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Turning to Beauty
Andres Serrano. 1987
Programme Details• Download Course Programme at: studioit.org.uk• Dates, times, location, assignments for
assessment, synopsis of lecture, key and suggested readings, seminar tasks, bibliography
• Download Lectures and Assessment Criteria• Three lectures in total - SB42 at 1.00pm Monday• Direct Entry Additional Session – Wed 14 Nov• Advanced Research Skills – Stg 3 Thurs 15 Nov• New York Students…see Handout
Key and Suggested Readings
• Both Key and Suggested readings are listed. All indicate which texts in the bibliography are most relevant to which topics
• Read the Key readings before the seminars. • Key readings – originals handed out in
seminars. Keep in studio. Photocopy & replace.• 98% of texts are on the Academic Reserve and
can be photocopied. Don’t get fined!
Seminars & Assessment
• Groups on Noticeboard
• Stg 2 Tuesday / Stg 3 Thursday.
• See Course Programme for Seminar assignment
• Critical Notebook & Written Assignments. See Course Programme for details.
STAGE 3 – Groups 2 and 3ALTERATION
• First Seminar • Friday 9 November• Room – To be advised
• Group 2 at 12.00 on Friday• Group 3 at 1.00 on Friday• Group 1 remains on Thursday at 9.30 SA46• Groups 2 and 3 will be on Thursday in Wks 2
and 3
Beauty Aesthetics
Aesthetics and theories of Beauty are not the same, because the theory of beauty may be concentrated on objects and appearances
but aesthetics is concerned with perceptions and perceivers
Donoghue 2003
X X and Y
Modern aesthetics – perceptions, the perceiver and the perceived
The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics
• Literature• Film• Photography• Painting • Sculpture• Music• Dance • Theatre
• Taste• Beauty• Imagination and Make
Believe• Narrative• Art, Expression and
Emotion• Humour
‘aesthesis’ – the senses
• Alexander Baumgarten (1714-62): first used the term Aesthetics. He defined this as ‘cognition by means of the senses’, later specifying the perception of beauty within art.
• Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804): founder of modern aesthetics
• The Critique of Judgement (1790) ‘what is required in order to call an object beautiful?’
• Kant distinguished aesthetic judgement from other kinds of pleasure, advancing the aesthetic response as specific and distinct
Kant’s narrative of the aesthetic
• To experience beauty in either nature or art, was to experience delight and pleasure
• This experience was subjective and ‘disinterested’• Disinterested does not mean ‘uninterested’• It means independent of knowledge which might affect
that pure experience; moral or other types of judgement, prejudices or preferences, what kind of thing is being looked, whether an object is good or bad…
• Beauty – ie the purest aesthetic experience - is recognised as a ‘feeling of delight’ resulting from the ‘free play of the mind’ and seems to involve a focus on elements of form.
A ‘subjective’ view
The Critique of Judgement. 1790
Emmanuel Kant 1704 – 1824
The agreeable, the beautiful, and the good thus denote three different relations …to the feeling of pleasure.
…The agreeable is what GRATIFIES a man; the beautiful what simply PLEASES him; the good what is ESTEEMED (approved).
‘Flowers, free patterns, lines aimlessly intertwining
technically termed foliage have no signification, depend upon no definite concept, and yet
please’
Kant. The Critique of Judgement. Section 1. Book 1. SS4. Delight in the good is coupled with
Interest.
Questions such as….. What is Beauty? have given rise to intellectual histories of thousands of years and to a bewildering
array of mutually incompatible answers…..The questions are radically
open, so radically open that you can answer them for yourselves….
Sartwell. 2003
Interrogating Beauty• Is it the object that is beautiful? Does
Beauty arise from form and appearance?
• Does Beauty arise from the senses and the emotions alone? Do we only need to see and feel to apprehend beauty?
• What is the role of the intellect, of knowledge or of reason in creating our sense of Beauty?
• Is Beauty purely subjective, historical or cultural – essentially a matter of taste?
