Contemporary Approaches Theory Intro Day 2

1
Contemporary Approaches / Theory Intro -- Day 2

• How do we think we know what is beautiful? What
  are our theories of taste?
• What are Kants rules for reading the
  beautiful? What is his theory of taste?

2
This diagram depicts the awkward object of study
for this course the overlap between the reader
and text that is defined by the explicit or
implicit theory of interpretation at work when we
make meaning and attribute value to language,
literature, and culture.
Subject
(Art) Object
3
Klimts The Kiss (1907)

• Is it beautiful? (an aesthetic question)
• How is it beautiful? (still an aesthetic
  question)
• How do we know it is beautiful? (a question of
  aesthetic theory a meta-question)

4
How do we think we know that The Kiss is
beautiful, great, or a work of genius?

• In their comments on Friday, Elizabeth and
  Sarah-Blake concentrated on the formal properties
  of the painting. To an extent, their approaches
  implied that beauty can be located in the art
  object.

5
We know it is beautiful because

• It represents a moment of interpersonal intensity
  that anyone can recognize and appreciate. This
  rationale presumes that kissing is a universal
  experience (and that the encounter in the
  painting is unambiguously positive)

6
We know it is beautiful because

• Of its canonical value in art history. Its
  enduring reputation among experts, and its
  institutional sanction by universities and
  museums proves its merit.

7
We know it is beautiful because

• Of its influence on the works of art that come
  after it. The Kiss deserves to be regarded as
  great because of its innovations.

8
We know it is beautiful because

• Of its market value. On 19 June 2006, Klimts
  portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I sold for 135
  million.

9
We know it is beautiful because

• We just like it (but without the expectation that
  anyone else must). This attitude - akin to I
  dont know much about art, but I know what I
  like regards taste as sheer opinion.

10
Our approaches to the Mona Lisa (1503-1507) were
comparable

• Art history says it is more famous than The Kiss
  (test-of-time)
• The enigmatic smile has been the subject of
  infinite debate (formal quality)

11
Kants Critique of Judgment (1790) An Old School
Theory of the Beautiful?
12
How does Kant think we know what is beautiful?
To understand how he intends to regulate our
thinking about taste, we must track his
distinctions and his terminology.

• The mental faculties of understanding, reason,
  and imagination
• Determinative Judgment v. Reflective Judgment
• Subjective universality v. subjective or
  objective
• The beautiful v. the good or the agreeable
• Disinterest v. Interest
• Purposiveness without purpose
• Pleasure/Non-pleasure v. Emotion

13
Two more distinctions well get to on Wednesday

• The beautiful v. the sublime
• Genius v. the sensus communis (the common sense
  of non-geniuses)

14
Lets begin with the paragraph from section 6
that appears on Fridays handout.
This explication of the beautiful can be inferred
from the preceding explication of it as object of
a liking devoid of all interest. For if someone
likes something and is conscious that he himself
does so without any interest, then he cannot help
judging that it must contain a basis for being
liked that holds for everyone. He must believe
that he is justified in requiring a similar
liking from everyone because he cannot discover,
underlying this liking, any private conditions,
on which only he might be dependent, so that he
must regard it as based on what he can presuppose
in everyone else as well.
15
He cannot discover such private conditions
because his liking is not based on any
inclination he has (nor on any other considered
interest whatever) rather, the judging person
feels completely free as regards the liking he
accords the object. Hence he will talk about the
beautiful as if beauty were a characteristic of
the object and the judgment were logical (namely,
a cognition of the object through concepts of
it), even though in fact the judgment is only
aesthetic and refers the object's presentation
merely to the subject. He will talk in this way
because the judgment does resemble a logical
judgment inasmuch as we may presuppose it to be
valid for everyone. On the other hand, this
universality cannot arise from concepts. For from
concepts there is no transition to the feeling of
pleasure or displeasure... (NATC 509)
16
Where in Kants text do we first learn the
difference between reflective and determinative
judgment, and what does it matter?
17
Consider the end of the paragraph in the middle
of page 505, beginning with the words, Now if in
this comparison a given presentation
unintentionally brings the imagination (the
power of a priori intuitions) into harmony with
the understanding (the power of concepts)
In the passage, what one purpose is attributed to
the art object?
18

• In this page from Want and Klimowskis comic book
  Introducing Kant (1996), we learn how judgments
  of beauty form from a collaboration between the
  mental faculty of imagination and the faculty
  understanding. (Judgments of the sublime, well
  see Wednesday, involve a conflict between
  imagination and reason.)

19
Where in the text does Kant distinguish between
the agreeable, the good, and the beautiful? How
are the first two each connected with interest,
and how is the beautiful free of interest?
20
Receiving three mentions in the lists of great
literature Huckleberry Finn. Receiving two
mentions The Awakening, The Canterbury Tales,
Inferno, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the
Rye, Pride Prejudice, and Hamlet.
Section 6 explains that if we Kantian subjects
find an object beautiful, and do so through the
disinterested exercise of imagination in harmony
with understanding so that we are certain that we
have not been duped by the merely agreeable or
good, then we cannot help but judge that
everyone ought to find the object beautiful. Yet,
Kant later adds that a judgment of taste does
not postulate everyones agreement. (511)
21
At this point, we can return to our simplistic
diagram to identify the overlapping space in
Kantian terms. If the art object is judged to be
beautiful, then the space in both circles
represents subjective universality.
Subject
(Art) object
22
Are Kantian aesthetics a contemporary approach?

• In response to the inclusion of Chris Ofilis
  The Virgin Mary in the Sensations exhibit at
  the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1999, then Mayor
  Rudy Giuliani asserted his executive authority to
  stop the indecent show.
• Ofili uses elephant dung as a material in much of
  his art. He defends that his work concerns the
  interaction of European and African cultures.
  With the dung, he incorporates literal pieces of
  the African continent into art that often takes
  up recognizably Christian topics.

23
Read more about Giulianis Aesthetic Theory and
the work of Chris Ofili.

• The Brooklyn Museum, with the support of groups
  such as the NYC Arts Coalition, contested
  Giulianis 1999 decision by invoking the 1st
  Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A federal
  court ruled in favor of the Museum.
• To oversee art institutions in receipt of city
  funds, in 2001 Giuliani formed a New York City
  Decency Commission, as reported by Catholic
  World News.
• In 1998, Ofili won the Turner Prize in Britain,
  which also prompted an uproar over standards of
  taste.

24
For Wednesday Kant pages 519-535, On the Sublime
the Sensus Communis.

• The editors explain that the sublime shows us
  a misfit between mind and world nature appears
  to dwarf human concerns and capabilities (502).
  
• Why does this matter for Kants broader goal in
  his great trilogy of philosophy? (see 500)

Romantic painter J.M.W. Turners works, such as
Snowstorm (1842) are often regarded as attempts
to depict the sublime.