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Ñåêöèÿ “Aesthetics and philosophies of art” Contemporary aesthetical problems (Ñîâðåìåííûå
ýñòåòè÷åñêèå ïðîáëåìû) Êóçíåöîâà Òàòüÿíà Ðîññèÿ, Ìîñêâà, ÌÃÓ èì. Ëîìîíîñîâà |
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Annotation The article
discusses the structure of the core problem of aesthetics. The author highlights
the main trends of contemporary aesthetics. Some main features of most influential
currents of aesthetical thought of the 20th century like existentialism,
phenomenological aesthetics and the Frankfurt school are examined. Key words:
aesthetics, existentialism, phenomenology, Frankfurt school, philosophical
knowledge, values, anti-values, beautiful, ugly, taste, harmony, plastic. |
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Before speaking about contemporary aesthetical problems, I would say a
few words about aesthetics in general. Aesthetics is a specific branch of
philosophical knowledge. The word aesthetics comes from the Greek and means ‘sensitive,
dealing with perception’. The subject matter of aesthetics as it is
formulated nowadays is a specific aesthetical human attitude towards surrounding
world. There are various types of attitudes: 1) utilitarian and practical; 2)
theoretical (in terms of cognition). What is especially characteristic of
aesthetic attitude? It is characterized by two main points. Firstly, the
object of consideration is a sensitively perceived appearance as a clearly expressed
form. Secondly, this attitude is of non-utilitarian character. The appearance
is represented as the object of disinterested admiration. Marx wrote about
aesthetical attitudes like that: the man who is burdened with worries and
needs has no sense for the finest of plays; the dealer in minerals sees only
the commercial value, and not the beauty and peculiar nature of the minerals.
The thing, which perceived aesthetically, just can be (or can't be) enjoyed
and the principles of utility are not taken into account. That is why the aesthetically
valuable appearance is valuable by itself. It is perceived as a valuable (or
anti-valuable). It is seen as something precious and it implies evaluation:
either you enjoy it or not, either it's beautiful or ugly. This precious
value is not to be proved, it is an object of an agent's individual
preferences, and it is a matter of taste. Though in this sense aesthetical value seems to be sovereign, it nevertheless
deals with material reality and human practical interests. Aesthetically
attractive appearance, so to speak, indirectly contains the elements of
practical value. For example, we like the smooth outlines of a car. Why?
Because they symbolize speed. Thus, aesthetic attitude appears due to the emergence
of stable associations with things like good, purposefulness, prestige,
wealth (the aesthetic qualities of gold and silver are closely connected with
such things; for example, one Black tribe in the XIX century considered coal
to be beautiful). In such a way the utilitarian is presented in aesthetics as
the second hidden but manifested plan. An aesthetical attitude may have different nuances and emotional
coloring. That is why it is characterized by various defining concepts. These
concepts are usually referred to as aesthetic categories. All these
categories are usually paired (positive or negative). The most important are
beautiful/ugly; tragic/comic; sublime/sordid. But there also exist some clarifying,
secondary or intermediate categories - for example, elegant. Different phenomena can serve as objects of aesthetic attitude. Those are
distinct things of natural origin or nature as it is; they can also be
artificial things (in particular and above all, works of art), environment
and, finally, a human being, and various forms of his or her activity. For
example, we can have in mind the aesthetics of sport or an aesthetic appeal
of some household forms. Mathematicians speak about beautiful solutions;
chessmen say about elegant chess moves and compositions, etc. An aesthetical appearance hasn't got a cognitive status. We can't get
proper knowledge through aesthetic value. But it promotes and activates
knowledge. It orients us in surrounding world. The typical example is given
by Aircraft designer Antonov: as it often happens, the most beautiful form comes
to be the most expedient. An aesthetical attitude discovers some information
which is important for our knowledge. It allows us to take a holistic set of
parameters in their mutual relation. So, the contents of contemporary aesthetics
are quite diverse. They include such problems which give rise to important
theoretical sections like the essence of art, the nature of aesthetic taste and
the mechanism of formation of aesthetic attitudes, the law of human aesthetic
exploration of surrounding world, the structure and regularities of aesthetic
cultural functioning (aesthetic culture is meant to represent part of culture
in general which is the aim of aesthetic value), etc. The ability of aesthetic evaluation is determined by cultural, historical
and social situation. For example, Chernyshevsky noted that top-society ideal
of beauty differs from folk ideal. Or: in the age of classicism the nature which was formed and decorated
by people was considered aesthetically beautiful ( in opposition to chaotic
and multi-colored world of Middle Ages) and in Romantic age the appearance of nature was considered aesthetically
beautiful. As cultural and social conditions influence aesthetic abilities, it
produces a range of problems of aesthetics, a way of setting up and analyzing
these problems which have been changing historically. The aesthetics' place
in the system of knowledge has been changing too. For example, ancient
