The Nature of Art and Creativity

1. The Nature of Art and Creativity Chapter 1

2. Her Secret is Patience; Janet Echelman

5. What is art? • A work of art is the visual expression of an idea or experience formed with skill through the use of a medium. • Define medium (plural media) • What do we call an artwork made with a combination of different media?

6. Barnett Newman Cathedra 1951 96”x213”

8. Barnett Newman Cathedra 1951 96”x213”

9. Fountain; Marcel Duchamp

10. creativity • Imagination is • more important • than knowledge. • Albert Einstein

11. Creativity • The ability to bring forth something new that has value. • Mere novelty is not enough; the new thing must have some relevance, or unlock some new way of thinking. • Everyone has the potential to be creative, most of us have not been encouraged to be to be creative. • Creativity is an attitude.

12. 5 Traits that define creativity • 1: Associating: ability to make connections across seemingly unconnected fields. • 2: Questioning: Persistently questioning the status quo. Asking why things function as they do and how can they be changed. • 3: Observing: Intently watching the world around, without judgments, in search of new insights or ways of operating. • 4: Networking: Being willing to interact with others, and learn from them, even if their views are radically different or their competencies seem unrelated. • 5: Experimenting: Exploring new possibilities by trying them out, building models and taking them apart for further improvement.

13. Trained vs. untrained VS. Folk artist • Trained Artist: Artist with formal artistic training. • Originally received training by being apprenticed to masters in their workshop. • Modern definition: An artist who has received training at a college, university or art school.

14. Trained vs. untrained VS. Folk artist • Untrained Artist: Artist with little to no formal art education. Also known as Outsider Artist. African Village Joe Minter

15. Trained vs. untrained VS. Folk artist • Folk artists: untrained artist who work within a tradition. Minnie Adkins

16. Trained vs. untrained VS. Folk artist Linville Barker

17. Art and reality • Representational Art (also objective or figurative art): Presents again or represents objects we recognize from the everyday world. • The objects in representational art are called subjects. • Trompe l’oeil (“tromp loy”) “fool the eye” • artwork of extreme realism

18. William harnett

19. Abstract art • Works that depict natural objects in simplified, distorted or exaggerated ways. • The artist changes the objects natural appearance in order to emphasize or reveal certain properties.

20. nonrepresentational • No specific reference outside itself. • Also known as nonobjective or nonfigurative. • Using lines, shapes and colors to create a composition.

21. Looking vs. seeing • Degrees of visual awareness. • Looking- Purely mechanical, minimal interaction. • Seeing- Going beyond the simple functional act of look to truly grasp the essence of the object.

22. Visual Thinking • Creating a mental picture.

23. Perception vs. awareness • Perception: To become aware of something through the senses, particularly sight and hearing. • Awareness: To be conscious, to know something and to understand through that awareness.

24. Form vs. content • Form: What we see. Content: What it means.

25. iconography • The symbolic meaning of signs, subjects and images.

26. The Knight, death and the devil; Durer