Monthly Archives: June 2012

It may seem hard to get people to change their minds, but our minds, our brains, are in fact constantly changing. Cognitive scientists spend a lot of time studying what causes these changes—and how we adjust to them. THE HIDDEN … Continue reading →

For art, it isn’t St. Peter at the Pearly Gates; it’s Monsieur Posterity.  It is an implicit belief of most artists (and probably most people who give it any thought) that posterity is the final judge, the one who will … Continue reading →

As Thomas Jefferson noted, “No nation is drunken where wine is cheap, and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the common beverage”. So Canucks are in trouble, for it is with good reason that people … Continue reading →

If there is one thing that holds our attention, it is story. When the first films were made, artists treated them as a new way of presenting visual art, and they can do that, but our attention wanders fairly quickly.  … Continue reading →

From prehistoric cave painting to contemporary conceptual art, the history of art is a history of how artists have continually redefined the function of art.  Sometimes the impetus is a change in the zeitgeist; e.g., the increase in secularization after … Continue reading →