Hegel & The Special Forms of Art

It is very clear from glancing at the organization of this text that Hegel's main project is to posit three distinctions that he terms the "Special Forms of Art". These distinctions seem to mainly rest on the divisions he draws between each in terms of the form and idea relation. Near the beginning of his text, Hegel summarizes this in the following way, "Symbolic Art seeks this perfect unity of the idea with the external form; Classic Art finds it, for the senses and the imagination, in the representation of spiritual individuality; Romantic Art transcends it in its infinite spirituality, which rises above the visible world" (Introduction). Hegel, then, documents the progression of art from the Symbolic to the Romantic arguing that the Romantic form is finally is able to unify matter with form--which it seems is connected to the Divine within.

One interesting point made quite explicitly in Hegel was the way in which form and idea are, ideally speaking, so tightly bound together. This seems like a quite useful binding, although Hegel often describes it in a somewhat static way. In noting this relationship he states, "imperfection of the artistic form betrays itself also as imperfection of idea. If, then, at the origin of art, we encounter forms which, compared with the true ideal, are inadequate to it, this is not to be understood in the sense in which we are accustomed to say of works of art that they are defective, because they express nothing, or are incapable of attaining to the idea which they ought to express. The idea of each epoch always finds its appropriate and adequate form, and these are what we designate as the special forms of art". Here (and also later in his discussion of architecture, sculpture, painting, music and poetry) Hegel seems to be suggesting that ideas do not and cannot live outside of forms. Ideas and forms are mutually dependent (although idea must be developed before it finds a suitable form) and, hence, we cannot judge an idea or a form without considering them in tandem. This makes sense to me, and although I'm struggling with the notion that particular Forms are better for particular cultural groups which have particular aggregate ideas (which Hegel hierarchizes), I do believe that Hegel does qualify this notion as he continues: "The imperfection or the perfection can consist only in the degree of relative truth which belongs to the idea itself; for the matter must first be true, and developed in itself before it can find a perfectly appropriate form". Then, again, here it seems like Hegel is reinscribing some sort of split between idea and form...hmm...

Hegel's audience, again, seems to be a group of white men who are "experts" on art and the beautiful. Hegels discussion of the Symbolic Form of Art perhaps made most apparent who this text was excluding. It is interesting to me that linear understandings of art and beauty that explain why white, wealthy people's art goes in art museums and the art of the marginalized Other often goes into archeological or field museums are so explicit in this text. I also found it interesting that although Hegel's text was still very rigidly structured, the binaries present in other texts were not as present here--Hegel even made gestures toward reconciling some of these.

As we move into our class discussion tonight, then, I'd like to talk more about Hegel's notion of Forms and what these imply about our society and about freedom. I would also like to start discussing what in these readings seems to map (and not map) onto our current sense of beauty, art and freedom in our contemporary world.

Kant is killing me...

seriously.

Attempted summary:

It seems to me as if the overarching project of this text is to offer up some (often Greek influenced) dichotomies or trichotomies to help us better understand aesthetic judgement in a ways that draw (seemingly) quite rigid boundaries around subject/object distinctions in service of making an argument for the universal. However, as I re-read particular places in Kant's text, my current sense is that there is (albeit perhaps not much) flexibility in Kant's understanding of the universal. Kant does seem to push at the concept of the universal (particularly in terms of how it might actually play out through experiences in the social and cultural) in a few places throughout the text. I'm sure there is much more to say here...

Audience and issues to further consider:

The fact that Kant was writing to a very specific audience (white, male, middle-class academics) was quite apparent in his text. Because this fact was so clear to me as reader, it was easier to see the ways in which Kant's ideas supported the perspective of that group at the expense of other groups. When I read this, I was initially troubled by the ways in which Kant's ideas continue to resonate throughout our contemporary culture for exclusionary purposes; however, I think Kant may not be as overly deterministic as I initially believed him to be--or, maybe I'm just being to generous as I write this. For example, to Kant, true beauty is disinterested--our emotions, "charm" and, more generally subjective experiences get in the way of our "pure" perceptions. It would be relatively easy to make an argument that who we believe to be "emotional" would likely be those with less power and prestige. Hence, we could certainly understand Kant here to be reserving unimpeded judgement for those who already have social power. Yet, despite Kant's focus on universality and unimpeded judgements, he also seems to acknowledge the ways in which perceptions of beauty might (practically speaking) come into being in more of a social sense (situated in between the agreeable and the good). His discussion of culture and "subjective universality" lend some evidence to this idea. It was more difficult for me to pick up on this aspect of the text because of the ways in which universality seems to shut down the possibility of hope for subjectivity/intersubjectivity (and also, I think, because of the ways in which the nature of this text didn't leave me with much hope for expecting him to move beyond very self-interested position). Given all of this, I'd be interested in further discussing the room Kant leaves us to think about the inconsistencies and claims about what is beautiful cross-culturally and, more generally, how we might most usefully reconcile the notion of a universality with what is particular and subjective in the process of making judgments.

