Art and Life
Since the beginning of the semester, the main idea of the class has been to demonstrate how “life imitates art more than art imitates life” (Wilde 10). To shaping this idea, the first work read in class was the play, The Shape of Things, by Neil LaBute. From reading this play, the class was able to dive into the rest of our literary works having a clear understanding of how art can change us. From the idea presented, each student was able to come to a conclusion about how influential art was to our lives. Personally, before starting the class I did not believe art could influence life more than life could influence art, but after starting the class and almost completing it, I now have a different viewpoint on how influential art is to our daily lives. When deciding upon which two primary sources to use, I wanted to demonstrate how powerful art was in shaping who we could become. The Shape of Things and My Fair Lady seemed to be able to demonstrate my point the clearest. In both works, the main character changes identities due to the events that take place. While the outcomes can be established as either being positive or negative, the transformation of the characters is clear: both characters are largely impacted by the artful events happening surrounding them.
In The Shape of Things, one of the main objectives is to show how Adam is nothing but art to Evelyn. In the last scene when Evelyn is talking to Adam for the last time, she tells him that, “It’s all subjective” (129 Labute) referring to everything that happened in their relationship. Evelyn’s main objective is foreshadowed in the first scene when she and Adam meet. She explains the reason she does not just break the plaster, exposing the penis is b...
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... turning some who can be seen as a blank canvas into someone new. In both ways, Evelyn and Henry Higgins are the artists to their work. Though they might not treat the people they are working with as a human, in the grander idea they have made them better. Adam finally comes to terms with his true personality, while Evelyn exposes what society believes are the norms for a person’s appearance. While, with Eliza, she leaves the life of being a beggar and becoming a duchess, showing how through hard work a person can change, and it becomes hard to return to one’s prior self. Both instances show art playing a large role in shaping their lives. From learning about life through art, people then strive to be on the same level as the art the see, trying to live a grander lifestyle. Showing that to a certain extent art can influence life more than life can influence art.
The book Lives on the Boundary, written by Mike Rose, provides great insight to what the new teaching professional may anticipate in the classroom. This book may be used to inform a teacher’s philosophy and may render the teacher more effective. Lives on the Boundary is a first person account composed of eight chapters each of which treat a different obstacle faced by Mike Rose in his years as a student and as an educator. More specifically in chapters one through five Mike Rose focuses on his own personal struggles and achievements as a student. Ultimately the aim is to highlight the underpreparedness of some of today’s learners.
My initial reaction to the words “You’re next book you will be reading is Into Thin Air” was definitely not me jumping up and down in my seat out of joy. I’ll admit I was not looking forward to reading this book at all. I tried putting off reading it for as long as possible, but then realized that I should just try reading the first chapter. After reading the first chapter I was completely hooked and I couldn’t get enough of the book. Jon Krakauer does a phenomenal job at keeping the reader engaged with what is happening throughout the book. You get an astounding story of the struggles that come with climbing Mount Everest and a wonderful background of the mountain and its history.
In the essay “Everything Now” Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, author Steve McKevitt blames our unhappiness on having everything we need and want, given to us now. While his writing is compelling, he changes his main point as his conclusion doesn’t match his introduction. He uses “want versus need” (145) as a main point, but doesn’t agree what needs or wants are, and uses a psychological theory that is criticized for being simplistic and incomplete. McKevitt’s use of humor later in the essay doesn’t fit with the subject of the article and comes across almost satirical. Ultimately, this essay is ineffective because the author’s main point is inconsistent and poorly conveyed.
Art educates. This education can be both positive and negative but art can function as an educational tool that has lasting effects. A 2009 article in the New York Times titled: “Schools Adopt Art as Building Block of Education” indicates the growing acceptance of art functioning in education. In this article, the unique architecture of the building was used practically by students “measuring whimsical figures of hot-air balloons, paper airplanes and pinwheels built right into the walls of their school” (par. 1). The architecture also functioned as inspiration for further learning. In addition, the article documented the perspective of a four-year old child who proclaimed that “When you look at it, it helps you learn.” (par. 20) When Jeremiah looked at the image of heaven and hell he learned significant life lessons. This picture that was presented in residential school ...
Berger makes his attempt to inform an audience with an academic background that there is a subjective way that we see things all around us every day and based on our previous experiences, knowledge, and other things that occur in our lives, no two people may see or interpret something in the same way. In the essay Mr. Berger uses art as his platform to discuss that we should be careful about how people look at things. Mr. Berger uses rhetorical strategies such as ethos, pathos, and logos. These rhetorical strategies can really help an author of any novel, essay, or any literature to truly get the information they desire across to the audience in a clear and concise
..., the broader feel of the scene. He wants us to take in the entirety of the painting but have a moment to catch the individual scenes within it, like the couple dancing, the man in the corner rolling his cigar, or the women in the front talking to the man. We do get places where our eyes can rest, but in general your eye takes in the swirl of modern life and pleasure.
