What is Art?

[PoliSciProf]

Wow! This sure takes me back to my student days! I’m not sure I can do this subject justice, but here’s my try.

But art is not a “speech”. It is evocative, not an exhortation. It invites the beholder to “persuade himself” of some truth by connecting with things the beholder already knows or feels. Thus, for example, Tolkien’s “Ring” stories evoke profoundly Catholic “thought connections” in us without ever once being literally Catholic in any way. The “morals of the story” are not forced on us , but drawn out of us.

As Percy Bysshe Shelley (I think it was him) said “Beauty is truth and truth beauty. That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

Well, that’s my try, anyway.

Ridgerunner, WOW! Great response! I had a single Aesthetics course as undergrad and I loved it. It sounds like you did too. It almost made me go on in philosophy rather than Poli Sci. I have never stopped thinking about the questions I posed in this thread. First, a very minor point: It was Keats (Ode to a Grecian Urn) who said the truth/beauty stuff, not Shelley. I agree that there is a didactic component to art. I also agree that there is something subjective (we all like different things for different reasons) to the aesthetic experience (which is akin to a spirtiual or religious experience) and that art, especially great art (whether it be Keat’s Urn poem or a painting or a piece by Mozart) points us to something higher which I would argue is not a cultural or historical artifact) If so, then reality itself is hierarchical. The Greeks and the Medievals were therefore correct, an unpopular (and essentially untaught) postion in modern times. Art is not Reason but, like Reason, an Icon (or image) of something beyond words (logos). I think this means that I have finally become some sort of Platonist so you and I and Keats are in vicious agreement. I am really enjoying all of the posts in this thread.Many thanks and let’s keep it up. I think after 40 years or so (I am a slow learner) I finally have the questions figured out and now I am working on some answers.

 

[Benadam]

? I would like to believe or argue that great art is universal and transcendent.

That would define what makes something great. I would argue that is what makes anything great. Also in regards of transcendence as a concept of movement outside and above what currently is, if it is agreed such a movement exists, it would have to have already existed before someone moved there or man would have to be considered the creator. This leads me to accept that, for me what makes art great is it’s ability to reveal God even if only through being able to reveal His created perfections.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ridgerunner, WOW! Great response! I had a single Aesthetics course as undergrad and I loved it. It sounds like you did too. It almost made me go on in philosophy rather than Poli Sci. I have never stopped thinking about the questions I posed in this thread. First, a very minor point: It was Keats (Ode to a Grecian Urn) who said the truth/beauty stuff, not Shelley. I agree that there is a didactic component to art. I also agree that there is something subjective (we all like different things for different reasons) to the aesthetic experience (which is akin to a spirtiual or religious experience) and that art, especially great art (whether it be Keat’s Urn poem or a painting or a piece by Mozart) points us to something higher which I would argue is not a cultural or historical artifact) If so, then reality itself is hierarchical. The Greeks and the Medievals were therefore correct, an unpopular (and essentially untaught) postion in modern times. Art is not Reason but, like Reason, an Icon (or image) of something beyond words (logos). I think this means that I have finally become some sort of Platonist so you and I and Keats are in vicious agreement. I am really enjoying all of the posts in this thread.Many thanks and let’s keep it up. I think after 40 years or so (I am a slow learner) I finally have the questions figured out and now I am working on some answers.

I never had an aesthetics course, but wish I did back when things were more sane. Thanks for the correction on Shelley/Keats. Always did have trouble keeping those two distinguished, and I haven’t read either one for a long time.

I massively appreciated Eliot, and loved what he had to say about art. But I think the first time I came close to “getting it” (not saying I do even now) was when studying MacBeth. The prof kept asking “what is the dramatic purpose of this…what is the dramatic purpose of that?” I just had a devil of a time with that. It finally dawned on me WHY witches in particular, WHY deceptive prophecies, WHY MacDuff’s final offer of leniency. WHY Macbeth refused it. It’s because we all already know in our hearts what it is to depart from Providence and “marry” evil. It is because we already know that it’s a deception to do that. It is because we already know what true repentence is and what its consequences are. It is because we already know that damnation is freely chosen…it’s no “slip and fall”, it’s no “accident”. It’s "Then lay on MacDuff, and damned be him who first cries “Hold! Enough!”.

And Shakespeare never said one word of it directly. He pulled it out of us by the employment of his dramatic devices. He pulled out a “truth” a “symmetry” we hardly knew we knew. It’s something we can reflect upon all our lives long, and I have.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Forgive me for adding this.

And real art produces an “aha!”, an “epiphany”, a real accretion to the symmetry of the truths we know, even if we don’t know them well, and a delight in seeing that accretion because it increases the symmetry. I think we humans are built for that. I think it’s our greatest joy.

Getting a little philosophical here, I often think of the Beatific Vision in those terms. The overwhelming and inexhaustible “Aha-ness” of infinity, for eternity. I’m sure that’s not all there is to it, but I enjoy thinking of it in that way.

 

[drafdog]

The artist renders extraordinary that which is ordinary.

Now go back and take a philosophy of aesthetics course. There should be a decent reading list to go with it. You won’t get a proper answer on a website like this.

Matthew

 

[Benadam]

Forgive me for adding this.

And real art produces an “aha!”, an “epiphany”, a real accretion to the symmetry of the truths we know, even if we don’t know them well, and a delight in seeing that accretion because it increases the symmetry. I think we humans are built for that. I think it’s our greatest joy.

Getting a little philosophical here, I often think of the Beatific Vision in those terms. The overwhelming and inexhaustible “Aha-ness” of infinity, for eternity. I’m sure that’s not all there is to it, but I enjoy thinking of it in that way.

That is a great description. Reading this was like ‘aha’ that’s what I didn’t know I already knew! Really it put words to the experience of appreciating art in it’s noblest forms.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The artist renders extraordinary that which is ordinary.

Now go back and take a philosophy of aesthetics course. There should be a decent reading list to go with it. You won’t get a proper answer on a website like this.

Matthew

Ah, but isn’t it a delightful bunch of improper answers?