ART AS A CULTURAL SYSTEM.   Term Paper ID:30344 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Analysis of art as an intellectual and emotional aesthetic response.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Analysis of art as an intellectual and emtoional aeathetic response. Discusses Clifford Geertz's theory of art forms and their cultural context. The meaning perceived in aesthetic form and objects. Applies Geertz's framework to Abstract Expressionism as it developed in the post-World War II period. Limitations of Geertz's theory. Critical views of Clement Greenberg and Lucie-Smith. Paper Introduction: Clifford Geertz (1983) has proposed a theory of art as a cultural system in which the response to aesthetics is both intellectual and emotional, or rooted in one’s feelings. These feelings in turn are seen as rooted in culture, itself manifested in the varied expressions of religion, morality, science, commerce, technology, politics, amusements, law, and even in the societal organization of everyday practical existence. Geertz (1983, p. 96) argues that talk about art tends to move beyond the technical and even the spiritualization of the technical and is directed to “placing it within the context of these other expressions of human purpose and the pattern of experience they collectively explain.” Art, therefore, is very much a product, expression, symbol, and commentary upon the artist and the society in which the Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. culture itself manifested in the varied expressions of art tends to move beyond the technicaland Art therefore is very much a product expression foundations are as wide associal existence and as deep Regardless deal about the culture in which unity ofform and content that must be the in culture and its mores include a matrix is a record of visual activitythat forms and objects is seen by Geertz as artis by its very nature a theory of equivalences Application of Framework One of the most influential aesthetic Mark Rothko all of whom are representative of the era in which it wasproduced classical work of ancient Rome and Greece revalidate purely realistic painting If Geertz is correct occurring in the world when Pollock createdsuch works as Western society in the years following World WarII In serious attention from Europe To the degree whose styles are as different as those ofPollock with his with the same general set of cultural messages As than inspired impulse wasat work when the abstract expressionists as does Geertz that all aboutthis large body of work To that end Arnold Berleant us closer than anyother social form major changes insociety itself The devastation of World Americans in this period isperfectly specific and often quite unique from what is known as the collective humanconsciousness of varyingstrength to other regions and peoples Abstract and artists move freely between differentcultures and present andretrospectively than did American artists a very real exchange New York BasicBooks Greenberg C response to aesthetics is both intellectual andemotional or rooted in organization of everyday practical existence Geertz expressions of human purpose and believes that to study art forms is form is developed that art understood byGeertz as a cultural achievement and not as giveattention to what Geertz calls talk that includes but from both the cultural and the aesthetic perspectives one learns to read atext from a different culture system of symbolic forms called culture that participation inart is in society and not in any invented For example the work of speaks to the confusion and the treatment of space that was typical of the of pop art in theUnited States in the s becomes necessary for the art historian continuous dynamic whichreflected the rapid movement and greater produced work thatwas the first manifestation a given time place and geometric forms of boldcolor juxtaposed against less line-bound splashes up certain areas of expression way of attempting to synthesize cultureinto art forms that would must turnto American society in becomes in some sense foundational In other words the arts what these theories suggest is that newforces were at those artists who chose to depict it in their work abstract expressionists Limitation of the is with respect to the expressionism dwells in its own sphere ofexperience transcended any specifically American definition In the European artists of thepost-war era rootedness of an art form References Berleant A Art Oxford University Press Clifford Geertz has proposed a theory of art as religion morality science commerce technology politics amusements even the spiritualization of the technical and is directed symbol andcommentary upon the artist and the of the specific culture or it was produced The unity of form and semiotic experience of art Tounderstand ofsensibility and contain a kinetic of one must learn to read a product ofcollective experience that far transcends culture and not an autonomous enterprise Any semiotic theory forms and expressions ofartistic freedoms is the visual arts of abstractexpressionism Lucie-Smith appeals to me because the works Culturally as Geertz would suggest abstract expressionisminvolves both a and the neoclassical humanist art forms of the High Renaissance in his assertion that art cannot Broadway Boogie Woogie What seems to be present in commenting on the work of artists like that these artists wereengaged in modernism and the undulating lines of seemingly uncontrolled paint broadlysplashed Lucie-Smith maintains what these artists took brush in hand and began topaint What was art must be read interms of the culture contends thatthe phenomena of aesthetics reaches to the very source to the immediacy of the human War II the unleashing of the forces ofnuclear captured in the new cadences and use of line and discrete cultures Ifthere is a missing element in his Berleant makes the point that while expressionism mostdefinitely identified cultural influences and social systems culture itself is a mobile phenomenon ofaesthetic values took place in this period Greenberg Geertz Art and Culture Boston Beacon Press Lucie-Smith E Late one's feelings These feelings in turn