The main currents and directions of the new era of aesthetics. The main trends in the development of aesthetics of the XIX - XX centuries
In the first half of the 20th century, one of the most popular cultural and aesthetic schools of our century, Freudianism, was formed. Its founder, the Austrian philosopher and psychiatrist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), introduced an explanation of the subconscious from the point of view of the intuitionist theories of his colleagues. sexual life person. And although there is no systematized presentation of aesthetic theory in the works of the philosopher, separate judgments on issues of aesthetics and artistic culture are contained in his Lectures on Introduction to Psychoanalysis (1918), in the book Dissatisfaction with Culture (1930), as well as in the articles Leonardo da Vinci. A Study in Psychosexuality" (1910), "Dostoevsky and Parricide" (1928), "Poet and Fantasy" (1911). Freud's doctrine of innate unconscious structures-instincts had a huge impact on the practice of the so-called "mass culture" that was formed at the beginning of the 20th century. Indeed, in his theory of the unconscious, the philosopher proceeded from the fact that the essence of man is expressed in freedom from instincts. The main influence of Freudianism on " mass culture lies in the use of his instincts of fear, sex and aggressiveness. Freud's psychoanalysis created a highly representative school that still exists today. A special role in the development of the Freudian doctrine belongs to O. Rank, G. Sachs and especially K.G. Jung. In the 20th century, the ideas of the thinkers of the last century A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche were summarized in the elite aesthetic concept of the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955). In 1925, his most famous work, entitled "The Dehumanization of Art", dedicated to the problem of the difference between old and new art, was published in Europe. The main difference between the new art and the old, according to Ortega y Gasset, is that it is addressed to the elite of society, and not to its mass.
Ortega y Gasset's book "The Dehumanization of Art" rightfully became a real avant-garde manifesto. The philosopher takes the side of that part of the European creative intelligentsia of the beginning of the century, which tried to create a new art. In this regard, it is necessary to analyze the most striking artistic trends, trends and styles that have declared themselves in this historical period.
Avant-garde (from the French avant-garde forward detachment) is a concept that united various schools and trends of European art of the 10-20s of the 20th century on the principles of a radical renewal of artistic practice. The term "avant-garde" has established itself in aesthetics art criticism in the 20s. The main group of avant-garde schools (Futurism, Dadaism, Cubism, Expressionism, Suprematism) declared itself with extreme nihilism, the ultimate degree of denial of the previous cultural tradition of classical artistic experience. The practical implementation of the avant-garde was characteristic of various types of art: literature (L. Aragon, V. Khlebnikov, V. Mayakovsky), theater (V. Meyerhold, B. Brecht, G. Kaiser), music (M. Čiurlionis, A. Schoenberg, A. Scriabin). However, the avant-garde was most obviously realized in fine arts. Paintings of various avant-garde trends were characterized by the rejection of artistic lifelikeness. Avant-garde art, with rare exceptions (cubism, which conditionally geometrizes nature, abstractionism, with its purely fantastic geometry), is non-figurative. The rejection of objectivity and the transformation into an end in itself of such artistic means as color, composition, texture was dictated by a sense of the crisis of modern civilization.
In the second half of the 20th century, creative searches and daring experiments continued in European aesthetics and art, influential ideas, new art schools, and significant promising discoveries appeared. Existentialist, structuralist, sociocultural aesthetic trends, represented by the names of J.-P. Sartre, A. Camus, K. Levi-Strauss, R. Bart, T. Adorno and others. The most significant aesthetic school, which was formed in France in the 1940s and 1950s, belonged to the existentialist trend and manifested itself especially clearly in the work of J.P. Sartre and A. Camus. It should be recalled that the founder of philosophical existentialism, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), considered philosophy as a reflection on being on the basis of personal human existence - "existence". The aesthetic concept of existentialism also recognized as true only the individual existence of a person and the possibility of knowing "existence" with the help of human imagination and emotions, which in turn are the most important side of artistic creativity.
The French philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) in his writings "Imagination" (1936), "Essay on the Theory of Emotions" (1939), "Imaginary" (1940) discusses in sufficient detail about the various properties human consciousness. Sartre interprets human consciousness as transcendental, that is, going beyond the limits of any experience and being the source, vital basis, including the creative activity of man. In the view of the philosopher, works of art are not a direct reflection of reality, therefore the so-called "imagining consciousness" of any artist has a creative character, because it arises on its own and is free from all manifestations of reality. Expression aesthetic views Albert Camus(1913-1960) is the final chapter of his philosophical essay"The Myth of Sisyphus" (1942), in which he develops the main idea of his work - the absurdity of human existence in the world. "Absurdity", a feeling of loneliness and alienation from the outside world, the omnipotence of death become constant in the dramaturgy, prose and aesthetics of Camus. The absurd, according to Camus, also belongs to a work of art. However, the very act of artistic creativity allows a person to maintain consciousness in the world of chaos. Subsequently, the “Aesthetics of the Absurd” develops with the philosopher into the “aesthetics of rebellion”. In 1951, the political essay "The Rebellious Man" was published, in which Camus opposes extremes in art, both ideological and purely formalistic. Both in The Rebellious Man and in his Nobel Prize speeches (1957), Camus emphasizes that true art reflects human destiny and seeks to master fate.
In the 1950s, intuitive and existentialist concepts in Western European aesthetics fade into the background, giving way to structuralism. The essence of structuralism was expressed by its main theorist Claude Levi-Strauss (born 1908). He formulated the main stages of the structuralist exploratory analysis: "reading" the text, its microanalysis, interpretation, decoding and final modeling. Structuralism became the basis of a very popular literary and aesthetic movement in the 60s, called the New Criticism, led by the Parisian professor Roland Barthes (1915-1980). In the book Criticism and Truth (1966), he puts forward the position that the science of literature should not be concerned with clarifying the meaning of works, but should create universal laws for the construction of literary form.
In the 1960s and 1970s, sociological concepts represented by the names of T. Adorno, G. Marcuse, E. Fromm were widely spread in Western Europe and the USA. These names are explained by the desire to explore the correspondence of the internal immanent structures of works of art to certain types of established social relations.
The newest time also includes the day of the artistic era: avant-garde and realism. originality of these epochs lies in the fact that they do not develop sequentially, but historically in parallel.
avant-garde art groups n uy ( premodernism, modernism, neomodernism, postmodernism) develop in parallel with the realistic group (critical realism of the 19th century, socialist realism, rural prose, neorealism, magical realism, psychological realism, intellectual realism). In this parallel development of epochs appears general acceleration of the movement of history.
One of the main provisions of the artistic concept of avant-garde trends: chaos, disorder "The law of the modern life of human society. Art becomes chaosology, studying the laws of world disorder.
All avant-garde trends curtail the conscious and increase the unconscious beginning both in the creative and in the reception process. These areas pay great attention to mass art and the problems of the formation of the consciousness of the individual.
Features that unite avant-garde art movements: a new look at the position and purpose of man in the universe, the rejection of previously established rules and norms, from traditions and
dexterity, experiments in the field of form and style, the search for new artistic means and techniques.
Premodernism - the first (initial) period of artistic development of the avant-garde era; a group of artistic trends in the culture of the second half of the 19th century, opening up a whole stage (the stage of lost illusions) of the latest artistic development.
Naturalism is an artistic direction, the invariant of the artistic conception of which was the assertion of a man of the flesh in the material-material world; a person, even taken only as a highly organized biological individual, deserves attention in every manifestation; for all its imperfections, the world is stable, and all the details about it are of general interest. In the artistic concept of naturalism, desires and possibilities, ideals and reality are balanced, a certain complacency of society is felt, its satisfaction with its position and unwillingness to change anything in the world.
Naturalism claims that the entire visible world is part of nature and can be explained by its laws, and not by supernatural or paranormal causes. Naturalism was born from the absolutization of realism and under the influence of Darwinian biological theories, scientific methods the study of society and the deterministic ideas of Taine and other positivists.
Impressionism - artistic direction (second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries), the invariant of the artistic concept of which was the assertion of a refined, lyrically responsive, impressionable personality, admiring the beauty of the world. Impressionism opened a new type of perception of reality. Unlike realism, which is focused on the transmission of the typical, impressionism is focused on the special, individual and their subjective vision by the artist.
Impressionism is a mastery of color, chiaroscuro, the ability to convey the diversity, multicolor life, the joy of being, to capture fleeting moments of illumination and the general state of the surrounding changing world, to convey the open air - the play of light and shadows around a person and things, the air environment, natural lighting, giving an aesthetic appearance the object being depicted.
Impressionism manifested itself in painting (C. Monet, O. Renoir, E. Degas, A. Sisley, V. Van Gogh, P. Gauguin, A. Matisse, Utrillo, K. Korovin) and in music (C. Debussy and M Ravel, A. Scriabin), and in literature (partly G. Maupassant, K. Hamsun, G. Kellermann, Hofmannsthal, A. Schnitzler, O. Wilde, A. Simone).
Eclecticism- an artistic direction (which manifested itself mainly in architecture), which involves, when creating works, any combination of any forms of the past, any national traditions, frank decorativeism, interchangeability and equivalence of elements in a work, violation of the hierarchy in the artistic system and weakening the system and integrity.
Eclecticism is characterized by: 1) an overabundance of decorations; 2) equal importance of various elements, all style forms; 3) loss of distinction between a massive and unique building in an urban ensemble or a work of literature and other works of the literary process; 4) lack of unity: the facade breaks away from the body of the building, the detail - from the whole, the style of the facade - from the style of the interior, the styles of the various spaces of the interior - from each other; 5) optional symmetrical-axial composition (departure from the rule of an odd number of windows on the façade), uniformity of the façade; 6) the principle of "non-finito" (incompletion of the work, openness of the composition); 7) strengthening
associative thinking of the author (artist, writing la, architect) and viewer; 8) liberation from the ancient tradition and reliance on the cultures of different eras and different peoples; craving for the exotic; 9) multi-style; 10) unregulated personality (unlike classicism), subjectivism, free manifestation of personal elements; 11) democratism: the tendency to create a universal, non-class type of urban housing.
Functionally, eclecticism in literature, architecture and other arts is aimed at serving the "third estate". The key building of the Baroque is a church or a palace, the key building of classicism is a state building, the key building of eclecticism is an apartment building (“for everyone”). Eclectic decorativism is a market factor that has arisen in order to attract a wide clientele to an apartment building where apartments are rented out. Profitable house - a mass type of housing.
Modernism- an artistic era that unites artistic movements whose artistic concept reflects the acceleration of history and the strengthening of its pressure on a person (symbolism, rayonism, fauvism, primitivism, cubism, acmeism, futurism); the period of the most complete embodiment of avant-garde. During the period of modernism, the development and change of artistic trends occurred rapidly.
Modernist artistic trends are built by deconstructing the typological structure of a classical work - some of its elements become objects of artistic experiments. In classical art, these elements are balanced. Modernism upset this balance by strengthening some elements and weakening others.
Symbolism- the artistic direction of the era of modernism, which affirms the artistic concept: the dream of the poet is chivalry and a beautiful lady. Dreams of
chivalry, worship of a beautiful lady fill poetry symbolism.
Symbolism arose in France. His masters were Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Verlaine and Rimbaud.
Acmeism is an artistic direction of Russian literature of the early 20th century, which arose in the "Silver Age", existed mainly in poetry and claimed: the poet- a sorcerer and proud ruler of the world, unraveling its mysteries and overcoming its chaos.
To acmeism belonged: N. Gumilyov, O. Mandelstam, A. Akhmatova, S. Gorodetsky, M. Lozinsky, M. Zenkevich, V. Narbug, G. Ivanov, G. Adamovich and others Futurism- the artistic direction of the era of modernism, asserting an aggressively militant personality in the urbanly organized chaos of the world.
Defining artistic factor of futurism - dynamics. The Futurists implemented the principle of unlimited experimentation and achieved innovative solutions in literature, painting, music, and theater.
Primitivism- an artistic direction that simplifies man and the world, striving to see the world through children's eyes, joyfully and simply, outside the "adult» difficulties. This desire gives rise to the strengths and weaknesses of primitivism.
Primitivism is an atavistic nostalgia for the past, longing for a pre-civilized way of life.
Primitivism seeks to capture the main outlines of a complex world, looking for joyful and understandable colors and lines in it. Primitivism is a counteraction to reality: the world becomes more complex, and the artist simplifies it. However, the artist then simplifies the world in order to cope with its complexity.
