Kiekegaard, Art, and the Aesthete

Greetings,

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher and, perhaps, theologian from the 19th century. I'm going to present a view of art contained in one of his works, "Either/Or". While this view may or may not actually represent Kierkegaard's own view, it is interesting in its own right, and I believe that it can stand on its own, regardless of whether or not its author would actually endorse such a position. Note that, using the Hongs' translation, what I refer to here shall occur within pages 47 and 134. I would cite everything, but I'll be using so many references that it would plague readability; however, I can back up any specifics as requested. So, here goes.

One can refer to the form of art and the subject of art, and neither of these should be overemphasized (as is often done, be believes). Furthermore, the form can permeate the subject matter, and the subject matter can permeate the form. Aesthetically, for a work to be a classic, the form of work must be the same as the subject of that work. What does this mean? When we talk about a work of art, we can talk about its form (such as that of a poem) and its subject (not only the content of the poem, but what is actually communicated about in the poem). In order for a work to be a "classic" its form must be the same as its subject. As an example, Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni" is pointed to. The subject matter of "Don Giovanni" is an individual who lives as if his spirit existed in a state of pure immediacy, which is the form of the music-- the movement of the spirit through immediacy, as music cannot be abstracted outside of the performance or the moment it is heard/imagined/etcetera (entailing immediacy), and yet it serves as a language, which qualifies it in the realm of spirit.

Another distinction made in this work is the relationship between media (the plural of "medium") and ideas. The more abstract an idea is, the more impoverished it becomes. However, such abstraction is inversely correlated with the likelihood of its being repeated. One might talk of abstraction and concreteness as opposites. Keeping in mind the distinction between media and ideas, in some forms of art, the medium has a high degree of abstraction but a high concreteness in terms of idea, such as in architecture. Homer's use of a concrete idea (history) and a concrete form/medium (natural language) thus created an epic (considering the coherency between the two) that could often be repeated (due to the use of a concrete medium and a concrete idea).

According to this account, sculpture, architecture, painting, and music have abstract media (with sculpture being the most abstract), whereas language is the most concrete of media. Mozart, with "Don Giovanni", managed to find a subject matter that was as abstract as his medium, allowing him to generate an epic.

One can thus speak of the "theme proper" of a medium; for an abstract medium one's "theme proper" is an abstract idea, and one's work cannot be truly great-- cannot be a "classic"-- unless one's medium correlates to one's idea in terms of abstraction/concreteness. Sculpture, the most abstract medium, would thus be inadequate for creating a truly great work about language, the most concrete idea.

So, what do you think? Is there merit to this account? Immediately apparent problems? There's obviously a bit more to it, but hopefully this'll work as an introductory post.

An Attempt at Defining "Art"

Greetings,

On Monday, Philosophia Religioque met and discussed the philosophy of music. One relevant topic that came up was the definition of "art", and what demarcates it from other content. While I am not yet 100% convinced that my definition is necessarily right, I proposed that "art", properly understood, is intentional indirect communication. I'll start by explaining what is meant by those terms, and then get into some of the issues that can be derived from this definition.

At its core level, art is a kind of communication; in fact, I would consider art to fall under the genus of communication. Merriam Webster states that communication is "an act or instance of transmitting". If a painting could only communicate through its visual imagery, and there existed an invisible painting (which I do believe can be understood in concept, even if it's unlikely that one will ever exist), that painting would not be art, because it would be incapable of communication. However, I believe that many things in life qualify as "communications"; thus, this is a broad element, on which I will not say too much more at the moment.

If art is a kind of communication, what kind it? Well, I argue that art is necessarily intentional communication. What is intentional is the communication itself. Say, for example, that I look at the computer monitor in front of me and note its subtly sloping angles, well-rounded curves, and bi-colored palette. While it is true that the monitor might communicate to me a poignant message about the nature of the human condition/experience, such a communication would not have been the intention of the monitor manufacturer, and thus that communication would have been insufficient for the monitor to be considered "art" (although I am not necessarily excluding the possibility of other communications, of course). Even bad art-- whether angsty teenage poetry or annoying pop songs-- serves as intentional communication.

However, while a communication must be intentional to be art, intention is insufficient. For example, if I tell you in a monotone voice, "go outside", that is an intentional communication, and yet is not art (I would argue, and would believe to be non-controversial). This is because that which is communicated through art is necessarily indirect; while direct communication can exist in art, that which transforms an intentional communication into art is its indirectness. In film, for example, certain movies are clearly direct intentional communication, and are thus not understood to be art, while certain movies are very intentional communications-- and yet the communication is entirely indirect, such as in Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon (which you really should watch). As this example hopefully illustrates, direct communication is necessarily not art, whereas indirect communication can be art if it is intentional.

Some interesting things result from this. First, a painting itself would not be art; rather, the communication-- the experience, perhaps, or maybe the performance-- would be the art. This would be in coherence with my understanding of nominalist theory. Additionally, I think that early cave paintings would not be considered art, unless they were doing more than sheer direct illustration. Lastly, good analytic philosophy would necessarily not be art (if I understand correctly), because I think that it attempts to be as direct as possible, whereas continental philosophy-- such as the works of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche-- has the potential for actually being art and philosophy at the same time, as some of their philosophical contributions are intentional, yet indirect.