TOK IB Essay Oefening PDF

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To what extent is art shaped by its past? Have you ever thought about how art has developed itself through the ages? In this essay I will be looking at whether and how art is shaped by its past. There is no real definition of art but we can say that art is something created by someone about anything. I will be looking at the knowledge question ‘To what extent is art shaped by its past?’ in two different ways. The claim I will be considering is about how art influences us as people in our everyday lives. The counterclaim I will be considering is that art has been and still is different. The area of knowledge I will be using to help me explore my knowledge question is ‘art’.

Art has been around us for more than 30,000 years and during that time it has influenced us every time. Around 35,000 years ago humanity started to create paintings and understanding what they meant. This time period is called the ‘’creative explosion’’ and was the start of what we call art nowadays. In the prehistoric times people painted simply to represent the world around them. Most of the old cave paintings from more than 30,000 years ago represent pictures about things the people wanted to understand. Many of the shapes used today were created thousands of years ago. These people gave it a meaning and we still use this meaning. An example of this is the traffic signs we see everywhere around us. Most of the traffic signs are just a picture. These shapes have a meaning nowadays because of people trying to understand the shape. In this process they gave it a meaning which we still use. Those signs are used universally and have the same meaning in almost every country in the world. This leads us to say that the art we see around us is influenced by our ancestors thousands of years ago who gave art a meaning which is still used. Another example is stories. Story telling is an art following the given definition in the introduction which stated that art is something created by someone about anything. Stories have played a big role in the lives of children and adults in the past and still nowadays. People have always liked stories as they initially originated from people trying to explain things they saw around them. These things can be things they saw in a hallucinated state or in real life. The main part of art is to understand the world where we live in better by the use of visual or vocal images.

The counterclaim for the claim that art is shaped by its past is that it is not. Art has been around for almost 35,000 years. In this time frame art has developed itself to the art we know nowadays. We see art everywhere. Art is everywhere around us because art is said to be something which is made by someone. Art painted by our old ancestors was based on what they saw around them. They created art from the things around them which they did not understand. Art which is created now is most often created from something that did not exist yet. If we look at the new area of art called abstract art which is one of the most popular art movements in today’s world. This art is created with the use of new technology. Without this technology these kind of art pieces could not have been created 35,000 years ago. If art is shaped by its past the same technology should be used but the painting would get more difficult or the colours would be different. If contemporary art can’t be painted with the tools from 35,000 years ago how could art then be shaped by its past? Art changes all the

time through the use of new technology to create something which has never been created before.

The question ‘To what extend is art shaped by its past?’ is difficult to answer with only yes or no. Art is something which includes a lot of different things. From paintings to pieces of writing to objects. Almost everything can be considered art. But to say whether art is shaped by its past is difficult to say. My own opinion about this is that art is shaped by its past in certain ways. The knowledge we have obtained from old art is used nowadays by artists to create new paintings or written works. But art is also something that develops itself without art from the past. If you look at the abstract art movement today it’s difficult to say if it is shaped by its past. Maybe it is but every human is different and everyone sees something different in a creation. Because of that everyone sees different links with the past but I think art is shaped by its past and maybe even more than people want to believe....