Jean-auguste-dominique ingres’s portrayal of the woman in grande odalisque ________ her body.

THE HUMANITIES THROUGH THE ARTS

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THE HUMANITIES THROUGH THE ARTS

N i n t h E d i t i o n

F. David Martin Professor of Philosophy Emeritus

Bucknell University

Lee A. Jacobus Professor of English Emeritus

University of Connecticut

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THE HUMANITIES THROUGH THE ARTS, NINTH EDITION

Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. Copyright © 2015 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Previous editions © 2011, 2008, and 2004. 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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ISBN 978-0-07-352398-9 MHID 0-07-352398-4

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Martin, F. David, 1920– author. The humanities through the arts / F. David Martin, Bucknell University; Lee A. Jacobus, University of Connecticut–Storrs.—Ninth Edition. pages cm Includes index. ISBN 978–0–07–352398–9 — ISBN 0–07–352398–4 (hard : alk. paper) 1. Arts–Psychological aspects. 2. Art appreciation. I. Jacobus, Lee A., author. II. Title. NX165.M37 2014 700.1’04–dc23 2013041627

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v

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

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 he has received seven other major research grants during his career as well as the Christian Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. In addition to more than 100 articles in professional journals, Dr. Martin is the author of Art and the Religious Experience (Associated University Presses, 1972); Sculpture and the Enlivened Space (The University Press of Kentucky, 1981); and Facing Death: Theme and Variations (Associated University Presses, 2006).

Lee A. Jacobus (PhD, Claremont Graduate University) taught at Western Connecticut University and then at the University of Connecticut (Storrs) until he retired in 2001. He held a Danforth Teachers Grant while earning his doctorate. His publications include Hawaiian Tales (Tell Me Press, 2014); Substance, Style and Strategy (Oxford University Press, 1999); 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); and Aesthetics and the Arts (McGraw-Hill, 1968). Dr. Jacobus writes poetry, drama, and fi ction. He is the editor of The Bedford Introduction to Drama (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013). His A World of Ideas (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013) is in its ninth edition.

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

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BRIEF CONTENTS

PREFACE xiii

Part 1 FUNDAMENTALS

1 The Humanities: An Introduction 1 2 What Is a Work of Art? 18

3 Being a Critic of the Arts 47

Part 2 THE ARTS

4 Painting 63 5 Sculpture 95

6 Architecture 126 7 Literature 171 8 Theater 199 9 Music 225

10 Dance 256 11 Photography 278

12 Cinema 304 13 Television and Video Art 333

Part 3 INTERRELATIONSHIPS

14 Is It Art or Something Like It? 352 15 The Interrelationships of the Arts 379

16 The Interrelationships of the Humanities 400 GLOSSARY G-1

CREDITS C-1

INDEX I-1

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CONTENTS

PREFACE xiii

Part 1 FUNDAMENTALS

1 Th e Humanities: An Introduction 1

The Humanities: A Study of Values 1 Taste 4 Responses to Art 4 Structure and Artistic Form 9

EXPERIENCING: The Mona Lisa 10

Perception 12

Abstract Ideas and Concrete Images 13 Summary 16

2 What Is a Work of Art? 18 Identifying Art Conceptually 19 Identifying Art Perceptually 19 Artistic Form 20 Participation 24 Participation and Artistic Form 26 Content 27 Subject Matter 29 Subject Matter and Artistic Form 30 Participation, Artistic Form, and Content 30 Artistic Form: Examples 32 Subject Matter and Content 38

EXPERIENCING: Interpretations of the Female Nude 44

Further Thoughts on Artistic Form 44 Summary 45

3 Being a Critic of the Arts 47 You Are Already an Art Critic 47 Participation and Criticism 48 Three Kinds of Criticism 48 Descriptive Criticism 49 Interpretive Criticism 53 Evaluative Criticism 56

EXPERIENCING: The Polish Rider 60 Summary 61

Part 2 THE ARTS

4 Painting 63 Our Visual Powers 63 The Media of Painting 64 Tempera 64 Fresco 66 Oil 67 Watercolor 69 Acrylic 69 Other Media and Mixed Media 70

Elements of Painting 72 Line 73 Color 76

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CONTENTS ix

6 Architecture 126 Centered Space 126 Space and Architecture 127 Chartres 128 Living Space 131 Four Necessities of Architecture 132 Technical Requirements of Architecture 132 Functional Requirements of Architecture 133 Spatial Requirements of Architecture 137 Revelatory Requirements of Architecture 137

Earth-Rooted Architecture 139 Site 140 Gravity 140 Raw Materials 142 Centrality 143

Sky-Oriented Architecture 145 Axis Mundi 148 Defi ance of Gravity 149 Integration of Light 150

Earth-Resting Architecture 151 Earth-Dominating Architecture 153 Combinations of Types 154 Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Sydney Opera House 155 High-Rises and Skyscrapers 157

EXPERIENCING: Sydney Opera House 158

FOCUS ON: Fantasy Architecture 163

Urban Planning 166 Summary 170

7 Literature 171 Spoken Language and Literature 171 Literary Structures 174 The Narrative and the Narrator 174 The Episodic Narrative 176 The Organic Narrative 179 The Quest Narrative 182 The Lyric 184

EXPERIENCING: “Musée des Beaux Arts” 187

Literary Details 188 Image 189

Texture 77 Composition 77

The Clarity of Painting 80 The “All-at-Onceness” of Painting 81 Abstract Painting 81 Intensity and Restfulness in

