Art Final Paper

The Finale Draft

It has been a while since I finished my first paper on how do I define art. Time changes as well as perspectives. In this paper, I am going to talk about some changes that this class has brought me and some concepts that has not been changed.

"Art and culture are related." (1) I firmly believe that art and culture, in fact, any cultures on this planet, are related. No need to explain, just looking around, there are so many art creations surround us. Riches have wall paintings hanging on their huge tall walls. Street arts are also seen almost everywhere. Here is an example in Iowa City, shown in Figure 1. The artist wants to send us, the pass-bys, a message expressing his/her hope for America to be prosperous. Another great example is the street musicians in New York underground railway station. In Figure 2, two Italians play their music in new york subway on a weekly basis. They are making music, a form of art, to entertain or even send a message to those who walk by. There are also many examples that come from the textbook especially when we were talking about religion that indicates art and culture are related. Every culture has their own "God" and artists create paintings or sculptures in honor of their god. Shown in Figure 3 is Milan Cathedral, this not kind of church that you would see everyday. It is specially built for certain religious events. Art has rooted in human cultures for thousands of years, yet, some of them still looks amazing.

From my last paper, I have mentioned a few my definitions of art. I have believed that "art is defined as something that is different than ordinaries."(2) After studying this course, a few new concepts are added to my definition of art. One of them is that art is a message sent from whom we call "artists" to specific person or a group of people via art creations. One great example is also used by my midterm project - "Migrant Mother", shown in Figure 4 by Dorothea Lange. Lange was trying to send a message to the public ( a group of people ) that how bad the Great Depression was. Another great example is our Iowa Advance Technology Laboratory as I have explored in researching Frank Owen Gehry's collections in previous homework assignments. The laboratory design combines both simplicity and complexity (shown in Figure 5 and Figure 6) also has modern elements in it. It is such an amazing piece of work from Frank Gehry. By doing those projects and homework assignments, I have been reinforced my original definition of art while in the same time, allowed me to explore more new concepts.

While this class has reinforced my opinion, it also has changed some of my view toward things about art, as I will be talking about those changes in the next two paragraphs.

Since my definition of art has been modified, my definition of what is