Whether it is a book, piece of art or even something that we eat, most of the things that we see and perceive in our lives are generally distinguished by their form and content. Form and content have always been a discussion topic among great philosophers (such as Aristotle, Kant, Hegel), lovers of art and intellectuals. These two categories, seemingly different from one another, when fully elaborated, are actually interrelated ide...
Richard P. Feynman was born in 1918 in Brooklyn; in 1942 he received his Ph.D. from Princeton. Already displaying his brilliance, Feynman played an important role in the development of the atomic bomb through his work in the Manhattan Project. In 1945 he became a physics teacher at Cornell University, and in 1950 he became a professor at the California Institute of Technology. He, along with Sin-Itero and Julian Schwinger, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his work in the field of quantum electrodynamics.
On many occasions art has the power to tell a story or even express how someone
Evelyn remains a disconnected personality and expresses little emotion throughout her presentation of Adam to which she calls a “sculpture”, a “base material” , and “my creation” which were confronting terms which shocked the audience as they too were manipulated by Evelyn and were not expecting this conclusion, for their love to be an experiment for artistic purposes because “art must be created. Whatever the cost”. This scene is especially confronting to the audience and Adam because Labute structured the play to lull the audience to a sense of belief and security in the relationships only to cause them pain and discomfort when the truth is revealed. This truth makes moments which were previously humorous into sinister lines such as “What’d she do, give you a haircut and a blow job and now you’re her puppy?!” the audience develops a hatred towards Evelyn for her lack of remorse as she justifies her action as “following in a long tradition of artists who believe that there is no such concept as religion or government… only
In the book by Carl Rogers, A Way of Being, Rogers describes his life in the way he sees it as an older gentleman in his seventies. In the book Rogers discusses the changes he sees that he has made throughout the duration of his life. The book written by Rogers, as he describes it is not a set down written book in the likes of an autobiography, but is rather a series of papers which he has written and has linked together. Rogers breaks his book into four parts.
What should our goals be in life? Bill Strickland makes the point that no matter who you are you can do anything you put your mind too. In his book “Making the impossible possible” he explains his own struggle and how he made it through life to be able to help others. He explains his young childhood. He talks about how he had to live through riots and the racism. He talks about how he wanted to help people make their lives better. He explains his struggles with trying to maintain these buildings and how he made great connections. He tells about his love for pottery and his want to help others. His book was truly an inspiration and turned out to be more than I took his book for in the first few pages. His book made me think about my life and how I can relate to him.
The book, The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman draws attention to some very good points concerning globalization and the world economy today. Friedman emphasizes the status of America today in relation to the other countries of the world. As I looked at the things in which he warned about or highlighted, I realized the importance of this issue. He talks about a few aspects in which need to be kept competitive in order for America to retain their current standing in the world market.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce, exemplifies the model of art it proposes as it also offers the reader on how to read that very art. Following the main character, Stephen Dedalus, through life, Joyce uses Stephen’s immediate perception to convey how an artist views the world. The reader witnesses Stephen encountering everyday aspects of life as art—the words of a language lesson as poetry or the colors of a rose as beautiful. Through Stephen’s voyage and words, Joyce introduces the theory that “beauty” as a label for an object is not born from the actual physical object itself, but rather lies within the process one goes through when encountering the object. Joyce’s theory is also experienced by the reader as he or she encounters Stephen’s perceptions as well as the beauty of the poetic language and vivid description within Joyce’s narrative. The rhythmic patterns and stylistic sentences create a multitude of authorial voices that blend at various points in the novel involving Joyce, Stephen, and the reader.
It can create a bias in the evaluation of art, but can also add meaning. In the first instance, a picture drawn by a child of her family, scribbled with crayons on construction paper, would not be called fine art objectively. However, the child’s mother knows the intention of the girl, is aware of the home environment, and can gain enjoyment, if not from the art then from the mindset of the girl who produced the art. Personal background with art relates to John Dewey’s explanation of how art ought to be understood. In his discussion of Art as Experience, Dewey maintains that “to grasp the sources of esthetic experience it is . . . necessary to have recourse to animal life” (10). At a physical level, it is important to understand the environment, surroundings, and motivations in order to fully understand the meaning of a work. Even though the physical art is not a masterpiece, the affection and visualization of family which motivates the creation is understood by the parent, and imbues the work with meaning. It is personal understanding that guides an understanding of what is art on a personal level. Whether one knows the story behind the work or attempt to infer the meaning, the story behind the work is a large part of how an individual designates art that is pleasing. Aristotle understood the potential for art to be cathartic, which is another facet of a