Abstract Painting 83 Representational Painting 84 Comparison of Five Impressionist Paintings 84

FOCUS ON: The Self-Portrait: Rembrandt van Rijn, Gustave Courbet, Vincent van Gogh, and Frida Kahlo 90

Frames 92 Some Painting Styles of the Past 150 Years 92

EXPERIENCING: Frames 93 Summary 94

5 Sculpture 95 Sensory Interconnections 96 Sculpture and Painting Compared 96 Sculpture and Space 98 Sunken-Relief Sculpture 98 Low-Relief Sculpture 99 High-Relief Sculpture 100 Sculpture in the Round 101 Sculpture and Architecture Compared 103 Sensory Space 104 Sculpture and the Human Body 105 Sculpture in the Round and the

Human Body 106 EXPERIENCING: Sculpture and Physical Size 108

Contemporary Sculpture 109 Truth to Materials 109 Protest against Technology 112 Accommodation with Technology 115 Machine Sculpture 116 Earth Sculpture 117

FOCUS ON: African Sculpture 119

Sculpture in Public Places 122 Summary 125

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x CONTENTS

Tonal Center 235 Musical Structures 237 Theme and Variations 237 Rondo 238 Fugue 238 Sonata Form 238 Fantasia 239 Symphony 240

FOCUS ON: Beethoven’s Symphony in E ♭ Major, No. 3, Eroica 245

Blues and Jazz: Popular American Music 250 Blues and Rock and Roll 252 Summary 254

10 Dance 256 Subject Matter of Dance 256

EXPERIENCING: Feeling and Dance 258

Form 259 Dance and Ritual 259 Ritual Dance 261 Social Dance 261 The Court Dance 262

Ballet 262 Swan Lake 264

Modern Dance 267 Alvin Ailey’s Revelations 269 Martha Graham 271 Pilobolus and Momix Dance Companies 272 Mark Morris Dance Group 273

FOCUS ON: Theater Dance 275

Popular Dance 276 Summary 277

11 Photography 278 Photography and Painting 278

EXPERIENCING: Photography and Art 282

Photography and Painting: The Pictorialists 283

Straight Photography 286 Stieglitz: Pioneer of Straight Photography 287

Metaphor 191 Symbol 194 Irony 195 Diction 196 Summary 198

8 Th eater 199 Aristotle and the Elements of Drama 200 Dialogue and Soliloquy 201

Archetypal Patterns 203 Genres of Drama: Tragedy 205 The Tragic Stage 205 Stage Scenery and Costumes 207 Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet 209

Comedy: Old and New 212 Tragicomedy: The Mixed Genre 215 A Play for Study: The Swan Song 215

EXPERIENCING: Anton Chekhov’s The Swan Song 219

FOCUS ON: Musical Theater 220

Experimental Drama 223 Summary 224

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

EXPERIENCING: “Battle Hymn of the Republic” 230

Dynamics 231 Contrast 231

The Subject Matter of Music 231 Feelings 232

Two Theories: Formalism and Expressionism 234 Sound 234

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CONTENTS xi

Part 3 INTERRELATIONSHIPS

14 Is It Art or Something Like It? 352

Art and Artlike 352 Illustration 355 Realism 355 Folk Art 356 Popular Art 358 Propaganda 363

EXPERIENCING: Propaganda Art 364

FOCUS ON: Kitsch 364

Decoration 366 Idea Art 369 Dada 369 Duchamp and His Legacy 371 Conceptual Art 372

Performance Art 374 Shock Art 375 Virtual Art 376 Summary 378

15 Th e Interrelationships of the Arts 379

Appropriation 379 Synthesis 381 Interpretation 382 Film Interprets Literature: Howards End 382 Music Interprets Drama: The Marriage of Figaro 385 Poetry Interprets Painting: The Starry Night 388 Sculpture Interprets Poetry: Apollo and Daphne 390

EXPERIENCING: Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne and Ovid’s The Metamorphoses 392

FOCUS ON: Photography Interprets Fiction 393

Architecture Interprets Dance: National Nederlanden Building 395

Painting Interprets Dance and Music: The Dance and Music 396

EXPERIENCING: Death in Venice: Three Versions 398 Summary 399

The f/64 Group 288

The Documentarists 290 The Modern Eye 296

FOCUS ON: Digital Photography 300 Summary 303

12 Cinema 304 The Subject Matter of Film 304 Directing and Editing 305 The Participative Experience and Film 308 The Film Image 309

EXPERIENCING: Still Frames and Photography 310

Camera Point of View 312 Violence and Film 315 Sound 316 Image and Action 318 Film Structure 319 Cinematic Signifi cance 321 The Context of Film History 322 Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather 323 The Narrative Structure of The Godfather Films 324 Coppola’s Images 325 Coppola’s Use of Sound 326 The Power of The Godfather 326

FOCUS ON: Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo 327

Experimentation 330 Summary 332

13 Television and Video Art 333 The Evolution of Television 333 The Subject Matter of Television and Video

Art 334 Commercial Television 335 The Television Series 336 The Structure of the Self-Contained Episode 337 The Television Serial 337

Video Art 342 FOCUS ON: Downton Abbey 343

Summary 350

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xii CONTENTS

FOCUS ON: The Arts and History, The Arts and Philosophy, The Arts and Theology 406

