Visual arts take center stage
First art themed CCA?in 12 years
Jancy Nightingale
Issue date: 11/12/09 Section: Arts
It's rare that Center for Constructive Alternatives focus on the art world. In fact it's been 12 years since Hillsdale College has tackeld the visual arts. That's why, when it did this week, it brought together prominent architects and authors to Hillsdale College's campus.
The series on "Traditionalism and Modernism in Art and Architecture" explored the divergence between traditionalism and modern approaches, exploring aesthetics versus practicality, Professor of Art, Sam Knecht said.
"Like any CCA, this one will be a snapshot of a period or issue," he said.
Associate Vice President for External Affairs Timothy Caspar said the CCA would focus on answering the question of what good art is.
"It's a topic of central importance to a liberal arts education," he said. "It's furthering the [college] mission statement."
The speakers have extensively studied the transition from classical styles to modern.
Dr. Roger Scruton of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences, who initiated the series Sunday night, said he's held the fine arts in high regard since his teenage years when T.S. Eliot's work "hit me fully in the face," as did Hungarian compose Béla Bartók's "Duke Bluebeard's Castle."
"It all just overwhelmed me that moment in my life," he said.
Though he originally attended Cambridge to study the natural sciences, he changed his focus to philosophy and began his research in aesthetics.
"I had this hunger to try to understand art," he said.
Scruton also stressed the importance of maintaining historical structures. He remembered his father's distressed reaction to the destruction of their hometown, where they were uprooting the historic buildings to replace them with cement, something his father campaigned against.
"We were destroying our own habitat, when we should've been trying to understand it," Scruton said.
Due to the the significance of the CCA subject, Knecht said Douglas Jeffrey, vice president of External Affairs, asked that the Faculty Art Show exhibit this week coincide with the CCA. Knecht and Professor Anthony Frudakis also held separate lectures specifically for CCA guests, in which Knecht discussed an Edward Hicks painting depicting the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and Frudakis discussed Frederick Hart's sculptures, currently on exhibit in Sage.
The series on "Traditionalism and Modernism in Art and Architecture" explored the divergence between traditionalism and modern approaches, exploring aesthetics versus practicality, Professor of Art, Sam Knecht said.
"Like any CCA, this one will be a snapshot of a period or issue," he said.
Associate Vice President for External Affairs Timothy Caspar said the CCA would focus on answering the question of what good art is.
"It's a topic of central importance to a liberal arts education," he said. "It's furthering the [college] mission statement."
The speakers have extensively studied the transition from classical styles to modern.
Dr. Roger Scruton of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences, who initiated the series Sunday night, said he's held the fine arts in high regard since his teenage years when T.S. Eliot's work "hit me fully in the face," as did Hungarian compose Béla Bartók's "Duke Bluebeard's Castle."
"It all just overwhelmed me that moment in my life," he said.
Though he originally attended Cambridge to study the natural sciences, he changed his focus to philosophy and began his research in aesthetics.
"I had this hunger to try to understand art," he said.
Scruton also stressed the importance of maintaining historical structures. He remembered his father's distressed reaction to the destruction of their hometown, where they were uprooting the historic buildings to replace them with cement, something his father campaigned against.
"We were destroying our own habitat, when we should've been trying to understand it," Scruton said.
Due to the the significance of the CCA subject, Knecht said Douglas Jeffrey, vice president of External Affairs, asked that the Faculty Art Show exhibit this week coincide with the CCA. Knecht and Professor Anthony Frudakis also held separate lectures specifically for CCA guests, in which Knecht discussed an Edward Hicks painting depicting the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and Frudakis discussed Frederick Hart's sculptures, currently on exhibit in Sage.
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