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Art as Aesthetic Creation

Nick Zangwill

in Aesthetic Creation

This chapter articulates and defends the view that a work of art is the intentional product of aesthetic creative thought. The view, roughly, is that someone has an insight into an ... More

This chapter articulates and defends the view that a work of art is the intentional product of aesthetic creative thought. The view, roughly, is that someone has an insight into an aesthetic/non-aesthetic dependency, and then intentionally endows something with aesthetic properties in virtue of the non-aesthetic properties. The chapter gives an account of aesthetic insight and aesthetic action. The account of aesthetic action is an instance of a familiar means-end model of rational deliberation. But the account of aesthetic creative insight is non-rational, and it coincides with traditional accounts of genius. The chapter defends the notion of creative genius against claims made by sociologists of art.Less

INTENTION AND THE CREATION OF ART

Paisley Livingston

in Art and Intention: A Philosophical Study

An examination of the functions of intention in the making of art begins with the contrast between inspirationist and rationalist perspectives on artistic creativity. As an alternative, Livingston ... More

An examination of the functions of intention in the making of art begins with the contrast between inspirationist and rationalist perspectives on artistic creativity. As an alternative, Livingston emphasizes the blending of spontaneous and deliberate, planned and unintentional moments in the creative process. Intentions are necessary to art-making and are linked to the assumption that a work of art is always evaluable in terms of one kind of potential artistic value—artistry or virtuosity. Intentions are linked to artists’ projects, to the distinction between complete and incomplete works of art, as well as to the several senses of ‘fragment’ in critical discourse.Less

‘The Critic as Artist’

Lawrence Danson

in Wilde's Intentions: The Artist in his Criticism

This chapter analyses Oscar Wilde's essay The Critic as Artist, which suggests that the true critic of a work of art is the starting point for a new work of art. This interpretation of Wilde's essay ... More

This chapter analyses Oscar Wilde's essay The Critic as Artist, which suggests that the true critic of a work of art is the starting point for a new work of art. This interpretation of Wilde's essay also discovers a position of refine contempt for the world of fact, which non-artist critics continue to inhabit. The chapter argues that the essay owes its unshapely shape to Wilde's polemical concerns at the beginning of the last decade of the nineteenth century, and its contempt for history to an urgent need to rewrite his history before others could inscribe in on his behalf.Less

The Expression Theory Again

Stephen Davies

in Philosophical Perspectives on Art

This chapter challenges the Expression Theory: a work of art expresses an emotion just in case the artist experienced the emotion and displayed this in her work. Artworks are not expressive in the ... More

This chapter challenges the Expression Theory: a work of art expresses an emotion just in case the artist experienced the emotion and displayed this in her work. Artworks are not expressive in the way required by this theory; they do not betray or symptomize the artist's emotions as her primary expressions, such as tears or groans do. Nevertheless, the work of art can be a secondary expression of the artist's feelings: the artist's feeling is expressed through its creation, though this need not carry over into an expressiveness that can be perceived in the work. And it can be a tertiary expression of the artist's feeling, involving the use of public conventions or rituals for expression. But art can also be expressive of emotions no one feels. One form of self-expression by artists involves their appropriating art's independently expressive character to match, and thereby give sophisticated expression to, their own affective states.Less

Heidegger and the Question of Aesthetics

Paul Crowther

in Art and Embodiment: From Aesthetics to Self-Consciousness

This chapter explores Heidegger's aesthetic theory. Heidegger's response to the question of aesthetics is to be found mainly in Volume One of his Nietzsche study, and the well-known essay ‘The Origin ... More

This chapter explores Heidegger's aesthetic theory. Heidegger's response to the question of aesthetics is to be found mainly in Volume One of his Nietzsche study, and the well-known essay ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’. Section I begins by expounding and elaborating Heidegger's position in the Nietzsche study, and picking out some areas of difficulty. Section II discusses the salient aspects of Heidegger's theory in ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ and, after considering its merits, relates it back to the most important issue in the areas of difficulty noted in Section I.Less

Three Concepts of Objectivity

Andrei Marmor

in Positive Law and Objective Values

The conventional foundations of law and law's relative autonomy raise some difficult questions about the objectivity of law, morality, and the relations between them. This chapter analyzes various ... More

