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Theory of Knowledge

“Knowledge gained through aesthetic experience is inferior to that gained through mathematics, the natural sciences, and the human sciences”.

I would like to start immediately with disagreeing with the statement above. To assume that any way of knowing is poorer then an other one is already a mistake but to specify one is absolutely unacceptable for a knowing person. In fact I’m feeling very sorry for the person who said and came up with the statement.

One cannot place nor fully understand art, it being a pure product of human’s imagination, a work of a creative mind. Art on its own is already powerful, but combined with another way of knowing, can be very influential and mighty. Products of such collaboration are films, television, modern business world. Where ether we go, art follows us. Buildings- architecture; newest fashion trend- fashion design; newest module of a phone- product design. True, art on its’ own cannot exist. It requires the use of mathematics and physics, for example in architecture, chemistry for production of different art supplies.

Now, in contemporary world, people may question the usefulness of art. It doesn’t cure you from any illnesses, nor does it help you to get around the city. We live in a world where everything is about money. Why have art then? Isn’t art supposed to be something holy and uncorrupted? Something pure and untouched created by human’s mind? The days when an artist was capable of managing and producing his works on his own have passed. Modern technology has created new mediums and ways of self-actualization. Why would art develop at all if the statement claims that there is no use for it what so ever?

For me; art is there to express one’s emotions, views, and opinions. It is no longer just monotonous landscapes and portraits of rich people. Art these days is something that requires interest and understanding. It has concepts and ideas. Only those who wish and desire to understand others people’s emotions and opinions would be able to understand conceptual art. In school we are made to study science, math, languages but visual arts most of the time stay as a free choice subject. It might be because at that age we are not ready to fully understand other points of view, ways of knowing. Might it be that art is a higher way of knowing? It is after all almost the only way of learning about how someone else sees this world that we live in. Lets take for example Donald Jud’s minimalist works and Picasso’s “Weeping Woman”.

Those works are from completely different eras. Different events surround them if we look at the time that they were made. The one by Picasso reflects the pain and sorrow caused by bombing in Guernica. The vivid colors scream at us. The broken lines create the subject matter, the weeping woman. It seams as if the lines were just slightly thinner, the women would have blended in and would have become invisible among all those colors. Donald Jud’s work on the contrary, is very calm and simplistic. Simple shapes in perfect order. Can it be suggesting something? Is there any history involved? We cannot tell, for that we have to look deeper, study it, read about the development of the work and only then would the satisfaction of understanding the work would come. Every time I figure out something new about a work I like, I feel like I know something more about others. I feel related to the artist and I’m overwhelmed with the excitement of being able to feel the emotions that the artist wanted to share with us.

For me, art is telling truth. Even if it doesn’t, I’m still grateful for it, as it makes me think and desire for knowing more about people, cities, world around me. And it is by no means any less important way of knowing then, sciences and mathematics. Every one pursues the world, the knowledge in a different way. It is our choice how we want to see it, through what to study it.