I was also interested in distinctions that Kant makes between the agreeable, the good and the beautiful (and later the sublime). I think these terms interestingly overlap (and fail to overlap) with our previous readings but it seems like the beautiful is an interesting concept that mediates that agreeable and the good. This reminds me of how beauty, to the Greeks, resided in recognizing a connection between the particular and the universal. I would love to talk about these concepts again, particularly in terms of how they might lead us to read Kant in ways that are less caught up in reifying existing power structures by cloaking them in what is deemed universal--which I don't believe is Kant's intention.

Anyway, these are my starting points for Kant...

Baumgarten & Schiller: Reconciling the Tension between Reason and Beauty

The overarching theme to our readings this week seems to be the relationship between what we deem beautiful and what we deem logical or reasonable. Both texts desperately attempt to reconcile the distinction between beauty/reason. While this reconciliation is evident in Baumgarten through the discussion of poetry and philosophy, it is apparent in Schiller through the discussion of the battle between reason and the sensuous and the joining of those in play.

Much like the Aristotle, Horace and Longinus texts of last week, Baumgarten's Reflections on Poetry seems to take as one of its main projects drawing rules and distinctions around what is and isn't poetic; however, Baumgarten's text is unique in that it moves beyond a kind of codification of aesthetics in service of very explicitly attempting to demonstrate the "amicable union" between poetry and philosophy through the use of syllogism and example. While Baumgarten relies on logic to demonstrate the similarities and mutual dependencies of poetry and philosophy, Schiller's Letters make an argument about the necessity for beauty in a freedom. Schiller’s text connects back to our readings last week through its positioning of Greece as the paragon of civilized and balanced life.

In his introduction, Baumgarten states, "I wish to make it plain that philosophy and the knowledge of how to construct poems, which are often held to be entirely antithetical, are linked together in the most amicable union" (36). This statement, along with belaboring of the countless syllogisms used throughout the text leads me to believe that there were a great number of thinkers during Baumgarten's time which would disagree with his central argument. Although Schiller's text seems to take shape very differently, similar evidence exists which suggests the audience to Schiller's text would also see beauty and reason as somewhat distinct. On page 8 Schiller idealizes Greek culture by stating, “Poetry had not yet become the adversary of wit, nor had speculation abused itself by passing into quibbling. In cases of necessity both poetry and wit could exchange parts because they both honoured truth only in their special way….how different is the course followed by us moderns!”. Here, we can see how Schiller’s idealism for Greek life demonstrates that he does not believe his contemporaries view reason and art as balanced. Schiller goes on to draw further distinctions between the Greek value of unity and the modern condition of fragmentation. Overall, then, it seems like Baumgarten and Schiller imagined their audiences as those who were already embedded in divisions between beauty/reason; poetry/philosophy.

Given the fascinatingly similar projects taken up here in two very different ways, I am particularly interested in further discussing the motivations of these writers for creating such texts. For example, is Schiller’s discussion of liberty and freedom implicit in Baumgarten’s text? Why does Schiller’s text take the letter form and why is Baumgarten’s text a, what seems to me, overwhelming list of syllogisms and examples?

Another question I had while reading this text was this: It seems as though these texts (but particularly Schiller) uphold a balance between beauty and reason present in Greek society; yet, what about the ways in which Greek society (and what has come between Greek society and these writings) reinscribes the split between poetry and philosophy? In other words, how do other historical distinctions that these writers themselves rely upon seem to reinscribe the distinction between beauty and reason (poetry and philosophy) that they are so clearly advocating against? Wow, sadly, I'm not sure that I can make that much clearer...!

On Plato, Aristotle, Horace & Longinus...

Horace’s Ars Poetica is a piece that tries to describe define poetry by isolating textual qualities and, at times, drawing correlations between which textual qualities are most suited for particular audiences. The goal of this piece seems to be to trace parallels between the complicated process of writing poetry with other arts, such as painting for the purpose of elevating the cultural status of poetry. Like Ars Poetica Aristotle’s Poetics continues to elaborate on a general definition and description of poetry; yet, more specifically Arisitotle draws boundaries around particular genres (focusing mainly on tradedy). Plato’s dialogues are unique in the form they take to explore love through a series of speakers and also lend insight to the ways in which the other authors might be viewing notions of “public” and “general audience”. Through varying speeches, Plato’s dialogues offer the general insight that love will lead us to beauty. Longinus’ On The Sublime offers a discussion regarding how a text can be written or arranged to transcend the ordinary (including reflection on anything from plurality to narrative structure). These discussions, in their strive to get to the nature of beauty, perfection and love, seem to have the cumulative effect of persuading the public to read and regard texts (and the complex processes that are needed to create them) in favorable ways and to distinguish the “good” from the “bad”.