The conventional foundations of law and law's relative autonomy raise some difficult questions about the objectivity of law, morality, and the relations between them. This chapter analyzes various aspects of objectivity and proposes a theory of objectivity based on the distinction between objectivity and metaphysical realism. The example of interpretation in the realm of works of art is used to exemplify three different concepts of objectivity, none of which is committed to metaphysical realism. First, there is objectivity or subjectivity in what is called the semantic sense. The second concept is known as metaphysical objectivity, wherein the objective-subjective dichotomy is a matter of metaphysical truth. The third and final concept is discourse objectivity; a certain class of statements is objective in this sense if it makes sense to ascribe truth values to statements of that class.Less

Face Off: The Allegorical Image and Aesthetics

Brenda Machosky

in Structures of Appearing: Allegory and the Work of Literature

This chapter challenges Plato's exile of the poets and the defensive posture this typically provokes in literary scholars. A close reading of Plato, especially Republic and Ion, reveals that in the ... More

This chapter challenges Plato's exile of the poets and the defensive posture this typically provokes in literary scholars. A close reading of Plato, especially Republic and Ion, reveals that in the image of the philosopher the poet appears. Not synonymous with the figure, the image sustains a conflicting simultaneity, two things in the same space at the same time, a logical contradiction with which philosophy cannot contend yet needs, and that allegory enables and supports. The introductory section analyses the difference of the image as resemblance rather than representation with reference to Plato's khora, Aristotle's phantasma, Heidegger's Gestalt, and Lévinas’ face. The section, “Art and Aesthetics” contests Hegel's judgment against art by proposing a nonaesthetic approach to art and by criticizing the philosophical sleight of hand by which Hegel promotes the Science of Art as Aesthetics. A final section, “The Work of Art,” presents a phenomenology of art, investigating what art is as a thing (a work) and as a task (a working out). Contrary to Hegel's views that art is something no longer essential and allegory is something cold, this chapter concludes that allegory itself is a work of art and can give us art unmediated by philosophy.Less

The Rapture of Sensuousness: “Color Possesses Me … I Am a Painter”

in Crescent Moon over the Rational: Philosophical Interpretations of Paul Klee

This chapter analyzes the connection of Paul Klee's art and writings to the work of Martin Heidegger. It explains that many believed that Heidegger's thought was disconnected not only from the ... More

This chapter analyzes the connection of Paul Klee's art and writings to the work of Martin Heidegger. It explains that many believed that Heidegger's thought was disconnected not only from the artists of his time but from the reality of his time. The chapter also discusses the opinion of Theodor Adorno that Klee's work contradicted Heidegger's idealizing tendencies and the views of Will Grohmann that Klee's was work closer to the Romantics and not Heidegger's search for a new beginning in “The Origin of the Work of Art.”Less

Conclusion

David Roberts

in The Total Work of Art in European Modernism

This concluding chapter argues that the idea of the total work of art can be described as both specter and founding myth of aesthetic modernism, the redemptive dream of the avant-gardes that brought ... More

This concluding chapter argues that the idea of the total work of art can be described as both specter and founding myth of aesthetic modernism, the redemptive dream of the avant-gardes that brought the totalizing aesthetic and political revolutions of the first third of the twentieth century into the closest proximity. It then looks back over the 150 years from the French Revolution to the German revolution and discusses fundamental features of the total work that stand out: (i) the total work as the product of the historical caesura of the French Revolution and as the response to the secularization of religion, and to politics, in the modern period; (ii) the total work as organon of philosophies of history; (iii) the total work as the performative re-fusion of art, religion, and politics; (iv) the total work as the bearer of holistic, redemptive-revolutionary visions of modernity; and (v) the translation of the idea of the total work from the Old to the New World after the Second World War as signifying a rebirth of the total work under the new conditions of mass culture.Less

Religion and Art: Parsifal as Paradigm

David Roberts

in The Total Work of Art in European Modernism

This chapter analyzes the total work as symbol. Wagner’s Parsifal, one of the most important inspirations for the European symbolist movement, stands as the paradigm of the restoration of the ... More

This chapter analyzes the total work as symbol. Wagner’s Parsifal, one of the most important inspirations for the European symbolist movement, stands as the paradigm of the restoration of the symbolic function of art and of the will to the resacralization of the stage. It discusses how Wagner’s path from the festival of the revolution to a renewal of art religion takes us from the unique celebration of the revolution in a temporary theatre constructed for the occasion, as envisaged by Wagner in 1851, to the establishment and institutionalizing of a festival theatre, a temple of art, intended as a site of pilgrimage and sacred performances. It also argues that Parsifal is the pivot on which Ernst Bloch’s philosophy of music turns, forming the bridge between the history of music, which culminates in Wagner’s last work, and the theory of music, which takes the form of a speculative aesthetics.Less

