Ground, 2022 by Dan Hillier.
Through a synthesis of aesthetica artificialis and aesthetica naturalis conducted with an understanding of active seeing as integral to and inexorable from passive perception and vice versa, one may regard an artwork as intrinsically instrumental irrespective of its efficacy being intentional. The term “aesthetics” is derived from the Greek αίσθησης (aisthesis) meaning “sensation.” The discipline of aesthetics emerged in Germany during the eighteenth century; Alexander Baumgarten spearheaded the field of study with his work Aesthetica, published in 1750. Baumgarten drew a distinction between two aesthetic practices: aesthetica artificialis, the intellectual consideration of beauty, and aesthetica naturalis, the examination of physical sense perception. For Baumgarten and his contemporaries, the aesthetic enterprise involves representative vision and presentative seeing – that is the passive perception of physical form and the active reception of its intellectual content. The term “re-presentation” may be employed to denote this aesthetic participation.
The implications of intentional re-presentation within artistic and religious conduct are of great importance to artists, people of a given spiritual framework, and the culture which they inhabit. To expand on the term, re-presentation emphasizes the active presentation in the present of an original presence that has been. The process of re-presentation is mutual among religious and artistic practices; Good Friday services within the Christian tradition re-present the crucifixion of Christ in the way a painting of a landscape might re-present a mountain or a stream. The Eucharist is characterized Thomisticly as an instance of transubstantiation, wherein substance or essence (Christ's presence) is re-embodied in the present, while accidents (bread and wine) remain as they are.
In the artistic realm, Benedetto Croce regards expression and its experience, not re-presentation, as the “vehicle” of aesthetic value. This view could be said to align with ars gratia artis, or art for art's sake, a philosophy of art that characterizes the artist’s aim as being beyond the mere achievement of a specified end. From this perspective, artistry is not undertaken with any explicit aim but is embarked upon for the sake of itself. Conversely, the instrumental view of art often emphasizes the communication of a particular set of values as a valid goal of artistic activity.
Many scholars, in considering art's goal or lack thereof, form a stark dichotomy between the aestheticism of ars gratia artis and the functionalism of the instrumental view. However, harmonizing aesthetic instrumentalism’s emphasis on utility and aestheticism’s insistence on art for art’s sake allows for a reconciliatory ontology of art: a work's function is fundamentally fettered to its form. If it is indeed the case that “the object stares back,” as James Elkins affirms, then the attended and the attendee are reciprocally altered via this aesthetic process. Thus, the distinction between the instrumental approach and that of “art for art’s sake” is generally a matter of intent. However, artistry cannot effectively be without function, only nominally so. Therefore, even a painting created non-instrumentally is inherently performing a function qua object of attention.
from The Creation of Adam, circa 1512 by Michelangelo.
In artistic and spiritual activity, there is something sought after which lies just beyond the veil of our perception: an ideal. Art strives for “the beautiful” while religion seeks “the good,” both of which are transcendent but nonetheless immanent. Embodied faith as an art in itself is exemplified in ritual, a structured and intentional activity in which one's attention is honed towards a sacred idea, event, or deity; communication is also often sought through liturgy.
To be in the presence of a work of art is to be its viewer or spectator. However, to engage in the seeing of a painting is to be both its benefactor and beneficiary; one is participating in the beauty being offered in the act of attending, which is not merely perception, but reception. Likewise, to merely assent to propositions of a particular religious belief system is to be a passive member of an audience. Religious practice and art share teleological, or at least ontological, elements. When participated in, these products of intentional agents bring about a change in the attendee – analogous to the sacrilization of the profane. Thus, intentionally attentive practice unites form and content. Art and religious life are therefore understood as creations that elicit this aesthetic/spiritual effect, indeed affection. As Simone Weil wrote, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
Given the requisite attention for proper appreciation, only when the content of a form is intentionally sought and embodied in practice can a viewer most effectively derive meaning and an artist produce good work. As the Christian cosmogonic narrative describes one particular Artist, “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”
Bibliography
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