The texts by Plato, Aristotle, Longinus and Horace seem to make many of the same assumptions about who their audiences might be and which values they might hold. All texts (except Plato) share in common a prescriptive--sometimes an almost textbook-like--style to describing and defining the arts. The style of these texts, then, brings me back to something we discussed within our groups last week--that aesthetics are a kind of codification. Plato, Aristotle, Longinus and Horace (despite the fact that they weren’t all writing during the same time period) seem to approach the texts they write about in ways that attempt to determine the pieces, parts, to reflect on the exigencies and to, in a sense, set the rules. The tone in which these three texts define successful writing, good tragedy, or a great poem are seemingly matter-of-fact (albeit, there is some discussion on how the parts must work together to form a successful whole thus indicating that following prescriptive rules is correlated with success yet does not simply determine it); yet, if we think about aesthetics as a process of codification and consider for a moment the time in which these texts were written, then rhetorically it makes sense that these writers would be attempting to define and re-define what was involved in the process and what the ideal product would look like. Put differently, because these textual forms were in their earlier stages of development, it was necessary for all of these texts to try to clearly define some generic rules that those less familiar could use as a basis to better understand and respect a given text as well as, of course, to think in new ways about composing a text of that sort.

To extend this even further, given that these genres were still being developed and discussed, it would make sense for the writers writing about these crafts would attempt to convey the difficulty and complexity involved in engaging in these practices. This final motivation is perhaps most clear in Horace’s Ars Poetica with his multiple attempts to draw parallels between poetry and painting to argue that the process of both are very similar. The constant comparisons between artistic processes in these texts is particularly striking to me given that artistic process if often talked about as being quite idiosyncratic today (i.e. this artist’s process versus that artist’s process). Granted, there are still many current texts that attempt to do the kind of defining and describing that these authors are doing; however, texts that do this today would likely we read only by novices whereas it seems that these texts were read by if not exclusively insiders than an audience that at least included them.

Thus far, I have mainly focused on the shared purposes of these texts and how these might inform our sense of the audience’s culture preparedness for these treatises. Yet, I have mentioned little regarding the textual clues informing us of who--in terms of social position--the audience for these texts might be. Although I am certainly no expert in classical Greek philosophy, all of these texts seemed to privilege the elite (e.g. “to learn gives the liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers but to men in general; whose capacity however, of learning is more limited”--Aristotle’s Poetics), the middle-aged, and, of course, men. I find it funny to think about the original audience for texts that discuss audiences in relatively static ways. That is, although I’m sure I’m missing a ton in reading these texts due to the fact that I was not the originally intended audience, I can still understand and contextualize these texts. However, I got a strong sense that audiences’ social positions were seen as much more static at the time when these texts where being written. There is much discussion throughout all four of these texts regarding which genres and features are appropriate for which audiences. There is a tension then, between defining the parameters of “good” poetry or “good” plays and what is considered “good” and appropriate to honor particular audiences.


Questions:

Toward the end of Aristotle’s Poetics (on the top of page 27), he discusses the class distinctions between Epic poetry and tragedy. To set up this point, he states the following, “So we are told that Epic poetry is addressed to cultivated audience, who do not need gesture; Tragedy to an inferior public”. How does Aristotle trouble this distinction? What similar distinctions exist today between art forms for audiences that “do not need gesture” and those that do?

In Ars Poetica, Horace seems to offer insight regarding the limitation of beauty alone. On page 7 he states, “Sometimes a tale that lacks stylistic elegance, grandeur, and skill but is adorned with impressive passages and characters that are accurately drawn is a greater source of pleasure and better holds the interest of an audience that verses that lack a vision of reality and are mere trifles to charm the ear”. What is Horace suggesting here about beauty? What does this passage suggest about realism and its relationship to beauty? Who do beauty and realism belong to within this society?

In Longinus’ treatise On The Sublime, he state that “For some hold generally that there is mere delusion in attempting to reduce such subjects [the sublime] to technical rules” (15). Yet, he goes on to write the treatise. This trend of producing technical rules for defining and describing “good” poetry and, more generally, art has been a common theme across our readings for this week. These types of texts (listing technical rules and observations) are given mostly today to novices; yet, to what degree do these authors sense that these technical rules need to work together in ways that cannot be easily described or expressed? What exceptions do they allow for and how do these exceptions introduce a kind of fluidity to the otherwise rigid treatment of text and context?