Humanities through the arts 9th edition pdf free

Required Resources
Read/review the following resources for this activity:

Textbook: Chapter 14
Lesson
Minimum of 1 primary source (artist statement)
Minimum of 1 scholarly source (in addition to the textbook – from critic)
Instructions
Although controversial art is not a topic exclusive to the 20th and 21st centuries, the distribution of information regarding controversial art has increased with the proliferation of media. Choose an example of a controversial work of art from the 20th or 21st centuries from any discipline of the humanities (music, literature, sculpture, film, television, etc.). Then, address the following:

Identify the work and the medium.
Based on your example, to what extent does this work of controversial art make a social contribution?
What aesthetic value does the work have? How does it reflect the human condition? How does it relate to your life?
Has this work ever been censored? If so, explain the circumstances.
Are governments ever justified in censoring art? Why or why not?
Examine some of the influences of this work of art.
Argue whether or not this work should be considered art. Explain why using terms learned in this course.
Include an accompanying statement from the artist(s) and a statement from a critic to support your points.

THE HUMANITIES THROUGH THE ARTS

Tenth Edi t ion

Lee A. Jacobus Professor of English Emeritus

University of Connecticut

F. David Martin Professor of Philosophy Emeritus

Bucknell University

©Universal History Archive/Getty Images

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THE HUMANITIES THROUGH THE ARTS, TENTH EDITION

Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. Copyright © 2019 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Previous editions © 2015, 2011, and 2008. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education, including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.

Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside the United States.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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Bound: ISBN 978-1-259-91687-8 MHID 1-259-91687-1

Looseleaf: ISBN 978-1-260-15418-4 MHID 1-260-15418-1

Portfolio Manager: Sarah Remington Product Developers: Beth Tripmacher, Bruce Cantley Content Project Managers: Mary E. Powers (Core), Emily Windelborn (Assessment) Buyer: Susan K. Culbertson Design: Tara McDermott Content Licensing Specialist: Carrie Burger Compositor: MPS Limited Cover Image: (background): LACMA - Los Angeles County Museum of Art; (back cover (left) to front cover (right)); (door): ©Lee A. Jacobus; (wall carving): ©Lee A. Jacobus; (cave painting): ©siloto/Shutterstock RF; (amphitheater): ©Inu/Shutterstock RF; (Taj Mahal): ©Seb c'est bien/Shutterstock RF; (dancer): ©Fuse/Getty Images RF; (Shakespeare): ©duncan1890/Getty Images RF; (sculpture): National Gallery of Art, Washington; (graffiti): ©Lee A. Jacobus; (church): National Archives Catalog; (violin): ©Comstock Images/SuperStock RF.

All credits appearing on page or at the end of the book are considered to be an extension of the copyright page.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Martin, F. David, 1920- author. | Jacobus, Lee A., author.  The humanities through the arts/F. David Martin, Professor of  Philosophy Emeritus, Bucknell University; Lee A. Jacobus, Professor of  English Emeritus, University of Connecticut.  Tenth edition. | New York : McGraw-Hill Education, 2018. | Includes index.  LCCN 2017051530 | ISBN 9781259916878 (alk. paper)  LCSH: Arts–Psychological aspects. | Art appreciation.  LCC NX165 .M37 2018 | DDC 701/.18–dc23 LC record available  at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017051530

The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a website does not indicate an endorsement by the authors or McGraw-Hill Education, and McGraw-Hill Education does not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented at these sites.

mheducation.com/highered

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Lee A. Jacobus (PhD, Claremont Graduate University) taught at Western Con- necticut State University and then at the University of Connecticut (Storrs) until he retired in 2001. He held a Danforth Teachers Grant while earning his doctor- ate. His publications include Shakespeare and the Dialectic of Certainty (St. Martin’s Press, 1992); Sudden Apprehension: Aspects of Knowledge in Paradise Lost (Mouton, 1976); John Cleveland: A Critical Study (G. K. Hall, 1975); Aesthetics and the Arts (McGraw-Hill, 1968); The Bedford Introduction to Drama (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2018); and A World of Ideas (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017).

F. David Martin (PhD, University of Chicago) taught at the University of Chicago and then at Bucknell University until his retirement in 1983. He was a Fulbright Research Scholar in Florence and Rome from 1957 through 1959 and received seven other major research grants during his career, as well as the Christian Lind- back Award for Distinguished Teaching. Dr. Martin’s publications include Art and the Religious Experience (Associated University Presses, 1972); Sculpture and the En- livened Space (The University Press of Kentucky, 1981); and Facing Death: Theme and Variations (Associated University Presses, 2006). Professor Martin died in 2014.

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We dedicate this study to teachers and students of the humanities.

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BRIEF CONTENTS

PREFACE xi

Part 1 FUNDAMENTALS

1 The Humanities: An Introduction 1 2 What Is a Work of Art? 17

3 Being a Critic of the Arts 42

Part 2 THE ARTS

4 Painting 58 5 Sculpture 91

6 Architecture 121 7 Literature 163 8 Theater 196 9 Music 224

10 Dance 254 11 Photography 276

12 Cinema 299 13 Television and Video Art 330

Part 3 INTERRELATIONSHIPS

14 Is It Art or Something Like It? 352 15 The Interrelationships of the Arts 378

16 The Interrelationships of the Humanities 397

GLOSSARY G-1

INDEX I-1

Source: The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979/The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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CONTENTS

Subject Matter and Content 34

EXPERIENCING: Interpretations of the Female Nude 40

Further Thoughts on Artistic Form 41 Summary 41

3 Being a Critic of the Arts 42 You Are Already an Art Critic 42 Participation and Criticism 43 Three Kinds of Criticism 43 Descriptive Criticism 44 Interpretive Criticism 48 Evaluative Criticism 52

EXPERIENCING: The Polish Rider 55 Summary 56

Part 2 THE ARTS

4 Painting 58 Our Visual Powers 58 The Media of Painting 59 Tempera 59 Fresco 61 Oil 62 Watercolor 64 Acrylic 64 Other Media and Mixed Media 65

Elements of Painting 68

PREFACE xi

Part 1 FUNDAMENTALS

1  The Humanities: An Introduction 1

The Humanities: A Study of Values 1 Art, Commerce, and Taste 4 Responses to Art 5

EXPERIENCING: The Mona Lisa 9

Structure and Artistic Form 10 Perception 11

Abstract Ideas and Concrete Images 12 Summary 16

2 What Is a Work of Art? 17 Identifying Art Conceptually 18 Identifying Art Perceptually 18 Artistic Form 19 Participation 23 Participation and Artistic Form 25 Content 26 Subject Matter 28 Subject Matter and Artistic Form 28 Participation, Artistic Form, and Content 29 Artistic Form: Examples 30

Photo: Kira Perov. Courtesy Bill Viola Studio

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CONTENTS  vii

6 Architecture 121 Centered Space 121 Space and Architecture 122 Chartres 123 Living Space 125 Four Necessities of Architecture 126 Technical Requirements of Architecture 126 Functional Requirements of Architecture 127 Spatial Requirements of Architecture 131 Revelatory Requirements of Architecture 131

Earth-Rooted Architecture 132 Site 132 Gravity 133 Raw Materials 134 Centrality 136

Sky-Oriented Architecture 138 Axis Mundi 141 Defiance of Gravity 142 Integration of Light 143

Earth-Resting Architecture 144 Earth-Dominating Architecture 145 Combinations of Types 146 Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and The Taj Mahal 147

EXPERIENCING: The Taj Mahal 149

High-Rises and Skyscrapers 150

FOCUS ON: The Alhambra 155

Urban Planning 157 Summary 161

7 Literature 163 Spoken Language and Literature 163 Literary Structures 167 The Narrative and the Narrator 167 The Episodic Narrative 169 The Organic Narrative 171 The Quest Narrative 176 The Lyric 177