philosophers used to set up aesthetic problems, but aesthetics as a discipline
was not distinguished as a separate sphere. The fact is that what they
understood as aesthetics was actually a doctrine of world harmony and existence
embodied in plastic form. They saw it as corporal proportionality. Therefore,
aesthetics in their understanding coincides with philosophy of nature, or using
a special term, with natural philosophy. In the Middle Ages the aesthetical lost its corporal character and
acquired a spiritual, cleric character. Beauty is treated as a symbolic
reflection of divine perfection. In their world outlook aesthetics wasn’t
distinguished from philosophy of religion. It started to be separated from
other branches of knowledge, when the sovereignty of man as the subject of
cognition and action was fully realized. A human being began to be cognized
not as a part of the world, but as opposed to this world, as somebody who had
his word in evaluation and choice. It took place in the philosophical thought
of the New Age - in the XVII and especially in the XVIII centuries. It was
exactly in the middle of the XVIII century that the term ‘aesthetics’ appeared.
This term was coined by German philosopher-educator A. Baumgarten. During
this period aesthetics was mainly developing as a philosophy of art. Contemporary aesthetics goes on to have the character of philosophical
discipline. But now it relies on data of specific sciences, which did not
even exist in the XVIII and XIX centuries, or were still in the bud like
psychology of art and perception, sociology, semiotics, and likewise. Until recently existentialism has been considered an influential
direction in aesthetics next to Marxism. The typical example of
existentialism in aesthetics is that of Sartre who was one of its
theoreticians and an outstanding writer as well. Existential aesthetics
reflects some specific features of existential philosophy as a whole. This philosophy
is interested in a human being, in his or her emotional state. An individual is
a creature thrown into the world and feeling anxious and desperate here. The basis
of existentialism consists in distinguishing between genuine and non-genuine
existence. An individual acts as a non-genuine, impersonal, stereotyped
creature in everyday life. He or she can exercise their genuine existence
while making a free choice. These minutes are their minutes of fame, but as
well they are tragic as this choice is made in front of death, in very
special "border" situations. That kind of freedom has supreme value,
but it also bears a heavy burden as man is doomed to this freedom. The
example of this kind of existential situation is that of battalion commander
Sotnikov in "The Ascent" of L. Shepitko. In the light of this conception Sartre analyses the Baudelaire’s work,
his themes and motives. According to Sartre, art is pure freedom which loses itself
in man's consciousness and per se in the ‘nought' as consciousness is always the extension of objective
reality beyond its borders and in this sense it is its denial, its
non-existence. Baudelaire seeks to get this freedom, but at the same time he
feels frightened before its loneliness and non-existence. This desire to
avoid anxiety of full freedom gives birth to his intention to limit freedom
as pure subjectivity by frames of objective character; he tends to compromise
with the objective world. It results in the poet’s duality, in his sense of guilt
that is reflected in his poetry. According to Sartre the main and the final aim of art is appropriation
of the total integrity of objective reality by a man. He creates art by
showing not a real world but the one that it could have been if a man could enjoy such degree of
freedom that allowed him not to be estranged,
but felt that the world met his aspirations. The rise of esthetical enjoyment
in art perception might be an indicator in the process of getting to this. The discovery of the world is only exercised through an action,
because a human being can feel as if he dominates the real world’s situation and
so he is able to change it. The artistic activity that is stimulated by
perception of the artwork transfers into the real world and becomes apparent
in the aspiration for justice and freedom. Consequently, it is in the nature
of art to fill a man with a sense of moral responsibility for injustice in
the world; art teaches us to bear this responsibility. Early Sartre insisted on the idea of ethical
neutrality of art, but mature Sartre, who had some experience in the war
against fascism and in the movement of resistance draws a conclusion about a
connection between ethical and aesthetical aspects and he even puts forward
the latter to the forefront: moral imperative lies at the base of aesthetical
imperative. One can’t create a good artistic work without an ethically
justified idea. There Sartre’s aesthetics has something in common with
Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Proceeding from this kind of understanding of artistic function,
Sartre states that the main condition of freedom is democracy and when
democracy is threatened, art is threatened too. Democracy cannot always be
defended by pen, there comes a day when a writer puts his pen aside and takes
a weapon. Sartre as well as some other representatives of radical left
aesthetics criticized capitalism. This is something to be thought about by
our contemporary public leaders who call themselves left radicals (though
they actually are right radicals). Sartre’s invective against capitalism stresses
the fact that bourgeoisie tends to make art a part of market relations; art isn’t
regarded as disinterested creation but as a paid service, in which case only
true artists stand by the mission of the art.
