Art History, Period 1, Class 1 [1-18]
"Before we begin, I'd like to apologize for missing class last week. I was...preoccupied, which is no excuse, but there you have it. Either you've all already introduced yourselves to one another until you're sick of it, or you all live in the same dorm and have this class together, so you'll presumably get to know each other eventually, so we'll skip that and hope I learn your names quickly. This is Art History, if you're supposed to be somewhere else, go back to bed." Steve proceeded to hand out a packet with a marked map on the front page and explanations of the importance of each site on the following pages.
"In the beginning, there was art," he began the lecture proper. "It wasn't very refined art, but it was art. There were paintings on cave walls of animals and people and symbols, the exact meaning of which is still debated to this day. Were they simply scenes from these people's daily existence, or part of some religious ritual, or something else? We may never know, unless someone breaks time again. There were totems and statues and fetishes--the ones that have survived were carved from stone, but there may have been wooden ones, too. We can't know. And there were useful objects, like arrowheads and vessels, that were made more aesthetically pleasing than was absolutely necessary for them to do their jobs. For twelve thousand years, early man made art like this. What I want you to think about is, why? For the most part, people were barely ekeing out a living as nomadic hunter-gatherers. Theirs was a short, quick life. But they still took the time to make things pretty. There's something in people--not just humans, since I know there are far more than plain humans attending this school--that makes us do that, and I for one believe it's part of what makes us people, not just animals. What do you think that is? Why do you think we make art?"
Steve grinned broadly and said, "Now, there are philosophers who have devoted their entire career to this question, so I'm not exactly expecting you to solve it today. I just want to hear what you think. Oh," he added as an afterthought, "and would Namine please see me after class?"
"In the beginning, there was art," he began the lecture proper. "It wasn't very refined art, but it was art. There were paintings on cave walls of animals and people and symbols, the exact meaning of which is still debated to this day. Were they simply scenes from these people's daily existence, or part of some religious ritual, or something else? We may never know, unless someone breaks time again. There were totems and statues and fetishes--the ones that have survived were carved from stone, but there may have been wooden ones, too. We can't know. And there were useful objects, like arrowheads and vessels, that were made more aesthetically pleasing than was absolutely necessary for them to do their jobs. For twelve thousand years, early man made art like this. What I want you to think about is, why? For the most part, people were barely ekeing out a living as nomadic hunter-gatherers. Theirs was a short, quick life. But they still took the time to make things pretty. There's something in people--not just humans, since I know there are far more than plain humans attending this school--that makes us do that, and I for one believe it's part of what makes us people, not just animals. What do you think that is? Why do you think we make art?"
Steve grinned broadly and said, "Now, there are philosophers who have devoted their entire career to this question, so I'm not exactly expecting you to solve it today. I just want to hear what you think. Oh," he added as an afterthought, "and would Namine please see me after class?"