art?
o High Art - Painting, Sculpture, Classical music, opera, some jazz, Poetry &
literary novels, theatre & performance Dance
o Low Art - etc, Comics, Cartoons, Street art, Rock, electronic, folk pop and rap
music, Genre novels (romance, sci-fi, etc), Hollywood blockbusters, Sitcoms,
soaps and serial dramas
 How might we draw the distinction between high and low art? Consider form, emotion,
origin, motive, and function. Are any of these successful?
o Form – High art is Complex while Low art is simple
o Emotion – profound vs shallow
o Motive: expression vs. profit
o Function: seriousness vs entertainment
o Class: upper vs lower
 What is Bourdieu’s theory that high vs. low art is a class-based distinction?
o

The Beauty Theory

 What makes something a functional definition of art?
 What is the Beauty Theory of Art?
o something is an artwork if & only if it is intended to provide the experience of
beauty
 How is subjectivism different from objectivism about beauty?
o Subjectivism - Things are beautiful because of how we experience them
o Objectivism - Things are beautiful independent of us
 Why is beauty valuable, according to Scruton?
o beauty is valuable because it gives sensuous form to moral & spiritual values.
Beauty connects us to something transcendental, expressing values and
ideals that lift us out of everyday concerns. Showing the world as harmonious,
orderly and welcoming to us. Scruton contemplates the contemporary culture
as "loveless culture determined to portray the world as unlovable"
 What is desecration, and how does it relate to beauty?
 What are some objections to the Beauty Theory?
o we reject beauty 1) because the elevation of self-expression, 2) because the
obsession w/ transgression & shock

The Expression Theory

 What does Collingwood mean by craft? What are some key properties that craft has?
o 1) means vs ends, 2) planning vs execution, 3) Raw materials vs finished product.
 How is art different from craft, for Collingwood?
 1) there are no means for making & artworks are not means to anything else (you can't
tell someone really step by step instructions to produce a ex. poem), 2) Art does not need
 to be planned (think of play, free styling, improv.), 3) Art has no "raw materials" ex- raw
materials of a poem??? lmao no.
 What is the Expression Theory of Art?
o Something is an artwork if & only if it involves an artist's expressing some
emotion. Expression is - moving towards a state of clarity, consciousness &
understanding of one's emotions
 What are the steps involved in the process of expression?
o 1) Not knowing what one is feeling, 2) engaging in some activity, 3) becoming
conscious of what one was feeling, 4) experiencing relief & freedom, 5) Being
understood by oneself & others.
 How is expressing emotion different from betraying emotion and arousing emotion?
o Arousing Emotions in others need not involve having the emotion
o Betraying an emotion is exhibiting the symptoms of that emotion - while not
actually experiencing it
 What are some objections to the Expression Theory?
o It counts too much as art -not everything that we do that clarifies emotion
is art. It counts too little as art - art made for celebration or protest,
religious, patriotically & devotional art; arts of sheer entertainment or
decoration. - cold or purely cerebral art, chance compositions,
appropriation, collective & authorless artworks

The Aesthetic Theory

 What is aesthetic interest, according to Beardsley?
o Monroe Beardsley, Something is artwork if and only if it is produced w/ the intent
of giving it the capacity to satisfy our aesthetic interest. Art production & art
reception are respectively connected to aesthetic interest and Aesthetic
experience.
 What is the Aesthetic Theory of Art?
o An artwork is something produced with the intention of giving it the capacity to
satisfy the aesthetic interest
 What roles do art production and art reception play in the Aesthetic Theory?
o
 What are the qualities of aesthetic experience? In particular, what is disinterestedness?
 What roles do intentions play in the Aesthetic Theory?
o
 Does art depend on social institutions, according to Beardsley?
 What are some objections to the Aesthetic Theory?

The Cluster Theory

 What is a readymade? What is appropriation art? What is anti-aesthetic or anesthetic
art?
o Readymade - An ordinary object that is lifted out of everyday life and put forward
as an artwork
o Appropriation art - Takes peexisting images, sounds, and video and represents
them usually with little or no modification
 o Anti-aesthetic art - Is made to have little or no aesthetic interest - to be boring,
ordinary or everyday
 What is the problem with all functional theories of art?
o
 How does the Cluster Theory of Art try to solve this problem?
 What makes something a cluster concept?
o Something is an artwork if it is an artificial that has many or most of these
qualities: 1) Positive aesthetic properties (beauty or grace), 2) Expressive
of emotion, 3) Intellectually challenging, 4) Formally complex and
coherent, 5) Conveys complex meanings, 6) Has an individual point of
view, 7) Exhibits originality, 8) Requires a high degree of skill, 9) Belongs
to an established art form or genre, 10) Is intended to be an artwork
 What are some properties that make up the art-cluster?
 What are the advantages and disadvantages of the Cluster Theory?
o Advantages - It captures the historical diversity of art, different parts of the
Cluster matter at different times. It captures the pluralism of the modern art world,
modern art can be summed up as anything goes!
o Disadvantages - It is unprincipled. What criteria get included in the Cluster? It is
too disunities, does the economics of art just become empty?

