Art and the aesthetic

A second objec on to the concept of the aesthe c a tude is this. If aesthe c experience is the
applica on of a dis nc ve a tude to an object, then the aesthe c has no necessary connec on with
art. Suppose (to return to Kant) that a special delight arises from ‘the free play of the imagina on on
an object’. This object could be a picture, a statue, a poem or a piece of music, but it could equally
well be a sunset, a mountainside or a rose (an example Kant several mes considers).

All that the Kan an aesthe c requires is that judgements of taste, beauty, sublimity and so on
express themselves as singular judgements upon an object. While finding something beau ful is not
purely a subjec ve ma er, since it commits us to believing that others will also find the object in
ques on beau ful, even so there is no restric on on what it is we can find beau ful. Natural objects
seem as fi ng an object for aesthe c delight as anything an ar st might create. What then is the
connec on between art and the aesthe c? Kant addresses this point (to a degree) when he says
‘nature is beau ful because it looks like art, and art can only be called beau ful if we are conscious of
it as art while yet it looks like nature’ (§45). Though this goes some way to explaining why aesthe c
judgement is appropriate to both nature and art, it s ll confines us to the point of view of someone
looking at beau ful things. It iden fies the essence of the aesthe c with a consciousness of the
appearance of objects, which is to say, art apprecia on. But what about art making? Ar s c
produc on, according to Kant, also arises from a free act of the imagina on. Here again, he a empts
to bring out the dis nc ve character of crea ve ac vity by contras ng it with other mental
opera ons.

Art is different to science, the acquisi on of knowledge, because it requires prac cal skill. But
though it is prac cal, we can differen ate it from cra or design because the nature of the things it
produces is not determined by a func onal concept. The structure of a piece of furniture or a piece
of machinery, say, is determined by the func on it has to serve. Since artworks have no such
func on, they are not ‘determined’ in this way. Ar s c ‘genius’ (to use Kant’s term) has to be free. At
the same me it is constrained by the need for its produc ons to look ‘natural’, or uncontrived. So far
so good, but we are s ll le with this ques on: what is the connec on between the ar st’s crea ve
act of imagina on and the contempla ve act of aesthe c judgement? Aesthe c judgement,
according to Kant, is merely a cri cal, not a produc ve faculty. While ‘a natural beauty is a beau ful
thing; ar s c beauty is a beau ful representa on of a thing’ (§48, emphasis in original). What this
tells us is that both nature and art can engage aesthe c judgement, since both can be beau ful. But
it is the special task of art to engage the aesthe c a tude by producing representa ons of things.
One ques on is whether this does not confine art too narrowly to figura ve pain ng. Lyric poetry is
o en beau ful, but surely it is expressive rather than representa ve? Kant does extend his account
of art beyond figura ve pain ng with the concept of ‘aesthe cal ideas’ (§49). These are non-visual
representa ons of non-physical things such as love, or death or envy, which it seems clear the
literary arts can embody, including, even, lyric poetry. Perhaps a more difficult case is music. Music
can be beau ful, but can it be the representa on of anything? And surely architecture is func onal
rather than representa ve?

These are all ques ons to be returned to in future chapters. For the moment it is enough to note that
while this seems a plausible way to dis nguish natural beauty and ar s c beauty, it does not explain
the special value of art. In the spirit of Kant we can agree that beauty is to be valued for its own sake
and not to be reduced to or explained in terms of something else – knowledge or prac cal
usefulness, for example – but we s ll have to bridge the gap between the value of beauty and the
value of art. Since the world contains beauty without any crea ve ac vity on the part of human
beings, what does art add? If we already have beau ful things, why do we need beau ful
representa ons? Why is it not sufficient for us to uncover and conserve the beauty that is to be
found in the natural world? The appeal to beauty, or even more broadly ‘the aesthe c’, leaves
unexplained the value, if any, in ar s c crea on. It also leaves unexplained the mul plicity of art
forms. If we already have pain ng, why do we need poetry?

Aesthetics: What is Art?

Aesthe cs is one of two main branches of value theory in philosophy. Ethics is a study of values in
human conduct. Aesthe cs is a study of value in art. The word traces its origin to a Greek word that
means sense appearance. However that could too narrowly define the field when we consider that
art include prose and poe c literature. We could quibble that literature always has an auditory
component. When we read literature the sounds and inflec ons of words accompany our thoughts.
We could solve the problem by saying that aesthe cs is a study of value in the plas c, visual,
conceptual, auditory and performance arts. The difficulty of answering the ques on: “What is art?” is
a major one in aesthe cs. The term has to cover a vast variety of media, from the plas c arts of
pain ng and sculpture, to music, literature and the performing arts of dance, opera, and theater. It
can even be expanded to certain performance sports like ice-ska ng, water ballet, diving and
gymnas cs. Seeking a common defini on that covers the wide number of art produc ons from the
earliest cave drawings to the latest experimental film is difficult. The defini on would have to iden fy
both Marcel Duchamp’s The Fountain (which is a urinal set in a glass cube) and Michelangelo’s Pieta
as equally works of art.

The most uncontroversial and agreed upon defini on is that art is anything that is ar ficial, that is
anything that humans make which is not simply something that exists in nature. Even that might be
tested by, say Picasso’s found object sculptures, many of which consist of natural objects. However
Picasso juxtaposes these natural objects into unique forms. If, however, I place a twig in a frame and
hang it on a museum wall that might qualify as art since I have taken it out of its natural context and
intend it to be seen as though it were a produc on of an ar st. We will see that Arthur Danto will
claim that it is the referen al nature of art that dis nguishes it from natural objects (a twig on a tree
doesn’t refer to anything.) More provoca vely Marshall McLuhan (The Medium is the Message)
claimed that “art is anything we can get away with.” It should be obvious by the above that there is
nothing uncontroversial about aesthe cs including the very defini on of art. S ll the rumina on and
analyses of philosophers who think about these issues have consistently enhanced the enjoyment of
those who love the arts because they highlight mul ple features of the aesthe c experience. In this
short introduc on I want to briefly discuss how aesthe cs interrelates with the other main branches
of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and poli cal philosophy.