Cubism - a geometrized variety of primitivism that simplifies reality, perceiving it with childish or "savage" eyes.
the former character of primitivization: the vision of the world through the forms of geometrically regular figures.
Cubism in painting and sculpture was developed by the Italian artists D. Severini, U. Boccione, K. Kappa; German - E.L. Kirchner, G. Richter; American - J. Pollock, I. Rey, M. Weber, Mexican Diego Rivera, Argentine E. Pettoruti, etc.
In cubism, architectural constructions are felt; the masses are mechanically mated with each other, and each mass retains its independence. Cubism opened a fundamentally new direction in figurative art. The conditional works of Cubism (Braque, Gris, Picasso, Léger) retain their connection with the model. The portraits correspond to the originals and are recognizable (one American critic in a Parisian cafe recognized a man known to him only from a portrait by Picasso, composed of geometric figures).
Cubists do not depict reality, but create a “different reality” and convey not the appearance of an object, but its design, architectonics, structure, essence. They do not reproduce a "narrative fact", but visually embody their knowledge of the depicted subject.
Abstractionism- artistic direction of art of the 20th century, the artistic concept of which affirms the need for the individual to escape from the banal and illusory reality.
The works of abstract art are detached from the forms of life itself and embody the subjective color impressions and fantasies of the artist.
There are two currents in abstractionism. First current lyrical-emotional, psychological abstractionism - a symphony of colors, harmonization of shapeless color combinations. This trend was born from the impressionistic diversity of impressions about the world, embodied in the canvases of Henri Matisse.
The creator of the first work of psychological abstractionism was V. Kandinsky, who painted the painting "Mountain".
The second current geometric (logical, intellectual) abstractionism ("neoplasticism") is non-figurative cubism. P. Cezanne and the Cubists, who created new type art space by combining different geometric shapes, colored planes, straight and broken lines.
Suprematism(the author of the term and the corresponding artistic phenomenon Kazimir Malevich) - for abstractionism, sharpening and deepening its features. Malevich opened the “Suprematism” trend in 1913 with the painting “Black Square”. Later, Malevich formulated his aesthetic principles: art is enduring due to its timeless value; pure plastic sensibility - "the dignity of works of art." The aesthetics and poetics of Suprematism affirm universal (Suprematist) pictorial formulas and compositions - ideal constructions of geometrically regular elements.
Rayonism is one of the near-abstractionist trends that affirmed the difficulty and joy of human existence and the uncertainty of the world, in which all objects illuminated different sources light, turn out to be dissected rays of this light and lose their clear figurativeness.
Luchism originated in 1908 - 1910 gg. in the work of Russian artists Mikhail Larionov and his wife Natalia Goncharova.
During neomodernism, all avant-garde art movements come from from such an understanding of reality: a person cannot withstand the pressure of the world and becomes a neo-human. During this period, the development
There are avant-garde art movements that affirm joyless, pessimistic artistic concepts of the world and personality. Among them Dadaism, constructivism, surrealism, existentialism, neo-abstractionism, etc.
Dadaism is an artistic movement that affirms an artistic concept; world- senseless madness, revising reason and faith.
The principles of Dadaism were; break with the traditions of world culture, including the traditions of the language; escape from culture and reality, the idea of the world as a chaos of madness, into which a defenseless person is thrown; pessimism, unbelief, denial of values, a feeling of general loss and meaninglessness of being, the destruction of ideals and the purpose of life. Dadaism is an expression of the crisis of the classical values of culture, the search for a new language and new values.
Surrealism is an art movement that focuses on a confused person in a mysterious and unknowable world. The concept of personality in surrealism could be summarized in the formula of agnosticism: “I am a man, but the boundaries of my personality and the world have blurred. I don't know where my "I" begins and where it ends, where is the world and what is it?
Surrealism as an artistic direction was developed by: Paul Eluard, Robert Desnos, Max Ernst, Roger Vitran, Antonin Artaud, Rene Char, Salvador Dali, Raymond Quenot, Jacques Prevert.
Surrealism arose from Dadaism, originally as literary direction, which later found its expression in painting, as well as in cinema, theater and partly in music.
For surrealism, man and the world, space and time are fluid and relative. They lose their boundaries. Aesthetic relativism is proclaimed: everything flows, everything is
it seems to be mixed up; it blurs; nothing is certain. Surrealism affirms the relativity of the world and his values. There are no boundaries between happiness and unhappiness, individual and society. Chaos of the world causes chaos of artistic thinking- this is the principle of the aesthetics of surrealism.
The artistic concept of surrealism affirms the mystery and unknowability of the world, in which time and history disappear, and a person lives in the subconscious and is helpless in the face of difficulties.
Expressionism- an artistic direction that asserts: alienated, a person lives in a hostile world. As the hero of the time, expressionism put forward a restless, overwhelmed by emotions personality, [not able to bring harmony to a world torn by passions. -
Expressionism as an artistic direction arose on the basis of relationships with various areas of scientific activity: with Freud's psychoanalysis, Husserl's phenomenology, neo-Kantian epistemology, the philosophy of the Vienna Circle and Gestalt psychology.
Expressionism manifested itself in different types of art: M. Chagall, O. Kokotka, E. Munch - in painting; A. Rimbaud, A. Yu. Strindberg, R. M. Rilke, E. Toller, F. Kafka - in literature; I. Stravinsky, B. Bartok, A. Schoenberg - in music.
Expressionism on the basis of the culture of the XX century. revives romanticism. expressionism inherent fear of the world and contradiction between external dynamism and the idea of the immutable essence of the world (disbelief in the possibility of its improvement). According to artistic concepts of expressionism, the essential forces of personality are alienated in opposing man and hostile public institutions: everything is useless. Ek expressionism is an expression of the pain of a humanist artist,
caused to him by the imperfection of the world. Expressionist concept of personality: Human- an emotional, “natural” being, alien to the industrial and rational, urban world in which he is forced to live.
Constructivism- artistic direction (20s of the XX century), the conceptual invariant of which is the idea- man's existence takes place in an environment of industrial forces alienated from him; and the hero of time- rationalist of industrial society.
The neo-positivist principles of cubism, having been born in painting, were extended in a transformed form to literature and other arts and consolidated in a new direction, converging with the ideas of technicism - constructivism. The latter considered the products of the industry as independent, alienated from the individual and opposing her values. Constructivism appeared at the dawn of the scientific and technological revolution and idealized the ideas of technism; he valued machines and their products over the individual. Even the most talented and humanistic works constructivism alienating factors of technological progress are taken for granted. Constructivism is full of pathos of industrial progress, economic expediency; it is technocratic.
The aesthetics of constructivism developed between extremes (sometimes falling into one of them) - utilitarianism, requiring the destruction of aesthetics, and aestheticism. In the visual arts and in architecture, the creative principles of constructivism are as close as possible to engineering and include: mathematical calculation, laconicism of artistic means, schematism of composition, logicization.
In literature, constructivism as an artistic direction developed (1923 - 1930) in the work of the group
LCC (Constructivist Literary Center): I.L. Selvinsky, B.N. Agapov, V.M. Inber, H.A. Aduev, E.Kh. Bagritsky, B.I. Gabrilovich, K.L. Zelinsky (group theorist) and others. Constructivism also influenced the theater (the directorial work of Vsevolod Meyerhold, who developed the principles of biomechanics, theater engineering and introduced stage action elements of a circus spectacle. The ideas of constructivism embraced various types of art with their influence, but they had the greatest influence on architecture. This especially affected the work of Le Corbusier, I. Leonidov, V.A. Shchuko and V.G. Gelfreich.
Existentialism- the concept of human existence, his place and role in this world, relationship to God. The essence of existentialism- the primacy of existence over essence (man himself forms his existence and, choosing what to do and what not to do, brings the essence into existence). Existentialism affirms a lonely selfish self-valuable personality in the world of the absurd. For existentialism, the individual is above history.
In its artistic concept, existentialism (J.P. Sartre, A. Camus) claims that the very foundations of human existence are absurd, if only because man is mortal; the story goes from bad to worse and back to bad again. There is no upward movement, there is only squirrel wheel history in which the life of mankind revolves senselessly.
The fundamental loneliness, affirmed by the artistic concept of existentialism, has the opposite logical consequence: life is not absurd where a person continues himself in humanity. But if a person is a loner, if he is the only value in the world, then he is socially devalued, he has no future, and then death is absolute. It crosses out a person, and life becomes meaningless.
Neo-abstractionism(second wave abstractionism) - spontaneous-impulsive self-expression; a fundamental rejection of figurativeness, of depicting reality, in the name of pure expressiveness; stream of consciousness captured in color.
Neo-abstractionism was created by a new generation of abstractionists: J. Paul Lak, De Kuhn and Yig, A. Manisirer and others. They mastered the surreal technique and the principles of "mental automatism". Paul Lak emphasizes in the creative act not the work, but the very process of its creation. This process becomes an end in itself and here the origins of “painting-action” are formed.
The principles of neo-abstractionism were substantiated by M. Brion, G. Reid, Sh.-P. Brew, M. Raton. The Italian theorist D. Severini urged to forget reality, since it does not affect the plastic expression. Another theorist, M. Zefor, considers the merit of abstract painting to be that it does not carry anything from the normal environment of human life. Photography took away the figurativeness of painting, leaving the latter only expressive possibilities for revealing the subjective world of the artist.
The weak link in the theory of abstractionism and neo-abstractionism is the absence of clear value criteria for distinguishing creativity from speculation, seriousness from a joke, talent from mediocrity, skill from trickery.
Artistic solutions of abstractionism and neo-abstractionism (harmonization of color and form, creation of "balance" of planes of different sizes due to the intensity of their color) are used in architecture, design, decorative arts, theater, cinema, and television.
Postmodernism as an artistic era carries an artistic paradigm that claims that a person cannot withstand the pressure of the world and becomes a posthuman. All artistic directions of this
period permeated with this paradigm, manifesting and refracting it through their invariant concepts of the world and personality: pop art, sonopucmuka, aleatorics, musical pointillism, hyperrealism, happenings, etc.
Pop Art- new figurative art. Pop art opposed the abstractionist rejection of reality with the rough world of material things, to which an artistic and aesthetic status is attributed.
Pop art theorists argue that in a certain context, each object loses its original meaning and becomes a work of art. Therefore, the task of the artist is understood not as the creation of an artistic object, but as giving artistic qualities to an ordinary object by organizing a certain context for its perception. Aestheticization of the material world becomes the principle of pop art. Artists strive to achieve catchiness, visibility, and intelligibility of their creations, using the poetics of labels and advertising for this. Pop art is a composition of everyday objects, sometimes combined with a model or sculpture.
Crumpled cars, faded photographs, scraps of newspapers and posters pasted on boxes, a stuffed chicken under a glass jar, a tattered shoe painted with white oil paint, electric motors, old tires or gas stoves - these are the art exhibits of pop art.
Among the artists of pop art can be identified: E. Warhol, D, Chamberlain, J. Dine and others.
Pop art as an art direction has a number of varieties (trends): op art (artistic organized optical effects, geometrized combinations of lines and spots), env-apm(compositions, artistic organization of the environment surrounding the viewer), email(objects moving with the help of electric motors
and constructions, this trend of pop art stood out as an independent artistic direction - kinetism).
Pop art put forward the concept of the consumer's identity of the "mass consumption" society. The ideal personality of pop art is a human consumer, for whom the aestheticized still lifes of commodity compositions should replace spiritual culture. Words replaced by goods, literature replaced by things, beauty replaced by usefulness, greed for material, commodity consumption, replacing spiritual needs, are characteristic of pop art. This direction is fundamentally oriented towards a mass, non-creative person, deprived of independent thinking and borrowing "his" thoughts from advertising and mass media, a person manipulated by television and other media. This personality is programmed by pop art to fulfill the given roles of the acquirer and consumer, dutifully demolishing the alienating influence of modern civilization. Pop Art Personality - Mass Culture Zombie.
Hyperrealism ~ an artistic movement whose artistic conception is invariant: impersonal living system in a cruel and rough world.
