Art Museum VS Concert

The other day, we had a class discussion about fetishism and satisfaction. We also compared how pleasing a concert performance is to an art museum. One argument was that going to a concert is more pleasing because it is more like a once in a life time thing and it would be something you can savior in your memories. Another argument was that you can lose interest after a while of going to the same art museum over and over again, after all, the museum will have the same exhibits and art work. Here's what I think:


It all depends on your preference and what you like better. For instance, I'm an art major but I don't like looking at other people's art work over and over again, everyday, unless it's something I like a lot, like garbage art. But I also like going to concerts. The problem with comparing these two ideas is that concerts cant really be performed every single day in the same spot and each performance would be different each time.

What is Beauty?

What I think is beautiful will be different from what you think is beautiful.
Here's what I think is beautiful:

• the colors of the clouds and the sky as the sun comes up into view to signify that it is morning as the birds just start to chirp and the air is starting to become warm from the sun's rays
• the ocean waves crashing and lapping over the softest grains of sand at the beach
• the fresh looking customized nike shoes I had just found online
• the sound of Whitney Houston's voice as she sings
• the ripe rasberries still dangling from the rasberry bushes
• the picture of my parents' wedding day where my mom wore a beautiful white wedding gown, smiling into the eyes of my dad in his black tuxedo.
• the velvety red petals folded and curled together, forming a rose with sharp thorns pricking out of the stem.
• the 5 star restaurant food I see on T.V. were they decorate the food to extreme elegance, too perfect to eat.

Based on only a few of the things I described of what I think is art, you can tell that I mostly describe beauty in nature. It is, in a way, kind of tough to describe something as "beautiful" when there are there words you can use, especially now-a-days where all we use are slang terms. It could be just me but I think the purity and simplicities of nature are pleasing to look at. I've been raised on the country side so many of the things I have seen would be viewed differently from what an urban city dweller would see it as.

Question: Depending on how we describe beauty, does it matter how we were raised that answers why we have differences on the definition of beauty?

Response to Kim's blog:

"Do you think Tolstoy and Goodman have compatible theories about art?"
    No I don't think so. Tolstoy is an art philosopher who believes that a good piece of art would have to express an emotion. This is so that people can have a connection they can both share with art. The connection they have with emotion is something everyone can experience. He explains his theory that "through the use of such devices as color, sound, and movement, art communicates to its audience a feeling or emotion that the artist has previously experienced."

    What Tolstoy believes the best art is what makes one feel tainted by whatever feeling or emotion the work of art is trying to convey to art viewers. Art that effects its people who take in the view of the piece of art and receive the most emotion from it is what Tolstoy considers true art. Where as for Goodman, he uses the question, "when is art?" rather than the usual "what is art?". So far, the two philosophers may seem to have the same ideas, but Goodman believes that the meaning of the art doesn't matter, but only how the art was made. According to Tolstoy, every piece of art has emotion, which means that every piece of art has meaning. So that brings out the differences between Tolstoy and Goodman.

Question: Since there are the questions, "What is art?""When is art?" is there another question you can use in art philosophy?