Ellen Dissanayake (cont.): Ellen Dissanayake synthesize knowledge from a variety of fields – including anthropology, developmental and cognitive psychology, ethnology, and philosophy. In her essay If “Great” Art is Dead …”, Matthew Arnold is an important source of inspiration. Arnold writes: Culture is the pursuit of total perfection by means of getting to know the best…
Search Results for: Ellen Dissanayake
If Great Art is Dead, Who Cares?
in the words of Ellen Dissanayake: If we now abandon the ideology (or religion) of art that temporarily replaced the ideology of religion, is it enough for us to replace both of these – religion & art – with wit, in the form of clever humor, clever amusements, and with-it-ness? Our abandonment of false truths…
Art and Transformation
Today I’m reading Ellen Dissanayake. Yesterday I received two of her essays in my mailbox; Orphans and a Dog: Art and Transformation & If Great Art is Dead, Who Cares? I knew her topics would interest me, but I had no idea her writing would be such a pleasure to read. Here’s a snip from…
naturalistic aesthetics
– looking at art from a darwinistic point of view Ellen Dissanayake says: Art is not a set of objects or compositions or paintings Art is the behavior that leads to a set of objects or compositions or paintings Art is not handed down only to a select few sensitive souls. Art, she says, is “making…
WHAT’S THE POINT OF IT?
Ok, by now we all know I really wanted to become a fan of Alain de Botton, but that my inauguration failed. I do not, it turns out, believe that art is therapy. I do believe art can have therapeutic, or palliative qualities, but I do not believe its a good idea to replace my psychoanalyst with a work of…
sub rosa 