aesthetics

 Aesthetics is the philosophical study of beauty and taste. Broadly, it is also called “a critical reflection of sensory-emotional values”.

The word ‘aesthetic’ was invented or coined by the German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten, who used the word to connote criticism of taste and considered it a science of philosophy. During the nineteenth century, the word was gradually accepted to refer to the philosophy of taste and theory of fine arts.

As a branch of philosophy, it is related to the fundamental idea of the beauty and ugliness. Sublime, elegant and taste are its added phenomenon.  Since people perceive and see things differently, aesthetic experience is by and large a subjective experience.

Widely, aesthetics is believed to be the study of art and raises questions related to the experience an artist gains while making the work of art and for the viewer when he sees art. Much of an inquiry has been done to discuss and find out if there is a specific way of perceiving and thereby going through an ‘aesthetic experience’. It also inquires into the question whether there is a difference between the beautiful and the sublime.

Thus, with an objective to understand aesthetics one could look at works of art from different cultures and different periods of history and in the process see if the audience can understand an artist’s work without knowing much about him or if there is a difference in the perception and response after having learnt the artists method of seeing and executing a work of art. Whether culture, history, economical and social background as well as the environment in which the audience comes from has an impact on their way of seeing a work of art and if the work of art contributes to any type of change or shift in the paradigm of the people. Subsequently aesthetics also inquires in how after experiencing art, people’s moods, beliefs, thoughts and values, understanding of their own and other cultures are dealt with by them.

One of the first proponents of aesthetics was Plato.
According to him, reality consisted of prototypes and forms. He believed that the original forms are beyond the human sensation, and therefore we experience, only its imitation. On one end Plato appreciated art and on the other end, he proposed extensive theory of imitation in his work, mimesis.

He also radically advocated the prohibition of painters and poets.

After Plato, Aristotle also considered art as imitation. He believed that the artist rendered form from the matter of the objects of experience like human body, and other objects from the nature like fruits and subjects like landscape and women on another matter like a canvas. Thus, he called it representation, and imitation, not just a copy of the original. Also, Aristotle proposed that the essential function of art is to provide human satisfaction.

There are various meanings of aesthetics and all of them are related. Plato and Aristotle like in the Greek philosophy of ‘Pre-Socratics”, refer to the lived and felt experience. This meant that the knowledge and understanding is mostly gained through the senses and not so much from reason. The senses overruled the reason. However, Descartes is regarded as the founder of the modern philosophy on the grounds that he gave primacy to thought over perception. He declared, ‘I think, therefore I am” in his work Discourse on Method in 1637.

Thus, much of the history of Western philosophy considered aesthetic experience as a subordinate to reason and logical inquiry owing to the influence of philosophers like Descartes.

Terry Eagleton said “aesthetics is born as a discourse of the body”. Much of its understanding comes from Baumgarten.

According to Baumgarten, the Greek term- ‘aesthesis’ referred to human perception and sensation in contrast to the domain of conceptual thought.

Kant, in what he called the ‘Copernican Revolution’
declared that the human mind is always actively involved in experiences, which are of a definite pattern. We have knowledge of things we have experienced and that which we haven’t and are yet to.

His philosophy was nearly taken over by Baumgarten who, in his book, ‘Metaphysica’ (1739) proposed that the rational judgment divides the world into subjects and objects and predicates. It is the aesthetic experience which allows us be consciously allowed in the unified whole.

Aesthetics and Western Contemporary Art

Motion and Light

Artists have faced several limitations in order to show movement and deal with light as well as sound since age-old to express their ideas. Artists must have struggled in order to show the movement they intended to in the painting, and the same challenge must have been faced in dealing with light in olden times.

However, in the early days, artists like Marchel Duchamp, Michelangelo and many more have worked extensively to work on motion and light in their work and have left a mark inspite of the limitations faced by them.

Renaissance artists could contribute to a certain extent with their increased understanding of the anatomy. However it was not until the 20^th century that the element of movement could be included.

Marchel Duchamp’s, The Nude descending the staircase (1911), has been made to depict the movement of the body on the surface.

Marcel Duchamp, Nude descending the staircase.

