The Trouble With 'The Term Art' By Carolyn Dean

Jack Madden: ARH 2000 Fall 2015 Reading Response Paper In the article, “The Trouble with (The Term) Art” by Carolyn Dean, a claim is made that the term art is inaccurately used to denote objects, specifically from cultures that predate western art. Dean uses specific examples such as Ancient American stone carving to get her point across. She goes into detail in how the term “art” often turns an object unintended for artistic purposes, into an object of “art by appropriation.”(p. 26) The term was made by Western cultures to describe works done by Western cultures. Upon discovery of works from cultures thought to be at a more primitive level of civilization, Their creations were denoted as “Primitive art” and other names as stated on page 25. Archeologists and others who discovered items used by ancient …show more content…
(p. 27) I agree with Dean’s thoughts on how this term falsely includes objects into the art category when they were originally intended for a much different reason. A recent instance comes to mind when thinking of this topic. My mother was rearranging a few things in our home and she placed a few new art pieces around the house. Our home is full of interesting items, and one item that made its way into our house during the decoration process was an arrowhead found by my grandfather in New York quite a few years ago. My mother placed it inside of our doorway on a display table. I recently, while reading this article by Carolyn Dean, asked my mother her thoughts on whether the arrow head should be considered a work of art. She talked about the arrowhead as having aesthetic through the attention to detail and its coloring.