The word for Beauty in Greek is ‘kalos’
Kalos infers illumination; that which is drenched in light
The noble soul is the clearly illuminated soul and such a soul will be beautiful
The Light of God
Piss Christ Andres Serrano 1987
Cibachrome photograph 5 ft x 3 ft
Encased, submerged and sealed in the artist’s own urine
‘a deplorable, despicable display of vulgarity’
Senator Alfonse D’Amato. 1989
Sixteen theories of BeautyOgden Richards & Wood. 1922
• Possesses the simple quality of Beauty
• Has a specified form• Is an imitation of Nature• Results from successful
exploitation of a medium• Is a work of Genius• Reveals Truth, the Spirit
of Nature, the Ideal, the Universal or the Typical
• Produces illusion
• Leads to desirable social effects
• Is an expression• Causes pleasure• Excites emotions• Promotes a specific
emotion• Involves processes of
empathy• Heightens vitality• etc• etc
Six Names of Beauty. C. Sartwell
• Beauty; the object of longing (English)• Yapha; glow, bloom (Hebrew)• Sundara; holiness (Sundara)• To Kalon; idea, ideal (Greek)• Wabi-Sabi; humility imperfection (Japanese)• Hozho; health, harmony (Navajo)
Beauty as a Property of the Object
To Kalon
Perfection
He had been told that life was beautiful. No! Life is round
Bousquet, J
Plato. The Eternal Forms
• What then shall we imagine to be the aspect of supreme beauty itself, simple, pure, uncontaminated with the intermixture of human flesh, colours and all other ideal shapes attendant on mortality (Symposium)
• And the ratios of their (the cube, triangle…) numbers, motions and other properties, everywhere God, as far as necessity allowed or gave consent, has exactly perfected and harmonised due to proportion (Timaeus)
Numbers embody Reason and Truth. 2 x 2 is always 4
This is an absolute; it is always and infinitely true, thereby partaking of Truth
Absolutes are constant and eternal, representing perfection, the infinite and the Ideal
The realm of the Ideal, is the kingdom of the Gods (Heaven). Numbers, as representative of the absolute are therefore associated with Heaven
The realm of the Gods, or Heaven, by definition, also includes Goodness
Numbers therefore partake of the absolutes of Truth and Goodness
Greek Beauty, therefore, embodies Truth and Goodness through numbers
Beauty does not lie in the individual elements but in the harmonious proportion of the parts
Galen. 2nd century AD
The Parthenon. Phidias. 447-32 BCThe Doryphorus. The Canon of Polyclitus. 450 BC
Chaise Longue. 1929. Le Corbusier. Charlotte Perriand
‘Geometry is the language of man…he has discovered rhythms…apparent to the eye and clear in their relations with one another’ Le Corbusier.
The Golden Rectangle: 1 : 1.618
The Perfect Square
The Perfect Circle from the Golden Rectangle
THE GEOMETRY OF DESIGN. KIMBERLEY ELAM
Volkswagen Beetle. 1997.
Jay Mays Freeman Thomas. Peter Schreyer
The Golden Rectangle
The Golden Ellipse
The Perfect Circle
To Kalon: The principles of Greek Beauty as a property of the Object
• Simplicity
• Purity
• Perfect form through mathematical order– Mathematics, geometry and measurement
• Balance, poise, restraint, control
• Truth, goodness and nobility
Beauty as an experience of the perceiver
Wabi –Sabi
imperfection
The Tao is something vague and indefinableHow indefinable! How vague!Yet in it there is a formHow vague, how indefinableYet in it there is a thingHow obscure! How deep!Yet in it there is a substanceThe substance is genuineAnd in it sincerityFrom of old until nowIts name never departsWhereby it inspects all thingsHow do I know all things in their suchness?It is because of this
Lao Tzu describing the essence of ‘Tao’, the ‘watercourse way’. 3rd Century. Tao-te Ching.
Kizaemon Tea Bowl. Korea. 16th / 17th century
A lightening flash - the sound of water dropsFalling through bamboo
Come out to view
The truth of flowers
Blooming in poverty
The Sound of Water. Haiku by Basho, Buson, Issa, and Other Poets. Shambahla, 2000
Observance of deep structures and elemental forces
Matsui Kosei. Vase. 1979
Crafting Beauty in Modern Japan
Detail of cracks in wooden siding.
Leonard Koren. Wabi Sabi
‘Wabi’ poverty, a humble life
‘Sabi’ loneliness, a melancholy solitude
http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v2n2/gallery/roth_r/slides/collecting19.htm
http://www.resurgence.org/resurgence/issues/koren203.htm
Wabi Sabi and Zen
• Humble• Useful • Worn• Imperfect• Ordinary• Simple• Unadorned• Essential• Pure
• Contemplation• Meditation• Self denial• Self discipline• Serenity• Simplicity• Essence• Awareness• Enlightenment
Wolfgang Laib
The art of imperfection
‘Simplicity is at the core of things wabi-sabi’(L Koren. p.71)
Pouring milk / Milkstone 1988
http://www.speronewestwater.com/cgi-bin/iowa/artists/record.html?record=10
Wolfgang Laib
http://members.aol.com/mindwebart4/WLaib.htm
Pollen from pine. 1999
IMAGE CREDIT: Wolfgang Laib, Pollen from pine 1999. 4 jars with pollen and seive spread on area, variable from 140 x 160cm and 320 x 360cm. Collection
ifa Stuttgart.
D Donoghue. Speaking of Beauty. 2003“its diverse manifestations”
1. Beauty as a property of the object in question. Is it the object that is beautiful? Does Beauty arise from form and appearance?
2. Beauty as an experience of the perceiver. What is the role of the intellect, of knowledge and reason in creating our sense of Beauty?
Kantian Aesthetics
• Aesthetic judgement is distinct from all other judgements involving pleasure
• The aesthetic response is ‘disinterested’; free from any other interest or concern, unaffected by personal desires or beliefs about what is right or wrong, good or bad…
What is Beauty?
Seminar Assignment 1
• Where do you personally find beauty? Come prepared to discuss what you think beauty is and bring any related image or object.
Everything is in the Course Prog.
