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ilynm2018-blog · 6 years ago

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Reflection

Now that we have discussed aestheticism in someone depth and I've managed to conclude my definition, let's apply those theories to some artworks. All art pieces presented in this blog post have solely been done by me.

Figure 1. Anderson.Paak fan-art.

I am a digital artist but have dabbled in traditional arts - like sculpture, acrylic painting and so on. The first piece was a work of fan-art I had done for a former close friend of his favourite musician Anderson Paak. Although I had gone in detail with the facial features, I lacked any effort in even forming a background and even the neck down is quite rushed. Although I can be critical of my artworks, I understand that my level of art is relatively high, so this portrait was one of my better-received images.

Applying Kant's theory of aestheticism, the image suitable. Although not entirely true to life, it has a somewhat Disney-esque feel to it, which is almost always universally accepted and loved by most non-artists alike. There is nothing too jarring or extraordinary about it and the image focus is almost exclusively on the face. This artwork, although technically sound, is very much quite plain to me. The 'natural' and 'soft' features allow it to be received as a very nice and warming portrait - which ultimately falls under Kant's theory, from my interpretation anyway.

Now on the other hand, if we delve into theorists like Eagleton and Saville, does this portrait invoke any sort of emotional response? Yes, the image is fine and pretty, but realistically, if I look at it for long enough, I'm not unaware of its boring qualities. Although deemed as beautiful by the receiver and a fair few people, this image invokes absolutely no emotion in me whatsoever. I suppose if I looked further, the image itself is aesthetically sound based on stylistic choice, but what could be sound to me might not be sound to some? The more I read into aestheticism, the further my grasp on the concept seems to get.

Figure 2. The sleeping boy.

The next image is also entirely digital. I've referenced my lack of skill in choosing interesting colour palettes before and I've made an effort recently to step-up my game in that department. I'm a very big fan of blue, purple and pink hues! There's something so mystical and dreamy about it to me. Although this image includes background and surrounding 'props', it is not nearly as rendered as the previous one. Ultimately I aspire to be a cartoonist, so hyper-realism has never been my forte.

“For Baumgarten, aesthetic cognition mediates between the generalities of reason and the particulars of sense; the aesthetic partakes in the perfection of reason but a ‘confused’ mode. Aesthetics is thus the ‘sister’ of logic”. Eagleton, 1989, The Rhetoric of Interpretation and the Interpretation of Rhetoric, 75 - 76.

When I was younger, I would strive for absolute perfectionism - well perfectionism to the degree that I could achieve as a 13-year-old. I was particularly anal about any images I would render and if it didn't meet my standard criteria, I'd bin the entire picture and be done for the day. I was a big sook, to put it bluntly. These days, I've loosened my fear of making mistakes and although that 13-year-old in me still pin-points every error and flaw, I've found that allowing myself to experiment has widened by artistic horizons. I always had some strange nagging fear that if I had posted an image that delved from my norm, I would disappoint my audience - that ideology had stunted my growth to a horrible degree and is something I'm still working on recovering from now.

Experimenting with different filter apps and colour has increased my digital reach and allowed myself to be seen by a bigger crowd. What I thought was aesthetically jarring to some was quite beautiful to others, and knowing which colours to use to invoke which feelings have played an impact on my art at the moment. Looking at this image, I know that almost any people can relate to the feeling of your alarm screeching at you to get up at some ungodly hour. The stark light-ish pink, almost white window behind creepily shining in on what could have possibly been a wonderful sleep-in, now shattered. The lightning and star symbols plastered on top of the image adds an entirely new layer to what could have been a very boring image, in my opinion anyway. Playing with symbols and lighting has not only improved my... artistic story-telling but it has just been plain old fun!

I no longer strive for just pretty images, I want to tell stories and I want my audience to feel the emotions I am trying to invoke!

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References

Adorno, T., 1996. Aesthetic theory. 1st ed. London: Athlone.

Dickie, G., 1964. The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude. 1st ed. University of Illinois Press: North American Philosophical Publications.

Hernadi, P., 1989. The Rhetoric of Interpretation and the Interpretation of Rhetoric. 1st ed. Durham: Duke University Press.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2019. Aesthetics. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.iep.utm.edu/aestheti/.[Accessed 20 August 2019.]

Kivy, P., 2004. The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics. 1st ed. Malden, MA: The Blackwell Pub.

Lamarque, P. and Olsen, S., 2019. Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. 2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell.

Plato Stanford. 2016. Nietzsche. [ONLINE] Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/. [Accessed 20 August 2019.]