EXPERIENCING: “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” 182

Line 68 Color 72 Texture 73 Composition 73

The Clarity of Painting 75 The “All-at-Onceness” of Painting 77 Abstract Painting 78 Intensity and Restfulness in Abstract Painting 80 Representational Painting 81 Comparison of Five Impressionist Paintings 81

FOCUS ON: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 86

Frames 88 EXPERIENCING: Frames 89

Summary 90

5 Sculpture 91 Sensory Interconnections 92 Sculpture and Painting Compared 92 Sculpture and Space 94 Sunken-Relief Sculpture 94 Low-Relief Sculpture 95 High-Relief Sculpture 96 Sculpture in the Round 97 Sculpture and Architecture Compared 98 Sensory Space 99 Sculpture and the Human Body 99 Sculpture in the Round and the

Human Body 101 EXPERIENCING: Sculpture and Physical Size 103

Contemporary Sculpture 104 Truth to Materials 104 Protest against Technology 108 Accommodation with Technology 110 Machine Sculpture 112 Earth Sculpture 113

FOCUS ON: African Sculpture 114

Sculpture in Public Places 117 Summary 120

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Literary Details 183 Image 184 Metaphor 185 Symbol 187 Irony 189 Diction 190

FOCUS ON: Po Chü’i, Poet of the T’ang Dynasty 191 Summary 194

8 Theater 196 Aristotle and the Elements of Drama 197 Dialogue and Soliloquy 198

Archetypal Patterns 200 Genres of Drama: Tragedy 201 The Tragic Stage 202 Stage Scenery and Costumes 202 Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet 206

Comedy: Old and New 209 Tragicomedy: The Mixed Genre 211 A Play for Study: Riders to the Sea 211

EXPERIENCING: Riders to the Sea 218

FOCUS ON: Musical Theater: Hamilton 218

Experimental Drama 221 Summary 222

9 Music 224 Hearing and Listening 224 The Elements of Music 225 Tone 225 Consonance 226 Dissonance 226 Rhythm 227 Tempo 227 Melodic Material: Melody, Theme, and Motive 227 Counterpoint 228 Harmony 228 Dynamics 229 Contrast 229

The Subject Matter of Music 229 Feelings 230

EXPERIENCING: Chopin’s Prelude 7 in A Major 231

Two Theories: Formalism and Expressionism 233 Sound 233 Tonal Center 234 Musical Structures 236 Theme and Variations 236 Rondo 236 Fugue 237 Sonata Form 237 Symphony 238

FOCUS ON:  Beethoven’s Symphony in E♭ Major, No. 3, Eroica 243

Blues and Jazz: Popular American Music 248 Rock and Roll and Rap 251 Summary 253

10 Dance 254 Subject Matter of Dance 254

EXPERIENCING: Feeling and Dance 256

Form 257 Dance and Ritual 258 Ritual Dance 258 Social Dance 259 The Court Dance 259

Ballet 260 Swan Lake 262

Modern Dance 265 Alvin Ailey’s Revelations 267 Martha Graham 269 Batsheva Dance Company 270 Pilobolus and Momix Dance Companies 271 Mark Morris Dance Group 272

FOCUS ON: Theater Dance 272

Popular Dance 274 Summary 275

11 Photography 276 Photography and Painting 276

EXPERIENCING: Photography and Art 280

Photography and Painting: The Pictorialists 281

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CONTENTS  ix

Straight Photography 283 The f/64 Group 284

The Documentarists 286 The Modern Eye 292

FOCUS ON: Digital Photography 296 Summary 298

12 Cinema 299 The Subject Matter of Film 299 Directing and Editing 300 The Participative Experience and Film 303 The Film Image 305

EXPERIENCING: Still Frames and Photography 305

Camera Point of View 308 Violence and Film 310 Sound 312 Image and Action 313 Cinematic Structure 315 Cinematic Details 317 The Context of Film History 318 Two Great Films: The Godfather and

Casablanca 319 The Narrative Structure of The Godfather Films 320 Coppola’s Images 321 Coppola’s Use of Sound 321 The Power of The Godfather 322

FOCUS ON: Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca 323

Experimentation 326 Animated Film 327 Summary 329

13 Television and Video Art 330 The Evolution of Television 330 The Subject Matter of Television and

Video Art 331 Commercial Television 332 The Television Series 333 The Structure of the Self-Contained Episode 334

The Television Serial 335 Three Emmy Winners 339

FOCUS ON: The Americans 342

Video Art 344 EXPERIENCING: Jacopo Pontormo and Bill Viola: The

Visitation 348 Summary 351

Part 3 INTERRELATIONSHIPS

14  Is It Art or Something Like It? 352

Art and Artlike 352 Illustration 354 Realism 354 Folk Art 355 Popular Art 357 Propaganda 362

EXPERIENCING: Propaganda Art 362

FOCUS ON: Kitsch 363

Decoration 365 Idea Art 370 Dada 370 Duchamp and His Legacy 371 Conceptual Art 372

Performance Art 374 Virtual Art 376 Summary 377

15  The Interrelationships of the Arts 378

Appropriation 378 Interpretation 379 Film Interprets Literature: Howards End 380 Music Interprets Drama: The Marriage of Figaro 382 Painting Interprets Poetry: The Starry Night 385 Sculpture Interprets Poetry: Apollo and Daphne 387

EXPERIENCING: Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne and Ovid’s The Metamorphoses 389

Drama Interprets Painting 390

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x  CONTENTS

EXPERIENCING: The Humanities and Students of Medicine 399

Values 400 FOCUS ON:  The Arts and History, the Arts and Philosophy,

the Arts and Theology 402 Summary 406

GLOSSARY G-1

INDEX I-1

FOCUS ON: Photography Interprets Fiction 391

Architecture Interprets Dance: National Nederlanden Building 392 Painting Interprets Dance and Music: The Dance and Music 392

EXPERIENCING: Death in Venice: Three Versions 395 Summary 396

16  The Interrelationships of the Humanities 397

The Humanities and the Sciences 397 The Arts and the Other Humanities 398

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PREFACE

Overview

The Humanities through the Arts, tenth edition, explores the humanities with an em- phasis on the arts. Examining the relationship of the humanities to values, objects, and events important to people is central to this book. We make a distinction between artists and other humanists: Artists reveal values, while other humanists examine or reflect on values. We study how values are revealed in the arts while keeping in mind a basic question: “What is art?” Judging by the existence of ancient artifacts, we see that artistic expression is one of the most fundamental human activities. It binds us together as a people by revealing the most important values of our culture.

Our genre-based approach offers students the opportunity to understand the relationship of the arts to human values by examining, in-depth, each of the major artistic media. Subject matter, form, and content in each of the arts supply the framework for careful analysis. Painting and photography focus our eyes on the visual appearance of things. Sculpture reveals the textures, densities, and shapes of things. Architecture sharpens our perception of spatial relationships, both in- side and out. Literature, theater, cinema, and video explore values and make us more aware of the human condition. Our understanding of feelings is deepened by music. Our sensitivity to movement, especially of the human body, is enhanced by dance. The wide range of opportunities for criticism and analysis helps the reader synthesize the complexities of the arts and their interaction with values of many kinds. All of this is achieved with an exceptionally vivid and complete illustration program alongside detailed discussion and interactive responses to the problems inherent in a close study of the arts and values of our time.

OrganizatiOn

This edition, as with previous editions, is organized into three parts, offering con- siderable flexibility in the classroom:

Part 1, “Fundamentals,” includes the first three introductory chapters. In Chapter 1, The Humanities: An Introduction, we distinguish the humanities from the sciences, and the arts from other humanities. In Chapter 2, What Is a Work of Art?, we raise the question of definition in art and the ways in which we distinguish art from other objects and experiences. Chapter 3, Being a Critic of the Arts, introduces the vital role of criticism in art appreciation and evaluation.