The Symbolist Mystery

David Roberts

in The Total Work of Art in European Modernism

This chapter considers the reception of the idea of the total work of art in European symbolism, as it is reflected, on the one hand, in the tributes in the media of sculpture, painting, literature, ... More

This chapter considers the reception of the idea of the total work of art in European symbolism, as it is reflected, on the one hand, in the tributes in the media of sculpture, painting, literature, and music; and on the other, in Mallarmé’s and in Scriabin’s ambition to surpass Wagner by creating the absolute and ultimate work. It argues that Mallarmé’s Book can only gesture toward the unrealizable idea of the total work of art. It is also an appropriate complement and antithesis to Scriabin’s Dionysian version of dematerialization in his Mysterium, which was to bring about the ecstatic realization—through return to the godhead—of the universal correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm.Less

Staging the Absolute

David Roberts

in The Total Work of Art in European Modernism

This chapter explores Nietzsche and Mallarmé’s critical response to Wagner, where they articulate the two poles of the total work, the political and the spiritual, respectively. Both Mallarmé and ... More

This chapter explores Nietzsche and Mallarmé’s critical response to Wagner, where they articulate the two poles of the total work, the political and the spiritual, respectively. Both Mallarmé and Nietzsche affirm the absolute need of great art at the same time as they assert the primacy of “great poetry and thought” against the seductive power of music. Both are led through their agon with Wagner and the idea of the total work of art to confront the question of aesthetic illusion and to ponder the staging of the absolute in the age of aesthetics that is also the age of nihilism. Mallarmé’s grandiose idea of the Book as symbolist Mystery announces the avant-garde quest for a resacralized theatre; Nietzsche’s prophecy of the coming theatrical age of the political actor and the masses foreshadows the mass politics of the twentieth century.Less

Heidegger, Klee's Turn, and the Origin of the Work of Art

in Crescent Moon over the Rational: Philosophical Interpretations of Paul Klee

This chapter analyzes Martin Heidegger's interpretation of Paul Klee's works based on his essay The Origin of the Work of Art, explaining that Heidegger described Klee's works as he did the Greek ... More

This chapter analyzes Martin Heidegger's interpretation of Paul Klee's works based on his essay The Origin of the Work of Art, explaining that Heidegger described Klee's works as he did the Greek temples and claimed that, in Klee, something has happened that none of us yet grasps. It also mentions Heidegger's discussion with Shinichi Hisamatsu in 1958, where he declared that he valued Klee higher than Pablo Picasso. The chapter also discusses Heidegger's condemnation of surrealism, abstract art, and objectless art to the failures of metaphysics, and highlights his belief that Klee is something of an exception to this.Less

The Connoisseurial Adviser: Matthew Prior, 1664–1721

Helen Jacobsen

in Luxury and Power: The Material World of the Stuart Diplomat, 1660-1714

The cultural activities of Matthew Prior demonstrate that, far from being a privileged occupation of high-ranking diplomats, collecting was a widespread phenomenon in the diplomatic service and ... More

The cultural activities of Matthew Prior demonstrate that, far from being a privileged occupation of high-ranking diplomats, collecting was a widespread phenomenon in the diplomatic service and artistic appreciation proved to be an important and influential attribute for a lesser government official. Despite never making it to the rank of ambassador, Prior’s diplomatic career provided the wherewithal – both cultural and financial – for his significant artistic patronage. It was also the means by which he was able to smooth his career path, acting as an adviser to his patrons and procuring art and luxury goods for them while he was abroad. A study of his collecting shows that he was a connoisseur in every sense of the word; his expenditure on furniture and furnishings, objets, and silver – as well as paintings and sculpture – demonstrates how much more was meant by a ‘work of art’ in the late seventeenth century than we understand by it now.Less

Sailor Shanties

David Manning

in Vaughan Williams on Music

The art of the folk singer, like all true art, is essentially un-self-conscious—the artistic result is not openly sought, but comes, as it were, by accident. In the same way the sailor, with the ... More

The art of the folk singer, like all true art, is essentially un-self-conscious—the artistic result is not openly sought, but comes, as it were, by accident. In the same way the sailor, with the object of improving the quality of his work, has invented the “shanty,” and it is these that Dr Richard Runciman Terry now has collected into a book. Modern developments in machinery have destroyed the original purpose of the shanty, but like the tithe barn, the church, and the castle, they remain for the people as works of art, and it is as works of art, and that only, that one must now judge them. If they are merely of nautical or antiquarian interest, then their proper place is the library of the folklorist or the marine expert.Less