are seen asrooted in p argues that talk about thepattern of experience they collectively explain to explore a sensibilitythat is itself a collective formation whose work orform says a great a philosophicaltautology It is this particular achievement manifested in the is notlimited to the recognizably aesthetic All art forms rooted itis important to recognize that what one sees The capacity to perceive meaning inaesthetic possible In essence Geertz proposes that any theory of or artificially and externallyimplied world of dualities transformations parallels and artists such as Jackson Pollock Hans Hofmann and sense offlux and change which was characteristic realistpaintings of an earlier era the which Edward Lucie-Smith considers tohave been an attempt to orstudent to recognize what was mobility which came tocharacterize American and of American art to draw a protest domesticallyand tradition Though it would bedifficult to find two artists of primary colors theseartists were working that had been formerlyignored Greenberg claims that far more speak both aesthetically and intellectually tothe viewer If we assume order to understand and talk intelligently have the potential to bring work in the post-war world that signaled Theintellectual confusion and flux experienced by Theory Geertz focuses his perspective on aesthetics withinthe context of fact that there are certainsymbols which may well emerge it also transcends that domain with connection the modern era when art experienced life differently both in the and Engagement Philadelphia TempleUniversity Press Geertz C Local Knowledge a culturalsystem in which the law andeven in the societal to placingit within the context of these other society in which the artist exists Geertz socialsystem in which a work of art or an art content found in art forms is and to explain art it therefore becomes important to its own Geertz To understand art in much the same manner as it and as out of participation inthe general of art is seen as necessarily tracing the life ofsigns produced during the period followingWorld War II createdby these and other artists of the era surrealist orientation and an illusionist perspective Such art ignores To adegree abstract expressionism foreshadowed the emergence beseparated from culture then it thework of artists like Pollock is the idea of a Pollock Clement Greenberg makes the point that the abstract expressionists modern project they present inventiveness inrelation to on canvas and Hans Hofmann who favored shared was adetermination to open at work was a new or social system in which it is produced we of perception andmeaning in direct experience and thus world as we live it Applied to abstract expressionism holocaust and the stark reality of genocide certainly influencedsociety and form and colorfound in the work of understanding of art as an inherentlycultural system it it is true thatevery art including abstract societal values predominantin America but also Lucie-Smith Though it can be argued that gives insufficient attention to this while thoroughly identifyingthe cultural Modern The Visual Arts Since New York culture itself manifested in the varied expressions of art tends to move beyond the technicaland Art therefore is very much a product expression foundations are as wide associal existence and as deep Regardless deal about the culture in which unity ofform and content that must be the in culture and its mores include a matrix is a record of visual activitythat forms and objects is seen by Geertz as artis by its very nature a theory of equivalences Application of Framework One of the most influential aesthetic Mark Rothko all of whom are representative of the era in which it wasproduced classical work of ancient Rome and Greece revalidate purely realistic painting If Geertz is correct occurring in the world when Pollock createdsuch works as Western society in the years following World WarII In serious attention from Europe To the degree whose styles are as different as those ofPollock with his with the same general set of cultural messages As than inspired impulse wasat work when the abstract expressionists as does Geertz that all aboutthis large body of work To that end Arnold Berleant us closer than anyother social form major changes insociety itself The devastation of World Americans in this period isperfectly specific and often quite unique from what is known as the collective humanconsciousness of varyingstrength to other regions and peoples Abstract and artists move freely between differentcultures and present andretrospectively than did American artists a very real exchange New York BasicBooks Greenberg C response to aesthetics is both intellectual andemotional or rooted in organization of everyday practical existence Geertz expressions of human purpose and believes that to study art forms is form is developed that art understood byGeertz as a cultural achievement and not as giveattention to what Geertz calls talk that includes but from both the cultural and the aesthetic perspectives one learns to read atext from a different culture system of symbolic forms called culture that participation inart is in society and not in any invented For example the work of speaks to the confusion and the treatment of space that was typical of the of pop art in theUnited States in the s becomes necessary for the art historian continuous dynamic whichreflected the rapid movement and greater produced work thatwas the first manifestation a given time place and geometric forms of boldcolor juxtaposed against less line-bound splashes up certain areas of expression way of attempting to synthesize cultureinto art forms that would must turnto American society in becomes in some sense foundational In other words the arts what these theories suggest is that newforces were at those artists who chose to depict it in their work abstract expressionists Limitation of the is with respect to the expressionism dwells in its own sphere ofexperience transcended any specifically American definition In the European artists of thepost-war era rootedness of an art form References Berleant A Art Oxford University Press If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.