©ArenaPal/Topham/The Image Works

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PREFACE

Part 2, “The Arts,” includes individual chapters on each of the basic arts. The structure of this section permits complete flexibility: The chapters may be used in their present order or in any order one wishes. We begin with the individual chapters Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture; follow with Literature, Theater, Music, and Dance; and continue with Photography, Cinema, and Television and Video Art. Instructors may reorder or omit chapters as needed. The chapter Pho- tography logically precedes the chapters Cinema and Television and Video Art for the convenience of instructors who prefer to teach the chapters in the order presented.

Part 3, “Interrelationships,” begins with Chapter 14, Is It Art or Something Like It? We study illustration, folk art, propaganda, and kitsch while raising the question “What is art?” We also examine the avant-garde as it pushes us to the edge of defi- nition. Chapter 15, The Interrelationships of the Arts, explores the ways in which the arts work together, as in how a film interprets E. M. Forster’s novel Howards End, how literature and a musical interpretation of a Beaumarchais play result in Mo- zart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro, how Walt Whitman’s poetry inspires van Gogh’s painting The Starry Night, how a passage from Ovid’s epic poem “The Metamorpho- ses” inspires the Bernini sculpture Apollo and Daphne, and more. Chapter 16, The Interrelationships of the Humanities, addresses the ways in which the arts reveal val- ues shared by the other humanities—particularly history, philosophy, and theology.

Key Changes in the tenth editiOn

NEW Expanded Connect course with SmartBook. Connect is a highly reliable, easy-to-use homework and learning management solution that embeds learning science and award-winning adaptive tools to improve student results.

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PREFACE

LearnSmart is an adaptive learning program designed to help students learn faster, study smarter, and retain more knowledge for greater success. Distinguishing what students know from what they don’t, and focusing on concepts they are most likely to forget, LearnSmart continuously adapts to each student’s needs by building a personalized learning path. An intelligent adaptive study tool, LearnSmart is proven to strengthen memory recall, keep students in class, and boost grades.

The Humanities Through the Arts now offers two reading experiences for students and instructors: SmartBook and eBook. Fueled by LearnSmart, SmartBook is the first and only adaptive reading experience currently available. SmartBook™ creates a personalized reading experience by highlighting the most impactful concepts a student needs to learn at that moment in time. The reading experience continu- ously adapts by highlighting content based on what the student knows and doesn’t know. Real-time reports quickly identify the concepts that require more attention from individual students—or the entire class. eBook provides a simple, elegant read- ing experience, available for offline reading.

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PREFACE

Updated illustration program and contextual discussions. More than 30 percent of the images in this edition are new or have been updated to include fresh classic and contemporary works. New discussions of these works appear near the illustrations. The 200-plus images throughout the book have been carefully chosen and reproduced in full color when possible, resulting in a beautifully illustrated text. Newly added visual artists represented include painters Arte- misia Gentileschi, Diego Velasquez, Frederic Lord Leighton, Amedeo Modigliani, Winslow Homer, Morris Louis, Hokusai, Willem de Kooning, Jean-Honore Frag- onard, Arshile Gorky, Henry Wallis, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Arthur Hughes, William Holman Hunt, and John Waterhouse; sculptors Edgar Degas, Kara Walker, Magdalena Abakanowicz, and Naum Gabo; photographers Berenice Abbott, Nan Goldin, Paul Strand, Bruce Davidson, Carrie Mae Weems, Tina Barney, Wang Quinsong, and Bill Gekas; and video artists Pipilotti Riist and Bill Viola. Newly added film and television stills represent Michael Curtiz’s classic film Casablanca, the popular television shows Game of Thrones and The Americans, Orson Wells’s The Lady from Shanghai, Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, Alejandro Inarritu’s The Revenant, and more.

Along with the many new illustrations and contextual discussions of the visual arts, film, and television, new works and images in the literary, dance, theatrical, and musical arts have been added and contextualized. These include works by Robert Herrick, John Masefield, Amy Lowell, Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Donne, Wang Chang-Ling, Po Chu’i, John Millington Synge, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Frederic Chopin, Tupac Shakur, and the Batsheva Dance Company.

Increased focus on non-Western art and art by minority and female artists. This edition contains numerous new examples, including paintings (Artemesia Gentileschi’s Self-portrait as the Allegory of Painting and Hokusai’s The Wave), sculpture (Kara Walker’s A Subtlety, or The Marvelous Sugar Baby and Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Bronze Crowd), architecture (the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, Egypt), literature (Amy Lowell’s “Venus Transiens” and Po Chu’i’s T’ang dynasty poetry), theater (Lin-Manual Miranda’s Hamilton), dance (the Batsheva Dance Company), photography (Berenice Abbott, Nan Goldin, Carrie Mae Weems, Tina Barney, and Wang Quinsong), film (The Revenant), and television and video art (Pipilotti Riist).

PedagOgiCal Features

Four major pedagogical boxed features enhance student understanding of the genres and of individual works within the genres: Perception Key, Conception Key, Experiencing, and Focus On.

• The Perception Key boxes are designed to sharpen readers’ responses to the arts. These boxes raise important questions about specific works of art in a way that respects the complexities of the works and of our responses to them. The questions raised are usually open-ended and thereby avoid any doctrinaire views or dogmatic opinions. The emphasis is on perception and

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PREFACE

awareness, and how a heightened awareness will produce a fuller and more meaningful understanding of the work at hand. In a few cases our own in- terpretations and analyses follow the keys and are offered not as the way to perceive a given work of art but, rather, as one possible way. Our primary interest is in exciting our readers to perceive the splendid singularity of the work of art in question.

PERCEPTION KEY Chartres Cathedral 1. Form and function usually work together in classic architecture. What visible ex-

terior architectural details indicate that Chartres Cathedral functions as a church? Are there any visible details that conflict with its function as a church?

2. The two spires of the church were built at different times. Should they have been made symmetrical? What might be some reasons for their not being symmetrical?

3. What seem to be the primary values revealed by the rose window of Chartres? 4. How did the builders satisfy the fourth requirement of architecture: that the build-

ing be revelatory? What values does the exterior of the building reveal? 5. What is implied by the fact that the cathedral dwarfs all the buildings near it?

• We use Conception Key boxes, rather than Perception Key boxes, in certain instances throughout the book where we focus on thought and conception rather than observation and perception. Again, these are open-ended questions that involve reflection and understanding. There is no single way of responding to these keys, just as there is no simple way to answer the questions.

CONCEPTION KEY Theories Our theory of art as revelatory, as giving insight into values, may appear to be mired in a tradition that cannot account for the amazing developments of the avant-garde. Is the theory inadequate? As you proceed with this chapter, ask your- self whether the distinction between art and artlike is valid. How about useful? If not, what theory would you propose? Or would you be inclined to dismiss theories altogether?

• Each chapter provides an Experiencing box that gives the reader the opportunity to approach a specific work of art in more detail than the Perception Key boxes. Analysis of the work begins by answering a few preliminary questions to make it accessible to students. Follow-up questions ask students to think critically about the work and guide them to their own interpretations. In every case we raise major issues concerning the genre of the work, the background of the work, and the artistic issues that make the work demanding and important.

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• In each chapter of “The Arts” and “Interrelationships” sections of the book, we include a Focus On box, which provides an opportunity to deal in-depth with a group of artworks in context, the work of a single artist, or a single work of art. Many of the Focus On boxes are new to this edition, including those discuss- ing the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the Alhambra, Chinese poet Po Chu’i, the popular musical play Hamilton, the classic film Casablanca, and the critically ac- claimed television series The Americans. Each of these opportunities encourages in-depth and comparative study.

FOCUS ON The Alhambra The Alhambra (Figure 6-33) is one of the world’s most dazzling works of architecture. Its beginnings in the Middle Ages were modest, a fortress on a hilly flatland above Granada built by Arab invaders— Moors—who controlled much of Spain. In time, the fortress was added to, and by the fourteenth century the Nasrid dynasty demanded a sumptuous palace and King Yusuf I (1333–1352) began con- struction. After his death it was continued by his son Muhammad V (1353–1391).

