Pau Klee: The Thinking Eye

Paul Klee's article was a little far fetched for me, and actually made it difficult for me to read and interpret. The whole idea of the difference between a point, a line, and a plane, and how it had to deal with tension between two of them did not really make sense to me. I just felt like that idea was a little bit too abstract for me to really wrap my head around. Even though I didn't agree with some of his comments about lines and planes, I did agree with some of them.
   One of Klee's points that I thought was very interesting was the one he makes about a free line. He says a free line is just a line that goes everywhere, one that really has no place it is going. I really loved the metaphor he used about a free line, "it goes out for a walk, so to speak, aimlessly for the sake of the walk." I thought this comparison was spot one, because when I look at a line that is really how it looks to me, that it just went out for a random walk for no apparent reason. Another point that I really liked in this piece is when he explains what an Active Line looks like. How he says that with each stop a long the ay the line is just itching to get to the next point. I think this is a really could analyze of what this kid of line looks like and how it makes you feel when you look at it.

  Klee's next point is the one that I do not really seem to understand or agree with. This is when he says that linear tension is discharged between two lines to create a plane. I could see how someone could think this, but I just think that this idea is too abstract and out of the box to be considered correct. Klee then begins to indulge in what a shaded in shape really is. He shows that in reality it is just a bunch of lines extremely close together. How could I not agree to that? That point makes complete logical sense, unlike his point about tension.
   Lastly, I didn't completely understand the differences between why different shapes and lines were passive, middle, or active. The only thing that I really got from it was the tow of the pictures were flipped when one was linear and one was planar.
  I thought that this was a pretty good article overall, I liked a lot of the comparisons and metaphors he used to describe lines. It just made me frustrated that I could not really get some of the biggest concepts in the article.

The Whole Ball of Wax. What is Art?

The piece "The Whole Ball of Wax" by Jerry Saltz was a little bit confusing to me while reading it. Some of his analogies and metaphors about what art does to people and the world puzzles me and I can't really grasp what he is trying to say. The article starts out talking about two people Laura Hoptman and Peter Eleey and how they say that art has some "magical power" and, in fact, changes the world. 
   The article then begins to go into that art cannot stop issues such as world hunger or global warming, but has a different impact on the world. Art can change the views of the world on different topics and issues to one side or the other. Saltz explains that art is just as part of intelligence as science, religion, etc. This article then takes off into the direction that art is a way to creating new ideas. Art is a necessary part of the world and we would not be able to go without it. Saltz then goes on to quote different artists and philosophers  and concludes with the statement that art is an experience. Then he begins to dive into how art can help change the world in small increments. He describes how looking at art can change the moods of humanity and help people feel better during some of the most traumatic events in history. This experience right here is how art can change the world. The change can be very  slow but over time it will prevail to produce a change. 
   One of the last points of this article is that art can be perceived in ways that the artist is not even intending for. Saltz gives the example of how when art is considered extremely political, it was actually intended not to be, and vice versa. This happens, Saltz says, because art provokes new ideas and thought structures. The last point that Saltz makes is a comparison. He compares art to a cat, because when you call a cats name and ask it to come here, it looks at you then rubs its body on another object and lays down. This shows that the cat and yours relationship has a third aspect, the object he rubs up against, so in order for you to comprehend the cat you have to think more in a curved line than in a straight one. This is why Saltz says art is a cat. 
   

To me art is something that helps start conversation about controversial topics in our world. Art is almost everything in our world, and is a catalyst to get people to see problems that are going on in the world, art helps open the eyes of the world.