The Institutional Theory

 What is a procedural theory, as opposed to a functional theory?
 What is the art world? What makes it up?
 What is the Institutional Theory of Art?
 How does the Institutional Theory separate classifying from evaluating?
 How do the democratic and elitist approaches to the art world differ?
 What is outsider art?
 What are some objections to the Institutional Theory? In particular, what is the problem
of judgment?

Street Art
 What is Street Art?
o Something is street artwork if and only if its material use of the street is internal to
its meaning
 What are the Material and Immaterial Requirements that define it?
 What is the street itself?
 How is street art defined as being against the art world?
 What is graffiti? Can it be street art? How?
 Is public art and sculpture street art? Why or why not?

Tattoos and Body Art

 What are a few things that are distinctive about tattoos as artworks? Why is it misleading
to think of them as being like drawings or paintings?
o Tradition and ritual signifiers
o Social group membership
 o Tests of endurance
o Commemoration
o Individual self-expression and transformation
o Decoration and beautification
o Pure aesthetic interest
 Misleading because tattoos essentially involve the body as a medium,
inherently impermanent (like street art..are made to alter and disappear),
and ownership of tattoos cannot be transferred.

 What is the difference between the cultural and individual meaning of a tattoo?
o Cultural meaning – how an image is conventionally interpreted by a society or a
group
o Individual meaning – how a particular image is to be interpreted relative to who it
belongs to
 What are three ways a tattoo might express someone’s intentions?
o Artist’s intentions trump the bearer’s
o Bearer’s intentions trump the artist’s
o The work is a product of their collective intentions
 What does it mean for a tattoo to express a collective intention?
o Collective intentions – are created when two or more people collaborate towards a
shared goal
 What is the difference between commemorative and aspirational tattoos?
o
 In what ways can tattooing be transformative?
o
 What is the difference between separable and inseparable tattooed images?
o Separable – mostly flat works
o Inseparable – tattoo images often alter how the body itself is seen

Punk Aesthetics
 How is punk defined by the three aesthetic qualities of irreverence, nihilism, and
amateurism?
o Irreverence: the challenging of social norms
o Nihilism: the denial of value and celebration of destruction
o Amateurism: the rejection of skill, obvious displays of talent, slick production and
harmony
 What are examples of each?
o Irreverence – anti religion, anti-celebrity, anti-consumerist, celebration of shock
and violation of conventional pieties, obscenity, sneering, and contempt,
anarchism and other forms of political radicalism
o Nihilism – themes of decay, suicide, and social collapse, dystopian outlook,
boredom, crudely cynical worldview
o
 How is punk a challenge to the idea of a universal standard of taste?
o Celebrates ugliness and discord…
  How does punk show that art can create its own audience?
o By sharpening distinctions in tate and by generating new appreaction of new
qualities
 What is the link between punk and identity?
o Musical genre
o Style of fashion
o Visual language
o Mode of dance and performance
 How does art function to mark out subcultural groups?

Everyday Aesthetics
 What is “framing”? How does it separate artworks from non-art objects?
 How does the tea ceremony exemplify everyday aesthetic pleasures?
 Explain the roles of creative unification of elements and the singular, unrepeatable
nature of the experience.
 What is ichigo ichie? How does it illustrate the difference between art and the everyday?
 In what way is aesthetic judgment also moral judgment?

Art and Evolution

 What does it mean to say that the sense of beauty is a biological adaptation?
 What is the biological function of beauty, according to Dutton?
 Is this a subjectivist view or an objectivist view?
 What is the Savanna Hypothesis?
 How does natural selection explain our landscape preferences?
o Natural selection: the spread of traits that are better suited to survival and
reproduction in a species environment. Natural selection explains why we find
landscapes attractive.
 How does sexual selection explain why we make art despite its cost and uselessness?
o Sexual selection: the spread of traits that are more likely to appeal to prospective
mating partners (ex: bowerbird nest, the peacocks tail.) Sexual selection explains
whY
 In what way is art a fitness signal?
o