While the needs of a fortress were still evident, in- cluding the plain massive exterior walls, the Nasrids wanted the interior to be luxurious, magnificent, and beautiful. The Alhambra is one of the world’s most astounding examples of beautifully decorated architecture. The builders created a structure that was different from any that had been built in Islam. But at the same time, they depended on many historical traditions for interior decoration, such as the Seljuk, Mughal, and Fatimid styles. Because Islam for- bade the reproduction in art of the human form, we see representations of flowers, plants, vines, and other natural objects in the midst of elaborate designs, including Arabic script.

The aerial view (Figure 6-34) reveals the siting of the Alhambra rising above trees surrounding it. The large square structure was added much later by Charles V, after the Nasrid dynasty collapsed and the Moors were driven from Spain.

FIGURE 6-33 The Alhambra, Granada, Spain. Circa 1370–1380. “Alhambra” may be translated as red, possibly a reference to the color of the bricks of its outer walls. It sits on high ground above the town.

©Daniel Viñé Garcia/Getty Images RF

EXPERIENCING  Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne and Ovid’s The Metamorphoses

1. If you had not read Ovid’s The Metamorphoses, what would you believe to be the subject matter of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne? Do you believe it is a less interesting work if you do not know Ovid?

One obvious issue in looking at this sculpture and considering Ovid’s treatment of Apollo and Daphne is that today very few people will have read Ovid before seeing the sculpture. In the era in which Bernini created the work, he expected it to be seen pri- marily by well-educated people, and in the seventeenth century, most educated people would have been steeped in Ovid from a young age. Consequently, Bernini worked in a classical tradition that he could easily rely on to inform his audience.

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suPPOrting resOurCes

Image Bank

Instructors can access a database of images from select McGraw-Hill Education art and humanities titles, including The Humanities through the Arts. Connect Image Bank includes all images for which McGraw-Hill Education has secured electronic permissions. Instructors can access a text’s images by browsing its chapters, style/ period, medium, and culture or by searching on key terms.

Instructors can also search for images from other McGraw-Hill Education titles included in the database. Images can easily be downloaded for use in presentations and in PowerPoints. The download includes a text file with image captions and information.

You can access Connect Image Bank under the library tab in Connect.

McGraw-Hill Create

 Easily rearrange chapters, combine material from other content sources, and quickly upload content you have written, such as your course syllabus or teach- ing notes, using McGraw-Hill Education’s Create. Find the content you need by searching through thousands of leading McGraw-Hill textbooks. Arrange your book to fit your teaching style. Create even allows you to personalize your book’s appearance by selecting the cover and adding your name, school, and course infor- mation. Order a Create book and you’ll receive a complimentary print review copy in three to five business days or a complimentary electronic review copy (eComp) via e-mail in about an hour. Experience how McGraw-Hill Education empowers you to teach your students your way. http://www.mcgrawhillcreate.com/

Question Bank

The Humanities through the Arts, tenth edition, includes a number of resources to assist instructors with planning and teaching their courses: an instructor’s manual, which offers learning objectives, chapter outlines, possible discussion and lecture topics, and more; a test bank with multiple-choice and essay questions; and a chapter-by-chapter PowerPoint presentation.

aCKnOwledgments

This book is indebted to more people than we can truly credit. We are deeply grate- ful to the following survey respondents for their help on this edition:

Micheal Jay Adamek, Ozarks Technical Community College; Larry Atkins, Ozarks Technical Community College; Michael Bajuk, Western Washington University; Michael Berberich, Galveston College; Bill Burrows, Lane Community College; Aaron

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Butler, Warner Pacific College Adult Degree Program; Linda Carpenter, Coastline Community College; Jordan Chilton, Ozarks Technical Community College; Patricia Dodd, Houston Community College; Laura Early, Highland Community College; Kristin Edford, Amarillo College; Jeremy R. Franklin, Colorado Mesa University; Diane Gaston, Cuyahoga Community College; Donna Graham, Ozarks Technical Community College; Daniel Hieber, Ozarks Technical Community College; Jennifer Keefe, Valencia College; Donny Leveston, Houston Community College; Susanna Lundgren, Warner Pacific College; Jimidene Murphey, Wharton County Junior College; Sven Pearsall, Alpena Community College; Debbi Richard, Dallas Baptist University; Matthew Scott, Ozarks Technical Community College; Timothy Soulis, Transylvania University; Peter C. Surace, Cuyahoga Community College; Normand Theriault, Houston Community College; Peter Utgaard, Cuyamaca College; Dawn Hamm Walsh, Dallas Baptist University; and Adrian S. Windsor, Coastline Community College

We also thank the following reviewers for their help shaping previous editions:

Addell Austin Anderson, Wayne County Community College District; David Avalos, California State University San Marcos; Bruce Bellingham, University of Connecticut; Eugene Bender, Richard J. Daley College; Michael Berberich, Galveston College; Barbara Brickman, Howard Community College; Peggy Brown, Collin County Community College; Lance Brunner, University of Kentucky; Alexandra Burns, Bay Path College; Bill Burrows, Lane Community College; Glen Bush, Heartland Community College; Sara Cardona, Richland College; Brandon Cesmat, California State University San Marcos; Selma Jean Cohen, editor of Dance Perspectives; Karen Conn, Valencia Community College; Harrison Davis, Brigham Young University; Jim Doan, Nova University; Jill Domoney, Johnson County Community College; Gerald Eager, Bucknell University; Kristin Edford, Amarillo College; D. Layne Ehlers, Bacone College; Jane Ferencz, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater; Roberta Ferrell, SUNY Empire State; Michael Flanagan, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater; Kathy Ford, Lake Land College; Andy Friedlander, Skagit Valley College; Harry Garvin, Bucknell University; Susan K. de Ghizee, University of Denver; Amber Gillis, El Camino College–Compton Center; Michael Gos, Lee College; M. Scott Grabau, Irvine Valley College; Lee Hartman, Howard Community College; Jeffrey T. Hopper, Harding University; James Housefield, Texas State University–San Marcos; Stephen Husarik, University of Arkansas–Fort Smith; Ramona Ilea, Pacific University Oregon; Joanna Jacobus, choreographer; Lee Jones, Georgia Perimeter College–Lawrenceville; Deborah Jowitt, Village Voice; Nadene A. Keene, Indiana University–Kokomo; Marsha Keller, Oklahoma City University; Paul Kessel, Mohave Community College; Edward Kies,College of DuPage; John Kinkade, Centre College; Gordon Lee, Lee College; Tracy L. McAfee, North Central State College; L. Timothy Myers, Butler Community College; Marceau Myers, North Texas State University; Martha Myers, Connecticut College; William E. Parker, University of Connecticut; Seamus Pender, Franklin Pierce College; Ellen Rosewall, University of Wisconsin–Green Bay; Susan Shmeling, Vincennes University; Ed Simone, St. Bonaventure University; C. Edward Spann, Dallas Baptist University; Mark Stewart, San Joaquin Delta College; Robert Streeter, University of Chicago; Peter C. Surace, Cuyahoga Community College; Robert Tynes, University of North Carolina at Asheville; Walter Wehner, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; and Keith West, Butler Community College.

