Art upsets, science reassures

Braque made this claim after his involvement in the First World War. The definition of art is “the expression or application of creative skill and imagination, especially through a visual medium such as painting or sculpture”; the definition of science is “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment”. This therefore means that both art and science are human products of knowledge and emotion. To say that art upsets could be to say that it can upset a person’s feelings and emotions or to upset an area of knowledge. To say that science reassures could be to say that it is what we base our laws upon or that it is used as a secondary confirmation after something else as it reassures.

Art and science can be seen as complete opposites in terms of knowledge. For example, the emotion and logic involved with both, art uses mainly emotions to provide it answers on a canvas or sculpture while science uses logic and laws to provide its conclusions and answers. This would therefore mean that the two have opposites in Braque’s view of art upsetting and science reassuring. However, this is only his opinion. There are similarities between the two, if there are many similarities doesn’t this mean that art and science could reassure or art and science could upset. Similarities can include theory, inspiration and goals.

Art and science both require theory to them, for example the theory of relativity in science and art’s theory of what is considered good and bad art, and this can be considered a theory because no single person can make a judgment on a piece of art on whether it is good art or not for the entire human race. Inspiration is also a similarity between the two. Famous artists and scientists often had inspiration in the work to drive them for an answer or outcome. For example the apple falling from a tree inspired Newton to do his work and artists are constantly inspired from anything they see such as a new skyscraper, etc. Science and art also have to have goals. The goal of a scientist is to better understand what makes the universe and everything in it work and for art it would be to finish a piece demonstrates the artists view of the focus.

I believe this statement because my interpretation of the saying is that science can reassure knowledge and art can upset knowledge, therefore in my opinion science is something used to make us realize and learn about the boundaries, limits and laws of the world and universe that we see all the time and are happening and have been happening since the beginning. Art on the other hand creates a world of uncertainty in a person where people’s emotions blind them from the laws, limits and boundaries which are obviously true. Art distorts the real world and creates uncertainty of the laws that are set by science. For example a painting of a man flying would be completely apposing the scientific law of gravity.

Judgment of this statement is also important. Many people may assume it is addressing human emotion as in art upsetting a person’s feeling from the norm and science reassuring people of what is really happening around us and restoring the neutral emotion of no sadness or happiness.

“Science reassures”, is true in my personal opinion because the laws and theories of science are all built around fact which means that it is completely objective knowledge. On the other hand art would provide us with subjective knowledge as a person is left do draw there own conclusions from a painting or sculpture, etc.

The major example I have chosen is Newton’s law f gravity. Proving that this law exists by dropping a rock from a building roof proves that gravity exists and because the rock will always fall when you are on Earth it can has to be a law. This therefore reassures us that gravity is what keeps us on the ground.

Charles Darwin found the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution is suggested to involve specie variation occurs at random and if the species does survive it simply means that it has successfully adapted to the environment. This therefore reassures us that we have evolved from another species and not come from outer space. This theory can be interpreted as being reassurance of reason behind change.

However, art can also reassure and science upset. There are many forms of art that can reassure you in different ways. Paintings can reassure us that the past really does exist and history is truth. This is due to older pieces of art that have been preserved for people to view today. For example, Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is an old piece of art and is signed by Da Vinci so we know that it was painted a long time ago, another would be the caveman paintings found all over the Earth, and from tests we can tell that they were drawn thousands of years ago giving us reassurance that the past does exist.

Film is another form of art; this can be reassuring to the emotions. Human emotion can be balanced out in certain situations, for example if you are excited a boring film can reassure that your emotions will even out. Music is another form of art; it can relax you or make you feel more energetic depending on the mood and genre of it. Again, music can be used to even out emotions or to make you feel more excited, etc by playing the song that would provide you with that emotion, so if you listen to a clam, relaxing song your emotions will turn the same way. This is all because your emotions are influenced through art and what your senses perceive art as.

Science can also be upsetting as appose to reassuring. Science often goes against religion in such things as the big bang theory and the story of creation. Science has had conflicts with the church so many times it is almost as if that science is trying to destroy religion and faith in God, in other words science is trying to prove that God does not exist. Science has proved that the Earth was flat, which at that point in time upset people a great deal. This was obviously proved wrong because we now have satellites looking at Earth. With the above examples it is clear that science is constantly trying (and in some cases succeeding) in proving religion wrong. However, many of the theories that science has provided have not been justified and have not presented enough evidence to prove certain points right or wrong. This then leads to the question “How much evidence is needed to prove that there is no God?”

If science can reassure and upset as well as art upsetting and reassuring this then means that Braque’s statement is not completely true. It can only be considered true if art and science are viewed by a person in their typical form. Their typical forms include art as being something inspired by emotion and using feelings and science as being something driven by the brain and logic. This therefore means that it depends on the situation and perception of the subject by a person to determine whether the art or science is reassuring or upsetting. This conclusion leaves many open ended questions such as “when is there enough evidence to justify if art is reassuring or upsetting”. A conclusion cannot be justified to any of these questions unless there is enough evidence to prove a theory right or wrong.

I believe that science does reassure because there are so many situations that science has proven correct and helped mankind take vital steps forward, art on the other hand, I believe, is upsetting because to judge on whether art is reassuring or upsetting emotion is automatically brought into the equation, this can then blind the logic and clear knowledge that makes science correct and art upsetting to people. Art can also be very upsetting to emotions as well due to such paintings as the scream and Hiroshima. However this is only my view and many other people would look at this differently.