Their work doesn’t only reflect the world but it also tends to change it. To some degree Sartre’s extent idea gave
rise to radical left aesthetics of 60-80th connected with revolting student
movements. Trying to change the world, they wanted to break, so to speak, the
“transparent wall” between them, to get over the barrier between art and
world creating some kind of ‘happenings’ where the distinction between art
and politics disappeared. But the experience showed that art as an immediate
catalyst is not that effective. Much more important is its reflective function
and its views. Admitting disappointments in this experience, Sartre came to
know that art by itself cannot change modern society. “I used to mistake a
pen for a sword for a long time, but now I admit our powerlessness”, – says
Sartre in the 60th. This change of point of view on art produced a shift in Sartre’s
aesthetics. Then he starts to analyze productive work, manufacture instead of
considering philosophical or creative production as he used to do before. At
this stage of his ideological evolution he drew closer to Marxism. According to Sartre there is nothing predetermined
in the process of any activity. By acting a man, an artist is not based on
any beforehand given target; he is involved into life without knowing where
this way will bring him to. For example, when an artist makes up a picture he
does not know exactly how it will look like in the end. In this sense
artistic creation is like an integrated model of human activity in general. Sartre distinguishes 2 basic models of creation: “escapist” and
“involved”. The former is defined as an escape to the past, to the world of
illusions, aspiration for perpetual immobility and calmness of material
objective reality. The latter opposes it.
Sartre comes out against a snobbish point of view which weakens the
aesthetical meaning of art. The artist is involved into social life, he is engaged
by it, and it is not bad, it is quite natural. The artist should promote the
changes of actual social situations with the aim of furthering the human
freedom. But at the same time he must not serve any particular party.
Therefore the concept of ‘committed’ art is opposite to the famous concept of
“partisanship”. The next and quite influential tendency is scientistic aesthetics.
Though there exist lots of tendencies and concepts, there is one thing in
common: their tendency to apply scientific definition for analysis of art,
especially they are fond of using definitions worked out in the field of
natural and exact sciences, as well as those of linguistics, logic,
semiotics, the theory of information, They all are actively applied and
define scientistic aesthetics’ profile. One of the typical examples of this approach is N. Goodman’s
aesthetics. He considers art to be the
form of cognition and specifies it confronting art to scientific knowledge. He
doesn’t link the criteria of aesthetical perfection with beauty or pleasure
but only with cognitive effectiveness of art as a symbolic system. The flaw
of this kind of aesthetics – as of many other kinds of scientistic concepts –
is that the subject of creation and perception are taken isolated. This is a special
kind of aesthetical adventures. Nevertheless the use of these definitions developed
in logic and mathematics sometimes comes to an unusual effect and highlights
some unexpected aspects of art. Defining the cognitive peculiarity of art, Goodman takes into
consideration the intellectualization of contemporary art. That’s why he
rejects the traditional scheme proving that science finds world in
definitions and art in images. According to Goodman, the difference between
art and science is in domination of symbols with different specific
characteristics. He links the specific features of aesthetical sing systems with 4 “symptoms”
– (as he calls them) of the aesthetical: 1)
The
relation between a sign and the denoted as a type of exemplification (ex.: in
the movie “October” directed by Eisenstein, the shots where clocks are shown,
reproduce the idea of historical time.) The problem is that exemplification
is polysemantic. 2)
Compactness.