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We want to thank the editorial team at McGraw-Hill for their smart and gener- ous support for this edition. Lead Product Developer Beth Tripmacher, along with Brand Manager Sarah Remington, oversaw the revision from inception through production. Product Developer Bruce Cantley guided us carefully through the pro- cess of establishing a revision plan and incorporating new material into the text. In all things he was a major sounding board as we thought about how to improve the book. We also owe thanks to Lead Content Project Manager Mary Powers, who oversaw the book smoothly through the production process; Tara McDermott, who oversaw the interior design in both the print and online versions of the text as well as the cover; Deb DeBord, who was an exceptionally good copyeditor; Content Licensing Specialist Carrie Burger, who oversaw the permissions process, along with Julie De Adder and Danny Meldung, who did a wonderful job researching and obtaining reprint rights for images; and Isabel Saraiva, who likewise did excellent work researching and clearing the rights for text reprints. All the wonderful people who worked on this book made our job easier and helped make this book distinc- tive and artistic.

a nOte FrOm the authOrs

Our own commitment to the arts and the humanities has been lifelong. One pur- pose of this book is to help instill a love of all the arts in its readers. We have faced many of the issues and problems that are considered in this book and, to an extent, we are still undecided about certain important questions concerning the arts and their relationship to the humanities. Clearly, we grow and change our thinking as we grow. Our engagement with the arts at any age will reflect our own abilities and commitments. But as we grow, we deepen our understanding of the arts we love as well as deepen our understanding of our own nature, our inner selves. We be- lieve that the arts and the humanities function together to make life more intense, more significant, and more wonderful. A lifetime of work unrelieved by a deep commitment to the arts would be stultifying and perhaps destructive to one’s soul. The arts and humanities make us one with our fellow human beings. They help us understand each other, just as they help us admire the beauty that is the product of the human imagination. As the philosopher Susanne K. Langer once said, the arts are the primary avenues to the education of our emotional lives. By our efforts in understanding the arts, we are indelibly enriched.

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Chapter 1

THE HUMANITIES: AN INTRODUCTION

The humaniTies: a sTudy of Values Today we think of the humanities as those broad areas of human creativity and study, such as philosophy, history, social sciences, the arts, and literature, that are distinct from mathematics and the “hard” sciences, mainly because in the human- ities, strictly objective or scientific standards are not usually dominant.

The current separation between the humanities and the sciences reveals itself in a number of contemporary controversies. For example, the cloning of animals has been greeted by many people as a possible benefit for domestic livestock farmers. Genetically altered wheat, soybeans, and other cereals have been her- alded by many scientists as a breakthrough that will produce disease-resistant crops and therefore permit us to continue to increase the world food supply. On the other hand, some people resist such modifications and purchase food identified as not being genetically altered. Scientific research into the human

©RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY

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genome has identified certain genes for inherited diseases, such as breast cancer or Alzheimer’s disease, that could be modified to protect individuals or their off- spring. Genetic research also suggests that in a few years individuals may be able to “design” their children’s intelligence, body shape, height, general appearance, and physical ability.

Scientists provide the tools for these choices. Their values are centered in science in that they value the nature of their research and their capacity to make it work in a positive way. However, the impact on humanity of such a series of dramatic changes to life brings to the fore values that clash with one another. For example, is it a positive social value for couples to decide the sex of their offspring rather than following nature’s own direction? In this case who should decide if “designing” one’s offspring is a positive value, the scientist or the humanist?

Even more profound is the question of cloning a human being. Once a sheep had been cloned successfully, it was clear that this science would lead directly to the possibility of a cloned human being. Some proponents of cloning support the process because we could clone a child who has died in infancy or clone a ge- nius who has given great gifts to the world. For these people, cloning is a positive value. For others, the very thought of cloning a person is repugnant on the basis of religious belief. For still others, the idea of human cloning is objectionable be- cause it echoes the creation of an unnatural monster, and for them it is a negative value. Because this is a worldwide problem, local laws will have limited effect on establishing a clear position on the value of cloning of all sorts. The question of how we decide on such a controversial issue is at the heart of the humanities, and some observers have pointed to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s famous novel Fran- kenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus, which in some ways enacts the conflict among these values.

These examples demonstrate that the discoveries of scientists often have tre- mendous impact on the values of society. Yet some scientists have declared that they merely make the discoveries and that others—presumably politicians—must decide how the discoveries are to be used. It is this last statement that brings us closest to the importance of the humanities. If many scientists believe they cannot judge how their discoveries are to be used, then we must try to under- stand why they give that responsibility to others. This is not to say that scientists uniformly turn such decisions over to others, for many of them are humanists as well as scientists. But the fact remains that many governments have made use of great scientific achievements without pausing to ask the “achievers” if they approved of the way their discoveries were being used. The questions are, Who decides how to use such discoveries? On what grounds should their judgments be based?

Studying the behavior of neutrinos or string theory will not help us get closer to the answer. Such study is not related to the nature of humankind but to the nature of nature. What we need is a study that will get us closer to ourselves. It should be a study that explores the reaches of human feeling in relation to values—not only our own individual feelings and values but also the feelings and values of others. We need a study that will increase our sensitivity to ourselves, others, and the values in our world. To be sensitive is to perceive with insight. To be sensitive is also to feel and believe that things make a difference. Furthermore,

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it involves an awareness of those aspects of values that cannot be measured by objective standards. To be sensitive is to respect the humanities, because, among other reasons, they help develop our sensitivity to values, to what is important to us as individuals.

There are numerous ways to approach the humanities. The way we have chosen here is the way of the arts. One of the contentions of this book is that values are clar- ified in enduring ways in the arts. Human beings have had the impulse to express their values since the earliest times. Ancient tools recovered from the most recent Ice Age, for example, have features designed to express an affection for beauty as well as to provide utility.

The concept of progress in the arts is problematic. Who is to say whether the cave paintings (Figure 1-1) of 30,000 years ago that were discovered in present-day France are less excellent than the work of Picasso (Figure 1-4)? Cave paintings were probably not made as works of art to be contemplated. Getting to them in the caves is almost always difficult, and they are very hard to see. They seem to have been made for a practical purpose, such as improving the prospects for the hunt. Yet the work reveals something about the power, grace, and beauty of all the animals it portrayed. These cave paintings function now as works of art. From the beginning, our species instinctively had an interest in making revealing forms.

Among the numerous ways to approach the humanities, we have chosen the way of the arts because, as we shall try to elucidate, the arts clarify or reveal values. As we deepen our understanding of the arts, we necessarily deepen our understanding of values. We will study our experience with works of art as well as the values others

FIGURE 1-1 Cave painting from Chauvet Caves, France. Discovered in 1994, the Chauvet Caves have yielded some of the most astonishing examples of prehistoric art the world has seen. These aurochs may have lived as many as 35,000 years ago, while the painting itself seems as modern as a contemporary work.

©Javier Trueba/MSF/Science Source

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associate with them, and in this process we will also educate ourselves about our own values.

Because a value is something that matters, engagement with art—the illumina- tion of values—enriches the quality of our lives significantly. Moreover, the subject matter of art—what it is about—is not limited to the beautiful and the pleasant, the bright sides of life. Art may also include and help us understand the dark sides—the ugly, the painful, and the tragic. And when it does and when we get it, we are better able to come to grips with those dark sides of life.

Art brings us into direct communication with others. As Carlos Fuentes wrote in The Buried Mirror, “People and their cultures perish in isolation, but they are born or reborn in contact with other men and women of another culture, another creed, another race. If we do not recognize our humanity in others, we shall not recognize it in ourselves.” Art reveals the essence of our existence.

arT, CommerCe, and TasTe When the great paintings of the Italian Renaissance were being made, their ulti- mate value hinged on how good they were, how fully they expressed the values— usually religious but sometimes political—that the culture expected. Michelangelo’s great, heroic-sized statue of David in Florence was admired for its representation of the values of self-government by the small city-state as well as for its simple beauty of proportion. No dollar figure was attached to the great works of this pe- riod—except for the price paid to the artists. Once these works were in place, no one expressed admiration for them because they would cost a great deal in the marketplace.

Today the art world has changed profoundly and is sometimes thought to be art of an essentially commercial enterprise. Great paintings today change hands for tens of millions of dollars. Moreover, the taste of the public shifts constantly. Mov- ies, for example, survive or fail on the basis of the number of people they appeal to. Therefore, a film is often thought good only if it makes money. As a result, film producers make every effort to cash in on current popular tastes, often by making sequels until the public’s taste changes—for example, the Batman series (1989 to 2017). The Star Wars series (1977 to 2019 [projected]) cashed in on the needs of science-fiction fans whose taste in films is excited by the futuristic details and the narrative of danger and excitement of space travel. These are good films despite the emphasis on commercial success. But in some ways they are also limited by the demands of the marketplace.