Hyperrealism - creates picturesque supernaturalistic works that convey the smallest details of the depicted object. The plots of hyperrealism are deliberately banal, the images are emphatically "objective". This direction returns artists to the usual forms and means of fine art, in particular to the painting canvas, rejected by pop art. Hyperrealism makes the dead, man-made, "second" nature of the urban environment the main themes of its paintings: gas stations, cars, shop windows, residential buildings, telephone booths, which are presented as alienated from humans.
Hyperrealism shows the consequences of excessive urbanization, the destruction of the ecology of the environment, proves that the metropolis creates an inhuman environment. main topic hyperrealism - impersonal mechanized life of the modern city.
The theoretical basis of hyperrealism is the philosophical ideas of the Frankfurt school, which affirms the need to move away from ideologized forms of figurative thinking.
Artworks photorealism are based on a highly enlarged photograph and are often identified with hyperrealism. However, both in terms of the technology of creating an image and, most importantly, in terms of the invariant of the artistic conception of the world and personality, these are, although close, but different artistic directions. Hyperrealists imitated photos with pictorial means on canvas, photorealists imitate paintings by processing (with paints, collage) photographs.
Photorealism affirms the priority of documentary and artistic conception: a reliable, ordinary person in a reliable, ordinary world.
The purpose of photorealism is the image of modern everyday life. Streets, passers-by, shop windows, cars, traffic lights, houses, household items are reproduced in the works of photorealism authentically, objectively and super similarly.
The main features of photorealism: 1) figurativeness, opposing the traditions of abstractionism; 2) attraction to plot; 3) the desire to avoid "realistic clichés" and documentary; 4) reliance on the artistic achievements of photographic technology.
Sonoristics- direction in music: the play of timbres, expressing the "I" of the author. For its representatives, it is not the pitch that is important, but the timbre. They are looking for new musical colors, unconventional sound: they play on a cane, on
saw, chopsticks on the strings of the piano, slap on the deck, on remote control, sound is produced by wiping the mouthpiece with a handkerchief.
In pure sonorous music, melody, harmony and rhythm do not play a special role, only timbre sounding matters. The need to fix it brought to life special graphic forms of recording timbre in the form of thin, bold, wavy, cone-shaped lines. Sometimes the range in which the performer needs to play is also indicated.
The founder of sonora music was the Polish composer K. Penderecki, and his initiative was continued by K. Serocki, S. Bussotti and others.
Musical pointillism- direction in the front sight * a feature of which is the rupture of the musical fabric, its dispersion in registers, the complexity of rhythm and time signatures, the abundance of pauses.
Musical pointillism refuses to create an intelligible artistic reality (from a reality that could be understood based on the world musical and artistic tradition and using traditional musical semiotic codes). Pointillism orients the individual towards emigration to the world of his soul and affirms the fragmentation of the surrounding world.
Aleatorica- artistic direction of literature and music, based on the philosophical notion that chance reigns in life, and affirming the artistic concept: man- player in the world of random situations.
Representatives of aleatorics: K. Stockhausen, P. Boulez, S. Bussotti, J. Cage, A. Pusser, K. Serotsky and others. Chance intrudes into literary or musical works mechanically: by throwing chips (dice), playing chess, shuffling pages or varying fragments, and also through
improvisation: the musical text is written in “signs-symbols” and then freely interpreted.
happening- this is one of the types of modern artistic culture in the West. A. Keprou was the author of the first productions of the happening "Courtyard", "Creations". Happening performances involve mysterious, sometimes illogical actions of the performers and are characterized by an abundance of props made from things that were in use and even taken from a landfill. Happening participants put on bright, exaggeratedly ridiculous costumes, emphasizing the inanimateness of the performers, their resemblance either to boxes or buckets. Some performances consist, for example, of painful release from under a tarpaulin. At the same time, the individual behavior of the actors is improvisational. Sometimes actors turn to the audience with a request to help them. This inclusion of the viewer in the action corresponds to the spirit of the happening.
The concept of the world and personality put forward by the happening can be formulated as follows: the world- a chain of random events, a person must subjectively feel complete freedom, but in fact obey a single action, be manipulated.
Happening uses light painting: the light continually changes color and strength, is directed directly at the actor or shines through screens made of different materials. Often it is accompanied by sound effects (human voices, music, tinkling, crackling, grinding). The sound is sometimes very strong, unexpected, designed for a shock effect. The presentation includes transparencies and film frames. Laura also uses aromatic substances. The performer receives a task from the director, but the duration of the participants' actions is not determined. Everyone can leave the game whenever they want.
Happening is arranged in different places: in parking lots, in courtyards surrounded by high-rise buildings, in the underground. ramparts, attics. The happening space, according to the principles of this action, should not limit the imagination of the artist and the viewer.
The happening theorist M. Kerby refers this type of spectacle to the field of theater, although he notes that happening differs from theater in the absence of the traditional structure of the performance: plot, characters and conflict. Other researchers associate the nature of the happening with painting and sculpture, and not with the theater.
With its origins, happening goes back to the artistic searches of the early 20th century, to the attempts of some painters and sculptors to shift the focus from a painting or sculpture to the very process of their creation. In other words, happening also takes its origins in “action painting”: in the “droplet splashing” of J. Pollock, in De Kooning's "slashing" strokes, in costumed pictorial performances by J. Mathieu.
self-destructive art- this is one of the strange phenomena of postmodernism. Paintings painted with paint fading in front of the audience. The book "Nothing", published in the USA in 1975 and reprinted in England. It has 192 pages, and none of them has a single line. The author claims that he expressed the thought: I have nothing to tell you. All of these are examples of self-destructive art. It also has its expression in music: the performance of a piece on a crumbling piano or on a decaying violin, and so on.
Conceptualism- this is an artistic trend in Western art, which in its artistic concept affirms a person who is detached from the direct (immediate) meaning of culture and who is surrounded by aestheticized products of intellectual activity.
The works of conceptualism are unpredictably different in their texture and appearance: photos, photocopies from texts, telegrams, reproductions, graphics, columns of numbers, schemes. Conceptualism does not use the intellectual product of human activity for its intended purpose: the recipient should not read and interpret the meaning of the text, but perceive it as a purely aesthetic product, interesting in its appearance.
Representatives of conceptualism; American artists T. Atkinson, D. Bainbridge, M. Baldwin, X. Harrell, Joseph Kossuth, Lawrence Weiner, Robert Berry, Douglas Huebler and others.
Critical realism of the 19th century,- artistic direction” that puts forward the concept: the world and man are imperfect; exit- non-resistance to evil by violence and self-improvement.
M socialist realism- an artistic direction that affirms an artistic concept: a person is socially active and is included in the creation of history by violent means"
peasant realism- an artistic direction that asserts that the peasant is the main bearer of morality and the support of national life.
Peasant realism (village prose) - the literary direction of Russian prose (60s - 80s); the central theme is the modern village, main character- the peasant is the only true representative of the people and the bearer of ideals.
neorealism- the artistic direction of realism of the 20th century, which manifested itself in post-war Italian cinema and partly in literature. Features: neorealism showed close interest in a man from the people, in life ordinary people: acute attention to detail, observation and fixation of elements that entered life after the Second World War. Produc-
Neorealism's teachings affirm the ideas of humanism, the importance of simple life values, kindness and justice in human relations, the equality of people and their dignity, regardless of their property status.
Magic realism- the artistic direction of realism, which affirms the concept: a person lives in a reality that combines modernity and history, the supernatural and the natural, the paranormal and the ordinary.
Peculiarity magical realism- fantastic episodes develop according to the laws of everyday logic as an everyday reality.
psychological realism- artistic movement of the 20th century, putting forward the concept: the individual is responsible; the spiritual world should be filled with a culture that promotes the brotherhood of people and overcomes their egocentrism and loneliness.
intellectual realism- This is the artistic direction of realism, in the works of which a drama of ideas unfolds and the characters in the faces “act out” the thoughts of the author, express various aspects of his artistic conception. Intellectual realism presupposes a conceptual and philosophical mindset of the artist. If psychological realism seeks to convey the plasticity of the movement of thoughts, reveals the dialectics of the human soul, the interaction of the world and consciousness, then intellectual realism seeks to artistically and convincingly solve actual problems, to analyze the state of the world.
Similar information.
Rationalist foundations of culture
It is impossible to draw a perfectly precise boundary between the cultures of the 16th and 17th centuries. Already in the 16th century, new ideas about the world began to take shape in the teachings of Italian natural philosophers. But the real turning point in the science of the universe takes place at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, when Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei and Kepler, developing the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, come to the conclusion about the plurality of worlds, about the infinity of the universe, in which the earth is not the center, but a small particle when the invention of the telescope and the microscope revealed to man the existence of the infinitely distant and the infinitely small.
In the 17th century, the understanding of man, his place in the world, the relationship between the individual and society changed. The personality of the Renaissance man is characterized by absolute unity and integrity, it is devoid of complexity and development. Personality - of the Renaissance - asserts itself in harmony with nature, which is a good force. The energy of a person, as well as fortune, determine his life path. However, this "idyllic" humanism was no longer suitable for new era when a person ceased to recognize himself as the center of the universe, when he felt all the complexity and contradictions of life, when he had to wage a fierce struggle against the feudal Catholic reaction.
The personality of the 17th century is not valuable in itself, like the personality of the Renaissance, it always depends on the environment, on nature, and on the mass of people, to whom it wants to show itself, to impress and convince it. This tendency, on the one hand, to strike the imagination of the masses, and on the other hand, to convince them, is one of the main features of the art of the 17th century.
The art of the 17th century, like the art of the Renaissance, is characterized by the cult of the hero. But this is a hero who is characterized not by actions, but by feelings, experiences. This is evidenced not only by art, but also by the philosophy of the 17th century. Descartes creates the doctrine of passions, while Spinoza considers human desires "as if they were lines, planes and bodies."
This new perception of the world and man could take on a twofold direction in the 17th century, depending on how it was used. In this complex, contradictory, multifaceted world of nature and the human psyche, its chaotic, irrational, dynamic and emotional side, its illusory nature, its sensual qualities could be emphasized. This path led to the Baroque style.
But the emphasis could also be placed on clear, distinct ideas that see through truth and order in this chaos, on thought struggling with its conflicts, on reason overcoming passions. This path led to classicism.
Baroque and classicism, having received their classical design in Italy and France, respectively, spread to one degree or another throughout all European countries and were the dominant trends in the artistic culture of the 17th century.
Aesthetic principles of the Baroque
The Baroque style originates in Italy, in a country fragmented into small states, in a country that experienced counter-reformation and a strong feudal reaction, where wealthy citizens turned into a landed aristocracy, in a country where the theory and practice of Mannerism flourished, and where, at the same time, in all its brightness the richest traditions of the artistic culture of the Renaissance have been preserved. Baroque took its subjectivity from Mannerism, its passion for reality from the Renaissance, but both in a new stylistic refraction. And although the remnants of Mannerism continue to affect the first and even the second decade of the 17th century, in essence, the overcoming of Mannerism in Italy can be considered completed by 1600.
One of the problems characteristic of baroque aesthetics is the problem of persuasion, which originates in rhetoric. Rhetoric does not distinguish truth from plausibility; as a means of persuasion, they seem to be equivalent - and hence the illusory, fantastic, subjectivism of baroque art, combined with the classification of the "art" technique of producing an effect that creates a subjective, misleading impression of plausibility, follows.
Based on the fact that the main concept of Baroque aesthetics is the ability to persuade, it is understood as the ability to convince the viewer with the help of a specific tool of influence, which is a work of art. Rhetoric decorates speech, gives concepts and objects forms that are more easily perceived. Rhetoric is inextricably linked with literature and poetry, which often identifies itself with rhetoric. The ability of persuasion must convince, touch, surprise the one to whom it is intended. The author, therefore, must know to the smallest detail the one to whom his work is intended, must study them and be guided by this knowledge when creating his works.
Are there any recognized and mandatory methods of persuading the viewer, reader, listener due to their effectiveness? All methods are suitable, provided that they achieve their main goal - to convince the one to whom they are intended. In this regard, the problem of the truth or falsity of a work of art is relegated to the background, it becomes insignificant. Illusory becomes a principle. The reader and viewer must first of all be stunned, surprised, and this can be done with the help of a skillful selection of strange and unusually composed pictures.
Most Baroque theorists were writers, but in their statements one can clearly feel the main trend of the Baroque era - towards the convergence of various types of art. All arts are interconnected and have a single essence. They differ only in the way of expression.
