Our second lecture for Mathematics and Art was an overview of Art History. We had been given some reading material in preparation for our literature review and it occurred to me that understanding the history of Art may be rather crucial to understanding any further reading on the subject. Once again a topic that has always interested me but I have never formally (or informally) studied it. I didn't really know how to start, it seemed that there were so many movements in the last couple of hundred years and any time that I've ever read descriptions of different movements it's almost like another language. And they always reference each other. How are you supposed to learn about anything that defines itself by reference to other parts of itself?  It's like looking up in a dictionary the word "design" and getting "a product of creativity" then looking up "creativity" and getting "a part of design".

But it turns out that it's really not all that complicated and the hard bits are hard for most people and it all comes under a broad definition anyway. The very definition of Art has changed with the Post-modern movements, and I'm not sure where I sit currently opinion-wise. Art has been a trade, a science and a creative pursuit. It's also more recently been commentary. But Art can now be just about anything. I'd go further into this but I'm currently developing my thoughts on the subject.