This week has been a transition week in Theory of Knowledge as we shift from looking at History as an area of knowledge into looking at the Arts. This transition provides valuable comparisons, though. We started by looking at the similarities between cubist art and doing history. We did this by creating our own cubist drawings. We did this by drawing two pictures of a partner, one in profile and one from the front. Then we cut them up and glued them together (a few of them were quite devastated, when I revealed that they needed to cut up their drawings to make them into a collage of perspectives.) After making our own drawings, we spent some time reflecting on the process. Some of the observations that came out of our class include:
“Cubist art depicts things from a multitude of perspectives to represent a particular subject. It is similar to history in the sense that it looks into different perspectives rather than just focusing on one.” – Kavya
“If we define History as an area that requires the balance of perspective then we can start to see how there is very little difference at all: Cubist artists approach their work as a chance to display as many perspectives as possible… The shattering of our tinted goggles that Cubist artwork so eloquently achieves is the same goal of Historians when they look to determine the truth.” – Dylan
“…the distortion suggests the lack of understanding or knowledge on what it may be. On the other hand, a couple differences between cubist painting and history is that history has an order which often results in a significant or tragic outcome, and this outcome is often not determined. While cubist painting does not have an order as usually the outcome in the artist’s mind is predetermined.” – Jaira
“Because one is unable to read the thought process behind historical figures, it must be viewed from multiple perspectives in order to be able to discern truth from opinion. The historical method… When putting all the sources together, it forms a cubist painting: fragmented and abstract because of the different interpretations, but helps put an overall picture together.” – Noaf
These reflections represent some of the great thinking happening in grade 12.