Wikipedia. 2019. History by Period. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_by_period#Mid_Modern_Period_(1750_–_1945). [Accessed 20 August 2019.]

Y9history. 2019. What factors shaped the world from 1750 to 1918? [ONLINE] Available at: http://y9history.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/0/9/26094658/y9chapter1.pdf. [Accessed 20 August 2019.]

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ilynm2018-blog · 6 years ago

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Defining Aesthetics

In this blog post, we'll be discussing the two opposing theories on aesthetics and ultimately concluding with my own personal definition after examining the counterpoint theories.

The origins of the word 'aesthetic' can entirely be thanked by the Ancient Greeks. Aesthetic derives from the Greek word 'aisthesis' - to do with feelings and sensitivity, as well as 'aisthanestai' to feel with the senses. With this definition in play, the origins of aesthetics had little to no correlation with beauty. In modern-day times, if one were to glance at the sentence, 'to feel with the senses', you'd assume we were defining the word intuition. Linguistics is a complicated manner, and so too, like humans, definitions evolve and adapt over time to suit its surrounding environment.

At the very beginning, 1750 to be exact, upon arrival of Baumgarten's (one might say, infamous) book Aesthetica caused quite the uproar between philosophers and artists alike. Although this was not the first article to delve into aestheticism as a whole, The Pleasures of the Imagination (1712) by journalist Joseph Addison being one of the predecessors, Baumgarten is credited as a major source within the aesthetic movement. Although there are many branches upon branches of theories and ideologies, the main theory that academics, poets and philosophers alike tend to question is, "are aesthetics, beauty and pleasure inherently tied together?"

During the Mid Modern Period, or the less commonly referred to, Age of Revolution, was when Alexander Baumgarten published 'Aesthetica' - a book containing his thoughts and studies on beauty, something Baumgarten emphasized being tied to aesthetics - 'the inquiry in the science of sensuous knowledge or the meaning and value of our experiences of beauty and the arts' (Richter, Perspectives in Aesthetics, 5). Baumgarten being the very soul founder of coining the term aesthetics itself.

Aside from Baumgarten, the famous philosopher Immanuel Kant linked the pleasures from beauty to aestheticism but focused much less on fine art and artworks. Although Kant revolved his ideologies more so around 'natural' beauty, his theories still apply and he is one of the biggest founders for this particular movement.

"Beauty’s abiding meaning is associated with the order, but in the more modern readings the aesthetic interpretation of beauty is associated with delight and perception (Feagin and Maynard, 1997)."

Lavie and Tractinsky, 2003, Assessing Dimensions of Perceived Visual Aesthetics of Web Sites.

Branching down from the theory of aestheticism and beauty, Frank Sibley issued a set of articles discussing aesthetic concepts and how one requires higher perception and/or more sophisticated 'tastes', which in itself is why most conversations having to do with aesthetics and aestheticism discuss rulings and class - the bourgeois specifically.

“My argument that the ‘aesthetic,' at least in its original formulations, has little enough to do with art. It denotes instead a whole program of social, psychical and political reconstruction on the part of the early European bourgeoisie.”

Eagleton, 1989, The Rhetoric of Interpretation and the Interpretation of Rhetoric, 75 - 76.

On the other end of the aestheticism spectrum, philosophers and writers like Terry Eagleton, George Dickie and Anthony Savile all oppose the notion that aestheticism must be linked to beauty and pleasures. After analyzing the etymology of the word aesthetic, these few have grounded their beliefs in that the 'aesthetic experience' had become inherently based on classism and tastes, otherwise corrupting the original notion of aestheticism itself - Dickie even going as far as writing an entire book entitled 'The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude’ (1964).

The reason why aestheticism is such a fiercely debated topic throughout history is because of how intricate and in-depth one needs to go to justify re-defining aesthetics. So if aestheticism is based on beauty, but my definition of beauty is different to yours, how do I know if something IS truly beautiful? What makes person A's tastes more perceptive and higher quality than person B's? Their social status and wealth? And the very argument that beauty is something that only brings pleasure and happiness is easily arguable by any person that has even a smidgen of emotional capacity.

Allowing aestheticism to be soiled by classism and general snobbishness is quite frankly highly against my values. After reading further into several theories and philosophical articles, I've found myself leaning more towards not allowing aestheticism to be soiled by hierarchy, so to speak. One might consider that an almost purist outlook on the concept, but redefining aestheticism with unneeded rules and regulations takes away from the experience.

I don't only look at art,

I feel it too.

I allow my senses to guide me through my aesthetic experience!