In this essay the issue I will be addressing is ‘Can we apply the traditional criteria and philosophy concerning aesthetics to twentieth century art? And should we? Art is defined as being pieces such as paintings or sculptures depicting a beauty, produced by a skill or ability in such work. The arts are defined as being ‘…subjects in which sympathetic understanding plays a great part, as opposed to sciences where exact measurements and calculations are used’1. Science plays a large part in art, as art does in science. Leonardo da Vinci said that artists make ‘…the best scientists: not only do they observe things better than other people - they think about what they see and then tell the rest of us about it in pictures.’2
Existentialism can be defined as ‘…a philosophical theory which emphasizes that man is responsible for his own actions and free to choose his development and destiny’3. Therefore existentially the ‘old’ use of the word art (in the present tense) meaning ‘to be’ defines art more substantially than other definitions. ‘To produce art is simply to be’. If ‘to produce art is simply to be’ then why are some professions considered to be more artistic than others are? The answer may lie in the interpretation of what is considered aesthetic -and what is not. Aesthetics are ‘…the branch of philosophy concerned with the study of such concepts as beauty and taste, as the rules and principles of art’4. Immanuel Kant, who was perhaps the most important European philosopher of the eighteenth century, was the first to give aesthetics a distinctly logical and philosophical role within an entire philosophical system. Kant’s topics were:
The ambiguity of taste.
The analysis of the beautiful and the sublime.
The logic of aesthetic judgments.
Genius and creative freedom.
The moral function of the aesthetic.
These topics are among the principal criteria of the discipline even today. I am concentrating on the first two of Kant’s topics. It is important that we dismiss all of the baggage that is associated with the term beautiful. We are concentrating on the philosophical, and this requires that we start anew with our approach to the term beauty. The dictionary defines beauty as being ‘…the combination of all the qualities of a person or thing that delight the senses and please the mind’5. For sublime the dictionary says ‘…of high moral, aesthetic, intellectual or spiritual value…inspiring deep veneration, awe, or uplifting emotion because of its beauty, nobility, grandeur, or immensity…the ultimate degree or perfect example’6. Taste itself can be divided into two categories: the physical – ‘…the sense by which the flavour of a substance is distinguished by the taste buds’7, and the metaphysical – ‘…an inclination toward something…the ability to make discerning judgments about artistic matters…judgment of aesthetic or social matters according to a generally accepted standard’8.
Voltaire wrote on taste, and compared the two meanings of the word, acknowledging the subjectivity of it. He suggested that the metaphysical definition of taste must sometimes be trained, or acquired. He wrote that ‘…if one were to ask a toad what beauty was, the toad would reply that it was his female’9. This illustrates the subjectivity of good and bad taste, and emphasizes that ‘…beauty lies in the eye of the beholder’10. This is in direct contrast to the views of the eighteenth century Scottish philosopher David Hume. Hume was of the opinion that there was a defined and invariable method by which one could judge whether something was beautiful or not. The painting by William Hogarth, ‘The Rake arrested’ (1733), is one of a series of eight scenes called ‘The Rakes progress’. It is beautiful and it is sublime, however, because of the subject which it is portraying (punishment of vice in a lurid manner) David Hume would say that it is of bad taste and would question whether it was truly beautiful. ‘Portrait of the artists sister’ (1899) by Pablo Picasso, is a traditionally beautiful painting. ‘The bathers’ (1933) is not, but it is pleasing to look at. Arguably it is only because of the ability and the skill of Picasso, that ‘The bathers’ could be accepted as being art. What he has succeeded in achieving in ‘Portrait of the artists sister’ we can know he has abandoned deliberately, to produce the stark image of ‘The bathers’.
