Art...
i absolutely love what i wrote for my fine arts class i'm taking...i've decided to post it here!
wow. i was just reviewing the pictures on the internet...and i'm continually appalled at the photographs. all this poverty in the world...when i can have the luxury of eating for pleasure. i wrote the above as an argument whether those photos should be works of art. but in my opinion, art is useless unless it motivates, inspires, or evokes emotions so that the person experiencing it would be changed...forever. and thats what those photos did to me.personally, Adams' photo evokes more emotion in me than Goya's painting. i also can identify more with it because it's easier for me to picture myself there at the scene rather than with the painting. and i think i feel some connection with the photo more because i think that i can take a photo like that, you know, that good feeling of "yeah i can do that too". with the painting....i dont think i can ever paint anything pretty or worth anyone's undivided and sustained attention like that.
i agree with Grace. i, too, think that Adams' photo is as much a work of art as Goya's painting. like Grace, the only difference to me is that they were done in different forms: photography and painting. and even though the text may argue that the photo lacks subject matter, content and artistic form, i argue that there is some content, some subject matter and some artistic form.
i would say that Adams used his artistic talent for photography when he quickly identified a moment to capture and instinctively putting the camera in the right positions with the appropriate focus and etc.. To identify something 'capture-worthy' (if there's such a term) itself takes skill, especially when you have a few seconds to do it. whether it's for news or for art, the photo clearly exhibits a clear subject matter just like the painting, which is barbarity.
the text also says that the subject matter is never directly presented in a work of art. which is a reasonable explanation. however, i was thinking about what really is art as compared to reality?
as a Christian, i believe that God is the First and the Last. and the way i understand it, He is the "Original Real". then we know that God created the heavens and the earth and everything in it as an expression of His artistic creativity, and finally He created man in His image, the ultimate artistic expression of His pleasure in Himself. then, i say that we, the created, are considered a work of art of the Master Artist, who crafted us after what is Real. so is reality, as we know it, really real? or is the spiritual more real than what we see in the natural? if it is, then we can say that the natural, "our" natural, is just a representation of what is spiritual.
and we all know that we have our own artistic creativity as humans because we bear the basic characteristics of the Master Artist himself. we are creative because He is creative. but now because of sin (which is a spiritual concept) our world has become so evil, and thus, the event that we see in Adams' photo, which he, using his artistic talent, managed to capture in a few seconds. thus, here we have art creating art.
The text xplanation in pg35 about the subject matter that the form of the photograph "does not transform the subject matter or enriches it's significance" is too conclusive. if content is the intepretation of the subject matter by means of artistic form (which the photo has), and if content and artistic form is inseparable, then according to my thinking above, the photo by Adams has content. and so does Carter's photo of the vulture and child in Sudan.
Therefore, according to me, Adams photo and Carter's photo are works of art, just as much as Goya's painting is. and this concludes my 2+ hours of thinking.
GOSH. *wide-eyed disbelief*