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I thought it was an interesting topic. Never thought of it before.
Aesthetic Functionalism or (Philosophy of Art)
- Thread starter cranberryartworks
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In reading about early Canadian art history. I lot of people were hired to paint murals and paintings in churches to help convert the native. The churches were the only ones with money back then.
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Funny story. A lot of the early Canadian painters died. They wanted to paint in the great Canadian wilderness. Only to disappear and probably get eaten.
stlukesguild
Well-known member
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One of the problems I have with teaching Art is that those who write the standards and curriculum emphasize the "functional" aspects of Art: How art confronts social, political, and economic issues, How Art records history, etc... While such issues might be central to why some create Art... and it seems such socio-political functions are more important than aesthetic concerns to many contemporary artists, critics, and theorists... I have never fallen into that aesthetic view.
In studying Art Criticism, it is generally suggested that there are four main Art Critical Theories upon which Art is judged: Realism or Immitationalism, Expressionism or Emotionalism, Functionalism, and Formalism or Aestheticism. While I have long employed a good deal of "realist" techniques... I abandoned the notion that the most important measure of Art was the illusion of visual realism long ago. I don't think I ever embraced the notion of Functionalism... ascribing a purpose such as conveying a political or religious point of view as central to one's Art. When I was younger, I would have thought of myself as something of an Expressionist out to convey my emotions through my Art. Over the years, I moved further and further toward Formalism or Aestheticism. This was likely due a good deal to the literature I read... many of the so-called Formalists or Aesthticists:
Théophile Gautier (who coined the tern l'art pour l'art or "Art for art's sake")
Leconte de Lisle
J.K. Huysmans
Edmond & Jules de Goncourt
José-Maria de Heredia
Edgar Allen Poe
Oscar Wilde
Walter Pater
Charles Baudelaire
Paul Verlaine
Arthur Rimbaud
Stéphane Mallarmé
Paul Valéry
Pierre Louÿs
The Preface to Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray is probably the best and most succinct expression of the Formalist concept of Art:
The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.
This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated.
For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban
seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban
not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist,
but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
No artist desires to prove anything.
Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies.
An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid.
The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new,
complex, and vital.
When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it.
The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.
But the Formalist/Aesthticist theory of Art goes far back:
"Art has no end but its own perfection." -Plutarch
"Nothing is more useful to man than those arts which have no utility."-Ovid
I like Stéphane Mallarmé's undermining of the importance of the functionality or utilitarianism of art when he pointed out that the most utilitarian room in our home is the toilet.
In studying Art Criticism, it is generally suggested that there are four main Art Critical Theories upon which Art is judged: Realism or Immitationalism, Expressionism or Emotionalism, Functionalism, and Formalism or Aestheticism. While I have long employed a good deal of "realist" techniques... I abandoned the notion that the most important measure of Art was the illusion of visual realism long ago. I don't think I ever embraced the notion of Functionalism... ascribing a purpose such as conveying a political or religious point of view as central to one's Art. When I was younger, I would have thought of myself as something of an Expressionist out to convey my emotions through my Art. Over the years, I moved further and further toward Formalism or Aestheticism. This was likely due a good deal to the literature I read... many of the so-called Formalists or Aesthticists:
Théophile Gautier (who coined the tern l'art pour l'art or "Art for art's sake")
Leconte de Lisle
J.K. Huysmans
Edmond & Jules de Goncourt
José-Maria de Heredia
Edgar Allen Poe
Oscar Wilde
Walter Pater
Charles Baudelaire
Paul Verlaine
Arthur Rimbaud
Stéphane Mallarmé
Paul Valéry
Pierre Louÿs
The Preface to Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray is probably the best and most succinct expression of the Formalist concept of Art:
The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.
This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated.
For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban
seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban
not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist,
but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
No artist desires to prove anything.
Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies.
An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid.
The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new,
complex, and vital.
When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it.
The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.
But the Formalist/Aesthticist theory of Art goes far back:
"Art has no end but its own perfection." -Plutarch
"Nothing is more useful to man than those arts which have no utility."-Ovid
I like Stéphane Mallarmé's undermining of the importance of the functionality or utilitarianism of art when he pointed out that the most utilitarian room in our home is the toilet.
ZenDruid
Supporting Member
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- 1,038
I don't think a person who chooses to be an artist should have the additional burden and handicap of making their work relevant to a current social or political fantasy. Beyond art for art's sake, I think they should have the freedom to pursue art for their own personal sake and amusement. Trying to be socially relevant will just make them unhappy.
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- 109
Early on, one of the things that turned me off of art was seeing Performance art in the news. Watch people walk up a set of stairs and hit gyprock walls with a hammer. There were several like this. Even now whenever I see it, I want to distance myself from it. I felt it discredited art for me.
I still don't know where the line is between art and decoration.
I still don't know where the line is between art and decoration.
- Messages
- 109
I never like history in school. I was a computer geek. I was all math and physics. Got to love the punch cards.
After I started painting, I fell in love with Art history. Mostly Canadian art history. It is interesting to see how art affected history and how art was affected by history. It was like a dance.
After I started painting, I fell in love with Art history. Mostly Canadian art history. It is interesting to see how art affected history and how art was affected by history. It was like a dance.
