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This paper consists of a 1,000-1,200 word essay.Â
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The course has focused on the importance of the visual arts to understanding culture’s values, from the very beginning of organized human society’s and emergent human civilization, the visual arts of some kind have served many different purposes.Â
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I’d like you to answer the question, the Big Question, “Why Art?” that is, why study art as an important part of history and study of other cultures? I’ve taken the liberty of reprinting below the paragraph from the syllabus that deals with how the course will address this question:Â
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The course will address the question, “Why Art?†through particular works of art and in the broader historical and cultural context of the development of Western society, politics, economics, and culture, from Athens in the fifth century BC through the Roman Empire; Byzantium in the Greek-speaking East; Middle Ages in the Latin West; and culminating at the cusp of the Renaissance in Florence with Dante, Giotto, and Petrarch in the late thirteenth century. “Why Art?†enables the exploration of the distinctive and powerful role that the visual arts (painting, sculpture, and architecture) play in the expression of political, social, philosophical, and, above all religious beliefs, which form individual imagination, guide action, and shape civic and community values. Students will discuss how particular works of art answer the question, “Why Art?†as well as explore how this question presupposes other big questions that address personal identity; the relationship between self and other; self and the world; the meaning and significance of nature; and human freedom, all in the light of the question of the human being’s responsibility to her community and to God, the gods, or Fate.
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What I’d like you to do is to select three different cultures or communities (e.g., Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Islam, Romanesque, Gothic)Â and explore how the visual arts function in each of them, how were they the same, different? What values or beliefs were communicated? You have freedom to select any works of art from our readings or lectures to make your argument. Moreover, my questions are only suggestions. You may find a way to demonstrate why study art in other ways, only do so using three different cultural or communities. (They don’t have to be separate chapters or units, only that they can be compared and contrasted through works of art.)