Our study of the humanities emphasizes that commercial success is not the most important guide to excellence in the arts. The long-term success of works of art depends on their ability to interpret human experience at a level of complex- ity that warrants examination and reexamination. Many commercially successful works give us what we think we want rather than what we really need with refer- ence to insight and understanding. By satisfying us in an immediate and superfi- cial way, commercial art can dull us to the possibilities of complex, more deeply satisfying art.

Everyone has limitations as a perceiver of art. Sometimes we assume that we have developed our taste and that any effort to change it is bad form. The saying “Matters

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of taste are not disputable” can be credited with making many of us feel righteous about our own taste. What the saying means is that there is no accounting for what people like in the arts, for beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Thus, there is no use in trying to educate anyone about the arts. Obviously we disagree. We believe that all of us can and should be educated about the arts and should learn to respond to as wide a variety of the arts as possible: from jazz to string quartets, from Charlie Chaplin to Steven Spielberg, from Lewis Carroll to T. S. Eliot, from folk art to Picasso. Most of us defend our taste because anyone who challenges it challenges our deep feelings. Anyone who tries to change our responses to art is really trying to get inside our minds. If we fail to understand its purpose, this kind of persuasion naturally arouses resistance.

For us, the study of the arts penetrates beyond facts to the values that evoke our feelings—the way a succession of Eric Clapton’s guitar chords playing the blues can be electrifying, or the way song lyrics can give us a chill. In other words, we want to go beyond the facts about a work of art and get to the values revealed in the work. How many times have we found ourselves liking something that, months or years before, we could not stand? And how often do we find ourselves now disliking what we previously judged a masterpiece? Generally we can say the work of art remains the same. It is we who change. We learn to recognize the values illuminated in such works as well as to understand the ways they are expressed. Such development is the meaning of “education” in the sense in which we have been using the term.

responses To arT Our responses to art usually involve processes so complex that they can never be fully tracked down or analyzed. At first they can only be hinted at when we talk about them. However, further education in the arts permits us to observe more closely and thereby respond more intensely to the content of the work. This is true, we believe, even with “easy” art, such as exceptionally beautiful works—for exam- ple, those by Giorgione (Figure 2-9), Cézanne (Figure 2-4), and O’Keeffe (Figure 4-12). Such gorgeous works generally are responded to with immediate satisfac- tion. What more needs to be done? If art were only of the beautiful, textbooks such as this would never find many users. But we think more needs to be done, even with the beautiful. We will begin, however, with three works that obviously are not beautiful.

The Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros’s Echo of a Scream (Figure 1-2) is a highly emotional painting, in the sense that the work seems to demand a strong emotional response. What we see is the huge head of a baby crying and, then, as if issuing from its own mouth, the baby himself. What kinds of emotions do you find stirring in yourself as you look at this painting? What kinds of emotions do you feel are expressed in the painting? Your own emotional responses—such as shock; pity for the child; irritation at a destructive, mechanical society; or any other nameable emotion—do not sum up the painting. However, they are an important starting point, since Siqueiros paints in such a way as to evoke emotion, and our understanding of the painting increases as we examine the means by which this evocation is achieved.

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FIGURE 1-2 David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican, 1896–1974, Echo of a Scream. 1937. Enamel on wood, 48 × 36 inches (121.9 × 91.4 cm). Gift of Edward M. M. Warburg. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Siqueiros, a famous Mexican muralist, fought during the Mexican Revolution and possessed a powerful political sensibility, much of which found its way into his art. He painted some of his works in prison, held there for his political convictions. In the 1930s he centered his attention on the Spanish Civil War, represented here.

©2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SOMAAP, Mexico City. Photo: ©The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY

PERCEPTION KEY Echo of a Scream 1. What are the important distortions in the painting? 2. What effect does the distortion of the baby’s head have on you? 3. Why is the scream described as an echo? 4. What are the objects on the ground around the baby? How do they relate to the baby? 5. How does the red cloth on the baby intensify your emotional response to the painting?

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Study another work, very close in temperament to Siqueiros’s painting: The Eternal City by the American painter Peter Blume (Figure 1-3). After attending carefully to the kinds of responses awakened by The Eternal City, take note of some background infor- mation about the painting that you may not know. The year of this painting is the same as that of Echo of a Scream: 1937. The Eternal City is a name reserved for only one city in the world—Rome. In 1937 the world was on the verge of world war: Fascists were in power in Italy and the Nazis in Germany. In the center of the painting is the Roman Forum, close to where Julius Caesar, the alleged tyrant, was murdered by Brutus. But here we see fascist Blackshirts, the modern tyrants, beating people. In a niche at the left is a figure of Christ, and beneath him (hard to see) is a crippled beggar woman. Near her are ruins of Roman statuary. The enlarged and distorted head, wriggling out like a jack-in-the-box, is that of Mussolini, the man who invented fascism and the Black- shirts. Study the painting closely again. Has your response to the painting changed?

FIGURE 1-3 Peter Blume, 1906–1992, The Eternal City. 1934–1937. Dated on painting 1937. Oil on composition board, 34 × 47⅞ inches. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund. Born in Russia, Blume came to America when he was six. His paintings are marked by a strong interest in what is now known as magic realism, interleaving time and place and the dead and the living in an emotional space that confronts the viewer as a challenge. He condemned the tyrant dictators of the first half of the twentieth century.

Art ©The Education Alliance, Inc./Estate of Peter Blume/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Photo: ©The Museum of Modern Art/ Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY

PERCEPTION KEY Siqueiros and Blume 1. What common ingredients do you find in the Blume and Siqueiros paintings? 2. Is your reaction to the Blume similar to or distinct from your reaction to the

Siqueiros? 3. Is the effect of the distortions similar or different? 4. How are colors used in each painting? Are the colors those of the natural world, or

do they suggest an artificial environment? Are they distorted for effect? 5. With reference to the objects and events represented in each painting, do you

think the paintings are comparable? If so, in what ways? 6. With the Blume, are there any natural objects in the painting that suggest the

vitality of the Eternal City? 7. What political values are revealed in these two paintings?

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Before going on to the next painting, which is quite different in character, we will make some observations about what we have said, however briefly, about the Blume. With added knowledge about its cultural and political implications—what we shall call the background of the painting—your responses to The Eternal City may have changed. Ideally they should have become more focused, intense, and certain. Why? The painting is surely the same physical object you looked at originally. Noth- ing has changed in that object. Therefore, something has changed because some- thing has been added to you, information that the general viewer of the painting in 1937 would have known and would have responded to more emotionally than viewers do now. Consider how a Fascist, on the one hand, or an Italian humanist and lover of Roman culture, on the other hand, would have reacted to this painting in 1937.

A full experience of this painting is not unidimensional but multidimensional. Moreover, “knowledge about” a work of art can lead to “knowledge of ” the work of art, which implies a richer experience. This is important as a basic principle, since it means that we can be educated about what is in a work of art, such as its shapes, objects, and structure, as well as what is external to a work, such as its political references. It means we can learn to respond more completely. It also means that artists such as Blume sometimes produce works that demand background informa- tion if we are to appreciate them fully. This is particularly true of art that refers to historical circumstances and personages. Sometimes we may find ourselves unable to respond successfully to a work of art because we lack the background knowledge the artist presupposes.

Picasso’s Guernica (Figure 1-4), one of the most famous paintings of the twentieth century, is also dated 1937. Its title comes from the name of an old Spanish town that was bombed during the Spanish Civil War—the first aerial bombing of noncom- batant civilians in modern warfare. Examine this painting carefully.

