Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Taylor Macina - Reading 2


Book: Art as Cognition: Aristotle

Aristotle was taught by Plato and therefore grasped onto some of his theories. Such as the conception of art as imitation; however, Aristotle also introduced a new term entitled representation. He describes poetry to be a literary representation. He sees all art such as music, dance, literature, painting and sculpture as being representations. He believes that poetry represents not the actual world but things that could be in the world. By representing something we find pleasure in the art. He believes that we find pleasure because the art is not reality and we are therefore not disgusted. For example, Wartenberg uses Oedipus and his eyes being gouged out. If that had been reality, we would find disgust rather than pleasure watching the spectacle. We learn from Oedipus and therefore can take in pleasure. He emphasizes arts ability to teach. 

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