Asking Essential Questions in the Arts

Asking Essential Questions in the Arts

Painting, sculpture, architecture, dance, music, drama, and literature are all attempts to create something that goes beyond simple skill or demonstrable knowledge. They represent modes of seeking to express what is “beautiful,” “deep,” “insightful,” and/or “profound” in nature or in human life. They attempt to transcend or transform the “ordinary,” “obvious,” or “mundane”.

Some essential questions within the arts are:

• How can one learn to discriminate what is “beautiful” or “profound” in painting, sculpture, architecture, dance, music, drama, and literature from what is not?
• How can one learn to appreciate beauty, depth, and insight in the arts?
• What is it to think (and perform) like a painter, sculptor, architect, dancer, composer, or writer?
• How can insight into beauty and profundity in the arts contribute to one’s personal life?
• How can insight into beauty and profundity in the arts contribute to the life of society?
• How can we “elevate” our taste and develop insight into “objects” and experiences that are not available to those who have not come to appreciate fine art?
• Why does anyone prefer the superficial, the trivial, the vulgar, and the stereotyped to that which is unique and beautiful?
• Why is it that most people do not think “aesthetically” or “artistically?”
• Why do most seem to prefer the products of the popular media to the products of the “artistic” community?
• What accounts for the fact that most people cannot give an intelligible explanation for their judgments about that they consider “beautiful” in painting, sculpture, architecture, dance, music, drama, or literature?
• Why is it that most people cannot distinguish an artistic question or issue from any other kind of question or issue?

Let us briefly focus on one discipline within art: literature. Literature deals with the art of imagining, interpreting, and expressing in language how people do live and how they might live their lives. It focuses on writings that include ideas of permanent or universal interest and are usually expressed through poetry, novels, history, biography, and essays. Literature is generally divided into fiction and nonfiction. The study of literature fosters the development of skilled understanding and critique of written work, and application of important ideas to one’s own life.

Some essential questions within literature:

• What are the most significant ideas implicit in the text?
• To what extent is the author shedding light on our character and lives?
• How does what I am reading apply to my life?
• How would I live differently if I took the ideas of the author seriously?
• What is of universal interest in this writing?
• Why are so (comparatively) few people interested in serious literature?

Part Four: Questioning for Self-Knowledge and Self-Development

We can ask questions that are outwardly oriented, such as those in the previous three sections. We can also ask questions that are inwardly oriented. Outwardly oriented questions are questions we ask about anything other than our inner life. Important outwardly oriented questions help us understand the world better.

Inwardly oriented questions are questions we ask ourselves in order to better understand ourselves. Questions we ask ourselves are vitally important to our development. If we never question ourselves, we incorrectly assume our own infallibility. But fallibility is a major defining characteristic of humans. In this section, we focus on the types of questions we can ask ourselves to develop as thinkers, as persons who have learned to take command of our minds.