Summary 411

GLOSSARY G-1

CREDITS C-1

INDEX I-1

16 Th e Interrelationships of the Humanities 400

The Humanities and the Sciences 400 The Arts and the Other Humanities 401

EXPERIENCING: The Humanities and Students of Medicine 402

Values 403

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PREFACE

The Humanities through the Arts , ninth edition, explores the humanities with an emphasis on the arts. Examining the relationship of the humanities to values, ob- jects, 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 refl ect 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 an- cient 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 relation of the arts to human values by examining in-depth each of the major artis- tic media. Subject matter, form, and content in each of the arts supply the frame- work 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 inside and out. Literature, theater, cinema, and video make us more aware of the human condition, among other ideas. Our understanding of feelings is deepened by music. Our sensi- tivity 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. Four major pedagogical boxed features enhance student understanding of the genres and of individual works within the genres: Perception Key boxes, Concep- tion Key boxes, Experiencing boxes, and new Focus On boxes (the latter described in detail in the “Key Changes in the Ninth Edition” section of this Preface):

• The Perception Key boxes are designed to sharpen readers in their responses to the arts. These boxes raise important questions about specifi c 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 awareness, and how a heightened awareness will produce a fuller and more meaningful under- standing of the work at hand. In a few cases our own interpretations and analyses

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PREFACE

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.

• 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 refl ection and understanding. There is no single way of responding to these keys, just as there is no simple way to answer the questions.

PERCEPTION KEY Public Sculpture 1. Public sculpture such as that by Maya Lin, Richard Serra, and Judy Chicago usually

produces tremendous controversy when it is not representative, such as a conven- tional statue of a man on a horse, a hero holding a rifl e and fl ag, or person of local fame. What do you think causes these more abstract works to attract controversy? Do you react negatively or positively to any of these three works?

2. Should artists who plan public sculpture meant to be viewed by a wide-ranging audience aim at pleasing that audience? Should that be their primary mission, or should they simply make the best work they are capable of ?

3. Which of the three, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Sequence, or The Dinner Party, seems least like a work of art to you? Try to convince someone who disagrees with you that it is not a work of art.

4. Choose a public sculpture that is in your community, photograph it, and establish its credentials, as best you can, for making a claim to being an important work of art.

5. If we label Chicago’s The Dinner Party a feminist work, is it then to be treated as political sculpture? Do you think Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a less political or more political sculpture than Chicago’s work? Could Serra’s Sequence be consid-

mar23984_ch05_095-125.indd 124 22/01/14 5:54 PMCONCEPTION KEY Archetypes 1. You may wish to supplement the comments above by reading the third chapter of

Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism or the Hamlet chapter in Francis Fergusson’s The Idea of a Theater.

2. Whether or not you do additional reading, consider the recurrent patterns you have observed in dramas—include television dramas or television adaptations of drama. Can you fi nd any of the patterns we have described? Do you see other patterns showing up? Do the patterns you have observed seem basic to human experience? For example, do you associate gaiety with spring, love with summer, death with fall, and bitterness with winter? What season seems most appropriate

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• Each chapter provides an Experiencing box that gives the reader the opportu- nity to approach a specifi c 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 criti- cally about the work and guide them to their own interpretations. In every case

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we raise major issues concerning the genre of work, the background of the work, and the artistic issues that make the work demanding and important.

EXPERIENCING Sydney Opera House 1. Would you recognize the function of

the building if you did not know its name?

2. Which type does this building ful- fi ll, earth-resting, earth-rooted, or sky-oriented?

In the late 1950s the design was a sensation in part because no one could know by looking at it that it was a concert and opera hall. Its swooping “sails” were so novel that people were more amazed at its construction than by its function. Additionally, the fact that the build- ing was fl oating in a harbor rather than being built on solid earth was all the more mystifying. Today, however, with the innovations of computer-generated plans for buildings like Gehry’s Guggenheim in Bilbao (Figures 6-24 to 6-26), we are accustomed to the extraordinary shapes that make these buildings possible. In fact, now we are likely to associate the shape of the Sydney Opera House (Figure 6-27) with a function related to the arts. This tells us that our percep- tion of function in a building is established by tradition and our association with a class of buildings. Therefore, the dogma that was so fi rmly established years ago—“form follows function”—is capable of distinct revision.

FIGURE 6-27 Jørn Utzon, Opera House, Sydney, Australia. 1973.

This is considered an expressionist modern design. The precast concrete shells house various concert and performance halls.

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Organization

This edition, as with previous editions, is organized into three parts, offering considerable fl exibility in the classroom: Part 1, “Fundamentals,” includes the fi rst 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 defi nition 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. Part 2, “The Arts,” includes individual chapters on each of the basic arts. The structure of this section permits complete fl exibility: The chapters may be used in their present order or in any order one wishes. We begin with individual chapters on Painting , Sculpture , and Architecture , follow with Literature , Theater , Music , and Dance , and continue with Photography , Cinema , and Television and Video Art . Instruc- tors may reorder or omit chapters as needed. The Photography chapter now more logically precedes the Cinema and Television and Video Art chapters for the conve- nience of instructors who prefer to teach the chapters in the order presented.

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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 ques- tion “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 literature and music result in a Mozart opera; how poetry inspires a Bernini sculpture; and how a van Gogh painting inspires poetry and song. Chapter 16, The Interrelationships of the Humanities , addresses the ways in which the arts impact the other humanities, particularly history, philosophy, and theology.

