Module 2

1. For the article I learned that art is considered a "lie" because art is just illusions created with colors, depth, and brightness that make things seem real that are not really there.  In art people recognize lines, faces, color verses luminance, Mona Lisa's smile, shadows, and mirrors and people like art because of symmetry and the "peak shift principle."  I also learned that neuroesthetics is devoted to the neural basis of why and how people appreciate art and music and what beauty is.  In the Aesthetics video I learned about understanding and defining aesthetics and philosophers that contributed to the aesthetic theory such as Plato, Francis Hutcheson, Leon Battista Alberti, Stenahal, and Tolstoy.  Furthermore I learned that art has no universal meaning or purpose but it means something different to everyone.  In the Carta video it discussed neurologists Vilyanur Ramachandrant and Jean-Pierre Changuex who talked about the scientific meaning behind aesthetics and how biology and science are related to art.

2. Plato was born in the classical age of Athens and lived through the early part of the Hellenistic age. I think that his philosophy is important because he looks at beauty in a way that is different than the "norm" and it is important to be able to look at things in a different light.  Plato believed that beauty exists in a world apart from us, that it is unchanging but it only occurs occasionally. Beauty is a Form and it can be reached through love, it is universal and not unique to certain people.

3. I think that the way they look at the connections between art and science and biology are very interesting. I have never really heard of art being connected to science before and I think that it is a very different, interesting view point. The most interesting facts I learned form the videos were Changuex's theory on genetic evolving with the origins of art and how our culture and species can be tracked through the way that art has changed.  Also Ramachandrant discussed where art and science met is actually the human brain and art is all about distorting everyday images to be pleasing.

4. The videos and article just reviewed the text material in a different light and gave a different perspective to the readings. The articles and video gave more real world examples and backed up what the text was saying.

5. I thought that the videos were interesting but they were far too long and made me lose interest in the topic. They were informative but I think that I missed out on a lot of the information solely because they were too long. I liked the length of the article and I thought that the concepts were well explained and laid out.