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impact of technology and art
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In Roger Scruton's Photography and Representation the author establishes the idea that ideal photography is not art. In the same breath he says that ideal photography is not necessarily an idea which photographers should strive, nor does it necessarily exist. Yet, he bases his argument upon the ideal. In reviewing his paper, I’ll take a look at why he painstakingly tries to make this distinction between ideal painting and ideal photography. His argument is based upon the proposition that photographs can only represent in a causal fashion, whereas painters create representational artwork via intentional relations. Scruton manages to create a solid argument, but in the end I’ll decide it is not a fair assumption to say that photographs cannot provide meaning or aesthetic value.
Scruton wants to look at photography as an ideal, but he quickly states that ideal photography is a logical fiction. Why does it matter then? Obviously photography is a complex form of expression and the goal seems to be to derive the basic properties of photography in the simplest terms possible. However, he states that it should be clear to the reader that the concept need not actually exist and that if he makes claims that seem “exaggerated or false” we should not be put-off. To me this feels like a cop out. It is not made clear, to me at least, where exactly the connection between a fictional concept and reality occurs.
Scruton argues that when we take an interest in photographs, is actually an interest in the actual objects that were photographed rather than the photographs themselves. He claims this because he says there is no such thing as photographic representation. He says the photograph relates to the subject in that it is a phot...
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... believe makes photography an art, the individual photo may still be considered close to an ideal photograph in the sense that it is a causal relationship. However the medium as a whole is capable of much more than Scruton is willing to allow. I believe that the clear distinction lays in the fact that Scruton's argument that photography's causal relationship is equivalent to perceiving the object without the photograph. This is not true, because we have found distinctions where photographs and reality can never be the same. There is no doubt that you cannot see some of the intricacies of a fast moving object with the naked eye. This brings the eye new information. It may be a mechanical depiction of how the object actually looks, but it is a unique observation of it complete with its own aesthetic interest. Therefore we must say that photography may be art.
The purpose of this paper is to explain how photography became an accepted form of art, as this was accomplished by Gaspard-Felix Tournachon. This was accomplished based on continuous experimentation of techniques to develop photographs, and how he had set up his environments to emphasize the subject and it’s beauty. Though Gaspard was more interested in caricatures and journalism, he decided to apply photography as a rapid form to create caricatures (Janson, 2012) after a friend convinced him to consider the possibility. Gaspard’s work became very popular, as he focused his photographs mainly on people higher in society, as well as Paris’ beauty (Cadava, 2012). Gaspard continued his work as a caricature artist, as there are dated caricatures during his time as a portrait photographer.
A picture is more than just a piece of time captured within a light-sensitive emulsion, it is an experience one has whose story is told through an enchanting image. I photograph the world in the ways I see it. Every curious angle, vibrant color, and abnormal subject makes me think, and want to spark someone else’s thought process. The photographs in this work were not chosen by me, but by the reactions each image received when looked at. If a photo was merely glanced at or given a casual compliment, then I didn’t feel it was strong enough a work, but if one was to stop somebody, and be studied in curiosity, or question, then the picture was right to be chosen.
Photography is defined at the art or practice of taking and processing photographs. To understand photography is having insight or good judgment to know how to take the picture, but also edit it if need be. Does photography limit our understanding of the world? What some people haven’t realized is that photography is all around us, whether it is in the person’s mind to see it or not. While we see photography throughout our daily routine, people dismiss the small types of photography and focus on the bigger sceneries like other countries beautiful cities and landscapes. It’s true that in this day and age, most photographs we see have been altered in some way. When photographers use Photoshop to edit our photos, we use many different ways to make that image appealing to the eye. Although, photographers unless told to do so will not change an image into something totally absurd that takes away from being astatically pleasing. Images are a gateway to the insight of the rest of the world’s cultures landscapes, and architecture, and photography is the key aspect to it. Photography is a one way to see the world, but it is better if you go and travel around the world to see it. In order to see if photography actually limits our understanding, we have to first look at the positive side of photography.
In The Photographer’s Eyes, John Szarkowski focused on issues that encompass the art of photography. The five issues are: The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time, and the Vantage Point. “These issues do not define discrete categories of work; on the contrary they should be regarded as interdependent aspects of a single problem…”
Once punctum occurs we become fixated on that something that provokes us, a single detail of a photograph that holds our gaze without condescending to mere meaning or beauty.