Key Changes in the Ninth Edition

• New “Focus On” boxes. 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 as a way of exploring art in context with similar works. For example, we focus on African sculpture, fantasy architecture, self-portraits, kitsch, and other topics via a variety of examples. In the Cinema and Television and Video Art chapters, we focus in-depth on specifi c works (Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and the popular PBS drama Downton Abbey, respectively) from a variety of perspectives. Each of these opportunities encourages in-depth and comparative study.

FOCUS ON Downton Abbey By 2013, in its third season, the British serial drama Down- ton Abbey (PBS) became one of the most watched television programs in the world. Almost the diametrical opposite of The Sopranos and The Wire, it presents a historical period in England in which the language is formal by comparison and the manners impeccable. What we see is the upheaval of the lives of the British aristocracy in the wake of historical forces that cannot be ignored or stemmed. The fi rst season began with a major historical event, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. With the ship went Patrick Crawley, the young heir to Downton Abbey. The result is that, much to the dismay of the Dowager Countess Vio- let Crawley (Figure 13-8), the great house will now go to the Earl of Grantham’s distant cousin, Matthew Crawley, a person unknown to the family. Young Matthew enters as a middle-class solicitor (lawyer) with little interest in the ways of the aristocracy. But soon he fi nds himself in love with his distant cousin, Lady Mary Crawley, beginning a long and complicated love interest that becomes one of the major centers of the drama for three seasons. Lord Grantham and his wife Cora, Countess of Grantham, have three daughters (Figure 13-9), and therefore the question of marriage is as im- portant in this drama as in any Jane Austen novel. The fate of Downton Abbey itself is a major center of interest in the drama—not only because of the question of who is to inherit and live in the great house, but also because in season 3 Lord Grantham announces that, as a result of bad investments, he has lost

FIGURE 13-8 Maggie Smith as Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey. She is the Dowager Countess of Grantham and the series’ most stalwart character in her resistance to change. She has been a scene-stealer since season 1.

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• Updated illustration program and contextual discussions. More than 30 per- cent 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 Lee Krasner, Frida Kahlo, and Gustave Courbet; sculptors Ron Mueck, Frank Stella, and Jeff Koons; photographers Edward Steichen, Cindy Sherman, and Lewis Hine; and video artist Janine Antoni. Newly-added fi lm and television stills rep- resent Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo , James Cameron’s Avatar, Quentin Taranti- no’s Django Unchained , the PBS series Downton Abbey , and more.

• New literature, dance, theater, and music coverage. Along with the many new illustrations and contextual discussions of the visual arts, fi lm, and televi- sion, new works and images in the literary, dance, theatrical, and musical arts have been added and contextualized. These include works by Edgar Lee Masters, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Anton Chekhov, John Milton, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn, Samuel Beckett, Steven Sondheim, Mark Morris, Joseph Haydn, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The theater chapter also includes a new section on stage scenery and costumes.

• Increased focus on non-Western art. This edition contains numerous new examples of non-Western art, from painting (Wang Yuanqi’s Landscape after Wu Zhen ) to sculpture (Focus On: African Sculpture) to architecture (the Guangzhou Opera House) to dance (the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble) to fi lm (Yasujiro− Ozu’s Tokyo Story ).

• Additional references to online videos. Since many opportunities exist for ex- periencing the performing arts online, we point to numerous online videos that can help expand our understanding of specifi c works of art. Virtually all the arts have some useful illustrations online that become more intelligible as a result of our discussion of the medium or the specifi c work of art.

Supplements

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Simplicity in assigning and engaging your students with course materials. Craft your teaching resources to match the way you

teach! With McGraw-Hill Create, http://www.mcgrawhillcreate.com/, you can easily rearrange chapters, combine material from other content sources, and quickly upload content you have written, such as your course syllabus or teaching notes. Find the content you need in Create by searching through thousands of leading McGraw-Hill textbooks. Arrange your book to fi t your teaching style. Create even allows you to personalize your book’s appearance by selecting the cover and adding your name, school, and course information. Order a Create book and you’ll receive a complimentary print review copy in three to fi ve business days or a complimentary electronic review copy (eComp) via e-mail in about an hour. Go to http://www. mcgrawhillcreate.com/ today and register. Experience how McGraw-Hill Create empowers you to teach your students your way.

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Online Learning Center

Instructor Resources An Instructor’s Online Learning Center (OLC) at www. mhhe.com/hta9 includes a number of resources to assist instructors with planning and teaching their courses: an instructor’s manual, which offers learning objec- tives, 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.

Student Resources The student content for the Online Learning Center of this new edition of The Humanities through the Arts enriches the learning experience. Students can watch videos on various art techniques and access interactive de- signs to strengthen their understanding of visual art, dance, music, sculpture, literature, theater, architecture, and fi lm. They will also be able to use the guided Research in Action tool to enhance their understanding of time periods, genres, and artists. We hope that this online availability will spark their own creativity. All of this information is available at www.mhhe.com/hta9 when you click on the MyHumanitiesStudiolink. Additional resources, including quizzes, links to relevant websites, and a chapter-by-chapter glossary, are available on the OLC to help students review and test their knowledge of the material covered in the book.