Rationalism and normativism of the aesthetics of classicism
Classicism is one of the most important areas of art. Having established itself in the works and creativity of many generations, putting forward a brilliant galaxy of poets and writers, painters and musicians, architects, sculptors and actors, classicism left such milestones on the path of the artistic development of mankind as tragedies Corneille, Racine, Milton, Voltaire, comedy Molière music lully, poetry La Fontaine, park and architectural ensemble of Versailles, paintings by Poussin.
Classicism begins its reckoning from the 16th century, dominates in the 17th century, powerfully and persistently asserts itself in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The history itself confirms the viability of the traditions of the classicist artistic system and the value of the concepts of the world and the human person underlying it, primarily the moral imperative characteristic of classicism.
The word "classicism" (from the Latin classicus - exemplary) embodied the steady orientation of the new art to the ancient "sample". However, fidelity to the spirit of antiquity did not mean for the classicists either a simple repetition of these ancient models, or a direct copying of ancient theories. Classicism was a reflection of the era of absolute monarchy and the nobility and bureaucracy on which the monarchy was based. Appeal to the art of Greece and Rome, which was also hallmark of the Renaissance, in itself still cannot be called classicism, although it already contained many features of this trend.
Absolute monarchy has played a dual role in the history of France. The cultural policy of the absolute monarchy and its aesthetic doctrine - classicism - were distinguished by the same duality. The monarchic courts were characterized by the desire to subordinate all artistic forces to a centralizing organization. Cardinal Richelieu created the official center in the field of literature and language - the French Academy. Under Louis XIV, the Academy of Fine Arts was created. In these centers of artistic culture, a lot of work was done to create a single literary language, free it from provincial features and remnants of antiquity, develop correct literary speech, classify genres, and so on. The Academy of Arts, which brought together the most prominent painters and art theorists, was engaged in similar activities. In general, all this activity was of progressive significance.
According to the codes of art, the artist was primarily required to have "nobility of design." The plot of the picture must have had instructive value. Therefore, all kinds of allegories were especially highly valued, in which more or less conventionally taken images of life directly expressed general ideas. The highest genre was considered "historical", which included ancient mythology, plots from famous literary works, from the Bible, and the like. Portrait, landscape, scenes of real life were considered "small genre". The most insignificant genre was the still life.
In poetry, classicism brought to the fore the rational development of the theme according to certain rules. The most striking example of this is "Poetic Art" bualo- a treatise set out in beautiful verses and containing many interesting ideas. Boileau put forward the demand for the primacy of content in poetic art, although this principle is expressed in him in a too one-sided form - in the form of an abstract subordination of feeling to reason.
Aesthetics of the European Enlightenment
The aesthetic theories of the Enlightenment were formed during the early bourgeois revolutions of the 17th-18th centuries and are part of the ideology and culture of their time. Enlighteners believed that the reorganization of an obsolete social system should be carried out through the dissemination of advanced ideas, through the fight against ignorance, religious dope, medieval scholasticism, inhumane feudal morality, art and aesthetics, which met the needs of the upper strata of the feudal-absolutist state.
For all their progressiveness, the enlighteners could not go beyond the limits of their era. In the intrigues of a harmonious society, the enlighteners relied on some abstract "citizen", on his political and moral consciousness, and not at all on that real person who was actually formed under capitalism.
Enlighteners through moral, political and aesthetic education tried to achieve the transformation of society on the principles of equality and justice. They were quite clearly aware of the fact that there are contradictions between private and public interests, between personal aspirations and duty, between the individual and society. They hoped to resolve these contradictions largely through aesthetic education. Hence, they had the conviction that the aesthetic principle is able to mitigate the innate egoism of people, to turn a person into an "individual".
From the point of view of educating a “citizen”, a new person, the enlighteners considered the basic concepts: beautiful, sublime, harmony, grace, taste ( Burke, Diderot ); the problems of the essence and social functions of art, artistic conflict, character, truth in art, and so on were treated in the same spirit. The leitmotif of the aesthetic concepts of the Enlightenment was the defense of the art of high civic pathos, the principles of realism and humanism. He talked about the relationship between the beautiful and the moral Shaftesbury .
In interpreting the categories of aesthetics, the enlighteners proceeded from the principles of sensationalism, which is such a direction in the theory of knowledge, according to which sensuality is the main form of reliable knowledge. The classic formula that characterizes sensationalism belongs to the Stoics: "There is nothing in the mind that was not previously in the senses."
Theoretical design of the subject of aesthetics
The founder of the German aesthetics of the Enlightenment and the "godfather" of an independent section of philosophical knowledge was Baumgarten . His epistemological system was divided into two sections: aesthetics and logic. The first was a theory of "lower", sensory knowledge, the second - higher, "intellectual". To designate lower knowledge, he chose the term "aesthetics", which was simultaneously interpreted as sensation, feeling and knowledge. Therefore, if logic is the science of intellectual knowledge, that is, the laws and forms of thinking, then aesthetics is the science of sensory knowledge. Accordingly, there are two types of judgments: "logical" and "sensitive" (sensory). The former rest on distinct ideas, the latter on vague ones. Those based on clear ideas he calls judgments of reason, and those based on vague ideas he calls judgments of taste. Judgments of reason give us truth, judgments of taste give us beauty. The objective basis of the judgment of the mind and the judgment of taste is perfection, that is, the correspondence of objects to their concept.
The Essence and Public Purpose of Art in the Age of Enlightenment
The essence of art was seen in the imitation of nature by the German enlightener Winkelman. The imitation of the beautiful in nature can either be directed to a single object, or collect together observations on a number of single objects. In the first case, a similar copy, a portrait, is obtained, in the second - an ideal image. Winkelman considers the second way to be more fruitful. Here the artist does not act as a copyist, but as a real creator, because before creating an image, he draws up a general concept of beauty and then follows its prototype. Ideal beauty transcends ordinary forms of matter, overcomes their limitations.
AESTHETICS the science of sensory cognition that comprehends and creates beauty and is expressed in the images of art.The concept of "aesthetics" was introduced into scientific use in the middle of the 18th century. German Enlightenment philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten Aesthetics, 1750). The term comes from the Greek word
aisthetikos feeling, pertaining to sensory perception. Baumgarten singled out aesthetics as an independent philosophical discipline. SUBJECT OF AESTHETICS Art and beauty have long been the subject of study. For more than two millennia, aesthetics has developed within the framework of philosophy, theology, artistic practice and art criticism.In the process of development, the subject became more complex and enriched aesthetics. In the period of antiquity, aesthetics touched upon the general philosophical questions of the nature of beauty and art; theology had a significant impact on medieval aesthetics, which served as one of the tools for knowing God; in the Renaissance, aesthetic thought developed mainly in the field of artistic practice, and artistic creativity and its connection with nature became its subject. At the beginning of the New Age, aesthetics sought to shape the norms of art. Politics had a huge impact on the aesthetics of the Enlightenment, focusing on the social purpose of artistic creativity, its moral and cognitive significance.
The classic of German philosophy, Immanuel Kant, traditionally considered the subject of aesthetics as beautiful in art. But aesthetics, according to Kant, does not study objects of beauty, but only judgments about beauty, i.e. is a critique of the aesthetic faculty of judgment. Georg Hegel defined the subject of aesthetics as the philosophy of art or the philosophy of artistic activity and believed that aesthetics is concerned with determining the place of art in the system of the world spirit.
In the future, the subject of aesthetics was narrowed down to a theoretical substantiation of a certain direction in art, analysis artistic style, for example, romanticism (Novalis), realism (V. Belinsky, N. Dobrolyubov), existentialism (A. Camus, J.-P. Sartre). Marxists defined aesthetics as the science of the nature and laws of the aesthetic assimilation of reality and the artistic culture of society.
A.F. Losev considered the subject of aesthetics as a world of expressive forms created by man and nature. He believed that aesthetics studies not only the beautiful, but also the ugly, the tragic, the comic, etc., therefore it is the science of expression in general. Based on this, aesthetics can be defined as the science of sensory perception of the expressive forms of the surrounding world. In this sense, the concept of art form is synonymous with a work of art. From all that has been said, we can conclude that the subject of aesthetics is mobile and changeable, and in the historical perspective, this problem remains open.
AESTHETIC ACTIVITY Works of art are created as a result of artistic activity, which is the highest form of human aesthetic activity. But the sphere of aesthetic exploration of the world is much wider than art itself. It also touches upon aspects of a practical nature: design, garden and park culture, the culture of everyday life, etc. These phenomena are engaged in technical and practical aesthetics. Technical aesthetics is the theory of design, the exploration of the world according to the laws of beauty by industrial means. The ideas of technical aesthetics originated in the middle of the 19th century. in England. John Ruskin in his works Pre-Raphaelitism(1851) and The political economy of art(1857) introduced the concept of aesthetically valuable products. William Morris on Theoretical (Works Decorative arts, their relation to modern life, 1878;News from nowhere, or the era of happiness, 1891 etc.) and practical (creation of an art-industrial company) levels developed the problems of the aesthetics of labor, the status of the art industry, design, arts and crafts, and the aesthetic organization of the environment. The German architect and art theorist Gottfried Semper in 1863 published "An Experience in Practical Aesthetics", an essay Style in the technical and tectonic arts, where he, in contrast to the philosophical idealism of his time, emphasized the basic style-forming value of materials and technology.Aesthetics of everyday life, human behavior, scientific creativity, sports, etc. is in the field of practical aesthetics. This area of aesthetic knowledge is still little developed, but it has a great future, since its scope of interests is wide and diverse.
Thus, aesthetic activity is integral part practical-spiritual assimilation of reality by man.
Aesthetic activity contains important creative and play principles and is associated with unconscious elements of the psyche ( see also UNCONSCIOUS). The concept of "play" as one of the essential characteristics of aesthetic activity was introduced into aesthetics by I. Kant and developed by F. Schiller. Kant formulated two most important aesthetic concepts: "aesthetic appearance" and "free play". Under the first he understood the sphere of existence of beauty, under the second - its existence simultaneously in real and conditional plans. Developing this idea, Schiller Letters about aesthetic education man(1794) wrote that beauty, existing in the objective world, can be recreated, can become "the object of the impulse to play." A man, according to Schiller, is fully human only when he plays. The game is not constrained by natural necessity or social obligation, it is the embodiment of freedom. During the game, an "aesthetic appearance" is created that surpasses reality, is more perfect, elegant and emotional than the surrounding world. But, while enjoying the art, a person becomes an accomplice in the game and never forgets the dual nature of the situation. see also A GAME.
artistic activity . The highest, concentrated type of aesthetic activity, free from the utilitarian beginning, is artistic activity. The goal of artistic creation is the creation of a specific work of art. It is created by a special personality a creator with artistic abilities ( see also PERSONALITY CREATIVE). In aesthetics, a hierarchy of artistic abilities is recognized, which looks like this: giftedness, talent, genius.Genius. In antiquity, genius was understood as an irrational phenomenon. For example, Plotinus explained the genius of the artist as a flow of creative energy coming from the underlying ideas of the world. In the Renaissance, there was a cult of genius as a creative individual. Rationalism asserted the idea of combining the natural genius of the artist with the discipline of the mind. A peculiar interpretation of genius is set out in a treatise by Abbé Jean-Baptiste Dubos (16701742) Critical Reflections on Poetry and Painting(1719). The author of the treatise considered the problem at the aesthetic, psychological and biological levels. A genius, in his mind, not only has a vivacious spirit and a clear imagination, but also a favorable blood composition. Anticipating the main provisions of the cultural-historical school of Hippolyte Taine, Dubos wrote that time and place, as well as climate, are of great importance for the emergence of genius. Kant put special content into the concept of "genius". Kant's genius is spiritual exclusivity, it is an artistic talent through which nature influences art, showing its wisdom. Genius does not adhere to any rules, but creates patterns from which certain rules can be deduced. Kant defines genius as the ability to perceive aesthetic ideas, i.e. images inaccessible to thought.
Inspiration. Historical views on the nature of genius have constantly developed in accordance with the development of understanding of the creative process itself and one of its main elements - inspiration. More Plato in dialogue And he He spoke about the fact that at the moment of the creative act the poet is in a state of frenzy, he is driven by divine power. The irrational aspect of creativity was emphasized by Kant. He noted the unknowability of the creative act. The method of the artist's work, he wrote in Criticism of the ability of judgments, incomprehensible, is a mystery to most people, and sometimes to the artist himself.
