John Berger's Comparison of Fine Art to Commercial Art Essay

John Berger's Comparison of Fine Art to Commercial Art - Essay Example This is because fine art is often esoteric and ultimately meaningless. Art critics might be able to find meaning in certain works of art, but they would be the only ones. The common man would have great difficulty understanding the meaning of a man's urinal used as artwork. On the other hand, commercial art is supposed to be understandable and accessible or, at the very least, evoke powerful emotions. For this reason, commercial art is more successful in conveying messages to mass audiences then is fine art. Discussion John Berger states that abstract art has been adopted by corporate capitalism, which is causing these aesthetics to become emblems of economic power. He says that, through this process of reducing the aesthetics of fine art into something that is used to increase economic power for the entity that uses this art, the lived experience inherent in the art work is eliminated from the image of the art. This results, in his view, in a reduced area of experience, even though it claims to be universal (Berger, 2001, p. 296). This process of commercializing fine art, and the subsequent way that this transformation has robbed the art work of meaning is particularly anathema to Berger, as he feels that art comes from a primitive part of the artist, and that it comes from the lived experience of the artist (Berger, 2001, p. 296). For Berger, drawing and art is about discovery within the artist himself (Berger, 2001, p. 10). The power of the art comes from this lived experience, the faith that this experience can produce the art, and this is typically coupled with a skepticism of the society in which the artist finds oneself (Berger, 2001, p. 297). Thus, in transforming art in commercialism, it robs the art of this lived experience which is the essence, the very heart of the artwork. The meaning of the artwork is dead, at least the meaning that the artist intended, and the meaning is instead transformed into whatever the particular advertisement is attempting to sell. Berger was also highly critical of the fact that paintings have become so commodified. He states that no work of art may survive without becoming a valuable piece of property, and that this spells the death of the painting and sculpture, as â€Å"property, as once it was not, is now inevitably opposed to all other values. People believe in property, but in essence they only believe in the illusion of protection which property gives. All works of fine art, whatever their content, whatever the sensibility of an individual spectator, must now be reckoned as no more than props for the confidence of the world spirit of conservatism† (Berger, 2001, p. 215). Thus, the fact that paintings and sculptures must be commodified to survive in the long term spells the end of the art as we know it, in Berger's eyes. According to Papastergiadis (1993), Berger's issue with the commercialization of art would stem from the fact that Berger contends that art must give meaning to human e xperiences. In particular, art works to increase our understanding of the gap between freedom and alienation in everyday life. He also states that Berger is a combination of a Marxist, in which the art is integrated with the political, thus is an

Human Rights Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Human Rights - Research Paper Example This paper provides a brief detail of them along with human right practices in different nations. Introduction The concept of human rights was first introduced to the world by United Nations Charter in 1945 (Freeman, 2011, p 4). The elements or doctrines of human rights which were declared by United Nations are accepted across the globe as standard human rights. The human rights include a host of provisions or aspects. Some of these are- freedom by birth, equality of rights and dignity, promotion of universal peace and brotherhood, eradication of any discrimination in theory and practice, general right to lead one’s own life with liberty and security, general right of not entertaining any extreme punishment or degrading treatment, right to recognition, equality before law and State, right to fair trials and public hearing, right of doing social and cultural duties, right to opine and express, freedom of thought and conscience, freedom of exercising ones free will regarding sel ection of religion, political party, philosophy, and many others (Preamble, n.d.). This paper examines general characteristic features of human rights, its historical background, international bodies supporting its cause and finally its implication in present times. Human rights: general attributes The concept of human rights emerged as early as seventeenth and eighteenth century when the liberal doctrines were propagated by different socialists and philosophers. Capitalism got introduced in Europe during this time and resulted in major change in socio- economic structure. Due to capitalism, more precisely mercantilism, working class people suffered a lot. They were not only exploited on monetary and physical terms, but at the same time were also tortured, beaten, abused and even murdered. The idea of human rights initiated since then with an objective to initiate a protest against capitalist social order (Pollis and Schwab, 2000, p 11). As general people perceive it, human rights a re a set of principles bestowed upon every individual on this earth. Human rights ensure that every person, irrespective of caste, creed, age, color and nationality enjoy some specific rights and freedoms. Often, the human rights are also considered as a ‘concept’ which is adopted for real- thinking and expressing those thoughts. Furthermore, it is expressed that human rights are nothing but a mode of ‘ethnic cleansing’. This implies that the more the interests and welfare of individuals are violated, the more implication of human rights becomes essential. In present times, human rights are mostly associated with social and economic issues like illegal transactions, terror, massacres, unfair trail, execution, mass rapes- wherever the relative security of individuals are compromised (Freeman, 2011, p 3-4). From traditional point of view, human rights could be classified into two groups- human rights associated with democracy and human rights associated with individual rights and freedom. Democratic human rights incorporate rights of individual person and masses regarding civil aspects and also aspects related to politics, economy, society, culture and religion. In practice, this concept of freedom and independence supported by human right varies across different nations (Duxbury, 2011, p. 46). Reasons behind formulation of human rights Out of the several reasons due to which the human rights were framed, one is being abused by prosecution by legal bodies or tribunals on behalf