It appears to me that pictures have been over-valued; held up by a blind admiration as ideal things, and almost as standards by which nature is to be judged rather than the reverse; and this false estimate has been sanctioned by the extravagant epithets that have been applied to painters, and "the divine," "the inspired," and so forth. Yet in reality, what are the most sublime productions of the pencil but selections of some of the forms of nature, and copies of a few of her evanescent effects, and this is the result, not of inspiration, but of long and patient study, under the instruction of much good sense…
What is art? Art and assessment are deeply unified, since our ability to experience and understand artistic works is intensely unfair by our own perceptions. Consequently, any definition of art should emphasize the importance of perception in creating and experiencing art. In the film (Why Beauty Matters) by Roger Scruton, he is bringing out some pinnacles of art, and some of his observation and mines are somewhat in comparison.
The heightened sensitivity of the picture plane may no longer permit sculptural illusion, but does and must permit optical illusion.” Greenbergian theory is identifying with the past arts, that they do have a connection to the modernists by showing us that although the picture plane is no longer showing sculptural illusion but it is using illusion in ways that the old masters did not, that being in an optical way, the way in which we look at the painting is ultimately a distorted view of what we see. That not only do Modernists offer a speculative mode of painting but relatively that it alters all of the theoretical potentials into experimental ones and in undertaking this tests unconsciously all theories of art for their importance to the actual applied understanding of art, and without the old masters paintings the Modernists would never had been able to test art in the way that they did, to push the theories of art to their limits. "The surrounding shape of the picture was a restraining form, or standard that was shared with the art of the theatre; colour was a norm and a means shared not only with the theatre, but also with sculpture.” Here is shown how the actual form of the painting was a restraint but the Modernists embraced the forms of the shape and included it into their
A theory is expected to decide whether or not something is art. If one theory states that art cannot have certain qualities or must have certain qualities and we still consider it to be art, than the theory is rejected. Each of these theori...
The book “On Photography” by Susan Sontag, she expresses several views and ideas about photography to educate us further about her views. In Sontag’s view, “To collect photographs is to collect the world” (Sontag 3). In other words, Sontag believes that the photograph that is taken will always be a photograph within society in his/her own world. I interpret the quote this way because if our life is captured in photographs, that’s our whole world. Even though we are capturing it through the lenses, we are still experiencing it some how, some way.
In Sontag’s On Photography, she claims photography limits our understanding of the world. Though Sontag acknowledges “photographs fill in blanks in our mental pictures”, she believes “the camera’s rendering of reality must always hide more than it discloses.” She argues photographs offer merely “a semblance of knowledge” on the real world.
From the creation of art to its modern understanding, artists have strived to perform and perfect a photo realistic painting with the use of complex lines, blend of colors, and captivating subjects. This is not the case anymore due to the invention of the camera in 1827, since it will always be the ultimate form of realism. Due to this, artists had the opportunities to branch away from the classical formation of realism, and venture into new forms such as what is known today as modern art. In the examination of two well known artists, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock, we can see that the artist doesn’t only intend for the painting to be just a painting, but more of a form of telling a scene through challenging thoughts, and expressing of the artists emotion in their creation.
To begin with, photography appeared to me as something entertaining a simple step in which one took a camera and simply shot a photograph of oneself or a friend. When I was handed my schedule for Mrs. Jones’s class, I felt as if this class had in store a special reward for me. As the days went by, Instead of being anxious of getting out of class I had a craving for additional time in the class. The class kept my eyes glued to the screen ...
To continue, fiction films strive to be a representation of a narrative that creates a “pseudorealism of a deception aimed at fooling the eye,” according to Bazin. With this, Bazin means that fictional films are made to represent reality through artistic components, given that film is a form of art. Hence, fiction films are less real than documentaries. Last but not least, because occurrences in fictional films are acted and never had an authentic existence in this universe, fiction films are less real than documentaries.
When dealing with reality, I think a photograph may represent an actual physical recollection of a person or object, but a painting created from scratch adds the reality of perception to the equation. Reality is always open to a different observation and interpretation.