FIGURE 1-4 Pablo Picasso, Guernica. 1937. Oil on canvas, 11 feet 6 inches × 25 feet 8 inches. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain. Ordinarily Picasso was not a political painter. During World War II he was a citizen of Spain, a neutral country. But the Spanish Civil War excited him to create one of the world’s greatest modern paintings, a record of the German bombing of a small Spanish town, Guernica. When a Nazi officer saw the painting he said to Picasso, “Did you do this?” Picasso answered scornfully, “No, you did.”

©2017 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: ©Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

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PERCEPTION KEY Guernica 1. Distortion is powerfully evident in this painting. How does its function differ from

that of the distortion in Blume’s The Eternal City or Siqueiros’s Echo of a Scream? 2. What are the most prominent objects in the painting? What seems to be the rela-

tionship of the animals to the humans? 3. The figures in the painting are organized by underlying geometric forms. What are

they and how do they focus your attention? Is the formal organization strong or weak?

4. How does your eye move across the painting? Do you begin at the left, the right, or the middle? This is a gigantic painting, over twenty-five feet long. How must one view it to take it all in? Why is it so large?

5. Some viewers have considered the organization of the images to be chaotic. Do you agree? If so, what would be the function of chaos in this painting?

6. We know from history that Guernica memorializes the Nazi bombing of the town of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War in 1937. What is the subject matter of Guernica—what the work is about: War? Death? Horror? Suffering? Fascism? Or something else?

7. Which of these paintings by Blume, Siqueiros, and Picasso makes the most power- ful statement about the human condition?

The next painting (Figure 1-5), featured in “Experiencing: The Mona Lisa,” is by Leonardo da Vinci, arguably one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renais- sance. Da Vinci is a household name in part because of this painting. Despite the lack of a political or historically relevant subject matter, the Mona Lisa, with its tense pose and enigmatic expression, has become possibly the most famous work of art in the West.

EXPERIENCING The Mona Lisa

1. Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is one of the most famous paintings in the history of art. What, in your opinion, makes this painting noteworthy?

2. Because this painting is so familiar, it has sometimes been treated as if it were a cliché, an overworked image. In several cases it has been treated with satirical scorn. Why would any artist want to make fun of this painting? Is it a cliché, or are you able to look at it as if for the first time?

3. Unlike the works of Siqueiros, Blume, and Picasso, this painting has no obvious con- nections to historical circumstances that might intrude on your responses to its for- mal qualities. How does a lack of context affect your understanding of the painting?

4. It has been pointed out that the landscape on the left and the landscape on the right are totally different. If that judgment is correct, why do you think Leonardo made such a decision? What moods do the landscapes suggest?

5. The woman portrayed may be Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, the wife of a local busi- nessman, and the painting has long been known in Italy as La Gioconda. Is it necessary to our sense of participation that we know who the sitter is, or that we know that Leonardo kept this painting with him throughout his life and took it wherever he went?

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Structure and Artistic Form

Your responses to the Mona Lisa are probably different from those you have when viewing the other paintings in this chapter, but why? You might reply that the Mona Lisa is hypnotizing, a carefully structured painting depending on a subtle but basic geometric form, the triangle. Such structures, while operating subconsciously, are

Experiencing a painting as frequently reproduced as Mona Lisa, which is visited by millions of people every year at the Louvre in Paris, takes most of us some special effort. Unless we study the painting as if it were new to us, we will simply see it as an icon of high culture rather than as a painting with a formal power and a lasting value. Because it is used in advertisements and on mouse pads, playing cards, jigsaw puzzles, and a host of other banal locations, we might see this as a cliché.

However, we are also fortunate in that we see the paint- ing as itself, apart from any social or historical events, and in a location that is almost magical or mythical. The landscape may be unreal, fantastic, and suggestive of a world of mystical opportunity. Certainly it emphasizes mystery. Whoever this woman is, she is concentrating in an unusual fashion on the viewer, whether we imagine it is us or it is Leonardo whom she contemplates. A study of her expression reminds us that for generations the “Gioconda smile” has teased authors and crit- ics with its mystery. Is she making an erotic suggestion in that smile, or is it a smile of self-satisfaction? Or is it a smile of tol- erance, suggesting that she is just waiting for this sitting to be done? Her expression has been the most intriguing of virtually any portrait subject in any museum in the world. It is no sur- prise, then, that Leonardo kept this for himself, although we must wonder whether he was commissioned for the painting and for some reason did not want to deliver it.

The arresting quality of the painting is in part because of the enigmatic expression on Mona Lisa’s face, but the form of the painting is also arresting. Leonardo has posed her so that her head is the top of an isosceles triangle in which her face glows in contrast with her dark clothing. Her hands, expressive and radi- ant, create a strong diagonal, leading to the base of the triangle. Her shoulders are turned at a significant angle so that her pose is not really comfortable, not easy to maintain for a long time. However, her position is visually arresting because it imparts a tension to the entire painting that contributes to our response to it as a powerful object.

The most savage satirical treatment of this painting is the Dadaist Marcel Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q. (see Figure 14-15). By

parodying this work, Duchamp thumbed his nose at high culture in 1919, after World War I, and after the Mona Lisa had assumed its role as an epitome of high art. His work was an expression of disgust at the middle and upper classes, which had gone so enthu- siastically into a war of attrition that brought Europe to the verge of self-destruction.

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FIGURE 1-5 Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa. Circa 1503–1506. Oil on panel, 30¼ × 21 inches. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Leonardo’s most personal picture has sometimes been hailed as a psychologically powerful painting because of the power of Mona Lisa’s gaze, which virtually rivets the viewer to the spot. The painting is now protected under glass and, while always surrounded by a crowd of viewers, its small size proportional to its reputation has sometimes disappointed viewers because it is so hard to see. And in a crowd it is impossible to contemplate.

©RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY

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PERCEPTION KEY The Eternal City 1. Sketch the basic geometric shapes of the painting. 2. Do these shapes relate to one another in such a way as to help reveal the obscenity

of fascism? If so, how?

obvious on analysis. Like all structural elements of the artistic form of a painting, they affect us deeply even when we are not aware of them. We have the capacity to respond to pure form even in paintings in which objects and events are por- trayed. Thus, responding to The Eternal City will involve responding not just to an interpretation of fascism taking hold in Italy but also to the sensuous surface of the painting. This is certainly true of Echo of a Scream; if you look again at that painting, you will see not only that its sensuous surface is interesting intrinsically but also that it deepens your response to what is represented. Because we often respond to artistic form without being conscious that it is affecting us, the painter must make the structure interesting. Consider the contrast between the simplicity of the struc- ture of the Mona Lisa and the urgent complexity of the structures of the Siqueiros and the Blume.

The composition of any painting can be analyzed because any painting has to be organized: Parts have to be interrelated. Moreover, it is important to think carefully about the composition of individual paintings. This is particularly true of paintings one does not respond to immediately—of “difficult” or apparently uninteresting paintings. Often the analysis of structure can help us gain access to such paintings so that they become genuinely exciting.

Artistic form is a composition or structure that makes something—a subject matter—more meaningful. The Siqueiros, Blume, and Picasso reveal something about the horrors of war and fascism. But what does the Mona Lisa reveal? Perhaps just the form and structure? For us, structures or forms that do not give us insight are not artistic forms. Some critics will argue the point. This major question will be pursued throughout the text.