If the irrational theories of creativity were aware of the nature of the creative act as a special manifestation of the spirit, then the positivistically oriented aesthetic tradition considered inspiration as a cognizable phenomenon, containing nothing mystical and supernatural. Inspiration is the result of intense previous work, a long creative search. In the act of inspiration, the talent and skill of the artist, his life experience and knowledge are combined.
Artistic intuition. Artistic intuition is a particularly important element for inspiration. This problem was developed by the French scientist Henri Bergson. He believed that artistic intuition is a disinterested mystical contemplation and is completely devoid of a utilitarian beginning. It relies on the unconscious in a person. In work creative evolution(Russian translation, 1914) Bergson wrote that art, through artistic intuition, contemplates the world as a whole, in its continuous development in the unique singularity of phenomena. Creative intuition enables the artist to put maximum expressiveness into his work. The immediacy of perception helps him convey his feelings. Creativity, as the continuous birth of the new, is, according to Bergson, the essence of life, as opposed to the activity of the intellect, which is not capable of creating the new, but only combining the old.
In the intuitive aesthetics of Benedetto Croce, most fully represented in the work Aesthetics as a science of expression and as general linguistics(1902) art is nothing but lyrical intuition. Emphasizes the creative, formative nature of illogical intuition, grasping (as opposed to concepts), unique, unrepeatable. Art in Croce is indifferent to intellectual knowledge, and artistry does not depend on the idea of the work.
Artistic image. In the process of artistic creativity, in which thought, imagination, fantasy, experience, inspiration, intuition of the artist participate, an artistic image is born. Creating an artistic image, the creator consciously or unconsciously assumes its impact on the public. One of the elements of such an impact can be considered ambiguity and understatement. artistic image.Innuendo stimulates the thought of the perceiver, gives scope for creative imagination. A similar judgment was expressed by Schelling in the course of lectures Philosophy of art(18021805), where the concept of "infinity of unconsciousness" is introduced. In his opinion, the artist puts into his work, in addition to the idea, "a kind of infinity", inaccessible to any "finite mind". Any work of art allows an infinite number of interpretations. Thus, the full existence of an artistic image is not only the realization of an artistic concept in a finished work, but also its aesthetic perception, which is a complex process of complicity and co-creation of the perceiving subject.
Perception. The issues of reception (perception) were in the field of view of the theorists of the “Constanz school” (H.R. Jauss, V. Iser and others), which arose in Germany in the late 1960s. Thanks to their efforts, the principles of receptive aesthetics were formulated, the main ideas of which are the awareness of the historical variability of the meaning of the work, which is the result of the interaction of the perceiving subject (recipient) and the author.
creative imagination. A necessary condition for both the creation and perception of a work of art is creative imagination. F. Schiller emphasized that art can only be created by the free power of the imagination, and therefore art is the way to overcome passivity.
In addition to practical and artistic forms of aesthetic activity, there are its inner, spiritual forms: emotional-intellectual, producing aesthetic impressions and ideas, aesthetic tastes and ideals, as well as theoretical, developing aesthetic concepts and views. These forms of aesthetic activity are directly related to the concept of "aesthetic consciousness".
aesthetic consciousness. The specificity of aesthetic consciousness is that it is the perception of being and all its forms and types in terms of aesthetics through the prism aesthetic ideal. The aesthetic consciousness of each era absorbs all the reflections on beauty and art that exist in it. It includes prevailing ideas about the nature of art and its language, artistic tastes, needs, ideals, aesthetic concepts, artistic assessments and criteria formed by aesthetic thought.The primary element of aesthetic consciousness is aesthetic sense. It can be considered as the ability and emotional reaction of an individual associated with the experience of perceiving an aesthetic object. The development of an aesthetic sense leads to aesthetic need, i.e. to the need to perceive and increase the beautiful in life. Aesthetic feelings and needs are expressed in aesthetic taste the ability to note the aesthetic value of something. The problem of taste is central to the aesthetics of the Enlightenment. Diderot, denying one of the most important provisions of Cartesian aesthetics about the innate taste, believed that taste is acquired in everyday practice. Taste as an aesthetic category is also considered in detail by Voltaire. He defines it as the ability to recognize the beautiful and the ugly. The ideal of an artist is a man whose genius is combined with taste. Taste is not an exclusively subjective quality. Judgments of taste are generally valid. But if taste has an objective content, then, consequently, it lends itself to education. Voltaire saw the resolution of the antinomy of good and bad taste in the enlightenment of society.
The psychological features of judgments of taste were studied by the English philosopher David Hume. In most of his writings About the norm of taste,About the tragedy,On refinement of taste and affect etc.), he argued that taste depends on the natural, emotional part of a living organism. He contrasted reason and taste, believing that reason gives knowledge of truth and falsehood, taste gives an understanding of beauty and ugliness, sin and virtue. Hume suggested that the beauty of a work lies not in itself, but in the feeling or taste of the perceiver. And when a person is deprived of this feeling, he is not able to understand beauty, even though he was comprehensively educated. Taste is distinguished by a certain regularity, which can be studied and modified with the help of arguments and reflections. Beauty requires the activity of the intellectual faculties of a person who must "blaze the way" for the right feeling.
The problem of taste occupied a special place in Kant's aesthetic reflection. He noticed the antinomy of taste, a contradiction which, in his opinion, is inherent in any aesthetic evaluation. On the one hand, there is no dispute about tastes, since the judgment of taste is very individual, and no evidence can refute it. On the other hand, he points to something in common that exists between tastes and allows them to be discussed. Thus, he expressed the contradiction between individual and public taste, which is fundamentally insoluble. In his opinion, separate, contradictory judgments about taste can exist together and be equally true.
In the 20th century the problem of aesthetic taste was developed by H.-G. Gadamer. In work Truth and Method(1960) he links the concept of "taste" with the concept of "fashion". In fashion, according to Gadamer, the moment of social generalization contained in the concept of taste becomes a certain reality. Fashion creates a social addiction that is almost impossible to avoid. Here lies the difference between fashion and taste. Although taste operates in the same social sphere as fashion, it is not subject to it. Compared to the tyranny of fashion, taste retains restraint and freedom.
Aesthetic taste is a generalization of aesthetic experience. But this is largely subjective ability. More deeply generalizes aesthetic practice aesthetic ideal. The problem of the ideal as a theoretical problem of aesthetics was first posed by Hegel. IN Lectures on aesthetics he defined art as the manifestation of an ideal. The aesthetic ideal is the absolute embodied in art, to which art aspires and gradually ascends. The value of the aesthetic ideal in creative process very large, because on its basis the taste of the artist, the taste of the public is formed.
AESTHETIC CATEGORIES The fundamental category of aesthetics is the category "aesthetic". The aesthetic acts as a comprehensive generic universal concept for aesthetic science, as a "metacategory" in relation to all its other categories.Closest to the category of "aesthetic" is the category of "beautiful". The beautiful is an example of a sensuously contemplated form, an ideal in accordance with which other aesthetic phenomena are considered. When considering the sublime, tragic, comic, etc., the beautiful acts as a measure. Sublime that this measure exceeds. tragic something that indicates a discrepancy between the ideal and reality, often leading to suffering, disappointment, death. comic something that also testifies to the discrepancy between the ideal and reality, only this discrepancy is resolved by laughter. In modern aesthetic theory, along with positive categories, their antipodes are distinguished - ugly, low, terrible. This is done on the basis that highlighting the positive value of any qualities implies the existence of opposite ones. Hence, Scientific research should consider aesthetic concepts in their correlation.
MAIN STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT OF AESTHETIC THOUGHT. Elements of aesthetic reflection are found in the cultures of Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Sumer and other peoples of the Ancient East. Aesthetic thought received systematic development only among the ancient Greeks.The first examples of aesthetic doctrine were created by the Pythagoreans (6th century BC). Their aesthetic views developed in the tradition of cosmological philosophy, based on the close relationship of the human person and the universe. Pythagoras introduces the concept of the cosmos as an ordered unity. Its main property is harmony. From the Pythagoreans comes the idea of harmony as the unity of the manifold, the harmony of opposites.
Pythagoras and his followers created the so-called doctrine of "the harmony of the spheres", i.e. music created by the stars and planets. They also developed the doctrine of the soul, which is harmony, or rather consonance, based on a digital ratio.
The doctrine of the sophists, which contributed to the birth of aesthetics, arose in the 5th century. BC. Finally formulated by Socrates and expounded by his disciples, it was of an anthropological nature.
Based on the conviction that knowledge is virtuous, he understands beauty as the beauty of meaning, consciousness, reason. The most important prerequisites for the beauty of objects are their expediency and functional justification.
He owns the idea that the beautiful in itself differs from individual beautiful objects. Socrates for the first time distinguishes the beautiful as the ideal universal from its real-life manifestation. He first touched upon the problem of scientific epistemology in aesthetics and formulated the question: what does the concept of "beautiful" mean in itself.
Socrates puts forward imitation as the principle of artistic creativity ( mimesis), which is thought of as an imitation of human life.
Anthropological aesthetics posed questions to philosophy, the answers to which we find in Plato and Aristotle. The detailed aesthetic teaching of Plato is presented in such works as Feast,Phaedrus,And he, Hippias the Greater,State etc. An important aspect of Platonic aesthetics is the comprehension of beauty. Beauty in his understanding is a special kind of spiritual essence, an idea. The absolute, supersensible idea of the beautiful is outside of time, space, outside of change. Since the beautiful is an idea (eidos), it cannot be comprehended by feeling. The beautiful is comprehended through the mind, intellectual intuition. IN Pira Plato speaks of a kind of ladder of beauty. With the help of the energy of eros, a person ascends from bodily beauty to spiritual, from spiritual to the beauty of morals and laws, then to the beauty of teaching and science. The beauty revealed at the end of this journey is an absolute beauty that cannot be expressed in ordinary words. It is beyond being and knowing. Expanding the hierarchy of beauty in this way, Plato comes to the conclusion that beauty is a manifestation of the divine principle in man. The peculiarity of the beautiful in Plato lies in the fact that it is taken out of the bounds of art. Art, from his point of view, is an imitation of the world of sensible things, and not true world ideas. Since real things are themselves copies of ideas, art, imitating the sensible world, is a copy of copies, a shadow of shadows. Plato proved the weakness and imperfection of art on the way to beauty.
Aristotle, despite the continuity of aesthetic views, created his own aesthetic theory, different from Platonism. In his treatises On the art of poetry (Poetics),Rhetoric,Policy,Metaphysics texts are presented that are in a certain way related to aesthetics. In them, he defines beauty, the universal features of which are size and order. But the beauty of Aristotle is not limited to these features. They are not beautiful in themselves, but only in relation to human perception, when they are proportionate to the human eye and hearing. Dividing human activity into study, action and creation, he refers art to creation based on rules. Compared with Plato, he significantly expanded the doctrine of imitation (mimesis), which he understands as an image of the general.
Catharsis(gr.
catharsis cleansing). It goes back to ancient Pythagoreanism, which recommended music for the purification of the soul. Heraclitus, according to the testimony of the Stoics, spoke of purification by fire. Plato put forward the doctrine of catharsis as the liberation of the soul from the body, from passions, from pleasures. Aristotle develops the doctrine of catharsis as the basis of aesthetic experience. Artistic creativity, according to Aristotle, with the help of imitation reaches its destination in the beautiful forms that it creates. The form created by the creator becomes a subject of pleasure for the receptive viewer. The energy invested in a work that satisfies all the requirements of true craftsmanship and beautiful form generates new energy - the emotional activity of the receptive soul. The problem of pleasure is an important part of Aristotle's aesthetics. Pleasure in art corresponds to a reasonable idea and has reasonable grounds. Pleasure and emotional cleansing is the ultimate goal of art, catharsis.Kalokagatiya. Aristotle also develops the doctrine of kalokagatia, characteristic of antiquity (from the Greek.
kalos beautiful and agathos good, morally perfect) the unity of ethically “good” and aesthetically “beautiful”. Kalokagatiya is conceived as something whole and independent. The philosopher understands “good” as external life benefits (power, wealth, fame, honor), and “beautiful” as internal virtues (justice, courage, etc.). , then there is no distinction between them. Kalokagatiya, according to Aristotle, is an internal union of morality and beauty based on the creation, use and improvement of material wealth.Entelechy(from Greek.
entelecheia completed, completed). Entelechy is the process of transforming formless matter into something whole and ordered. Everything that surrounds a person, the philosopher believed, is in a state of chaos. The mechanism of entelechy allows in the process of creative activity to transform the disordered "substance of life" into an ordered "substance of form". Art carries out this process through artistic form, order and harmony, balancing passions, catharsis. Many of the ideas expressed by Aristotle found their further development in subsequent European aesthetic theories.At the end of antiquity, a new concept of beauty and art was put forward by Plotinus. His neoplatonism in late antique aesthetics was the link between antiquity and Christianity. Collected works of the philosopher was called Ennead. The aesthetics of Plotinus in his works is not always expressed openly. It is revealed in the general philosophical concept of the thinker. For Plotinus, beauty is contained in visual and auditory perceptions, in the combination of words, melodies and rhythms, in actions, knowledge, and human virtues. But some objects are beautiful in themselves, while others are only due to their participation in something else. Beauty does not arise in matter itself, but there is some kind of non-material essence, or eidos (idea). This eidos connects disparate parts and brings them to unity, not external and mechanical, but internal. Eidos is the criterion of all aesthetic evaluations.