Acknowledgments

This book is indebted to more people than we can truly credit. We are deeply grateful to the following reviewers for their help on this and 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

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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 Housefi eld, Texas State University–San Marcos Stephen Husarik, University of Arkansas–Fort Smith Ramona Ilea, Pacifi c 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 Keith West, Butler Community College

We want to thank the editorial team at McGraw-Hill for their smart and gener- ous support for this edition. Director of Development Dawn Groundwater, along with Brand Managers Sarah Remington and Laura Wilk, oversaw the revision from inception through production, with the invaluable support of Editorial Coordi- nator Iris Kim. Development Editor Bruce Cantley guided us carefully through the process 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 im- prove the book. We also owe thanks to Content Project Manager Laura Bies, who oversaw the book smoothly through the production process; Trevor Goodman, who revised the interior design for a sharper look and also designed the extraordi- nary cover; Margaret Moore, who was an exceptionally good copyeditor; Content

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Licensing Specialist Brenda Rolwes; Judy Mason, our image and photo researcher, who dealt with many diffi cult issues and resolved them with great skill; and Permis- sions Editor Jenna Caputo, who did a wonderful job clearing the rights for textual excerpts and line art.

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 lifelong 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 refl ect 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 self. We believe that the arts and the humanities function together to make life more intense, more signifi cant, 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 man. 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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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 scientifi c 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 benefi t for domestic livestock farmers. Genetically altered wheat, soybeans, and other cereals have been heralded 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 modifi cations and purchase food identifi ed as not being genet- ically altered. Scientifi c research into the human genome has identifi ed certain genes for inherited diseases, such as breast cancer or Alzheimer’s disease, that could be modifi ed to protect individuals or their offspring. 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

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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 was 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 dies in infancy or clone a genius 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 because 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, Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus, which in some ways enacts the confl ict among these values. These examples demonstrate that the discoveries of scientists often have tremen- dous 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 understand why they give that responsibility to others. This is not to say that scientists uniformly turn such deci- sions 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 scientifi c 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, it involves an awareness of those aspects of values that cannot be measured by objective standards. To be sen- sitive 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 clarifi ed 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

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THE HUMANITIES: AN INTRODUCTION

France are less excellent than the work of Picasso (see Fig ure 1-4)? Cave paintings were probably not made as works of art to be contemplated. To get to them in the caves is almost always diffi cult, and they are very diffi cult to see. They seem to have been made for some 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 they portrayed. These cave paintings function now as works of art. From the begin- ning, 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 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 signifi cantly. 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.

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. This rhinoceros may have lived as many as 35,000 years ago, while the painting itself seems as modern as a contemporary work.

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CHAPTER 1

Taste

The taste of the mass public shifts constantly. Movies, for example, survive or fail on the basis of the number of people they appeal to. A fi lm is good if it makes money. Consequently, fi lm producers make every effort to cash in on current pop- ular tastes, often by making sequels until the public’s taste changes—for example, the Batman series (1989, 1992, 1995, 1997, 2005, 2008, 2012). 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 complexity that warrants examination and reexamination. Many commercially successful works give us what we think we want rather than what we really need with reference 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 defend our- selves against stretching our limitations by assuming that we have developed our taste and that any effort to change it is bad form. An old saying—“Matters 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 when he plays 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 all found ourselves liking something that, months or years before, we could not stand? And how often do we fi nd 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 in which this is accom- plished. 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 fi rst, 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 example, Giorgione

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(see Figure 2-16), Cézanne (see Figure 2-4), and O’Keeffe (see Figure 4-11). Such gorgeous works generally are responded to with immediate satisfaction. What more needs to be done? If art were only of the beautiful, textbooks such as this would never fi nd 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

FIGURE 1-2 David Alfaro Siqueiros, Mexican, 1896–1974, Echo of a Scream. 1937. Enamel on wood, 48 3 36 inches (121.9 3 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.

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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 fi nd 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.

FIGURE 1-3 Peter Blume, 1906–1992, The Eternal City. 1934–1937. Dated on painting 1937. Oil on composition board, 34 3 477⁄8 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 fi rst half of the twentieth century.

Art © Estate of Peter Blume/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

PERCEPTION KEY Echo of a Scream 1. Identify the mechanical objects in the painting. 2. What is the condition of these objects? What is their relationship to the baby? 3. What are those strange round forms in the upper right corner? 4. How might your response diff er if the angular lines were smoothed out? 5. What is the signifi cance of the red cloth around the baby? 6. Why are the natural shapes in the painting, such as the forehead of the baby,

distorted? Is awareness of such distortions crucial to a response to the painting? 7. What eff ect does the repetition of the baby’s head have on you?

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 information about the painting that you may not know. The

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THE HUMANITIES: AN INTRODUCTION

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 fi gure 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 Blackshirts. Study the painting closely again. Has your response to the painting changed?

PERCEPTION KEY Siqueiros and Blume 1. What common ingredients do you fi nd 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 eff ect of the distortions similar or diff erent? 4. How are colors used in each painting? Are the colors those of the natural world, or

do they suggest an artifi cial environment? Are they distorted for eff ect? 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?

Before going on to the next painting, which is quite different in character, we will make some observations about what we have done, however briefl y, with 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 orig- inally. Nothing has changed in that object. Therefore, something has changed because something has been added to you, information that the general viewer of the painting in 1937 would have known and would have responded to more emo- tionally 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

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historical circumstances and personages. Sometimes we may fi nd 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 fi rst aerial bombing of noncombatant civilians in modern warfare. Examine this painting carefully.

8

FIGURE 1-4 Pablo Picasso, Guernica. 1937. Oil on canvas, 11 feet 6 inches 3 25 feet 8 inches. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofi a, 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 offi cer saw the painting he said to Picasso, “Did you do this?” Picasso answered scornfully, “No, you did.”