Bra vs. Bra: Feminist Intimate Apparel Art

Jill Fields

in An Intimate Affair: Women, Lingerie, and Sexuality

This chapter focuses on the changes in intimate apparel from the 1960s until present times. It analyzes the various feminist works of art that represent undergarments, and notes that some exhibited ... More

This chapter focuses on the changes in intimate apparel from the 1960s until present times. It analyzes the various feminist works of art that represent undergarments, and notes that some exhibited works like the Bra vs. Bra illustrate the wide range of uses and definitions of intimate apparel. These works also raise interesting and challenging questions on cultural representation, power, and gender, and comment and document the more recent undergarment styles. The discussion shows that artists who include intimate apparel and use it to provide alternative or even oppositional views of femininity and its expression by the female body can give further evidence on the significant and lasting symbolic power of intimate apparel artifacts, texts, and representations within American culture.Less

The Promised Land: Toward a Retotalized Theatre

David Roberts

in The Total Work of Art in European Modernism

This chapter examines the total work as the regeneration of sacred theatre. It considers three dramatists of the 1920s: Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Paul Claudel, and Bertolt Brecht, together with Antonin ... More

This chapter examines the total work as the regeneration of sacred theatre. It considers three dramatists of the 1920s: Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Paul Claudel, and Bertolt Brecht, together with Antonin Artaud’s theatre writings and manifestos for a “theatre of cruelty.” The connections between them rest on inner and outer coincidence: the Catholics Hofmannsthal and Claudel both turned to the world theatre of the Spanish baroque. Hofmannsthal collaborated with the director Max Reinhardt in the Salzburg Festival, and a commission from Reinhardt was the occasion of Claudel’s spectacle Christopher Columbus, with music by Darius Milhaud. Brecht was greatly impressed by the premiere of Claudel’s play at the Berlin State Opera in 1930; his own treatment of the crossing of the Atlantic, the 1929 Lehrstück on the aviator Lindbergh with music by Paul Hindemith, can also be read as his version of Artaud’s theatre of cruelty. Artaud (1896–1948) and Brecht (1898–1956)—like Mallarmé and Nietzsche—were almost exact contemporaries.Less

Two: Dwelling: Between Poiēsis and Technē

Gabriel Riera

in Intrigues: From Being to the Other

This chapter discusses the contribution of German philosopher Martin Heidegger to literary theory. In his book Being and Time, Heidegger has provided important insights into ... More

This chapter discusses the contribution of German philosopher Martin Heidegger to literary theory. In his book Being and Time, Heidegger has provided important insights into the metaphysics of being and the contents of the book are ideal materials for addressing the problematic articulation or dialogue between poetic saying and thinking. This chapter examines other relevant works of Heidegger, including his courses on Friedrich Holderlin and Friedrich Nietzsche, and “The Origin of the Work of Art”.Less

National Regeneration

David Roberts

in The Total Work of Art in European Modernism

This chapter examines two texts—Romain Rolland’s Théâtre du peuple (1903) and Gabriele d’Annunzio’s novel Il fuoco (1900)—both of which represent in particularly clear fashion at the turn of the ... More

This chapter examines two texts—Romain Rolland’s Théâtre du peuple (1903) and Gabriele d’Annunzio’s novel Il fuoco (1900)—both of which represent in particularly clear fashion at the turn of the century the dual lineage of the total work of art. Both texts have in common in the context of fin-de-siècle decadence the theme of national regeneration, in the service of socialism with Rolland (1866–1944), who draws his inspiration from the French Revolution; and in the service of nationalism with d’Annunzio (1863–1938), who draws his inspiration from Wagner and Nietzsche. Each author dreams of the total work that will transcend the limits of the theatre to effect a reunion of art and life through the mobilization of the masses. Both texts thus stand in the continuity of the conjurations of the total work across the nineteenth century. Their interest for the present purposes lies in their relation to the postwar totalitarian revolutions. The connection in the case of Rolland is straightforward; the reception of Le théâtre du peuple in Russia underlined the continuity (at least initially) between the French and the Russian revolutions. The connection in the case of d’Annunzio is more substantial in that he is acknowledged as a crucial figure—together with the futurists—in the elaboration of a Fascist aestheticization of politics.Less