Plotinus taught that man originated from the primary source of all being, the absolute good, the first one. From this source comes an emanation (outflow) of the boundless energy of the first one to individuality, which gradually weakens, as on its way it encounters the resistance of dark inert matter, formless non-existence. The individual man is a being cut off from his proper place in the original one. Therefore, he constantly feels the desire to return home, where the energy is stronger. This metaphysical path of the wanderer serves in Plotinus' philosophy as an explanation of moral and aesthetic experience. Love for beauty is understood as the metaphysical longing of the soul for its former home. She longs for her former abode for the good, for God and for truth. Thus, the main idea of the aesthetic teaching of Plotinus is to go in the understanding of beauty from sensual pleasures to merging with the incomprehensible primordial unity. Beauty is achieved only as a result of the struggle of the spirit with sensual matter. His idea of the wandering of a restless soul leaving its dwelling and its return had a great influence on the works of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, the work of Dante, and on the entire philosophical and aesthetic thought of the Middle Ages.
Aesthetics of Byzantium. The formation of Byzantine aesthetics takes place in the 4th-6th centuries. It is based on the teachings of representatives of Eastern patristics Gregory of Nazianzus, Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, as well as the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite Areopagitics, which had a huge impact on the medieval aesthetics of both East and West. Absolute transcendental beauty in these aesthetic teachings was God, who attracts to himself, evokes love. The knowledge of God is accomplished by love. Pseudo-Dionysius wrote that the beautiful as the ultimate cause is the limit of everything and the object of love. It is also a model, because in accordance with it everything receives certainty. Byzantine thinkers shared the concept of transcendental and earthly beauty, correlating it with the hierarchy of heavenly and earthly beings. According to Pseudo-Dionysius, the absolute divine beauty is in the first place, the beauty of celestial beings is in the second, and the beauty of objects of the material world is in the third. The attitude of the Byzantines to material, sensually perceived beauty was ambivalent. On the one hand, she was revered as the result of divine creation, on the other hand, she was condemned as a source of sensual pleasure.One of the central problems of Byzantine aesthetics was the problem of the image. It acquired particular urgency in connection with the iconoclastic disputes (8th-9th centuries). The iconoclasts believed that the image must be consubstantial with the prototype, i.e. be a perfect replica. But since the prototype represents the idea of the divine principle, it cannot be depicted with the help of anthropomorphic images.
John of Damascus in a sermon Against those who reject holy icons and Fedor Studit (759826) in Iconoclast denials insisted on the distinction between the image and the prototype, arguing that the image of the divine archetype should be identical to it not “in essence”, but only “in name”. Icon is an image of the ideal visible appearance (inner eidos) of the prototype. This interpretation of the relationship between the image and the prototype was based on an understanding of the conditional nature of the image. The image was understood as complex artistic structure as "unsimilar likeness".
Light. One of the most important categories of Byzantine aesthetics is the category of light. In no other culture has such importance been given to light. The problem of light was mainly developed within the framework of the ascetic aesthetics that developed among Byzantine monasticism. This interior aesthetics (from lat.
interior internal) had an ethical and mystical orientation and preached the rejection of sensual pleasures, a system of special spiritual exercises aimed at contemplating light and other visions. Its main representatives were Macarius of Egypt, Nile of Ancyra, John of the Ladder, Isaac the Syrian. According to their teaching, light is a blessing. There are two types of light: visible and spiritual. Visible light contributes to organic life, spiritual light unites spiritual forces, turns souls to true being. Spiritual light is not visible by itself, it is hidden under various images. It is perceived by the eyes of the mind, the mind's eye. Light in the Byzantine tradition appears as a more general and more spiritual category than beauty.Color. Another modification of beauty in Byzantine aesthetics is color. The culture of color was the result of the strict canonicity of Byzantine art. In church painting, a rich color symbolism was developed and a strict color hierarchy was observed. Each color has a deep religious meaning.
Byzantine aesthetics is revising the system of aesthetic categories, in a different way than the ancient one, placing emphasis in this area. She pays less attention to such categories as harmony, measure, beauty. At the same time, in the system of ideas that became widespread in Byzantium, a large place is occupied by the category of the sublime, as well as the concepts of "image" and "symbol".
Symbolism is one of the most characteristic phenomena of medieval culture, both East and West. Symbols were thought in theology, literature, art. Each object was considered as an image of something corresponding to it in a higher sphere, became a symbol of this higher one. In the Middle Ages, symbolism was universal. To think was to discover hidden meanings forever. According to the patristic concept, God is transcendent, and the Universe is a system of symbols and signs (signs) pointing to God and the spiritual sphere of being. In the aesthetic medieval consciousness, the sensory world was replaced by an ideal, symbolic world. Medieval symbolism ascribes to the living world the property of reflectivity, illusory nature. This is where the total symbolism of Christian art comes from.
Traditional aesthetics of the East. India. The basis of the aesthetic ideas of Ancient India was the mythopoetic tradition, which found expression in the figurative system of Brahmanism. The doctrine of Brahman the universal ideal was developed in the Upanishads, the earliest of which date back to the 8th-6th centuries. before. AD “Knowing” Brahman is possible only through the strongest experience of being (aesthetic contemplation). This supersensible contemplation appears to be the highest bliss and is directly related to aesthetic pleasure. The aesthetics and symbolism of the Upanishads had a great influence on the imagery and aesthetics of Indian epic poems. Mahabharata And Ramayana and on the whole further development of the aesthetic thought of India.A characteristic feature of the aesthetic reflection of medieval India is the lack of interest in questions about the aesthetic in nature and life. The subject of reflection is only art, mainly literature and theater. The main purpose of a work of art is emotion. The aesthetic is derived from the emotional. The central concept of all aesthetic teachings is the concept of "race" (literally "taste"), denoting artistic emotion in art history. Especially this doctrine of race was developed by the theoreticians of the Kashmiri school, among whom the most famous are Anandavardhana (9th century), Shankuka (10th century), Bhatta Nayaka (10th century) and Abhinavagupta (10th-11th century). They were interested in the specificity of aesthetic emotion, which should not be confused with ordinary feeling. Rasa, not being a specific feeling, is an experience that arises in the perceiving subject and is accessible only to internal knowledge. The highest stage of aesthetic experience is the tasting of the race, or in other words, calming down in its consciousness, that is, aesthetic pleasure.
China.The development of traditional aesthetic thought in China was directly influenced by two main currents Chinese philosophy: Confucianism and Taoism. The aesthetic teaching of Confucius (552/551479 BC) and his followers developed within the framework of their socio-political theory. The central place in it was occupied by the concepts of "humanity" and "ritual", embodied in the behavior of a "noble person". The purpose of these moral categories was to maintain ethical foundations in society and organize a harmonious world order. Great importance was attached to art, which was seen as a way of moral perfection and education of the harmony of the spirit. Confucianism subordinated aesthetic requirements to ethical ones. The very "beautiful" in Confucius is a synonym for "good", and the aesthetic ideal was seen as the unity of the beautiful, the good and the useful. From here comes a strong didactic beginning in the traditional aesthetics of China. This aesthetic tradition stood up for the authenticity and colorfulness of art. She considered creativity as the pinnacle of professional skill, and the artist as the creator of art.
Another line is connected with Taoist teachings. Lao Tzu (6th century BC) and Chuang Tzu (43 century BC) are considered to be its founders. If the Confucians paid the main attention in their teaching to the ethical principle, then the Taoists paid the main attention to the aesthetic principle. The central place in Taoism was occupied by the theory of "Tao" - the path, or the eternal variability of the world. One of the attributes of the Tao, which has an aesthetic meaning, was the concept of "tszyran" naturalness, spontaneity. The Taoist tradition affirmed the spontaneity of artistic creativity, the naturalness of the artistic form and its correspondence to nature. Hence comes the inseparability of the aesthetic and natural in the traditional aesthetics of China. Creativity in Taoism was seen as a revelation and influx, and the artist as a tool for the "self-creation" of art.
Japan. The development of the traditional aesthetics of Japan took place under the influence of Zen Buddhism. This creed attaches great importance to meditation and other methods of psycho-training that serve to achieve satori a state of inner enlightenment, peace of mind and balance. Zen Buddhism is characterized by a view of life and the material world as something short-lived, changeable and sad in nature. Traditional Japanese aesthetics, combining Confucian influences from China and the Japanese school of Zen Buddhism, has developed special principles that are fundamental to Japanese art. Among them, the most important is "wabi" aesthetic and moral principle enjoying a calm and unhurried life, free from worldly concerns. It means simple and pure beauty and a clear, contemplative state of mind. The tea ceremony, the art of arranging flowers, and gardening art are based on this principle. Another principle of Japanese aesthetics, “sabi”, which is associated with the existential loneliness of a person in an infinite universe, goes back to Zen Buddhism. According to the Buddhist tradition, the state of human loneliness should be accepted with quiet humility and find in it a source of inspiration. The concept of "yugen" (the beauty of lonely sadness) in Buddhism is associated with a deeply hidden truth that cannot be understood intellectually. It is rethought as an aesthetic principle, meaning a mysterious "otherworldly" beauty filled with mystery, ambiguity, tranquility and inspiration.
Aesthetics of the Western European Middle Ages deeply theological. All basic aesthetic concepts find their completion in God. In the aesthetics of the early Middle Ages, the most holistic aesthetic theory is represented by Augustine Aurelius. Under the influence of Neoplatonism, Augustine shared Plotinus' idea of the beauty of the world. The world is beautiful because it was created by God, who himself is the highest beauty, and is the source of all beauty. Art does not create real images of this beauty, but only its material forms. Therefore, Augustine believes, it is not the work of art itself that should be liked, but the divine idea contained in it. Following antiquity, St. Augustine gave a definition of beauty, starting from the signs of formal harmony. In the essay About the city of God he speaks of beauty as the proportionality of the parts combined with the pleasantness of color. With the concept of beauty, he also associated the concepts of proportionality, form and order.The new medieval interpretation of beauty was that harmony, harmony, order of objects are beautiful not in themselves, but as a reflection of a higher god-like unity. The concept of "unity" is one of the central ones in Augustine's aesthetics. He writes that the form of all beauty is unity. The more perfect a thing, the more unity it has. The beautiful is one, because being itself is one. The concept of aesthetic unity cannot arise from sensory perceptions. On the contrary, it itself determines the perception of beauty. Starting an aesthetic assessment, a person already has in the depths of his soul the concept of unity, which he then seeks in things.
Augustine's doctrine of contrasts and opposites had a great influence on medieval aesthetics. In the treatise About the city of God he wrote that the world was created like a poem embellished with antitheses. Difference and variety gives beauty to each thing, and contrast gives a special expressiveness to harmony. In order for the perception of beauty to be complete and perfect, the right relationship must connect the contemplator of beauty with the spectacle itself. The soul is open to sensations that are in harmony with it and rejects sensations that are inappropriate for it. For the perception of beauty, it is necessary to agree between beautiful objects and the soul. It is necessary that a person should have an unselfish love for beauty.
