Central concepts of aesthetics - a proposal for their application

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Sibley is concentrating on clarifying the logical status of our group 1.1.1 and its sub-groups (“We cannot prove with arguments that something is graceful” etc.) and does not seem to consider the groups

1.1.2 and 2 worthy of a discussion.

Karl Svoboda iii , on the other hand, wishes to acknowledge “only one truly and purely aesthetic category, the beautiful and the ugly”, precisely those categories (1.1.2), which Sibley ignores. “The graceful constitutes a part of the Beautiful, and the other values -- the Sublime, the Base, the Tragic, the Comical, the Innovative, the Naive, the Artificial, the Realistic, the Idealistic, the Serious, the Baroque, the Classical, the Mysterious, and the Transparent -- are not categories or basic concepts, but rather styles of art, artistic convictions, or other values ... one cannot force them into a system.” Other authors, e.g. Max Dessoir iv , differentiate within the aesthetic experience a limited number of aesthetic responses, e.g., Beautiful - Ugly, Base - Sublime, Comical - Tragical.

To my knowledge, Wolfhart Henckmann v attempted the most comprehensive configuration of aesthetic concepts in our time. He arranged many terms within an “open, functional system” which does not claim to be strictly systematic and is “subjugated to changes caused by interior and exterior factors” because it is “sociologically and historically conditioned”. Henckmann assumes that “aesthetic experience is constituted as a special relationship between subject and object” and therefore he posits “three rows of categories in which the subject, the object or the special relationship between those two determine the character of the individual categories”. These three rows of concepts are further subdivided “according to the ontic quality of the three determinants of aesthetic experience”: the “subject aspect” according to psychic functions like sense perception, imaginative power, emotion etc., the “object aspect” according to “material qualities, basic structures of genres or art styles”, the “relationship aspect“ according to “differences in the dynamics of aesthetic experience”, its “narrowness, width or height”. - This compilation embraces those terms discussed by Sibley as well as those excluded by Svoboda.

Henckmann also sketches the character of the “Aesthetic”, “a concept of the aesthetic which permits dividing aesthetic categories into various groups”. For that purpose, he relies on older definitions, following mainly Hamann’s vi keywords “isolation”, “concentration”, and “intensification”. - He does not discuss the concept of the “Artistic”.

II. Some Preliminary Questions:

In order to understand the relationship between the concepts of “the Artistic” and “the Aesthetic”, we have to ask ourselves some preliminary questions.

1. How Do We Use The Term “Art”? vii

The oldest and widest meaning derives from the Latin term “ars, artes” and resembles the English “skill” or the German “Können”, as in “the skill of baking bread”. Until the Romantic period, the “art of writing poems” was understood in a similar way (e.g., by the “Meistersänger”) and so was the art of producing music and architecture. Also the “Liberal Arts” (“Artes liberales”) at the universities have nothing to do with our new and subjective concept of art. The connotation was a tradition of rules, which have to be mastered. In Asia, this understanding was valid until the beginning of the influence of the Western striving for originality and innovation at any price. In the traditional arts (e.g., in Japanese Noh and Kabuki) it is still the rule. The breaking of rules by genius, which Western “Deviation Aesthetics” in particular has ranked as its highest value, is even in the West no older than the Renaissance. Also relatively new is the differentiation between so-called “high” art and merely “applied”, “decorative” or “entertaining” arts. The latter are not expected to be original to the same degree. All of these differentiations relate mainly to art objects and not to aesthetic objects, the former being the material basis for the latter.

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2. What Is The Difference Between “Art Object” and “Aesthetic Object”?

According to Ingarden viii , the former is simply an object produced (or selected) within the conventions of a cultural tradition (and in the West often in partial contradiction to them) intended to be experienced aesthetically. This aesthetic experience may or may not actually occur. If it does occur, then the Art Object (artifact) becomes an Aesthetic Object within the experience of the recipient. Since the artifact is only (and can only be) an “intentional object” with many “spots of indeterminacy” (no poet can tell, no painter can paint everything), the recipient is challenged in each act of art appreciation to fill in, or “concretize”, these spots of indeterminacy. S/he does that with the help of experience and imagination. This is a “quasi-creative” act (though not completely free) and therefore enjoyable. But, since each recipient has a different “horizon of expectation” (Jauß ix ), one recipient’s aesthetic object will not completely resemble another’s, even though both have the same artifact as a material basis (no two viewers in a museum see exactly the same painting).

The aesthetic object does not even have to be based on an artifact. Natural objects (trees, landscapes, human beings) can be experienced aesthetically. Even utilitarian objects, e.g. ceramics, weaving, and religious symbols, can be elevated to the status of “art”. This is usually done by various institutions (museums, critics, dealers), which Danto x called the “art world”. After such objects have been declared to be “art” by the art world, they do not depend on the appreciation of the individual recipient any longer. Only if the art world changes its criteria for evaluation, can objects, which have been assessed as “art” be devalued (e.g., as “Kitsch”).

