After watching three videos about important aspects of art, my attention was drawn to Amy Herman’s video “How Art Can Help You Analyze”. I agree with the author of this video that art is a great tool in developing visual observation skills. Amy Herman helps to develop these abilities to people of various professions in which it is necessary to be able to see hidden details. For instance, she is a mentor for police officers, doctors, and nurses.

Let’s go back to the video and review the content and briefly try to evaluate how this video meets the standards of intellectual quality. According to an article proposed by Professor Fess, “Intellectual Standards for Quality”, there are nine universal intellectual standards that use in verifying the quality of reasoning. This list of judgments includes elements such as clarity, precision, accuracy, depth, breadth, logic, significance, relevance, and fairness.  It sounds intimidating, but these judgments work as a catalyst for critical thinking.

Straightaway, I would like to highlight three elements of the intellectual standards of quality; significance, depth, and relevance. Important to realize, the main task of the video to show the significance of art in everyday life. In other words, Herman described how art helps to master the skill of visual observation. The author gave a number of examples that it is necessary to change the perspective of thinking in order to see a more detailed picture of what happened in the past or to prevent emerging problems.

The next aspect of intelligent quality standards is the depth of thinking. There is one inexplicable moment in art: the artist hides a deep meaning in his works, and the viewer always tries to find this meaning. Perhaps this is an artist’s game with the viewer. As an illustration, in the video, the author tried to help the audience feel the depth of the painting by Rene Magritte, “Transformed Time”. Herman was able to influence the audience and directed their thoughts in a completely different direction, listing the obvious details, asking the simplest questions and eliminating the apparent inconsistencies.

The last element is relevance. The first thing to remember, art surrounds us everywhere. Certainly, art will always be relevant at all times. Herman persuades the audience that art helps to develop relevant skills which could be used in the real world citing as an example the doctor’s ability to recognize a disease by visual signals.

In conclusion, I would like to add a little rhetoric about art. In order to quench our thirst, we need to find a suitable source of water. In the world of art, there are many sources, just find the right one and get inspired.