The Functions of Art

Catalog description

Art is a perennial human institution. We write, act, dance, paint, make orchestrated noise. Many live and die for these activities. Sometimes they make people rich, but for the most part that is not why we do them. Sometimes they aid in the production of scientific knowledge, but for the most part that is not why we do them. This can easily seem strange. Why place so much value in this vast collection of sounds, pieces of wood, words in files across the world’s vast servers? It seems like our obsession with art must spring from a deep well of humanity, but its functions remain obscure. This course is about functions of art across time, told from the perspective of philosophy of art and its history. Given the nature of the travel component of the course, we will focus most of our attention on visual art. We will consider five different types of function: Moral, religious, aesthetic, transcendental, and political. The first half of the course will build up to our Spring Break trip to Italy–to Florence, Padua, and Venice. Our trip will focus not only on the huge variety of masterpieces we will see, but also on their social, religious, and aesthetic functions. We will be particularly interested in how these functions interact with their physical setting, whether it be in a church, monastery, or museum. In the second half of the course, we will also make trips to the Barnes Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, focusing on their world class collections of 19th and 20th century art.