But it is only partially true that cultural institutions are establishing “Art Objects” and “Aesthetic Objects” by individuals, since the aesthetic sensibility of individuals is also (at least partially) shaped by cultural influences. In our time, in which recipients have to a high degree lost generally accepted standards for the validation of art works, there is a tendency to allow artists (and their promoters) to declare anything they chose to be “art”. This is a sociological phenomenon. This softening of norms, which can be observed everywhere, can be celebrated as newly won freedom, or it can be deplored as a symptom of decadence. Supporters of artistic norms will try to found them ontologically. They will try to show for various forms of art that certain stylistic elements (and their technical realization) are especially qualified for the achievement of certain aesthetic experiences. Without denying this, we can ask why, especially, this or that aesthetic experience is desirable, and we are referred back to societal or cultural determinants.

3. If the “aesthetic” and “artistic” value of an artifact is not the same, what is their relevancy for original

works of art and their perfect copies?

As long as an original and its perfect copy provoke identical aesthetic responses, their aesthetic value is the same. The same cannot be said, however, of their artistic value. The latter is determined by historical circumstances, e.g., the originality of the work in its particular period of art history, its documentary value in regards to technical achievement and mode of experiencing the world.

From this it follows that the market value of a work of art must be connected to its artistic authenticity and not its aesthetic quality alone (the latter is being reproduced by each perfect copy.) It also implies that the mode of production of a work of art has no bearing on its aesthetic value if the end result is the same. For example, if a hand-woven tapestry can be copied so perfectly by a machine that even the minuscule irregularities of the texture are preserved, that is, if one could not see a difference between the two without additional information, then both have the same aesthetic (not artistic) value.

An interesting question is whether, in fact, only the artistic value of a work is dependent on historical determinants, or also its aesthetic value. If one believes in the existence of “absolute” aesthetic

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values, one has to negate the question. If, however, as we hinted before, one believes that our way of seeing and experiencing art is also culturally determined, one arrives at the opposite view.

4. Can Art - In Spite Of Its Dependency On The “Art World” and On Its Recipients - Contain Generally

Valid Meaning?

The answer to this question depends on the type of art we are talking about. Meaning in a novel of Naturalism will be more clearly definable than in a work by Kafka, in a painting by Rembrandt more so than in an abstract composition. Various interpretations are also possible in pre-modern art. Meaningful art has sometimes been characterized as “multilevel” (not to be confused with “ambiguous”) and as “over determined”. The last term can mean either that a text contains meaning on several levels (e.g., psychological, philosophical, religious etc.) or that it allows more than one interpretation (within one of the aforementioned levels).

The difference between “multilevel” or “multistrata” (in German: vielschichtig) and “multimeaning” or ambiguous (German: vieldeutig) is the one between wealth of meaning and contradiction in meaning. In the first case, new interpreters find ever-new strata of meaning, which do not contradict but, rather, support each other. In the second case, different and contradictory interpretations are found within one stratum. Wolfgang Kayser believed that multilevel works of art could be interpreted adequately as well as inadequately, and that in principal their levels of meaning could be exhausted (“ausinterpretiert”) at some point in time. I agree only with the first point. The second one seems to be doubtful in view of complex works of art (Goethe: “inkomensurabel”), which can be approached by new generations of interpreters with ever-new questions.

III. The Central Concepts “aesthetic - artistic - beautiful”

The two terms “artistic” and “aesthetic” are often forgotten in discussions of related concepts because, on one hand, they seem to coincide with the concept of “beauty” and, on the other, their meanings seem to be so obvious that they do not have to be mentioned. However, precisely for the last reason their exact differentiation seems to be worthwhile. Along with the concept of “beauty”, only two other concepts are of equal importance and centrality: “art” with the attribute “artistic”, and “the aesthetic” with the attribute “aesthetic”. Each of these three terms has, of course, its negation: “ugliness” or “the ugly”, the “non-artistic” (“Kitsch” has a different meaning), and the “non-aesthetic”, e.g., the scientific or the practical (“unaesthetic” usually carries the special connotation of “disgusting”).

It is obvious that the concepts of the aesthetic, the artistic, and the beautiful do not have the same reach. The first, “aesthetic” xi , not only serves as a heading for all kinds of qualities of impressions, as described by Sibley and Henckmann, but also denotes an attitude, which takes sensual experience seriously in a special way. It does not necessarily have to express itself in a product or “work”. There are artistically unproductive “aesthetes” whose aesthetic sensibilities only express themselves in the reception of art and aesthetic objects or situations.

About the concept “art” we have said already a great deal. If, following Morris Weitz xii , we define it as an “open concept”; we are free to fill it with new content whenever needed. - There is only one characteristic which should never be forgotten: the concept “art” always refers to something made or performed or raised to the same status which (in contrast to the “aesthetic”) lies outside of ourselves. We should use the term “artistic” to describe an action which is directed onto something outside the creator and the recipient, not exclusively visible and touchable works of art, but also performances (dance, happenings etc.). Therefore, it means “creating like an artist” and not necessarily experiencing like one, since we hardly ever know what an artist experiences and in what way his experience differs from that of the mere “aesthete”. –