Friday, October 1, 2010

Six-Part Series on Beauty

This is excellent viewing. I recommend it highly:

FEMALE OR MALE AESTHETIC DISPOSITIONS ?

This post is a followup to the question that Dr. Joe brought up in class today and which I am asking each class member to respond to. The question is: are there observable differences between females and males in aesthetic taste, artistic conception, subject matter and art collecting? In responding to the question you can address all of the points or focus on one only. For example one may simply want to talk about art collections and how women such as Marion Koogler McNay obtained works of art that seem to be more domestically related than the more eclectic preferences of Norton Simon or J.P.Getty. Or one may want to tackle the big genetic question on innate genetic dispositions which will require more than a paragraph to accomplish =)

Offer examples from real life and use yourself as an example as a female or male.

I look forward to the dialogue and to Dr. Joes joining into the discussion.

Warm regards to all genetic participants,

Bill

Friday, September 24, 2010

A Capella Aesthetics

DEAR AESTHETIC EXPLORERS:

THE LINK BELOW OPENS TO A ALL-VOICE SYMPHONY IN WHICH THE SOUNDS OF RAIN AND THUNDER ARE SIMULATED; WHAT FOLLOWS WILL TAKE YOU LITERALLY INTO "THE MUSIC OF OUR LIVES"-- A TOPIC WE WILL SOON DISCUSS IN CLASS.

A HIGH FIVE TO THE FIRST VIEWER TO RESPOND TO THIS NEW POST.

REGARDS,

BILL

TVKim- Watching: Kim's Picks- African thunderstorm

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Welcome Back, LCAD Bloggers!

This semester will be a richly interactive experience for us. Our class will extend outside the classroom onto this blog and Facebook. It is appropriate in studying the diverse subject of aesthetics to view it in multiple ways. We are living in an age that is above all aesthetically atuned.

I look forward to working with all of you and heightening our aesthetic perceptions. From time to time we want to welcome Dr. Joe Ferguson to our blogsite. He is a clinical psychologist with a passion for aesthetics; in fact, I am deeply grateful to Joe for formulating the HFAP, which you will soon discover to be a valuable aesthetic tool.

Welcome all,

Dr. Bill Havlicek

Friday, August 13, 2010

Back on the blog!

Dear Aesthetic students and friends,

2010 marks the third year that this blogsite has been open to dynamic discussion.

This year I want to invite all bloggers to share, consider and reflect back the
richly diverse ways in which aesthetic experiences occur. The sidebars have video segments from one of the finest examples of such diversity in the form of the human face and the fascinating ways in which we communicate thought and emotion through facial expressions. My thesis is a simple one, namely that in understanding more about how we use our faces we can better understand the perceptional framework by which we understand art and many other related things. Aesthetics is about perception, and in my view there is nothing closer than our faces that can bring perception closer to where we live and breathe. Please begin your immersion into the magical world of Aesthetics by watching these video segments from "The Human Face" where one serious point after another is ingeniously presented by comedian John Cleese.