Final Post: Why Art Matters- Jairo Perdomo H03

 As a person that is very fond of western history, I find that art is extremely helpful into seeing how past civilizations have viewed life and the world around them. For that reason, I agree with Sonny Rollins that “art never dies, it expresses the soul that is infinite.” While some historical records may exist of how people viewed the past, art will be able to show a more mundane picture which. For instance, Greek and Roman art tried to create realistic interpretations of the ideal form, while art in other places such as the Islamic caliphates, the emphasis was much different, and for at least some Muslims the depiction of humans was taboo. It is always important to remember that art is a reflection of how its creator views the world. Though a person may follow most of the norms of a certain culture they could also take their own path. Think of Picasso and cubism.   

                   

The image above is the body of Augustus of Prima Porta which has many images used to portray Augustus in a positive light. Here is a fun fact, many Greek and Roman statues were painted it just so happens that paint wears off over time, which is why many renaissance sculptures thought that the statues were colorless, and in turn did not color their statues. This statue in question was found with color, but it was lost in the cleaning process. 

 

This is an image of the Hagia Sophia from the inside. For nearly a millennium this was the great church of the Eastern Roman Empire. Of course, the great walls of Constantinople were not able to withstand cannon fire and fell in 1453. The city suffered a great deal of damage, but Mehmet II the Ottoman Sultan decided to convert the church into a mosque. Importantly he kept many of the icons of the church. Over Ottoman rule many features were added to the Hagia Sophia to properly transform it to a mosque. One visible in the photo are the calligraphy adorning the walls and even the main dome of the Hagia Sophia. The Ottomans certainly did a great deal in preserving this beauty and they had more time to desecrate it than the crusaders ever did 

Art is difficult to define since just like artwork itself art has different meanings to different people. To a person such as Eric Kaplan, “art is aspects of life that can be transformed through creativity.” This is a great starting definition since as humans we can transform everything, we encounter from our surroundings to even the way we talk.  Another point that Eric Kaplan brings up is his first of 5 theses on creativity. It is that creativity makes something new, he gives an example from Beowulf where the ocean is called a whale road giving an interesting new way to describe ocean. However, I am here to talk about something else, poetic meter. Greek and Roman poets often wrote in dactylic hexameter which required much thinking to get sentences to fit the meter. This often meant that some words were not able to be used at all. However, this meant that authors such as Vergil had to get creative with their word choice and it is why works such as the Aeneid are praised (even if the actual story itself is lackluster.) 

 Language is the way that we communicate with others in our societies they evolve because of our creativity or sometimes due to foreign influences (for example k sound dropping from words such as knight) , but even if language seems mundane it should still be celebrated as an art because even just simple things such as word choice will give insight into culture.  Spartans were well known for their terse and often sarcastic manner of speaking, which is one of the few aspects of the Spartans I admire. Language gives meaning to what we experience, and, in that way, it is an art of its own kind. 

While art may have had a role in our evolution, it is impossible to say for sure how large the role has been. However, we do know that art can show our unique world perspective. Art has increasingly, at least in the west had more of a focus on storytelling. For instance, think comedian by Maurizio Cattelan is not meant to awe because of its composition, rather it is supposed to generate a reaction from an audience. While it may not be considered a work of art by some, it is nonetheless still the work of a human, and thus in my eyes it is still worth giving some attention to. I personally do not care to define something as art, for the simple reason that I simply enjoy observing what others do and thus it really does not matter what qualifies as art. However, I do have a dislike for AI generated art 

While there are several valid reasons to dislike AI art, I dislike it because AI does not understand what it is making. John Searle said that for AI to have understanding it must have semantics, but AI does not at present have that. Without semantics any art that AI produces does not have meaning. It is just a slave to the prompt of a human. Art in the past was made by slaves, but it also could have some defiance. This may be present in the writing of Omar Ibn Said who claimed to have converted, but possibly never did, and instead having discretely hidden his faith in his works. AI just does what it is told to do, it cannot express what plethora of emotions that humans have. AI is good at logical tasks, but humans are illogical, that at the end of the day is what makes our art beautiful to behold.  

 

While some people believe that AI art can help unleash their creativity, there is something about the style of AI art that does not sit quite right with me. Of course, there are examples of AI art that more closely resemble human made art, but even then, people with a trained eye (unlike myself) can spot a great deal of those. 

Art can show the hidden side of our cultures, and of individuals, that is why it is important to preserve any piece of art that we may come across. It is a treasure that is too precious to lose but is also an enjoyable experience. 

 One last thing, if any of these links cannot be accessed due to paywalls go to archive.ph and insert the link.