Thomas Aquinas in his main work Sum of theologies actually summed up Western medieval aesthetics. He systematized the views of Aristotle, Neoplatonists, Augustine, Dionysius the Areopagite. The first characteristic sign of beauty, Thomas Aquinas echoes after his predecessors, is the form perceived by high human feelings (sight, hearing). Beauty affects the feeling of a person with its organization. He quite fully substantiates such concepts related to the objective characteristics of beauty as "clarity", "integrity", "proportion", "consistency". Proportion, in his view, is the ratio of spiritual and material, internal and external, ideas and forms. By clarity, he understood both the visible radiance, the brilliance of a thing, and its inner, spiritual radiance. Perfection meant the absence of flaws. The Christian worldview invariably includes the concept of goodness in the concept of beauty. New in the aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas was the introduction of a distinction between them. He saw this difference in the fact that the good is the object and goal of constant human aspirations, beauty is the achieved goal when the human intellect is freed from all aspirations of the will, when he begins to experience pleasure. The goal characteristic of the good, in beauty already, as it were, ceases to be a goal, but is a pure form, taken in itself, disinterestedly. Such an understanding of beauty by Thomas Aquinas allows F. Losev to conclude that such a definition of the subject of aesthetics is the starting point for the entire aesthetics of the Renaissance.
Aesthetics of the Renaissance individualistic aesthetics. Its specificity lies in the spontaneous self-affirmation of a person who thinks and acts artistically, understands the nature surrounding him and the historical environment as an object of enjoyment and imitation. The aesthetic doctrine of the Renaissance is imbued with life-affirming motives and heroic pathos. It is dominated by an anthropocentric tendency. In the aesthetics of the Renaissance, the understanding of the beautiful, the sublime, the heroic is also associated with anthropocentrism. A person, his body becomes a model of beauty. Man is seen as a manifestation of the titanic, the divine. He has limitless possibilities of knowledge and occupies an exceptional position in the world. The program work, which had a great influence on the artistic thought of the era, was the treatise Pico dela Mirandola On the dignity of man(1487). The author formulates a completely new concept of the human personality. He says that a person himself is a creator, a master of his own image. This substantiates a new attitude towards the artist. This is no longer a medieval craftsman, but a comprehensively educated person, a concrete expression of the ideal of a universal person.In the Renaissance, a view of art as creativity was established. Ancient and medieval aesthetics considered art as an application to matter of a ready-made form that was already in the soul of the artist. In the aesthetics of the Renaissance, the idea is born that the artist himself creates, re-creates this form itself. One of the first to formulate this idea was Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) in his treatise About the mind. He wrote that art not only imitates nature, but is creative, creating the forms of all things, supplementing and correcting nature.
The rich artistic practice of the Renaissance gave rise to numerous treatises on art. These are the writings About painting, 1435; About sculpting, 1464; About architecture, 1452 Leona Battista Alberti; On Divine Proportion Luca Pacioli (14451514); Book about painting Leonardo da Vinci. In them, art was recognized as an expression of the mind of the poet and artist. An important feature of these treatises is the development of the theory of art, the problems of linear and aerial perspective, chiaroscuro, proportionality, symmetry, and composition. All this helped to make the artist's vision stereoscopic, and the objects depicted by him, embossed and tangible. The intensive development of the theory of art was stimulated by the idea of creating an illusion of real life in a work of art.
17th-18th centuries, Enlightenment. For the 17th century the dominance of philosophical aesthetics over practical ones is characteristic. During this period, the philosophical teachings of Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Rene Descartes, John Locke, Gottfried Leibniz appeared, which had a great influence on the aesthetic reflection of the New Age. The most holistic aesthetic system was represented by classicism, the ideological basis of which was the rationalism of Descartes, who argued that the basis of knowledge is the mind. Classicism is, first of all, the dominance of reason. One of the characteristic features of the aesthetics of classicism can be called the establishment of strict rules for creativity. A work of art was understood not as a naturally occurring organism, but as an artificial phenomenon created by man according to a plan, with a specific task and purpose. The code of norms and canons of classicism is a treatise in verse by Nicolas Boileau poetic art(1674). He believed that in order to achieve the ideal in art, one must use strict rules. These rules are based on the ancient principles of beauty, harmony, the sublime, the tragic. The main value of a work of art is the clarity of the idea, the nobility of the idea and the precisely calibrated form. In Boileau's treatise, the theory of the hierarchy of genres developed by the aesthetics of classicism, the rule of "three unities" (place, time and action), orientation towards a moral task ( see also UNITIES (THREE): TIMES, PLACES, ACTIONS).In the aesthetic thought of the 17th century. the baroque direction stands out, not formalized in a coherent system. Baroque aesthetics is represented by such names as Baltasar Gracian y Marales (16011658), Emmanuele Tesauro (15921675) and Matteo Peregrini. In their writings Wit, or the Art of a Quick Mind(1642) Graciana; Aristotle's spyglass(1654) Tesauro; Treatise on wit(1639) Peregrini) one of the the most important concepts baroque aesthetics "wit", or "quick mind". It is perceived as the main creative force. Baroque wit is the ability to bring together the dissimilar. The basis of wit is a metaphor that connects objects or ideas that seem infinitely far away. Baroque aesthetics emphasize that art is not a science, it is not based on the laws of logical thinking. Wit is a sign of genius, which is given by God, and no theory can help to find it.
Aesthetics of the baroque creates a system of categories in which the concept of beauty is ignored, and instead of harmony, the concept of disharmony and dissonance is put forward. Rejecting the idea of a harmonious structure of the Universe, the Baroque reflects the worldview of a man of the beginning of the New Age, who comprehended the inconsistency of being. This attitude is especially sharply represented by the French thinker Blaise Pascal. The philosophical reflection of Pascal, his literary works occupy an important place in the aesthetics of the 17th century. He did not share the pragmatism and rationality of modern society. His vision of the world acquired a deeply tragic coloring. It is connected with the ideas of "hidden God" and "silence of the world". Between these two manifestations lies man in his loneliness, whose nature is tragically dual. On the one hand he is great in his rationality and communion with God, on the other he is insignificant in his physical and moral fragility. This idea is expressed in his famous definition: "man is a thinking reed". Pascal in this formula reflected not only his vision of the world, but conveyed the general mood of the century. His philosophy permeates the art of the Baroque, which gravitates toward dramatic plots that recreate a chaotic picture of the world.
English aesthetics of the 17th-18th centuries defended sensualistic principles, relying on the teachings of John Locke on the sensual basis of thinking. Locke's empiricism and sensationalism contributed to the development of ideas about "internal sensation", feeling, passion, intuition. The idea of a fundamental close connection between art and morality, which became dominant in the aesthetics of the Enlightenment, was also substantiated. He wrote about the relationship between beauty and goodness in his work Characteristics of people, manners, opinions and times(1711) representative of the so-called "moralizing aesthetics" A.E.K. Shaftesbury. In his moral philosophy, Shaftesbury relied on Locke's sensationalism. He believed that the ideas of goodness and beauty have a sensual basis, come from a moral feeling inherent in the person himself.
Ideas of the English Enlightenment had a great influence on the French thinker Denis Diderot. Just like his predecessors, he links beauty with morality. Diderot is the author of the theory of Enlightenment realism, which was substantiated in his treatise Philosophical study of the origin and nature of beauty(1751). He understood artistic creativity as a conscious activity that has a reasonable goal and is based on general rules art. Diderot saw the purpose of art in softening and improving morals, in the education of virtue. A characteristic feature of Diderot's aesthetic theory is its unity with art criticism.
The development of the aesthetics of the German Enlightenment is associated with the names of Alexander Baumgarten, Johann Winckelmann, Gotthold Lessing, Johann Herder. In their works, for the first time, aesthetics is defined as a science, the principle of a historical approach to works of art is formed, attention is drawn to the study of the national identity of artistic culture and folklore (I. Herder In the groves of criticism, 1769;On the influence of poetry on the customs of peoples in ancient and modern times, 1778;Calligone, 1800), there is a tendency for a comparative study of various types of art (G. Lessing Laocoön, or on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, 1766;Hamburg dramaturgy, 17671769), the foundations of theoretical art history are being created (I. Winkelman History of ancient art, 1764).
Aesthetics in German classical philosophy. The German enlighteners had a great influence on the subsequent development of aesthetic thought in Germany, especially its classical period. German classical aesthetics (late 18th - early 19th century) is represented by Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Schiller, Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, Georg Hegel.Aesthetic views I. Kant outlined in Criticism of the ability of judgment, where he considered aesthetics as part of philosophy. He developed in detail the most important problems of aesthetics: the doctrine of taste, the main aesthetic categories, the doctrine of genius, the concept of art and its relationship to nature, the classification of art forms. Kant explains the nature of aesthetic judgment, which is distinct from logical judgment. An aesthetic judgment is a judgment of taste, a logical one has as its goal the search for truth. special kind the aesthetic judgment of taste is beautiful. The philosopher highlights several points in the perception of beauty. Firstly, this is the disinterestedness of the aesthetic feeling, which boils down to pure admiration of the object. The second feature of the beautiful is that it is an object of universal admiration without the help of the category of reason. He also introduces the notion of "expediency without purpose" into his aesthetics. In his opinion, beauty, being a form of the expediency of an object, should be perceived without any idea of any purpose.
One of the first Kant gave a classification of art forms. He divides the arts into verbal (the art of eloquence and poetry), pictorial (sculpture, architecture, painting) and the art of graceful play of sensations (music).
The problems of aesthetics occupied an important place in the philosophy of G. Hegel. A systematic exposition of Hegelian aesthetic theory is contained in his Lectures on aesthetics(published in 18351836). Hegel's aesthetics is the theory of art. He defines art as a stage in the development of the absolute spirit along with religion and philosophy. In art, the absolute spirit cognizes itself in the form of contemplation; in religion, in the form of representation; in philosophy, the concept. The beauty of art is higher than natural beauty, because the spirit is superior to nature. Hegel noted that the aesthetic attitude is always anthropomorphic, beauty is always human. Hegel presented his theory of art in the form of a system. He writes about three forms of art: symbolic (East), classical (antiquity), romantic (Christianity). With various art forms, he connects a system of different arts, differing in material. Hegel considered the beginning of art to be architecture, corresponding to the symbolic stage in the development of artistic creativity. For classical art sculpture is characteristic, and for the romantic painting, music and poetry.
Based on the philosophical and aesthetic teachings of Kant, F.W. Schelling creates his own aesthetic theory. It is featured in his writings. Philosophy of art, ed. 1859 and On the relation of the fine arts to nature, 1807. Art, in the understanding of Schelling, is ideas that, as "eternal concepts" abide in God. Therefore, the immediate beginning of all art is God. Schelling sees in art an emanation of the absolute. The artist owes his work to the eternal idea of man, embodied in God, who is connected with the soul and forms a single whole with it. This presence of the divine principle in a person is the "genius" that allows the individual to materialize the ideal world. He asserted the idea of the superiority of art over nature. In art, he saw the completion of the world spirit, the unification of spirit and nature, objective and subjective, external and internal, conscious and unconscious, necessity and freedom. Art for him is part of philosophical truth. He raises the question of creating a new field of aesthetics - the philosophy of art and places it between the divine absolute and the philosophizing mind.
Schelling was one of the main theorists of the aesthetics of Romanticism. The origin of romanticism is associated with the Jena school, whose representatives were the brothers August Schlegel and Friedrich Schlegel, Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis), Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder (17731798), Ludwig Tieck.
The origins of the philosophy of romanticism are in the subjective idealism of Fichte, who proclaimed the subjective "I" as the beginning. Based on Fichte's concept of free, unrestricted creative activity, romantics substantiate the autonomy of the artist in relation to the outside world. External world they are changing inner world poetic genius. In the aesthetics of romanticism, the idea of creativity was developed, according to which the artist in his work does not reflect the world as it is, but creates it as it should be in his mind. Accordingly, the role of the artist himself increased. So, in Novalis, the poet acts as a soothsayer and magician, reviving inanimate nature. Romanticism is characterized by the denial of the normativity of artistic creativity, the renewal of artistic forms. Romantic art is metaphorical, associative, ambiguous, it gravitates towards synthesis, towards the interaction of genres, types of art, towards connection with philosophy and religion.
