Video Reviews

 The video about the Philosophy of arts talked about an interesting range of topics but mainly focused on the evolution of aesthetics. Aesthetics is the philosophy of the beauty that exists, namely in art. Plato had a fairly low opinion of artists/poets. He believed they had no talent and artists made copies of copies. During the middle ages, art was devoted to God and religious themes. During the 1700's, Francis Hutchinson believed viewers needed to be knowledgeable, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten coined the term "aesthetics", and Immanuel Kant said that aesthetics of art was bringing the sensibility and reason together by means of the imagination.
  The philosopher whose philosophy about aesthetics that most interests me is Plato, from 5th century Athens, Greece. Although he held a low opinion of art and poets, he did not mean to write about art when he wrote about aesthetics. He believed that art was representational of ideas, which are beyond our senses and must be grasped by reason. He felt that the idea of beauty, however, could be grasped by the senses at the same time as by reasoning. He felt that the manifestation of something beautiful would be something that would attract people to itself. This transcends material things and causes people to contemplate the idea of beauty itself. I am interested in Plato's beliefs because they are very deep and he was incredibly intelligent.
In the video about the Neurobiology of aesthetics, it discussed the parts of the brain that are triggered by looking at a piece of art. Jean-Pierre Changeux believed art is human production specialized for  conscious minds to communicate with. He also believed nonverbal communication of emotion, mobilizing conscious and non-conscious processes, and also a form of art that was in constant evolution. 

   The eight laws of art by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran are grouping, peak shift principal (ex. caricature), contrast, attention (ex. little outline of object but still recognizable), perceptual problem solving ex. prefer woman in shower than a pin-up girl, symmetry, loathing of unique vantage points, and art as metaphor. Rama was always saying our brain has to say "wow". In other words, art has to be impactful on us. This is certainly a good point, especially since art has a powerful ability to unite people in conversation over itself.

I feel the videos relate to the readings in that they speak more in depth about aesthetics of art and what characteristics they use to determine aesthetics. The videos explored more meanings of creativity and what is thought to be art by various people, etc.

I really liked the scientific explanation about art and what part of the brain was triggered when looking at art. I am the type of person who is fascinated by how our brains work and the fact that we know so little about its workings, at that.  I think the videos underscored the chapters in our book well and putting it all together made things interesting and easier to understand.