Values can be defined as a system of beliefs that a person or group of people hold dear. They provide a guidepost for people to make decisions based on what is important to them. For example, values could promote individualism, esteem simplicity, or celebrate nature. In the context of art movements, values usually center around ideas or aesthetics that the… Read more →
Art is a human endeavor that takes numerous forms and fulfills innumerable purposes. Its diversity is celebrated as an example of Homo Sapiens’ potential, representing the unbounded and endless nature of creativity—something transcendent. Indeed, art is mainly spoken of in terms of the incalculable and the immaterial, with language verging on the religious. “The aim of art is to represent… Read more →
Asceticism is a practice with a long history the world over. Typically, the practice consists of some form of abstinence, frugality, and retreat—or a combination of all three—for a specific spiritual purpose. Some ascetics pursue redemption, others seek communion with their deity of choice, and still others remove themselves from the distractions of the world to discover an ephemeral thing… Read more →
One easy-to-find nugget of wisdom making the rounds on the Internet these days reads: “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” ― Aristotle But while the words make for an insightful expression, they do not, in fact, belong to Aristotle. They rightfully belong to the historian William James Durant, having… Read more →
I nearly drowned when I was eight years old. It happened during a weekend sailing trip at a lake in a remote state park in Iowa. Too young and too inexperienced to aid in the operation of the 18-foot sailboat, I had seated myself at the bow while my father and brother took charge. It was an unfamiliar boat, a… Read more →
Several years after his death in 1947, the autobiography of Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Max Planck was published. Entitled Scientific Autobiography and other papers, the posthumously released account of Planck’s life revealed his work’s philosophical underpinnings, his thoughts on ethics and morals, and other fascinating insights into his singular mind. Among these, a formulation that came to be known as… Read more →
In 1921 the psychologist Wolfgang Köhler published Intelligenzprüfungen an Menschenaffen (The Mentality of Apes), a book summarizing his work studying intelligent behavior in anthropoid apes. It was an important milestone in the field of comparative psychology, and the book helped establish Köhler as among the most influential psychologists of his day. The studies he conducted were designed to answer whether… Read more →
Late in the fall of 2005 I was working backstage as a costume assistant in a play which had little use for me. Costume changes were few and far between and the actors were fully capable of donning their accoutrement without help from any one of the five assistants in the dressing room. As the days dragged on, we assistants… Read more →
If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. -President John F. Kennedy Having the freedom to create is harder than you think. It’s not as… Read more →