1920 centuries From the middle of the 19th century Western European aesthetic thought developed in two directions. The first of these is connected with the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte, the author Positive Philosophy Course(18301842). Positivism proclaimed the priority of concrete scientific knowledge over philosophy, sought to explain aesthetic phenomena through categories and ideas borrowed from natural science. Within the framework of positivism, such aesthetic trends as the aesthetics of naturalism and social analysis are formed.The second direction of positivist oriented aesthetics is presented in the works of Hippolyte Taine, who became one of the first specialists in the field of the sociology of art. He developed questions of the relationship between art and society, the influence of the environment, race, moment on artistic creativity. Art, in the understanding of Taine, is a product of specific historical conditions, and he defines a work of art as a product of the environment.
Marxist aesthetics also comes out from the standpoint of positivism. Marxism considered art as an integral part of the general historical process, the basis of which they saw in the development of the mode of production. Correlating the development of art with the development of the economy, Marx and Engels viewed it as something secondary to the economic basis. The main provisions of the aesthetic theory of Marxism are the principle of historical concreteness, the cognitive role of art, and its class character. A manifestation of the class character of art is, as Marxist aesthetics believed, its tendentiousness. Marxism laid down the basic principles that found their further development in Soviet aesthetics.
Opposition to positivism in European aesthetic thought in the second half of the 19th century. There was a movement of artists who put forward the slogan "art for art's sake". The aesthetics of "pure art" developed under the strong influence of the philosophical concept Arthur Schopenhauer. In work The World as Will and Representation (1844) he outlined the basic elements of the elitist concept of culture. Schopenhauer's teaching is based on the idea of aesthetic contemplation. He divided humanity into "people of genius", capable of aesthetic contemplation and artistic creativity, and "people of use", oriented towards utilitarian activity. Genius implies an outstanding ability to contemplate ideas. Desires are always inherent in a practical person, an artist-genius is a calm observer. Replacing reason with contemplation, the philosopher thereby replaces the concept of spiritual life with the concept of refined aesthetic pleasure and acts as a forerunner of the aesthetic doctrine of "pure art".
The ideas of "art for art's sake" are formed in the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Gustave Flaubert, Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde. Continuing the romantic tradition, representatives of aestheticism argued that art exists for its own sake and fulfills its purpose by being beautiful.
At the end of the 19th century in European philosophical and aesthetic thought, there are processes of radical revision of the classical forms of philosophizing. The rejection and revision of classical aesthetic values was made by Friedrich Nietzsche. He prepared the collapse of the traditional transcendental aesthetic concept and to a large extent influenced the formation of postclassical philosophy and aesthetics. In Nietzsche's aesthetics, a theory was developed Apollonian and Dionysian art. In the essay The birth of tragedy from the spirit of music (1872) he resolves the antinomy of the Apollonian and the Dionysian as two opposite, but inseparably connected with each other beginnings that underlie every cultural phenomenon. Apollonian art seeks to streamline the world, to make it harmoniously balanced, clear and balanced. But the Apollonian principle concerns only the outer side of being. This is an illusion and a constant self-deception. The Apollonian structuring of chaos is opposed by the Dionysian intoxication of ecstasy. The Dionysian principle of art is not the creation of new illusions, but the art of living elements, excess, spontaneous joy. The Dionysian frenzy in the interpretation of Nietzsche turns out to be a way to overcome the alienation of man in the world. Going beyond the limits of individualistic isolation is true creativity. The truest forms of art are not those that create an illusion, but those that allow you to look into the abyss of the universe.
The aesthetic and philosophical concepts of Nietzsche found wide application in the theory and practice of the aesthetics of modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The original development of these ideas is observed in the Russian aesthetics of the Silver Age. First of all at Vladimir Solovyov, in his philosophy of "universal unity", based on the calm triumph of the eternal victory of the bright principle over chaotic confusion. and Nietzschean aesthetics attracted Russian symbolists. Following Nietzsche, they perceived the world as an aesthetic phenomenon created by the theurgist artist.
Aesthetic theories of the 20th century. Aesthetic problems of the 20th century It is developed not so much in special studies as in the context of other sciences: psychology, sociology, semiotics, linguistics.Among the most influential aesthetic concepts stands out phenomenological aesthetics, based on philosophy Edmund Husserl. The Polish philosopher Roman Ingarden (1893-1970) can be considered the founder of phenomenological aesthetics. The key concept of phenomenology is intentionality (from Latin intentio aspiration, intention, direction), which is understood as the construction of an object of cognition by consciousness.
Phenomenology considers a work of art as a self-sufficient phenomenon of intentional contemplation without any context, proceeding from itself. Everything that can be found out about a work is contained in it itself, it has its own independent value, autonomous existence and is built according to its own laws.
Nikolai Hartmann (18821950) spoke from a phenomenological position. The main category of aesthetics beautiful is comprehended in a state of ecstasy and dreaminess. Reason, on the contrary, does not allow one to join the sphere of beauty. Therefore, the cognitive act is incompatible with aesthetic contemplation.
Michel Dufrenne (1910-1995) criticized modern Western civilization, alienating man from nature, his own essence and the highest values of being. He seeks to identify the fundamental foundations of culture, which would make it possible to establish harmonious relations between man and the world. Having perceived the pathos of Heidegger's concept of art as the "truth of being", Dufrenne looks for such grounds in the richness of aesthetic experience, interpreted from the standpoint of phenomenological ontology.
The phenomenological method of research underlies the methodology of Russian formalism, French structuralism and the Anglo-American "new criticism" that arose as an opposition to positivism. In the works of J.K. Ransome ( New criticism, 1941), A. Tate ( reactionary essays, 1936), C. Brooks and R.P. Warren ( Understanding poetry, 1938; Understanding prose, 1943) laid down the basic principles of neo-critical theory: the study is based on an isolated text that exists as an object independently of the artist-creator. This text has an organic and integral structure that can exist as a special organization of images, symbols, myths. With the help of such an organic form, cognition of reality is carried out (the neo-critical concept of "poetry as knowledge").
To other important areas of aesthetic thought of the 20th century. include the psychoanalytic concepts of Z. Freud and G. Jung, the aesthetics of existentialism (J.-P. Sartre, A. Camus, M. Heideger), the aesthetics of personalism (S. Peguy, E. Munier, P. Ricoeur), the aesthetics of structuralism and post-structuralism (K. Levi Strauss, R. Barth, J. Derrida), sociological aesthetic concepts of T. Adorno and G. Marcuse.
Modern aesthetic thought is also developing in line with postmodernism (I. Hassan, J.F. Lyotard). The aesthetics of postmodernism is characterized by a conscious disregard for any rules and restrictions developed by the previous cultural tradition, and, as a result, an ironic attitude towards this tradition.
The conceptual apparatus of aesthetics is undergoing significant changes, the main categories of aesthetics are undergoing a meaningful reassessment, for example, the sublime is being replaced by the amazing, the ugly has received its status as an aesthetic category along with the beautiful, etc. What has traditionally been regarded as non-aesthetic becomes aesthetic or defined aesthetically. This also determines two lines of development of modern culture: one line is aimed at continuing traditional aesthetics (the aestheticization of everyday life is considered as its extreme manifestation, hence, for example, hyperrealism, pop art, etc.) , surrealism, concept art).
A special place in modern aesthetics is given to the tradition of violation, going “outside the aesthetic and artistic norms”, i.e. marginal or naive creativity, which often acquires the status of aesthetic after a long time (the history of culture abounds with examples of such creativity of artists, musicians, and writers).
The variety of aesthetic theories and concepts of modern aesthetic science testifies to a qualitatively new, compared with the classical period, development of aesthetic thought. The use of the experience of many humanities in modern aesthetics testifies to the great prospects of this science.
Ludmila Tsarkova
LITERATURE History of aesthetic thought, tt. 15. M., 19851990Losev A.F. Form. Style. Expression. M., 1995
Bransky V.P. Art and philosophy. Kaliningrad, 1999
Bychkov V.V. 2000 years of Christian culture subspecie aesthetica . Tt. 12. M. SPb, 1999
Gilbert K.E., Kuhn G. History of aesthetics. St. Petersburg, 2000
Gulyga A.V. Aesthetics in the light of axicology. St. Petersburg, 2000
Croce B. Aesthetics as a science of expression and as general linguistics. M., 2000
Mankovskaya N. Aesthetics of postmodernism. St. Petersburg, 2000
Adorno T. aesthetic theory. M., 2001
Krivtsun O.A. Aesthetics. M., 2001
Yakovlev E.G. Aesthetics. M., 2001
Borev Yu.B. Aesthetics. M., 2002
The development of aesthetic science in the countries of Western Europe and the USA in the first half of our century expressed this contradictory period in many of its concepts and theories, primarily of a non-realistic nature, for many of which the term "modernism" was established.
Modernism (from the French modern - the latest, modern) is a general symbol for the art trends of the 20th century, which are characterized by the rejection of traditional methods of artistic representation of the world.
Modernism as an artistic system was prepared by two processes of its development: decadence (i.e. flight, rejection of real life, the cult of beauty as the only value, the rejection of social problems) and the avant-garde (whose manifestos called for breaking with the legacy of the past and creating something new, contrary to traditional artistic settings).
All the main trends and currents of modernism - cubism, expressionism, futurism, constructivism, imaginism, surrealism, abstractionism, pop art, hyperrealism, etc., either rejected or completely transformed the entire system of artistic means and techniques. Specifically, in various types of art, this was expressed: in the change in spatial images and the rejection of artistic and figurative patterns in the visual arts; in the revision of melodic, rhythmic and harmonic organization in music; in the emergence of a “stream of consciousness”, an internal monologue, associative montage in literature, etc. The ideas of irrationalist voluntarism of A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche, the doctrine of intuition by A. Bergson and N. Lossky, psychoanalysis 3 had a great influence on the practice of modernism. Freud and C. G. Jung, the existentialism of M. Heidegger, J.-P. Sartre and A. Camus, the theory of social philosophy of the Frankfurt School T. Adorno and G. Marcuse.
The general emotional mood of the works of modernist artists can be expressed in the following phrase: the chaos of modern life, its disintegration contribute to the disorder and loneliness of a person, his conflicts are insoluble and hopeless, and the circumstances in which he is placed are insurmountable.
After the Second World War, most of the modernist trends in art lost their former avant-garde positions. In post-war Europe and America, "mass" and "elite" cultures began to actively manifest themselves, with various aesthetic trends and directions corresponding to them, and aesthetic schools of a non-Marxist nature also declared themselves. In general, the post-war stage in the development of foreign aesthetics can be defined as postmodern.
Postmodernism is a concept denoting a new, the last to date, super-stage in the chain of trends of culture naturally changing each other over the course of history. Postmodernism as a paradigm of modern culture is a general direction of development European culture formed in the 70s. 20th century
The emergence of postmodern trends in culture is associated with the awareness of the limitations of social progress and the fear of society that its results threaten the destruction of the very time and space of culture. Postmodernism, as it were, should establish the limits of human intervention in the development of nature, society and culture. Therefore, postmodernism is characterized by the search for a universal artistic language, the convergence and merging of various artistic movements, moreover, the “anarchism” of styles, their endless variety, eclecticism, collage, the realm of subjective montage.
characteristic features postmodernism are:
The orientation of postmodern culture and the "mass" and the "elite" of society;
Significant influence of art on non-art spheres of human activity (on politics, religion, computer science, etc.);
Style pluralism;
Wide citation in their creations of works of art of previous eras;
Irony over the artistic traditions of past cultures;
Using the technique of the game when creating works of art.
In postmodern artistic creation, there is a conscious reorientation from creativity to compilation and quotation. For postmodernism, creativity is not equal to creation. If the system "artist - work of art" works in pre-postmodern cultures, then in postmodernism the emphasis is shifted to the relationship "work of art - viewer", which indicates a fundamental change in the artist's self-consciousness. He ceases to be a "creator", since the meaning of the work is born directly in the act of its perception. A postmodern work of art must be seen, exhibited, it cannot exist without a viewer. We can say that in postmodernism there is a transition from a "work of art" to an "artistic construction".
Postmodernism as a theory received significant justification in the works of J. Baudrillard "The System of Things" (1969), J. F. Lyotard "Postmodern Knowledge" (1979) and "Dispute" (1984), P. Sloterdijk "Magic Tree" (1985) and others
In this section, only the most important aesthetic trends and schools of non-Marxist orientation, as well as the key problems of aesthetic science of the 20th century, will be analyzed.
