Realism

A.) Realistic art is art that is made with the intention of looking like what the artist intended it to portray. It is recognized as a real object, whether that be in nature or an imitation of something natural. Realism is seen as perfect and precise.

B.) Art to Plato is dangerous to society because he sees it as untruthful and emotionally unstable. Plato feels that art belongs to the state, not the people and that good art is seen for what it is—an imitation or reality. He feels that art is not as superior as things in life such as medicine, architecture, and arithmetic. Good art is simple and beautiful because of the unity or it is complex and proportionally unified in beauty.

C.) I believe that Plato would have ban a majority of Koon’s work from his society or at least from the public view. Even though he may agree with some aspects of the work, because of the very realistic detail, I believe that he still would have seen it as a copy. He would have seen it to have a strong emotional appeal which Plato fears about art. Like I stated above, Plato sees art as unstable and untruthful, so I think that Plato would have been anxious about Koon’s work because to him it would have been detracting from the truth of the object at hand. To Plato, artist should adhere to artistic traditions, but Koons does as he wishes and sets himself apart from the artistic conventions. Many of Koon’s chosen objects in his art would not be to Plato’s expectations of expectable subjects worth contemplations; for example, the vacuum cleaner exhibit.

D.) Good art to Aristotle is quite open; it should embrace the realistic nature of the object, celebrating its “beauty” but it should also engage the viewer’s attention and emotion much like the actual object would. This does not necessarily mean though that the art must be a perfect replica of the actual object though.

E.) No, I think that obscene art can be art and is placed into its own category. Simply put, obscenity is a category. Art does not always have to be realistic, or beautiful; art must be appreciated for the emotion that it evokes and the message that it brings to the viewer. Although I may not always enjoy looking at obscene art, I feel that it is still art if the artist made it with that intention.

F.) Honestly, I feel that each subject portrayed is just as obscene as the artist intents them to be. I think it is a matter of opinion on the level that the vulgarity of the piece is to each person. When I see an extremely vivid sexual image, it somewhat makes me uncomfortable because I believe that is something to be kept sacred and private between too people. I’m not saying that all art made about sex is “bad art” or that I would not appreciate the artist for the work though. So yes, in my opinion vivid sexual images are more obscene in some ones than vivid images of violence, poverty, or extreme wealth or sickness. When I see works done with these subjects I usually feel a stronger emotional tie or a desire to help instead of being repulsed by the subject matter.

G.) The artist I chose is Emily Brown. Although many of her works are focused on water and nature, she has a beautiful way of using ink to make two dimensional textural pieces. She uses ink on paper to convey the detail in the art. She believes that art should be felt physically by the viewers, interesting them and connecting them to the work in a nonverbal sense so that they might see things in a new way. My art identifies with some of her pieces because the texture that I made in the clay is actually very similar to the textures she portrays in her water scenes. I am always using ink to create depth and space in my work. Or styles are somewhat different; I am fairly new at working with ink so I am still getting the feel for it. Emily Brown has clearly well developed the skill and her magnificent work shows for it.