Art Theorists
Concepts
Works
Writers
Miscellaneous
100
Art theorist who believed that men of taste acquire certain abilities to choose the best. He believed a ‘standard of taste’ is universal. An atheist, he believed that art was refined and quiet.
What is David Hume?
100
Created by Bertolt Brecht. In Chinese theatre, it is a technique for observation, where one doesn’t psychologically identify as the characters. In German epic theatre, it is when music distanced the audience from the show, and wants to get the audience thinking.
What is The A-Effect?
100
A form of Gothic Architecture dating to 1194. It is an example in showing that art should emulate and aspire to God’s marvelous properties. It uses the medieval properties of proportion, light, and allegory to be considered beautiful.
What is Chartres Cathedral?
100
Wrote a collection of short stories titled Women of Algiers in their Apartment in 1980. Her work expresses anti-colonial and anti-patriarchal sentiment and gives voice to the lives of Algerian women. She was born in Algeria. Women of Algiers in their Apartment is an example of a way that post-colonialism can talk back to Orientalism ideas.
What is Assia Djebar?
100
written by Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1965, its central question is how does literature communicate differently from cinema? And “how can the ‘language of poetry’ be theoretically explainable and practically possible in cinema?” It points out that the history of literature is longer than that of cinema, and that each filmmaker creates his own style and that style becomes his language.
What is The Cinema of Poetry?
200
An art theorist from Ancient Greece who wrote Poetics. He developed his theory of tragedy based on Sophocles’ Oedipus. A tragedy required spectacle, language, melody, plot, character, and thought – with plot being the most important. He thought that tragedy was enjoyable, educational, and cleansing.
What is Aristotle?
200
the author penetrates entirely into the spirit of his character, of whom he thus adopts not only the psychology but also the language. Pier Paolo Pasolini wanted filmmakers to use this practice so viewers don’t know exactly whose eyes they’re looking through. It was made famous by writers Jane Austin, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Flannery O’Connor.
What is free-indirect discourse?
200
The last story written by Flannery O’Connor, in 1964. It uses free indirect discourse and the themes of home, race relations, family, and religion. In the story, T.C. Tanner – a very unlikable, racist man of Corinth, GA – has no place comfortable for him as the world is beyond his time.
What is Judgement Day?
200
Wrote The Postmodern Condition in 1979. Cultures enter the postmodern age when societies enter the post-industrial age. His idea is that postmodernism shows suspicion toward any guiding principle of “truth”.
What is Jean-Francois Lyotard?
200
Written by Aristotle, it describes the parts of a tragedy, and emphasizes the importance of plot. The plot must prompt catharsis, which is a cleansing moment for the spectator. It describes the tragic hero as a good – not perfect – person, who makes mistakes along the way.
What is The Poetics?
300
Art theorist who believed that beauty has ‘purposiveness without purpose’. He believed that form, design, colors, and textures can make the object ‘right’. He also thought that our response toward art must be disinterested, human genius is required to make beautiful art, and meaning doesn’t give art beauty.
What is Immanuel Kant?
300
Imitation. It is described in Plato’s Republic. Plato believed that art forms required “skilled craft” that allows for this.
What is mimesis?
300
The daughter of King Aeëtes of Cholis (modern day Georgia), descended from the son god Helios, sister of Absyrtus. Aristotle quibbles with her as a tragic hero. She murdurs her two sons in the end.
What is Medea?
300
Author who wrote Judgement Day in 1964. She lived and died in Georgia, and was known for writing in the genre of Southern Gothic. Judgement Day was the last story she wrote before her death in 1964.
What is Flannery O'Connor?
300
He was the official painter to the King of Spain. He was a supporter of modern democratic values, and he witnessed tumultuous political events when Napoleon’s army invaded Spain. He plunged into bleak hopelessness after a horrific illness left him deaf. His art changed through his life.
What is Francisco Goya?
400
An art theorist who wrote Republic in 380 BCE. He believed art forms require “skilled craft” that allows for imitation. He wants to banish art from the ideal state because mimesis fails to depict eternal realities and confuses the audience about what is right and what is wrong. He disliked tragedy because it failed to depict eternal realities.
What is Plato?
400
when the director finds a style about a personal vision with a dream-like relationship as opposed to a narrative. It involves few subjective shots, you feel the camera, strong stylistic particularities of the director are shown, and the narrative is not of central importance. Pasolini uses Antonioni, Bertoluci, and Godard as examples of using this.
What is free-indirect subjectivity?
400
Film by Jean-Luc Godard in 1967. It borrows the alienation effect from Brecht. The world events at the time of the film are The Vietnam War, The Chinese Cultural Revolution, The Black Power Movement, and Paris 1968. Godard mocks the young people – they haven’t quite understood, but he hasn’t quite understood it yet either.
What is La Chinoise?
400
Wrote Art as Experience in 1934. In it he says that there is no need for “external facts” when viewing art, that one can see content without having context. He said art is “the expression of the life of a community”.
What is John Dewey?
400
made the romantic opera Gesamtkunstwerk – a complete art form. He used Leitmotifs – or musical phrases associated with themes or characters. His other romantic operas included Der Ring des Nibelungen which was 18 hours, and Parsifal which celebrates suffering.
What is Richard Wagner?
500
wrote The Birth of Tragedy in 1872 which was dedicated to Richard Wagner. He later wrote The Case of Wagner in 1888, where he rejects Parsifal as too Christian and not truly Dionysian. He believed that Wagner’s opera did not recapture the Dionysian life-force of Greek tragedy.
What is Friedrich Nietzsche?
500
Written by Edward Said in 1978, it is the Middle East as conceived by British, French, and America from the 19th century through today. It relies on “the idea of European identity as a superior one in comparison with all non-European peoples and cultures”. It was created politically.
What is Orientalism?
500
A painting by Pablo Picasso from 1937. Like Ryan Kelly’s photo from Charlottesville, it shows the state of the nation. It is a display of contemporary art that uses horror.
What is Guernica?
500
Wrote “Alienation effects in Chinese acting”. He was inspired by Mei Lanfang’s Chinese operas. He comes up with the alienation effect, and shows how it is used in Chinese theatre and in German epic theatre.
What is Bertolt Brecht?
500
A professor of poetry at Yale University who wrote Poems from Citizen: An American Lyric in 2014. The themes include being an African American, racism, violence against people of color, and misrecognition vs. understanding. She uses free-indirect discourse by moving between voices while foregrounding the poet’s perspective.
What is Claudia Rankine?
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