Narrator Listen to a lecture in an art class. Now get ready to answer

Professor
    Some people live with a little art, some live with a lot. Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, who ruled Belgium in the 17th century, obviously lived with a lot of art. His court painter, David Teniers the Younger, has left us a fascinating view of the Archduke’s private picture gallery. Please look at the screen showing this picture. Paintings large and small crowd nearly every inch of wall space, piled frame to frame almost to the ceiling, while the overflow works are stacked on the floor. Barely visible through the half-open door at rear is another room, equally crammed with paintings. Even the little dog leaping about in the foreground seems a trifle awed by it all. The Archduke, posing at center wearing a tall hat, has the look of a man pleased and satisfied with his fabulous collection.
    Throughout history individuals of wealth and standing have collected art on a grand scale. In the past, such collectors tended to be kings and queens, emperors and popes. Today, the most ambitious collecting is done by film stars, other entertainers, sports figures, and leaders of industry. None of this latter group would hang their art collections the way Archduke Leopold did; even museums with vast holdings do not. To our modern eyes the Archduke’s gallery seems more than a little over-decorated. However, this fashion for conspicuous display of art remained popular well into the 20th century.
    Relatively few of us have the money or the inclination to acquire great quantities of fine artworks, but that doesn’t mean we are not involved with art. Who lives with art? You do. Everybody does. It would be impossible not to live with art, because art is inextricably connected to human existence. Art has been with us since the earliest cave dwellers made their first steps toward civilization and will be with us as long as civilized life continues on our planet.
    You probably have more art in your life than you realize. If you live in a city or town, artists have designed almost everything in your environment. The buildings in which you live and work, the furniture inside those buildings, the clothes you wear—all were designed by artists in specialized fields. Very likely the walls of your home are decorated with posters, prints, photographs, maybe original paintings that you have hung to give personal meaning to your world. Perhaps your school or office building has a large sculpture out front or a fabric hanging or mural inside.
    Whether we know it or not, all of us make choices—every day, every minute—with respect to art. We choose one product over another, one garment over another, one way to walk from place to place, basing our decisions largely on the visual impact of the preferred option. We choose to study and enjoy particular works of art or to ignore them. We choose to plan encounters with art, as in museums and galleries, or not to do so.
    Whatever our degree of involvement with art, we must remember that it is a choice. We can go through life like sleepwalkers, ignoring or taking for granted the art around us. Or we can enrich our lives by developing a more active appreciation of the art we live with. This course is about the appreciation of art, which means a combination of understanding and enjoyment. It is possible to heighten our appreciation of art, to learn to see, to take an active interest in the visual world. When we do so, we are only following a basic aesthetic impulse—an urge to respond to that which we find beautiful.