It could be argued that ‘Act of love’ (1915) by Egon Schiele, is not a beautiful piece of work. However it could also be argued that it is sublime, as it has a perfect simplicity of line and yet expresses movement. Although the subject matter could be said to be of bad taste, and David Hume most definitely would have, the sense of voyeurism that the artist places on the spectators shoulders almost goes unnoticed as we continue to explore the drawing somehow compelled to watch this intimate act. In the sense that the simplicity of ‘Act of love’ does delight the senses, and please the mind, conversely we could say that it is beautiful. ‘Europe after the rain’ (1940-1942) by Max Ernst is described by Robert Hughes in ‘The shock of the new’, as ‘…a panorama of a fungoid landscape seen as though in the aftermath of an annihilating, biblical deluge’11 -but is it beautiful? ‘Number 1A’ (1948) by Jackson Pollock is a prime example of abstract expressionism and illustrates the energy and enthusiasm that can and does go into a painting. Although Pollocks working methods were executed in a traditional manner ‘Number 1A’ shows that composition, and the traditionally structured approaches to painting need not apply, but is it beautiful? Mark Rothkos ‘Green and maroon’ (1953) is another example of abstract expressionism, this time focusing on basic human emotions, but still consciously abandoning the traditional approaches to painting. This piece is almost certainly sublime - simply for its spiritual value - but is it beautiful?
In 1956 at the London Institute of Contemporary Art a pioneering exhibition was held, it was called ‘This is tomorrow’. One of the pieces shown was a small collage, which was destined to become hugely prophetic, almost directing the route which art would take from that moment in time to well into the next century. The work was titled ‘Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?’ and the artist was Richard Hamilton. Hamilton wrote his own criteria for what contemporary art should be:
Popular (designed for a mass audience)
Transient (short-term solution)
Expendable (easily forgotten)
Low-cost
Mass-produced
Young (aimed at youth)
Witty
Sexy
Gimmicky
Glamorous
- and -
Big business…
This was not art that could be made by the people, but by the elite. It was art that ‘…was done to the people’12. It was not popular art -but ‘Pop-art’, and it was a revelation. ‘Just what is it…’ was the perfect example of ‘Pop-art’ and was therefore sublime, but is it beautiful? No -and further more it is not supposed to be. ‘Pop-art’ was based on the imagery of consumerism and popular culture, and rejected any distinction between good and bad taste.
Andy Warhol, perhaps the most famous of the ‘Pop-art’ artists sold the idea to the public. As his work was based on the media and advertising imagery, so his art became his own commercial and he succeeded in what he aspired, to become the product himself. This period of art was the turning point, and it opened up the possibilities for future generations. As Sir Isaac Newton said, ‘If I have seen further than other men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants’13.
Piero Manzoni took the ideas behind the commercialization of art and modified them, producing work which specifically commented on the cult of the personality, such as the artist, as the ultimate product and bi-product in the form of ‘Merda d’Artista’(1961). Manzoni was one of the forerunners of ‘Conceptual Art’; where the idea for a work is, in itself, a work in progress and is considered to be more important than the finished product -if indeed there is one. How can one judge the beauty within a work, when the work need not be produced to authenticate the idea? It is at this point one must ask whether the traditional criteria, for placing a judgment on aesthetics, can still be applied? With Frank Stella’s relief piece; ‘Kozangrodek’ (1975), we again find ourselves asking the same old questions -is it beautiful? - Is it sublime? - Is it of good taste? Unlike the ‘non-evidence’ of ‘Conceptual Art’, we have a product to analyze, but unlike the work prior to Manzoni’s we are now presented with a dilemma: should we be asking the same questions as before? Or should we be asking different questions? And if so, what?
Frank Stella was a post-painterly abstractionist who believed that a painting was not representational of something else, but ‘…a flat surface with paint on it’14. He does have a point, and who are we to question further the artist’s achievements? He has produced what he set out to produce, and to ask -is it beautiful? - would not only be futile, but offensive. ‘Leg’ (1984) by Elizabeth Murray has an intriguing element, and an undercurrent of sublimity. Accompanied by a hint of obliquely portrayed obsessiveness of the body’s presence it takes on an almost sexy quality, but can it be said to be beautiful? Because of the effect that ‘Pop-art’ and ‘Conceptual Art’ has had on the art world, we must question the questions.