This term is taken from mathematics and defines the insight structure of some
plurality. This plurality is compact if between any of its two elements there
appears the third element. Using the notions of compactness and
formal-mathematical language, Goodman tends to indicate the fact that by
aesthetical perception one considers the slightest nuance of inscription, the
character of the stroke and so on… 3)
Syntactical
fullness. This term is brought up to distinguish visual elements of scientific
or artistic language. Let’s compare, for example, an instant cardiogram with
the Hokusai’s drawing that shows Fudzi mountain. The contour can be the same,
but what’s the difference? For the perception of this piece of art everything
is important: the color of the line, the thickness of the stroke and so on… That means that there are
more significant components on the piece of art than those on the cardiogram.
It is fuller syntactically. Another example of scientistic aesthetics is theoretico-informational
aesthetics of A. Moll. He takes some piece of art and divides it into
elementary items: separate sounds, image on principle of TV raster, and each
of items can be shown as figure of binary-number system – bit. Then they
count the total amount of information in the piece of art, and on this basis
they formed quality estimations of the piece and its substantiveness. The
piece is considered to be an informational structure with complicated architectonics
of its levels. Thus, a work of art gives us both some general information and
aesthetical one. Aesthetical
information is linked to opportunity of variation for one and the same sign
or message (for example, estimating a woman’s beauty, we don’t take into
account only common specific feautures of the female body; we appreciate the uniqueness of this
particular body). The next step of aesthetical theory we are going to shortly
characterize is phenomenological aesthetics. Let’s study it looking at Hans
Sedlmayr’s concept. The moulding of Sedlmayr’s scientific interests is
connected with the Vienna’s School of Arts. It’s characterized by disappointment
in positivism and phychologism and by its attempts to analyze the immanent
qualities of art. According to Sedlmayr, the history of art is the history of
spirit that unfolds itself through the changing artistic systems and styles.
The main attention is concentrated on the analysis of the work of art as the autonomous specific
structure of text. Phenomenological analysis of the work of art – is a method of
structural analysis of a separate work, then an analysis of art as a whole,
and finally of all spiritual atmosphere of this era. A work of art as an
aesthetical object exists for Sedlmayr in the act of perception. For him a
work is not a thing but some kind of “ideal object” which is given in this
material thing; this ideal object exists in consciousness. Thus, aesthetical perception
gives rise to a piece of art as an aesthetical object, at the same time this
giving rise is equal to interpretation. While scientific consciousness
divides objective reality into pieces and focuses on facts, details and particulars,
art is aimed at integrity of objective reality. Therefore, the truth of art
is higher than the truth of science. Moreover only an artist is able to catch
“the ‘face’, vital quality of the world”. The anthological presupposition of
work of art is some kind of objective reality, however, the work of art
itself does not exist in reality, it is given only in our imagination,
isolated of the world and has its time of existence. The main principles of structural analysis of fine arts and
architecture are formulated in Sedlmayr’s
work “Figurative vision’. The core notion here is that of structure as
divided unity, which elements are connected wich each other in a particular
way. The laws of existence of a work of art are equivalent to the laws of its
structure. Sedlmayr gives new understanding of interpretational analysis of a
work of art. Interpretation of art is not just a “construction”, searching
for same “meaning”, that is hidden behind its creative form. Interpretation
is recreation, a new birth of masterpiece in an individual soul. In
interpretation a picture or sculpture as a thing does not change, but its
“ideal object” is always new. Interpretation of a piece of art is a creative process and captures a
human being totally –his mind, soul and body. This process has three levels: 1)
spontaneous
unprejudiced impression, yet not developed and unclear. 2)
search
for a “right interpretation”, search for the connection between elements of
creative unity, using the knowledge of the world and art. It is work of imagination
and intellect. This is a rational level. 3)
at
the second level initial unity divides, therefore a stop at this level means
the destruction of a masterpiece. That is why at the third level this unity
recreates itself enriched by interpretation. The problem of interpretation, according to Sedlmayr, obtains a new
specific meaning in connection with rating of modern art. This kind of art
was the first to produce works, which couldn’t be interpreted. In front of
this kind of “works” the interpreter goes speechless or he just simulates the
interpretation. Since the interpretation is equal to the creation of the
piece of art as an ideal object, modern art brings us outside the frames of
art. However, Sedlmayr treats this problem in a specific way, as for him
modernism and decadent art include realism as well. He offers this kind of
periodization of European art: 1.
