8 - Aesthetics - What is Art?

Aesthetics: What is art? What is Beauty?
       What a pleasant thing to discuss. We all like aesthetics, even if we disagree about what we like, and why.


       The other day, my car mechanic used the word aesthetics, in reference to my car, so I decided the term is in common usage. Here is a chronological outline of thought about the topic:

1 - Classical theory of Aesthetics begins with the writing of ancient Greek Aristotle. He had plenty to say and defined art as needing:
  a - significant subject matter;
  b- due proportion;
  c - specific limitations, such as in the tragedy in drama, where plot, character, time, rhetoric, theatrics, all have contributions that he carefully described; finally,
  d - art should be an improvement on nature. (The statue should look better than the model.)

  Tragedy required "hubris," humans trying to act like gods; today we might call it unconscious vanity. Even though action was fated, hubris, an inherent character defect caused great loss.

  Comedy was the discharge, or cleansing, of the emotion of pity.

  Proportion was particularly important to the ancient Greeks who felt it was essential to beauty. They were the first in the Western world to use proportion in sculpture, particularly of the human figure, and in representational art. Before them, the ancient Egyptians, for example, presented art in flat relief, more as symbol than as representation.

  Further, the Greeks used mathematics to create a system of proportion for their architecture, for example. The length and breath of a room or a building was in a set ratio.

2- The Romantic theory says that "Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder." Thus, anything can be art or beautiful if the perceiver says it is so. In the mid-1800's, Beethoven in music, and Turner in painting, bridged the gap from Classical to Romantic, from strict form to a bold expression of feeling. The ability to communicate emotion was the goal.

  Tragedy was no longer restricted to drama but could be in any art form which showed the tension of human striving that could lead to a higher realm of being or could devastatingly fail. Ultimate meaning could be gained or lost.

3- The Formal theory of art states that painting, for example, is good if it has pleasing composition, or form. Balance of the structural elements is essential. Art does not have to be representational of nature but can instead express emotion.

4 - The Modern theory says that art is but a frame, a perspective on ordinary life. It directs our attention in a new way to what we may have been aware of many times before. For example, a photograph might capture a slant of light on a stair step that hints at the unseen staircase of which it is a part.

The invention of the camera became a challenge to painters, who no longer needed to represent or document reality. New styles, such as Impressionism, showed light itself as the subject. The figure is revealed as a series of brushstrokes taking on the color of each flicker of light, fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle.

5 - In the Twentieth Century artists, such as Picasso, looked to non-Western art for inspiration. Folk art and other "naive," untrained, expressions were studied. "Fine" art, which was described as that which had no purpose other than being art, was no longer necessarily "better" than "decorative" art, which could be affixed to everyday items and uses. Also, art could take more than one perspective at a time, such as in Cubism, in which Picasso showed a figure or a face from several sides at once.

Writers, such as William Faulkner or Gertrude Stein, attempted to show dialect, rather than lofty language. Ernest Hemingway sought simplicity, using nouns and verbs, but few adjectives or adverbs; again, avoiding lofty language. John Steinbeck and Arthur Miller also depicted "common" people. These writers all used the language of everyday to express bold or even tragic themes. From the ancients to Shakespeare, tragedy had been limited to royalty or high status, but no more.

Even though the settings, people, or language might have been everyday, the strivings were not.

6 - Post-modern theories tend to look to the fragments of structure that are art in themselves, even if they do not compose a "whole." The minimal units of art can be recombined to give a fresh perspective, even if they have no function or "meaning." Symmetry, for example, which was so important to the ancients and to classical theory, is to be avoided.

Authors no longer seek expression of the self but of elements of the self. There is no tension. Tragedy is impossible because there is no ultimate meaning to be gained or lost.

7 - Anti-aesthetics have also come into favor, in which the conscious avoidance of classical theory is the guiding principle. Not that ugliness is the goal, but rather a conspicuous rejection of convention. Self-awareness is one of the few remaining elements.

8 - Finally, there are those who in all seriousness claim that whatever they say is art, is art. Everything is art: Nothing is art; both statements are equally true, they say. Then, undefined, random individual opinion and popularity are that which determine what is art.

9 - Nevertheless, if anything is art, without regard to perspective, content, execution, form, or emotion; if art is no longer in some way separate from the ordinary, then it is no longer extraordinary. With nothing to communicate, art is no longer expression.

Sadly, without art, there can be no beauty.