The second revelation has occurred in the 1990’s, partly because of the freedom that the ‘Pop-art’ of the fifties presented. There has now come a second bout of young ‘Brit.-pop’ artists, and the works of Jake and Dinos Chapman, such as ‘Zygotic acceleration, biogenetic, de-sublimated libidinal model (enlarged x1000)’ (1995), are much more closely related to that of Richard Hamilton than Frank Stellas work was. As Jenny Saville’s is to Andy Warhols, more so because the imagery has simply been updated. Yet there is a stronger underlining message about the representation of the female form not only in art but also in society within Saville’s work, as the painting ‘Shift’ (1996-1997) illustrates. It has been argued whether or not this painting is sublime -but whichever way you engage with it, it is still incontestably ‘Pop’. And what of ‘Away from the flock’ (1994) and ‘This little piggy…’(1996) by Damien Hirst, are these pieces true commercialism? Or a statement about the consumerists attitude towards the specific mass-production of intended meat products and the means of presentation and preservation of such? Are we all simply suffering from ‘The Emperor’s new clothes’ syndrome? Appreciating what we have been told to, and detesting for the same reason? Or are we simply looking for out-dated archaic qualities in work, which contains properties that could not have been properly articulated, or even conceived of at the time when the traditional criteria for judging art was established?
So the issue, which I have been addressing, is: ‘Can we apply the traditional criteria and philosophy concerning aesthetics to twentieth-century art? And should we?
It is my opinion that at the same time as we can apply the criteria but we should not, we can not apply the criteria but we should. If we take Richard Hamiltons’ ‘Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?’ for an example, with this piece we can apply the criteria, however, if we have applied it rigidly we will conclude that it is not art. So in one sense we need to reject the criteria for this piece and others of its genre, in order to accept it as art. Having accepted the work as a piece of art we can apply the specified criteria to it, and if we then change the perspective, it is at this point we find that it is the ultimate degree of ‘Pop-art’ and is therefore sublime.
We should apply the specific criteria because if we do not have an established measure to compare pieces of art against, we can not begin to talk about them in any meaningful way. However, we should not apply them too rigidly, because if we try to measure something gargantuous using microscopic calibrations it makes no sense, and renders the measurement meaningless.
Footnotes
1. Sinclair, J.M. (1994), p.84
2. Janson, H. & Janson, D. (1982), p.108
3. Sinclair, J.M. (1994), p.544
4. Ibid, p.24
5. Ibid, p.137
6. Ibid, p.1536
7. Ibid, p.1579
8. Ibid, p.1579
9. Eliot, S. & Whitlock, K. (1997), p.313
10. Ibid, p.313
11. Hughes, R. (1996), p.255
12. Ibid, p.344
13. Honderich, T. (1995), p.620
14. Chilvers, I. (1996), p.507
Bibliography
AYTO, J. (1990) Dictionary of Word Origins London, Bloomsbury Publishing.
BARTHOLOMEW, M. ,
HALL, D. & LENTIN, A. (eds.) (1997) The Enlightenment- Studies 1 Milton Keynes, The Open University.
BUTLER, A. &
STIRLING, S. (1996) The Art Book London, Phaidon Press.
CHILVERS, I. (1996) Concise Dictionary of Art and Artists Oxford, Oxford University Press.
ELIOT, S. &
WHITLOCK, K. (eds.) (1997) The Enlightenment-Texts 1 Milton Keynes, The Open University.
GOMBRICH, E.H. (1996) The Story of Art London, Phaidon Press.
HONDERICH, T. (1995) Oxford Companion to Philosophy Oxford, Oxford University Press.
HUGHES, R. (1996) The Shock of the New London, Thames and Hudson.
JANSON, H. &
JANSON, D. (1982) The Story of Painting London, Thames & Hudson.
JORDANOVA, L.J. (1986) Languages of Nature London, Free Association Books.
MOORE, E. &
MACKENZIE MOORE, F. (1993) Concise Dictionary of Art and Literature London, Tigerbooks International.
SINCLAIR, J.M. (1994) Collins English Dictionary Wrotham, Harpercollins Publishers.
No comments:
Post a Comment