Beauty, art, and truth are all connected in the way they are viewed. The cliche phrase "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" shows up repeatedly in our first thoughts packet for a reason. Beauty is defined by the individual and it varies. Not everyone is going to find the same person beautiful just as not everyone finds the same piece of art beautiful. Similarly the truth changes from person to person. two people can experience the same event and come away with drastically different impressions of what happened based on their perceptions of incident. It is our perception that causes the individual to define beauty, art and truth for themselves.
In the video about art and the human form, it talked about the idea that art was a way in which to exaggerate the most important aspects of the human body based on the culture creating it. For example in Ancient Egypt order and consistency was favored resulting in a very exact human form that was not realistic or in Ancient Greece with the exaggerated athleticism. In this way culture influences the individuals concept of beauty. Further, each person has their own perceptions of beauty.
Art is up for interpretation. Each person person looks at art in a different way. A piece of art can evoke very different emotions in a viewer. People can look at a painting a see very different emotions in the subject often based on their own experiences. Again it is the viewer's perception of the painting that dictates their reaction and if they find it beautiful.
In the theory the truth is universal it is the one correct answer. However the truth also depends on the perceptions. The truth about an event, a feeling, or a relationship depend on the person and their perception of what happened. Two people can have an argument and the truth of what the argument was about can differ. In a relationship there can be widely different ideas of what happened based on the perception of each person. In a much broader example for some people the Bible is the truth where for others the truth of the Bible is that it is a work of fiction.
It is the perceptions of art, beauty, and truth that tie them. The ability to be completely different depending on the person. There is no right and wrong here, it all depends on perceptions. So despite how cliche the phrase is, the concept of "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" backs up this idea of perceptions defining all three.
I love your last paragraph where you describe how all three of the ideas are subject to one's own interpretation. I think that this is a fundamental part of being a human. Life wouldn't be very interesting if we all thought the same things or had the same views. I like that you tied your post to the film we saw. The only critique I can think of is that you compared but didn't contrast the three topics. It is interesting to see how they differ as well!
ReplyDeleteLilia,
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with how you describe art, truth, and beauty as a matter of perception. Your statement concerning the bible is particularly intriguing. Your final paragraph brings up an important point: how morality is not meant to play a role among art, beauty, and truth. Objectively, I agree with that point, how nothing can be experienced in its true form if the morality of the matter is brought into question. However, morality is the basis for nearly everything in the human experience, and to ignore that is to ignore the fundamental human aspect of emotion. Everything is an emotional experience, so I would ask if experiencing without emotion is a false experience, and if including emotion makes it any more true? Are the perceptions you mentioned as narrow a view as can be permitted by morality, or does morality liberate a person's perspective? Definitely enjoyed reading this! Good work!
Lilia,
ReplyDeleteI really like that the main focus of your blog was to talk about how art, beauty and truth are all based on the perception of an individual. I definitely agree that it is the way we connect the three words together, but I disagree that you can define the word truth by using peoples perceptions of situations or events. My own perspective of truth is that there can only be one truth. You used the bible as an example so I'll use that too. There are many opinions about the stories that are told in the bible which may or may not be completely true. With that being said, I feel that because we don't know the actual truth, there is no definite truth about the bible. Another example of this would be scientific theories. There are many possible hypotheses about how the world came into existence and there are many facts backing them up, but I don't think these theories and hypotheses can be proven to be the actual truth. I feel like humans don't really know truth because of our own perceptions. Overall, great job on your blog and I look forward to reading more posts from you! Keep up the great work!