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

that of the distortion in Blume’s The Eternal City or Siqueiros’s Echo of a Scream? 2. Describe the objects in the painting. What is their relationship to one another? 3. Why the prominence of the lightbulb? 4. There are large vertical rectangles on the left and right sides and a very large trian-

gle in the center. Do these shapes provide a visual order to what would otherwise be sheer chaos? If so, how? As you think about this, compare one of many studies Picasso made for Guernica (Figure 1-5). Does the painting possess a stronger form than the study? If so, in what ways?

5. Because of reading habits in the West, we tend initially to focus on the left side of most paintings and then move to the right, especially when the work is very large. Is this the case with your perception of Guernica? In the organization or form of Guernica, is there a countermovement that, once our vision has reached the right side, pulls us back to the left? If so, what shapes in the painting cause this counter- movement? How do these left–right and right–left movements aff ect the balance of the painting? Note that the actual painting is over twenty-fi ve feet wide.

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THE HUMANITIES: AN INTRODUCTION

The next painting (Figure 1-6), featured in “Experiencing: The Mona Lisa,” is by Leonardo da Vinci, arguably one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance. 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.

Structure and Artistic Form

The 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 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 portrayed.

6. The bull seems to be totally indiff erent to the carnage. Do you think the bull may be a symbol? For example, could the bull represent the spirit of the Spanish people? Could the bull represent General Franco, the man who ordered the bombing? Or could the bull represent both? To answer these questions adequately, do you need further background information, or can you defend your answers by referring to what is in the painting, or do you need to use both?

7. The bombing of Guernica occurred during the day. Why did Picasso portray it as happening at night?

8. Which are more visually dominant, human beings or animals? If you were not told, would you know that this painting was a representation of an air raid?

9. Is the subject matter—what the work is about—of this painting war? Death? Suff ering? Fascism? Or a combination?

FIGURE 1-5 Pablo Picasso, Composition Study (Guernica study). 1937. Pencil on white paper, 91⁄2 3 177⁄8 inches.

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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 fi rst time?

3. Unlike the works of Siqueiros, Blume, and Picasso, this paint- ing has no obvious connections to historical circumstances that might intrude on your responses to its formal qualities. How does a lack of context aff ect 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 diff erent. 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 businessman, and the painting has long been known in Italy as La Gioconda. Is it necessary to your 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?

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 eff ort. 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, on mouse pads, playing cards, jigsaw puzzles, and a host of other banal lo- cations, we might see this as a cliché. However, we are also fortunate in that we see the painting 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

FIGURE 1-6 Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa. Circa 1503–1506. Oil on panel, 301⁄4 3 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.

Thus, responding to The Eternal City will involve responding not just to an interpre- tation 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 deep- ens our 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 structure of the Mona Lisa and the urgent complexity of the structures of the Siqueiros and the Blume.

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imagine it is we or it is Leonardo whom she contemplates. A study of her expression reminds us that for generations the “Gioconda smile” has teased authors and critics 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 tolerance, 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 surprise, then, that Leonardo kept this for himself, although we must wonder whether or not he was commissioned for the painting and that for some reason did not want to deliver it. The arresting quality of the painting is in part, to be sure, because of the enig- matic 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 radiant, create a strong diagonal leading to the base of the triangle. Her shoulders are turned at a signifi cant 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. (Figure 14-14). 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 that had gone so enthusiastically into a war of attrition that brought Europe to the verge of self-destruction.

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 “diffi cult” 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.

11

PERCEPTION KEY Th e 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?

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CHAPTER 1

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 perception. 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 diffi cult 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 superfi cial response to the painting. Such a person could indeed know all about the back- ground and understand the symbolic statements made by the painting, but that is only part 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. Composition is basic to all the arts. To perceive any work of art adequately, we must perceive its structure. Examine the following poem—“l(a”—by e. e. cummings. It is unusual in its form and its effects.

l(a

le af fa

ll

s) one l

iness

At fi rst this poem looks like a strange kind of code, like an Egyptian hieroglyph. But it is not a code—it is more like a Japanese haiku, a poem that sets a scene or paints a picture and then waits for us to get it. And to “get it” requires sensitive perception.

PERCEPTION KEY “l(a” 1. Study the poem carefully until you begin to make out the words. What are they? 2. One part of the poem refers to an emotion; the other describes an event. What is

the relationship between them? 3. Is the shape of the poem important to the meaning of the poem? 4. Why are the words of the poem diffi cult to perceive? Is that diffi culty important to

the meaning of the poem? 5. Does the poem evoke an image or images? 6. With the emphasis on letters in the poem, is the use of the lowercase for the poet’s

title fi tting? 7. Once you have perceived the words and imagery of the poem, does your response

change? Compare your analysis of the poem with ours, which follows.