Pre-Roman
and Roman (550-1150) 2.
Gothic
(1140-1470) 3.
Renaissance
and Baroque (1470 – 1760) 4.
Modernism
(1760 - ) This is connected with religious aspects of his aesthetics. The top of
this gradation is Gothic as an example of true unity and beauty, an image of
“goodness” of absolute. Then goes decay, regress, that is caused by the
crisis of Christianity. The natural consequence of this crisis was isolation
of art from religion. This process gave rise to anti-humanism and
eccentricity of modernism and finally to anti-art. Modernism symbolizes the substitute of
homocentric, anthropomorphic
world-view by cosmo-centric and technetronic. It’s impossible to
define contemporary art as decline or take-off, it’s controversial. Finally, the last direction which influenced the development of
aesthetics in the 20th century is Frankfurt school. Frankfurt
school is an ideological stream that was founded at the beginning of the 30th
on the basis of Frankfurt Institute of Social Studies. It is connected with
Marxism but so called “critical Marxism”, adapted to bourgeois philosophy and
small-bourgeois left radical political conscience. The core problem of Frankfurt school is critique of rational reason
and of the whole dialectic of enlightenment which underlines European
spiritual culture of the new age. Rational thinking has an initial defect –
it is repressive, is connected with the will to power and supremacy. Its aim
is to capture an object separated from the subject and contravene the subject
nature (and human nature as well). It means that it always suppresses.
Rationality penetrates into human society and turns a society into a
collective of appeared anonymous personalities. Every human being just seems
to be personality but actually he is pseudo-personality. Instead of rational
bourgeois human creature we need to produce a real human being. In order to
do that we have to free our consciousness and our self from those thinking forms
which produce a bourgeois society. And it is art that can do it. The true art
states the truth of human existence in harmony with nature, when a man and
his consciousness do not contradict nature but become similar to its creative
powers. Such kind of harmony of an individual and nature exists at the earliest
level of history. And true art should recreate the spirit of those times in
order to become “the search of the lost time”. From the point of view of this
searching we should examine the whole contemporary civilization. But the
truth announced in this way may seem absurd to a representative of bourgeois
culture. That is why the form of contemporary art that is adequate to its
aims is the art of absurdity. Such art is doomed to loneliness and conflict
with mass audience. The romantic position of an unacknowledged and persecuted
artist is the only possible one for those working in this kind of art. That
is why it is necessarily elitist. That means that true art goes into contradiction with the notion of
work of art as it is. This work of art
ceases to be a kind of art in the exact meaning of this word, but it becomes
a means of denial and destruction. The real piece of art is always “on the
edge”; it balances between existence and imperfection. Art must model a
revolutionary process of destruction of rational bourgeois reality. But it
should do it not in the field of images but in its own material
architectonic. As an example of such art we can mention atonic music of
Schonberg and the experience of pointlessness in fine arts. By the example of Frankfurt school we can see the connection between
left-revolutionalizm and avangard, an attempt to see avangard as aesthetic equivalent
to revolution. This attempt achieves some pretensions of bogemic rebelliousness
at most. And ideologists were convinced that the total denial results in
destruction as well as ideas of total freedom do. In the end majority of them
gave up this rebelliousness and took side of bourgeois liberalism. Aesthetics today as a science has entered the 3d millennium of human
history. People aspire to achieve aesthetic knowledge and attitudes. Relying
on the culture of the previous centuries we suppose that aesthetics will be
developing successfully and will conventually influence other sciences, by
analyzing and rethinking classic, modernist and post modernist picture of the
world and human being. References: Àðèñòîòåëü. Ïîëèòèêà. Ñî÷èíåíèÿ.  4ò. Ì., 1983.
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