Perception

We are not likely to respond sensitively to a work of art that we do not perceive properly. What is less obvious is what we referred to previously—the fact that we can often give our attention to a work of art and still not perceive very much. The reason for this should be clear from our previous discussion. Frequently we need to know something about the background of a work of art that would aid our per- ception. Anyone who did not know something about the history of Rome, or who Christ was, or what fascism was, or what Mussolini meant to the world would have a difficult time making sense of The Eternal City. But it is also true that anyone who could not perceive Blume’s composition might have a completely superficial re- sponse to the painting. Such a person could indeed know all about the background and understand the symbolic statements made by the painting, but that is only part

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THE HUMANITIES: AN INTRODUCTION

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of the painting. From seeing what da Vinci can do with form, structure, pose, and expression, you can understand that the formal qualities of a painting are neither accidental nor unimportant. In Blume’s painting, the form focuses attention and organizes our perceptions by establishing the relationships between the parts.

absTraCT ideas and ConCreTe images Composition is basic in all the arts. Artistic form is essential to the success of any art object. To perceive any work of art adequately, we must perceive its structure. Ex- amine the following poem by Robert Herrick (1591-1674) and consider the purpose of its shape. This is one of many shaped poems designed to have a visual formal structure that somehow illuminates its subject matter.

THE PILLAR OF FAME

Fame’s pillar here at last we set, Out-during marble, brass or jet;  Charmed and enchanted so  As to withstand the blow   Of    overthrow;   Nor shall the seas,   Or  Outrages   Of storms, o’erbear   What we uprear;   Tho’ Kingdoms fall,  This pillar never shall  Decline or waste at all; But stand forever by his own Firm and well-fixed foundation.

PERCEPTION KEY “The Pillar of Fame” 1. What is a pillar and in what art form are pillars used? 2. In what sense is fame the subject matter of the poem? 3. Herrick is using a number of metaphors in this poem. How many can you identify?

What seems to be their purpose? 4. In what sense is the shape of the poem a metaphor? 5. To whom does the word “his” in the last line refer? 6. The poem includes abstract ideas and concrete things. What is abstract here? And

what is the function of the concrete references?

Robert Herrick, a seventeenth-century poet, valued both honor and fame. During the English Civil War he lost his job as a clergyman because he honored his faith and refused to abandon his king. He hoped to achieve fame as a poet, in imitation of the great Roman poets. His “outrages” and “storms” refer to the war and the decade following, in which he stayed in self-exile after the “overthrow” of King Charles I. He portrayed fame as a pillar because pillars hold up buildings, and when the buildings become ruins pillars often survive as testimony to greatness. Herrick hoped his poem

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THE HUMANITIES: AN INTRODUCTION

would endure longer than physical objects, such as marble, brass, and jet (a black pre- cious jewel made of coal), because fame is an abstraction and cannot wear or erode. Shaping the poem to resemble a pillar with a capital and a stylobate (foundation) is an example of wit. When he wrote poetry, one of Herrick’s greatest achievements was the expression of wit, a poetic expression of intelligence and understanding. This poem achieves the blending of ideas and objects, of the abstract and the concrete, through its structure. The poem is a concrete expression of an abstract idea.

In Paradise Lost, John Milton describes hell as a place with “Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and shades of death.” Now, neither you nor the poet has ever seen “shades of death,” although the idea is in Psalm 23, “the valley of the shadow of death.” Milton gets away with describing hell this way because he has linked the abstract idea of shades of death to so many concrete images in this single line. He is giving us images that suggest the mood of hell just as much as they describe the landscape, and we realize that he gives us so many topographic details in order to get us ready for the last detail—the abstract idea of shades of death.

There is much more to be said about poetry, of course, but on a preliminary level poetry worked in much the same way in the seventeenth-century England of Milton as it does in contemporary America. The same principles are at work: Described objects or events are used as a means of bringing abstract ideas to life. The descriptions take on a wider and deeper significance—wider in the sense that the descriptions are connected with the larger scope of abstract ideas, deeper in the sense that because of these descriptions the abstract ideas become vividly focused and more meaningful.

The following poem is highly complex: the memory of an older culture (simplic- ity, in this poem) and the consideration of a newer culture (complexity). It is an African poem by the contemporary Nigerian poet Gabriel Okara; and knowing that it is African, we can begin to appreciate the extreme complexity of Okara’s feelings about the clash of the old and new cultures. He symbolizes the clash in terms of music, and he opposes two musical instruments: the drum and the piano. They stand, respectively, for the African and the European cultures. But even beyond the musical images that abound in this poem, look closely at the images of nature, the pictures of the panther and leopard, and see how Okara imagines them.

PIANO AND DRUMS

When at break of day at a riverside I hear jungle drums telegraphing the mystic rhythm, urgent, raw like bleeding flesh, speaking of primal youth and the beginning, I see the panther ready to pounce, the leopard snarling about to leap and the hunters crouch with spears poised; And my blood ripples, turns torrent, topples the years and at once I’m in my mother’s lap a suckling; at once I’m walking simple paths with no innovations, rugged, fashioned with the naked warmth of hurrying feet and groping hearts

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in green leaves and wild flowers pulsing. Then I hear a wailing piano solo speaking of complex ways in tear-furrowed concerto; of far-away lands and new horizons with coaxing diminuendo, counterpoint, crescendo. But lost in the labyrinth of its complexities, it ends in the middle of a phrase at a daggerpoint. And I lost in the morning mist of an age at a riverside keep wandering in the mystic rhythm of jungle drums and the concerto.

Reproduced from Gabriel Okara: Collected Poems, edited by Brenda Marie Osbey, by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copy- right 2016 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

PERCEPTION KEY “Piano and Drums” 1. What are the most important physical objects in the poem? What cultural signifi-

cance do they have? 2. Why do you think Okara chose the drum and the piano to help reveal the clash

between the two cultures? Where are his allegiances?

Such a poem speaks directly to legions of the current generation of Africans. But consider some points in light of what we have said earlier. In order to perceive the kind of emotional struggle that Okara talks about—the subject matter of the poem—we need to know something about Africa and the struggle African nations have in modernizing themselves along the lines of more technologically advanced nations. We also need to know something of the history of Africa and the fact that European nations, such as Britain in the case of Nigeria, once controlled much of Africa. Knowing these things, we know, then, that there is no thought of the “I” of the poem accepting the “complex ways” of the new culture without qualification. The “I” does not think of the culture of the piano as manifestly superior to the cul- ture of the drum. That is why the labyrinth of complexities ends at a “daggerpoint.” The new culture is a mixed blessing.

We have argued that the perception of a work of art is aided by background infor- mation and that sensitive perception must be aware of form, at least implicitly. But we believe there is much more to sensitive perception. Somehow the form of a work of art is an artistic form that clarifies or reveals values, and our response is intensified by our awareness of those revealed values. But how does artistic form do this? And how does this awareness come to us? In the next chapter we shall consider these ques- tions, and in doing so we will also raise that most important question, What is a work of art? Once we have examined each of the arts, it will be clear, we hope, that the principles developed in these opening chapters are equally applicable to all the arts.

Participate, analyze, and participate again with Edward Hopper’s Early Sunday Morning (Figure 1-6).

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FIGURE 1-6 Edward Hopper, Early Sunday Morning. 1930. Oil on canvas, 35 × 60 inches. When the Whitney Museum of American Art purchased Early Sunday Morning in 1930, it was their most expensive acquisition. Hopper’s work, centered in New York’s Greenwich Village, revealed the character of city life. His colors— vibrant, intense—and the early morning light—strong and unyielding—created indelible images of the city during the Great Depression.

©Whitney Museum of American Art/akg-images

PERCEPTION KEY Early Sunday Morning 1. If you did not know the title of the painting, what emotions might it excite in you? 2. How does Hopper’s title, Early Sunday Morning, direct or enrich your emotional

response? 3. What are the concrete objects represented in the painting? Which are most obvi-

ous and visually demanding? Which provide you with the most information about the scene?

4. What abstract ideas are suggested by the painting? 5. Is this an urban or rural scene? Why is no one present in the painting? 6. Would the painting be any different if it were titled Early Wednesday Morning? 7. What is the subject matter of the painting?

On one level the subject matter is a city street scene. Packed human habitation is portrayed, but no human being is in sight (incidentally but noteworthy, a human figure originally placed behind one of the windows was painted out). We seem to be at the scene alone on New York’s Seventh Avenue. We seem to be strangely located across the street at about the level of the second-story windows. We see storefronts,

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