Artyczar
Moderator
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- 12,440
St. Luke, Thanks for posting Wilde's words here. I absolutely loved reading it and especially the line that speaks, "To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim," among many others. It's all right on the money. It very much resonated with me, and I'd never read it before. I didn't know it would align so much with how I felt about my own approach to art and how I feel about it instinctively. The last line gave me a laugh, but isn't it so true. I mean, it has aesthetic use. No functional use. For those that value aesthetic enjoyment in their life, that is. And to each their own, and all that, etc., etc. ...I also love, "When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself."
Bartc
Well-known member
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- 1,166
I agree, and it pains me to see the trend toward what I consider "message art", that is a piece that screams some current socially relevant or edgy opinion.
Nothing wrong with sending your message in my book, and some word art appeals to me at times, so it's not that I'm opposed to anyone expressing their creativity that way. What bothers me is that I see so many juried shows, exhibits, and I suppose the high end of the art market I simply cannot fathom that is mired in it, leaving little room for what is purely esthetically pleasing or creative.
Artists have an impulse to create. Isn't that enough? Must we categorize and analyze it to death? The question of how a piece "works", what the artist might be attempting to express, how this fits in history is worth pursuing if that's what interests you. The biographical aspects too, if that floats your boat. But in the end, it's some person with some medium pushing something out into the world and it needs nothing more to justify it.
stlukesguild
Well-known member
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- 2,524
I came to appreciate the concept of l'art pour l'art by seeing it within the context of art history. One of my so-called "guilty pleasures" was... an is... the art of the Rococo.
My art school required some truly in-depth studies of art history... but we literally blew right through the Rococo on to Neo-Classicism. The unspoken message was that the Rococo was shallow and decadent and to like it was "wrong".
Neo-classicism, on the other hand, was high-minded and noble in support of the right causes: the French Revolution and Democracy as opposed to debauchery and the aristocracy... or so went the narrative. But what then of 18th century writers such as Jonathan Swift, Daniel DeFoe, Lawrence Sterne, etc... and composers such as Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Luigi Boccherini, etc...? Honestly, I remember those participants of the online music forum... where Brian and I both used to waste away our time... who argued that Beethoven's opera opera, Fidelio, was superior to Mozart's Magic Flute and especially Cosi fan tutte, because of its moral high-mindedness. Almost no one who appreciates music as music takes this view. Denis Diderot was the dominant French art/cultural critic of the period. He had to admit that Fragonard and especially Boucher (painter of Diana at her Bath above) were phenomenally talented artists... but he was outraged at the lack of what he deemed to be the proper morals in their work.
Art pour l'art rejected these ideas. Where art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was often judged by how well it conveyed the proper views on religion and the aristocracy and art of Neo-Classicism was judged by whether it conveyed the correct ideas about the social structures, democracy, etc... Art pour l'art posited the notion that art should be judged first and foremost on aesthetic terms as a work of art. As Oscar Wilde stated, the artist can still express everything/anything.
Jaques-Louis David could champion Napoleon...
... and Goya could take the opposing point of view... and both could succeed in producing marvelous works of art judged purely as art.
Art pour l'art was certainly one of the key elements that opened the door to Modernism and to allowing artists to paint or draw or sculpt as they saw fit as opposed to expecting that art remained shackled to the service of external powers whether these be religious, political, economic, etc... This, as I noted in my first post, is where I struggle as an art teacher, as those who write the curriculum and the standards... and the education administrators largely value the utilitarian worth of art.
My art school required some truly in-depth studies of art history... but we literally blew right through the Rococo on to Neo-Classicism. The unspoken message was that the Rococo was shallow and decadent and to like it was "wrong".
Neo-classicism, on the other hand, was high-minded and noble in support of the right causes: the French Revolution and Democracy as opposed to debauchery and the aristocracy... or so went the narrative. But what then of 18th century writers such as Jonathan Swift, Daniel DeFoe, Lawrence Sterne, etc... and composers such as Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Luigi Boccherini, etc...? Honestly, I remember those participants of the online music forum... where Brian and I both used to waste away our time... who argued that Beethoven's opera opera, Fidelio, was superior to Mozart's Magic Flute and especially Cosi fan tutte, because of its moral high-mindedness. Almost no one who appreciates music as music takes this view. Denis Diderot was the dominant French art/cultural critic of the period. He had to admit that Fragonard and especially Boucher (painter of Diana at her Bath above) were phenomenally talented artists... but he was outraged at the lack of what he deemed to be the proper morals in their work.
Art pour l'art rejected these ideas. Where art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was often judged by how well it conveyed the proper views on religion and the aristocracy and art of Neo-Classicism was judged by whether it conveyed the correct ideas about the social structures, democracy, etc... Art pour l'art posited the notion that art should be judged first and foremost on aesthetic terms as a work of art. As Oscar Wilde stated, the artist can still express everything/anything.
Jaques-Louis David could champion Napoleon...
... and Goya could take the opposing point of view... and both could succeed in producing marvelous works of art judged purely as art.
Art pour l'art was certainly one of the key elements that opened the door to Modernism and to allowing artists to paint or draw or sculpt as they saw fit as opposed to expecting that art remained shackled to the service of external powers whether these be religious, political, economic, etc... This, as I noted in my first post, is where I struggle as an art teacher, as those who write the curriculum and the standards... and the education administrators largely value the utilitarian worth of art.
