Arts, Culture and Tradition Reading Pack (CGSS 2024 IP3)

Cedar Girls’ School English Department Page 1 of 21 Western: Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso, Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Banksy. Eastern: Georgette Chen, MF Husain, Ai Weiwei, Yayoi Kusama One who creates with great skill and imagination: a skilled worker. Reflection of themselves and their society; Influencers; revolutionaries and radicals; messengers Modes of expression that use skill or imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, entities, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others - philosophical: a form of reflection - moral: as testimony, critique and record of what happens in society - instrumental: promote ideas and propaganda, convey messages, unite people - functional : design, generate income “the way of life, esp. the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time” – Cambridge Dictionary 1. Consists of material and non -material components 2. Shaped by geography and history 3. Culture is learnt 4. People are products of cultural experiences but not cultural replicas of one another 5. The tool that enables the individual to adjust to the problems of life 6. It is difficult to separate the effects of non-material and material cultures on behaviour 7. Ideas, materials, products, and inventions can be borrowed from other societies. 8. The home culture is usually the standard that people use to judge another culture 9. In every society there are groups that have distinctive traits that set them apart from the main culture “a belief, principle, or way of acting that people in a particular society or group have continued to follow for a long time, or all of those beliefs in a particular society or group” – Cambridge Dictionary - Inculcate identity, beliefs, values, conventions of behaviour in a population - Establish or legitimize institutions, status, or authority - Establish or symbolize social cohesion between communities - Differences: greater connectedness from globalisation may produce more diversity instead of reducing it - Homogeneity: globalising forces of (predominantly) Western capitalist modernity penetrate and absorb other cultures; soft -power exerted by rising THE ARTS CULTURE TRADITION Definition of culture Definition of tradition Names to know (visual artists) Roles of the Artist Definition of the Arts Functions of the Arts Features of a culture Function of culture / tradition Globalisation & culture / tradition

Cedar Girls’ School English Department Page 2 of 21 powers like China, India, Korea can influence other cultures too - Many traditional cultures have evolved and survived globalising forces

Cedar Girls’ School English Department Page 3 of 21 Arts, Culture and Tradition – Contents Page Past-Year Essay Questions 3 THE ARTS 4 Types, genres, examples 4 Defining the Arts 4 Some important visual artists through the ages 5 Some functions of the Arts 9 The Arts in Singapore 10 CULTURE 11 What is culture? 11 Functions of culture 14 TRADITION 15 What is tradition? 15 What about invented tradition? 15 Globalisation and tradition 16 Is there a place for tradition in modern times? 17 THE ARTS Types, genres, examples

Cedar Girls’ School English Department Page 4 of 21 Some of the art forms and examples listed below will overlap. Literature: including poetry, drama, novels, short stories etc. Performing arts: theatre, dance, music Visual arts: painting, drawing, sculpture, etc. Graphic arts : painting, drawing, design, and other forms expressed on flat/ two-dimensional surfaces Plastic arts: sculpture, modelling Decorative arts: enamelwork, furniture design, mosaic, etc. Architecture: includes interior design Defining the Arts The arts have not always been what we think it is today. An object regarded as art today may not have been perceived as such when it was first made, nor was the person who made it necessarily regarded as an artist. Both the notion of "art" and the Idea of the "artist" are relatively modem terms. Many of the objects we identify as art today - Greek painted pottery, medieval manuscript illuminations, and so on – were made in times and places when people had no concept of "art" as we understand the term. These objects may have been appreciated in var ious ways and often admired, but not as "art" in the current sense. It is easier to describe it as the way something is done -- "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others" -- rather than what it is. The Western ideas of a "work of art and “the artist” emerged in the 15th and 16th centuries in Italy. During the Renaissance, the word “art” emerges as a collective term encompassing painting, sculpture, and architecture, a grouping given currency by the I talian artist and biographer Giorgio Vasari in the 16th century. As there was a more exalted perception of the artist, his social status also rose. Subsequently, this grouping was expanded to include music and poetry which became known in the 18th century as the 'Fine Arts'. These five Arts have formed a core from which have been generally excluded the 'decorative arts' and 'crafts', such as pottery, weaving, metalworking, and furniture making, all of which have utility as an end. By the middle of the 19th century, "modernist" approaches were introduced which adopted new subject matter and new painterly values. In large measure, the modem artists rejected, or contradicted, the standards and On the difficulty of defining art: “…Each successive age sees a restaging of the battle between artist and critic, in which the latter — often mirroring conservative public taste — cries out in horror and disdain at the supposed excesses of a new and assertive generation of artists. In our own time, we witness the constant wringing of critical hands at the latest artistic atrocity: a pickled shark, a urine -soaked canvas, an unmade bed. The conflict is timeless and beyond resolution because it is motivated by a fundamental disagreement on the most basic of questions: what is art?...We seem to know what it is, yet struggle to define the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to count as a work of art… But even if we cannot quite define it in adequate terms, art serves a function…Art is social; it pertains to the life and relations of human beings in a community. Art is active; it is provocative. “ – Ben Dupre

Cedar Girls’ School English Department Page 5 of 21 principles of the art academies and the Renaissance tradition. In the early 20th century all traditional notions of the identity of the artist and of art were thrown into disarray by Marcel Duchamp and his Dada associates. In ironic mockery of the Renaissance tradition which had placed the artist in an exalted authoritative position, Duchamp, as an artist, declared that anything the artist produces is art. For the duration of the 20th century, this position has complicated and undermined how art is perceive d but at the same time it has fostered a broader, more inclusive assessment of art. Following Maslow's logic, the creation of art stands at the apex of our hierarchy of needs. The need to self-actualize, to know who we are is the ultimate goal of our existence. Therefore, the needs of society comprise not only the outward structure of a world to live in, but also the inward structure of the mind capable of enjoying life. We must therefore search for methods encouraging the artist — latent in each one of us. Perhaps this hierarchy could be an explanation for why not everyone 'appreciates' t he arts; not every individual in society is free from diseases, not every individual has access to shelter and stability. Some important visual artists through the ages Leonardo da Vinci (1452