Art and the Elites

Art is an elitist activity for an elite audience. This is true even of the most anti-bourgeois artists — no, it is most…

The Role of Storytelling in the Visual Arts

The Abduction of Europa

You’re Probably a Bad Poet

It’s easy to be a bad poet nowadays. All you have to do is “write what you feel” — and be sure that you break it up into lines. Since free verse poetry has come to dominate poetry in the last century, everyone has come to the conclusion that he or she can be a poet. If, in order to…

Is Art Teachable?

In a time when we can go to college to major in art, music, dance, and creative writing (and get graduate degrees in these…

On Creativity and Innovation

Shakespeare was creative, but he wasn’t an artistic innovator. He wrote many brilliant sonnets, but he wasn’t…

Evolutionary Aesthetics: Chapter 9: Chaos Theory and Literature

I. Strange Attractors

Offensive Art

If you’re a fairly typical American, you probably find the above statue offensive. First, it’s title. Second, could the statue…

Conceptual Art / Totalitarian Art

What does the above art installation mean?

Art in the Social Environment

When we think of art as a product of its social environment, we likely simply think of it as being a…

Daenerys Targaryen Acts In Character

There are a lot of complaints about last night’s episode of Game of Thrones, titled “The Bells.” The primary complaint seems to be that Daenerys suddenly becomes the “Mad Queen” when she torches everyone — citizen and soldier alike — in King’s Landing. Practically…