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13

THE HUMANITIES: AN INTRODUCTION

In this poem a word is interrupted by parentheses: “l one l iness”—a feeling we have all experienced. Because of its isolating, biting power, we ordinarily do not like this feeling. Then, inside the parentheses, there is a phrase, “a leaf falls,” the description of an event. In poetry such a description is usually called an image. In this poem the image illustrates the idea or theme of loneliness, melding the specifi c with the abstract. But how is this melding accomplished? First of all, notice the devices that symbolize or represent oneness, an emblem of loneliness. The poem begins with the letter “l,” which in the typeface used in the original poem looks like the number “one.” Even the parenthesis separating the “a” from the “l” helps accent the isolation of the “l.” Then there is the “le,” which is the singular article in French. The idea of one is doubled by repetition in the “ll” fi gure. Then cummings brazenly writes “one” and follows it by “l” and then the ultimate “iness.” Further- more, in the original edition the poem is number one of the collection. Also notice how these representations of oneness are wedded to the image: “a leaf falls.” As you look at the poem, your eye follows a downward path that swirls in a pat- tern similar to the diagram in Figure 1-7. This is merely following the parentheses and consonants. As you follow the vowels as well, you see curves that become spi- rals, and the image is indeed much like that of a leaf actually falling. This accounts for the long, thin look of the poem. Now, go back to the poem and reread it. Has your response changed? If so, how? Of course, most poems do not work in quite this way. Most poems do not rely on the way they look on the page, although this is one of the most important strategies cummings uses. But what most poets are concerned with is the way the images or verbal pictures fi t into the totality of the poem, how they make us experience the whole poem more intensely. In cummings’s poem the single, falling, dying leaf— one out of so many—is perfect for helping us understand loneliness from a dying person’s point of view. People are like leaves in that they are countless when they are alive and together. But like leaves, they die singly. And when one person sepa- rates himself or herself from the community of friends, that person is as alone as the single leaf.

Abstract Ideas and Concrete Images

“l(a” presents an abstract idea fused with a concrete image or word picture. It is concrete because what is described is a physical event—a falling leaf. Loneli- ness, on the other hand, is abstract. Take an abstract idea: love, hate, indecision, arrogance, jealousy, ambition, justice, civil rights, prejudice, revenge, revolution, coyness, insanity, or any other. Then link it with some physical object or event that you think expresses the abstract idea. “Expresses” here means simply making us see the object as portraying—and thus helping us understand—the abstract idea. Of course, you need not follow cummings’s style of splitting words and using parentheses. You may use any way of lining up the letters and words that you think is interesting. 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

FIGURE 1-7 Diagram of e. e. cummings’s “l(a.”

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14

CHAPTER 1

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 prelim- inary 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 signifi cance—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. Thus, cummings’s poem gives us insight—a penetrating understanding—into what we all must face: the isolating loneliness of our death. The following poem is highly complex: the memory of an older culture (simplicity, 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 feel- ings 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 fl esh, 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 in green leaves and wild fl owers 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

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15

THE HUMANITIES: AN INTRODUCTION

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.

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 qualifi cation. 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 information 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 clarifi es or reveals values, and our response is intensifi ed 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 questions, 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 and analyze and participate again with Edward Hopper’s Early Sunday Morning (Figure 1-8).

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?

PERCEPTION KEY Early Sunday Morning 1. What is the subject matter of this painting? 2. Back up your judgment with reference to as many relevant details as possible

before reading further. 3. What visual elements in the painting link its content with e. e. cummings’s poem?

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On one level the subject matter is a city street scene. But on a more basic level, we think, the subject matter is loneliness. Packed human habitation is portrayed, but no human being is in sight (incidentally but noteworthy, a human fi gure 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. Loneliness is usually accom- panied by anxiety. And anxiety is expressed by the silent windows, especially the ominous dark storefronts, the mysterious translucent lighting, and the strange dark rectangle (what is it?) on the upper right. The street and buildings, despite their rectilinear format, seem to lean slightly downhill to the left, pushed by the shadows, especially the unexplainable weird fl aglike one wrapping over the second window on the left of the second story. Even the bright barber pole is tilted to the left, the tilt accentuated by the uprightness of the door and window frames in the background and the wonderfully painted toadlike fi re hydrant. These subtle oddities of the scene accent our “iness”—our separateness.

Summary

Unlike scientists, humanists generally do not use strictly objective standards. The arts reveal values; other humanities study values. Artistic form refers to the structure or organization of a work of art. Values are clarifi ed or revealed by a work of art.

FIGURE 1-8 Edward Hopper, Early Sunday Morning. 1930. Oil on canvas, 35 3 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.

16

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17

THE HUMANITIES: AN INTRODUCTION

Judging from the most ancient efforts to make things, we can assert that the arts represent one of the most basic human activities. They satisfy a need to explore and express the values that link us together. By observing our responses to a work of art and examining the means by which the artist evokes those responses, we can deepen our understanding of art. Our approach to the humanities is through the arts, and our taste in art connects with our deep feelings. Yet our taste is continually improved by experience and education. Background information about a work of art and increased sensitivity to its artistic form intensify our responses.

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C h a p t e r 2

WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?

