blog post 4

Allison Simpkin

Professor Gilland

Phi 100

12/2/14

Blog Post 4(option 1)

Formalism is when art is used to represent ideas to strike reality and guide our behavior. An example of this form of art is the famous statue of Plato. This piece of art uses aesthetic beauty which is eternal, an unchanged form and a universal archetype. Formalism is the view that art is a form of expressing beauty by using abstract things to show something in a different way. Using your mind to decide what it is that you are looking at and it is up to the individual persons view.

Romanticism is a form of art to express rational emotion. Romanticism expresses non-rational emotion using a full range of emotions. The emotions can make us aware on mysterious reality, deeper than the one we can typically relate to,

A.      Romanticism is more plausible than Formalism in explanatory Breadth. Romantics argue that rational beauty is too narrow on an aesthetic standard and should be supplemented with some sublime.   The piece of artwork has to have compares and is infantry powerful.

B.      Romanticism has more explanatory depth than formalism it gives room for imagination determining the meaning of the artwork in your own personal way. Formalism is almost a set in stone viewing of the art work and only on the physical realm of things while romanticism allows for a more in depth description of the art work.

C.      Formalism is more plausible than Romanticism in simplicity. Formalism has a clear meaning to art while Romanticism goes into great detail of non-rational emotion and into experiences. In Formalism the goal is to present formal beauty in a figurative or abstract ways to provide insight. There is a clear cut reason for this in art, in Romanticism   there are many components and artwork is perceived in each individual eye.

D.       Romanticism has much more conservatism to our current beliefs today than formalism does. Artists today look at art work with mostly emotion and formalists lack the emotional aspect of art. Rather we like it or not we initially interpret art if we like it or not by our emotions and afterwards if it generally interests us.

1.       Romanticism and Formalism are the plausible explanations on how we interpret art.

2.       Romanticism has more conservatism, explanatory breadth and explanatory depth, whereas Formalism has much more simplicity

3.       Therefore Romanticism is the best explanation on how we interpret art.