Central concepts of aesthetics: a proposal for their application

(1.1.1.1) which differentiate qualities which are only discernible for sensitive recipients, and descriptives which can be verified by everyone (1.1.1.2), e.g., that a painting is “dominated by blue tones” or a sonata “consists of four movements” or a play “contains many short scenes”. The truly “aesthetic” descriptions (1.1.1.1) can either be exclusively applied with a truly aesthetic meaning (1.1.1.1.1), e.g., “graceful”, “elegant” or “sublime”, or they can have a double function, meaning they can be used with a non-aesthetic and an aesthetic, quasi-metaphorical meaning (1.1.1.1.2), e.g., terms like “unified”, “dynamic”, or “balanced”. The terms in group 1.1.1.1.1 we could name “truly and exclusively aesthetic” qualities.

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 group’s 1.1.2 and 2 worthy of a discussion.

Karl Svoboda [2], 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 [3], differentiate within the aesthetic experience a limited number of aesthetic responses, e.g., Beautiful - Ugly, Base -Sublime, Comical - Tragical.

To my knowledge, Wolfhart Henckmann [4] 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 [5] 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” [6]?

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.

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

According to Ingarden [7], 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[8]), 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 [9] 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