The Arts and Tok

• What knowledge of art can be gained by focusing attention on the artist? Can or should artists’ intentions, and the creative process itself, be understood through observing artists or knowing something of their lives? Is the creative process as important as the final product, even though it cannot be observed directly? Are an artist’s intentions relevant to assessing the work? Can a work of art contain or convey meaning of which the artist is oblivious?
• What knowledge of art can be gained by focusing attention solely on the work itself, in isolation from the artist or the social context? Can or should technical virtuosity in itself, a skilled mastery of the medium, be enough to distinguish a work of art? Are certain compositions, ways of structuring sounds or shapes, inherently more pleasing than others? Can a work be judged primarily by the harmony of form and content, the way in which structure and style work effectively to create or support the subject matter?
• What knowledge of art can be gained by focusing on the reader or audience’s response? Can it be plausibly argued that art is brought into being only in the response of the audience, that a work is created anew each time it is viewed, heard or read? What is the role of the critic in judgment of the worth of art? Are any of the following sufficient indicators of the value of a work: its popularity, its commercial value in the market, its universality in its appeal beyond its cultural boundaries, and/or its longevity?
• What knowledge of art can be gained by focusing attention on its social, cultural or historical context? To what extent do power relationships determine what art or whose art is valued? Is all art essentially a product of a particular place and time in terms of its subject matter and conventions of expression? Is art best seen as anthropological or historical documentation, bringing to life a remote society or era, but understood esoterically, only with independent knowledge of that...