No defi nition for a work of art seems completely adequate, and none is universally accepted. We shall not propose a defi nition here, therefore, but ra ther attempt to clarify some criteria or distinctions that can help us identify works of art. Since the term “work of art” implies the concept of making in two of its words — “work” and “art” (short for “artifi ce”) — a work of art is usually said to be something made by a person. Hence sunsets, beautiful trees, “found” natural objects such as grained drift- wood, “paintings” by in sects or songs by birds, and a host of other natural phenomena are not considered works of art, despite their beauty. You may not wish to accept the proposal that a work of art must be of human origin, but if you do accept it, consider the construction shown in Figure 2-1, Jim Dine’s Shovel. Shovel is part of a valuable collection and was fi rst shown at an art gal lery in New York City. Furthermore, Dine is considered an important Amer i can artist. However, he did not make the shovel himself. Like most shov els, the one in his construction, although designed by a person, was mass-produced . Dine mounted the shovel in front of a painted panel and presented this con struc tion for se ri ous consideration. The construction is described as “mixed media,” mean ing it consists of several materials: paint, wood, a cord, and metal. Is Shovel a work of art? We can hardly discredit the construction as a work of art simply because Dine did not make the shovel; after all, we often accept objects manufactured to specifi cation by factories as genuine works of sculpture (see the Calder construction, Figure 5-11). Collages by Picasso and Braque, which in clude objects such as paper and nails mounted on a panel, are generally ac cepted as works of art. Museums have even accepted objects such as a signed urinal by Marcel Duchamp, one of the Dadaist artists of the early

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19

WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?

twen ti eth century, which in many ways anticipated the works of Dine, Warhol, and oth ers in the Pop Art movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Identifying Art Conceptually

Three criteria for determining whether something is a work of art are that (1) the object or event is made by an artist, (2) the object or event is intended to be a work of art by its maker, and (3) recognized ex perts agree that it is a work of art. Unfor- tunately, one cannot always de ter mine whether a work meets these criteria only by perceiving it. In many cases, for instance, we may confront an object such as Shovel and not know whether Dine constructed the shovel, thus not satisfying the fi rst criterion that the ob ject be made by an artist; or whether Dine intended it to be a work of art; or whether experts agree that it is a work of art. In fact, Dine did not make this particular shovel, but because this fact cannot be established by percep- tion, one has to be told.

FIGURE 2-1 Jim Dine, Shovel. 1962. Mixed media.

Using off-the-shelf products, Dine makes a statement about the possibilities of art.

Identifying art conceptually seems to the authors as not very useful. Because someone intends to make a work of art tells us little. It is the made rather than the making that counts. The third criterion—the judgment of experts—is important but debatable.

Identifying Art Perceptually

Perception, what we can observe, and conception, what we know or think we know, are closely related. We often recognize an object because it conforms to our conception of it. For example, in architecture we recognize churches and office buildings as dis tinct because of our conception of what churches and office buildings are supposed to look like. The ways of identifying a work of art mentioned above depend on the conceptions of the artist and experts on art and not enough on our perceptions of the work itself.

PERCEPTION KEY Identifying a Work of Art 1. Why not simply identify a work of art as what an artist makes? 2. If Dine actually made the shovel, would Shovel then unquestionably be a work of

art? 3. Suppose Dine made the shovel, and it was absolutely perfect in the sense that it

could not be readily distinguished from a mass-produced shovel. Would that kind of perfection make the piece more a work of art or less a work of art? Suppose Dine did not make the shovel but did make the panel and the box. Then would it seem easier to identify Shovel as a work of art?

4. Find people who hold opposing views about whether Shovel is a work of art. Ask them to point out what it is about the object itself that qualifi es it for or disqualifi es it from being identifi ed as a work of art.

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20

CHAPTER 2

We suggest an approach here that is simple and fl exible and that depends largely on perception. The distinctions of this approach will not lead us nec es sar ily to a defi nition of art, but they will offer us a way to examine ob jects and events with reference to whether they possess artistically per ceivable qualities. And, in some cases at least, it should bring us to reasonable grounds for distinguishing certain objects or events as art. We will con sider four basic terms related primarily to the perceptual nature of a work of art:

Artistic form: the organization of a medium that results in clarifying some sub- ject matter. Participation: sustained attention and loss of self-awareness. Content: the interpretation of subject matter. Subject matter: some value expressed in the work of art.

Understanding any one of these terms requires an understanding of the others. Thus we will follow — please trust us — what may appear to be an illogical order: artistic form; participation; participation and artistic form; content; subject matter; subject matter and artistic form; and, fi nally, participation, artistic form, and content.

Artistic Form

All objects and events have form. They are bounded by limits of time and space, and they have parts with distinguishable relationships to one another. Form is the in- terrelationships of part to part and part to whole. To say that some object or event has form means it has some degree of perceptible unity. To say that something has artistic form, however, usually implies a strong degree of perceptible unity. It is artistic form that distinguishes a work of art from objects or events that are not works of art. Artistic form implies that the parts we perceive — for example, line, color, tex- ture, shape, and space in a painting — have been unifi ed for the most profound effect possible. That effect is revelatory. Artistic form reveals, clarifi es, en light ens, gives fresh meaning to something valuable in life, some subject mat ter. A form that lacks a signifi cant degree of unity is unlikely to accomplish this. Our daily experiences usually are characterized more by disunity than by unity. Consider, for instance, the order of your experiences dur ing a typ i cal day or even a segment of that day. Compare that order with the order most novelists give to the experiences of their characters. One impulse for read ing novels is to experience the tight unity that artistic form usu ally imposes, a unity almost none of us comes close to achiev- ing in our daily lives. Much the same is true of music. Noises and random tones in ev ery day ex pe ri ence lack the order that most composers impose. Since strong, perceptible unity appears so infrequently in nature, we tend to value the perceptible unity of artistic form. Works of art differ in the power of their unity. If that power is weak, then the question arises: Is this a work of art? Consider Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie ( Figure 4-9) with reference to its artistic form. If its parts were not carefully proportioned in the overall structure of the paint- ing, the tight balance that produces a strong unity would be lost. Mondrian was so

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21

WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?

concerned with this balance that