History of Art

In this course, I will discuss the history of art. How did art come about? What are the biological, sociological, historical, and psychological explanations of art? And finally what are some of the greatest arts and artists.

Since art encompasses a variety of expressions, like literature, paintings, sculptures, great monuments, and music, it is hard to cover all those topics in a single video. I have already covered the history of storytelling in my literature video. So in this video, the focus is primarily on the eyes. Storytelling and music rely on the ear, but paintings, sculptures are primarily appreciated through the eyes. So by art, here, I mean visual art.

The course is divided into 4 main sections and each section into separate segments each focusing on a particular topic.

In section 1, I will discuss the biological basis of art. I try to answer how humans have created since the dawn of humanity in order to preserve something of themselves long after they are gone. So art has been the biological tool of immortality. But art has also been used as a vehicle of sexual seduction, which is a biological imperative to reproduce.

In section 2, we will move away from biology to discuss the sociological purposes of art. Humans as a social species, always find themselves in conflict with other tribe members or other tribes, so art has been used to bond a tribe or keep the memories of heroes alive. Another sociological role of art has been religious art which helped religion spread, cement and solidify religious messages.

In section 3, we discuss the historical aspect of art. During the Renaissance in Europe, art liberated itself from the elite of society and now artists could have autonomous lives which allowed them freedom to be creative. This resulted in various artistic movements throughout the last 500 years.

In section 4, I will discuss the psychological purpose of art. Modernity has replaced religious faith with rationality so religion no longer shields us from the harsh reality of life. As a result, art has become an avenue of human spiritual expression and to some extent meaning. Art allows us to have an emotional catharsis in a world of uniformity and conformity. Another psychological role of art is that now everyone is an artist as it has become a tool for the masses, like religion used to be. Art used to be for the rich and powerful but now it is for the poor and powerless.

By the end of this course, you will understand how art is connected to human biology, sociology, history as well as psychology. So get yourself some coffee, and a warm security blanket and let Fiction Beast take you on 50,000 years of journey of homo sapiens struggling with life and death and art has been used as a painkiller