The painting also uses the element of light, some parts being colored in light, and the rest in darker shades.Giacoma Balla delved into the aesthetics of representation of movement and transition.

Giacoma Balla, the Dog on Leash

In his work, the Dog on Leash (1912), the movement has been depicted by showing the repetition of the stroked of the legs of the dog as well as the person moving along with him.Muybridge’s work shows movement using photography by using several cameras to depict motion, his zoopraxiscope which is like a flexible perforated film strip today, contributed immensely to the idea of motion and light.

Such works have contributed to the idea of using movement and light in an aesthetic way. Thus, with such developments painting, photography and sculpture were being seen and dealt with in a way that they carved a niche and made a way of seeing things in a new light.

Further, in 1930, Alexander Calder’s work, Mobiles

Alexander Calder, Mobiles

Based on the idea of using movement by wind, the parts were joined such that, as and when the wind struck them, their combinations would move accordingly. Sound was created as a result of the movement.

Alberto Giacometti, the Swiss sculptor became well-known for his work called City Square (1949).

Alberto Giacometti, City Square

Though his work is simple, the aesthetic outcome of the movement depicted in the human figures can be connected with that of the expressive movement rendered by Balla and Duchamp.

Similarly, George Segal’s work, Cinema- reminds of the action which takes place as the workman applies the letter. It gives one a feeling of something that is real, yet unreal. The backlighting gives it a mystery of creating a shadow hence elevating the aesthetic experience of the viewer.

                                      George Segal, Cinema

  George Rickey’s beautifully designed sculptures deal with movement and the sound too. The stainless steel parts are designed such that when the air passes through them; their movement leaves a sound in the air.

                                   George Rikey, Five Lines

Len Lye’s, Grass has an element of movement and light.

Len Lye, Grass

It uses the element of light along with the movement of the tall grass. Such aesthetic contribution left an example for other artists to incorporate, sound, light and movement in their work.

On the other hand, the American Artist, Vardea Chryssa’s- Times Square is a work that relates strongly with the lights and a sign as it refers to environment, the busy street of New York.

Chryssa’s- Times Square

Looking at Lazlo Moholy Nagy’s work called the light modulator made in 1930, it reflects he that he worked with three dimensional form, light, shadow and movement. His aesthetic approach looks very similar to Michelangelo’s work, though the significant difference is that the latter was interested in working with human forms and that Lazlo was more interested in working with form, light and shadow just for the sake of it, and not for a wider outcome or an implication.

Lazlo Moholy Nagy’s light modular

The above mentioned work was produced in the advent of post-modern times. Post-modernism is dated to be started in around 1870’s. However, according to Kohler and Hassan, the word ‘post-modernism’ was first used by Federico-de Onis in 1930’s to express a reaction to modernism. Post-modern largely implies a paradigm shift in modernism world views.

The term post-modernism became familiar in 1960’s in New York, when artists like Rauschenberg, Cage, Burroughs, Barthelme, Fielder, Hassan and Sontage started producing their works.

Then, this movement was referred to as modernism’s end because of the institutionalization in academy and museum.

Therefore this term is mostly referred to as a movement in which the re-organization of knowledge and massive changes in art practice took place.

 The distinction between the aesthetic practice and the theory which talks about aesthetics dissolved and became a part of the work itself. This means that aesthetics, involved theory in itself, hence like the above mentioned works of artists, the work of art became intuitively self-reflexive and more of an artist fragmentizing their works instead of building them on modernism theories.

In the literary art, the discourse only became one of the many truths instead of being the only resource. Therefore, the author has no control over the meaning of the text. The signifier is free from the ultimate representation by itself because the union of the signifier and signified being dissolved.

Thus, a similar impact can be seen in works of artists mentioned above as their work became far free and open ended to several interpretations.

Notes and References:

Essential Humanities-http://essentialhumanities.net/s_art_clasrom.html

Visual Arts- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_arts

Contemporary Art-
Charlotte Buel Johnson
Aesthetics, Modern and Postmodern-
Dr. B.Tirupati Rao
The post-modern Agenda-
Charles Jencks