Kant's Aesthetics

“Moreover, the

former delight is very different from the latter in kind. For the

beautiful is directly attended with a feeling of the furtherance of

life, and is thus compatible with charms and a playful imagination. On

the other hand, the feeling of the sublime is a pleasure that only

arises indirectly, being brought about by the feeling of a momentary

check to the vital forces followed at once by a discharge all the more

powerful, and so it is an emotion that seems to be no sport, but

dead earnest in the affairs of the imagination. Hence charms are

repugnant to it; and, since the mind is not simply attracted by the

object, but is also alternately repelled thereby, the delight in the

sublime does not so much involve positive pleasure as admiration or

respect, i. e., merits the name of a negative pleasure.”

Kant

The concept of “shock” in art is to repel, disgust, insight outrage, disquiet…you get the idea. Here in this quote by Kant he is sketching out the superiority or the sublimity of “negative pleasure” i.e. being scared witless. Here we are seeing the birth of shock art as being the ultimate end in art, i.e. sublime. And from the superior view of the sublime he finds “the beautiful [which] is directly attended with a feeling of the furtherance of life…” repugnant!

For many years I have been half jokingly saying that the next cool idea for a postmodern artist would be to actually murder someone in a public art setting and simply claim artistic license. Last year a band made public their plans to murder someone on stage. A collector of mine told me last week that they in fact did this, I will double check it.

The following artists are part of today’s elite status quo i.e. esteemed leaders in the art world. Last year the Chapman Brothers exhibited in the Oxford Museum of Contemporary Art their defacement of eighty etchings of Goya. "So we've gone very systematically through the entire 80 etchings," continues Dinos [Chapman], "and changed all the visible victims' heads to clowns' heads and puppies' heads." http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,926134,00.html

A couple of years ago, a woman postmodernist underwent severe plastic surgery to make her the spitting image of the Mona Lisa; this was documented on video and she was under local anesthesia and making observations while she was under the knife. McCarthy’s entire output, http://www.michaelnewberry.com/soul/essays/mccarthy/index.html, is disgusting. World famous painters Freud and Saville paint nudes that looked heroine-addicted living corpses or females that look like their flesh is of putrid chicken skin.

There are thousands, thousands, of examples of artists trying to reach for the “sublime” by projecting the darkest, most negative, and disgusting states of being; usually under the guise that they are only showing us how evil humanity can be.

(Edited by Newberry on 9/01, 7:19am)

Hi Michelle and Irfan,

Michelle: "The obvious question is how Kant could get away with his assertions about the sublime, and why did his sentiments resonate for so many intellectuals and artists."

N: Stephen Hicks would be a good person to ask about how Kant's aesthetic ideas reached other philosophers. Kant still resonates strongly with philosophers, Fred Seddon here for example. And he resonates strongly with me. I mean he deals with all the fundamental big stuff, what are the greatest highest most fundamental issues, ideas, things that exist.

Personally, as an artist I have always been interested in creating my view of the sublime. There are many other artists I know that rack their souls and talents to bring out the ultimate of their being. And here is Kant devoting a major treatise about the very thing artists live and breath. Kant is also systematic and a very deep thinker. There are a lot of similarities between Rand's Romantic Manifesto and Kant's Critique of Judgment: scope, vision, fundamental definitions, systematic thought, etc. But they are on opposite ends about the value of art...by the time I am finished with this thread I hope that will be clear even to Fred.

Irfan: "But I'm curious what you think about the use of "the sublime" in a certain genre of Romantic landscape painting. I have seen the distinction between the beautiful and the sublime used very differently than you have, though (supposedly) with Kantian inspiration. Here's an example of what I mean; here is a book that uses it similarly. The idea is supposed to be that the sublime excites a sense of grandeur (usually natural grandeur), whereas the beautiful doesn't. But disgust isn't essential to it. Any thoughts on this idea?"

N: Thoughtful comments Irfan and you give an excellent image, btw, Kant doesn't give any examples of art.  As I continue with the Kant quotes you will see when they are taken as a whole they spell: postmodernism! Yes, Kant does give examples about the ferocious nature of storms and the like as sublime forces. But I can tell you that beautiful Church painting doesn't resemble anything like the horror of recent Florida hurricane. That is fucking scary. And that is more inline with Kant’s horrific nature of the Sublime. Church may have wanted to put drama and life into his work and thought he was being influenced by Kant and perhaps he was in a superficial way. Chruch's painting is dramatic, full of light, harmonious and contrasting lights and colors, and a beautiful sunset. The concept of Beauty is not about beautiful objects but rather about more fundamental things: composition, proportions, depth, movement, color harmony, consistent forms, etc. The Church painting is profoundly on the side of Beauty based on that criteria.

"Grandeur" is not a concept that Kant used in defining his sublime, that concept could have come about from other intellectuals making Kant's Sublime more palatable? Kant clearly uses negative attributes and definitions for all of his examples for the Sublime.

More to come.

Now, let’s not degrade our terminology. Beauty ought to be the ultimate artistic value, since it expresses our most wideranging and fundamental values. There is no need to have truck with a further idea, the “sublime,” which is supposed to be superior to beauty.

So important is beauty in art that we can find an artistic work beautiful—take deep pleasure in its contemplation—even if we disagree with its conscious philosophy. And we can find an artwork poor even if it attempts to embody a correct philosophy. This reflects the fact that artistic style and technique imply a certain epistemology and metaphysics, and reliance on a certain level of intelligence. So that the beauty of some of Wagner’s tunes and the beauty of construction in Shaw’s plays derive from certain operative premises in these geniuses that are correct.

To set up a standard higher than this in the realm of art is akin to saying, for example, in the realm of epistemology, that there is a means of knowledge superior to reason—which constitutes, not a supplement to rational knowledge, but a rejection of everything good that reason gave you in the first place. In the same way, saying there is something higher than beauty in esthetics is a denial of any rational element in one’s consumption of art, conscious or subconscious. The notion of beauty as mere superficial sensory attractiveness is a straw man erected to do just that.

(Edited by Rodney Rawlings on 8/30, 1:56pm)

Irfan: “Michael--Boy are you behind the times! That's already been done. I forget the name, but some Famous Bigmouth has already described 9/11 as a brilliant work of art.”

N: ha, ha, I am not sure which “Bigmouth” you are talking about!?  It could be Damian Hirst, and for sure he is famous, or yours truly: “I hail bin Laden as the greatest postmodern artist since Marcel Duchamp.” http://www.solohq.com/Articles/Newberry/Pandoras_Box_Part_I.shtml

Hirst was coming from the point of view that it was a good artistic work and mine was about how bad postmodernism could get.

Michael

“It’s a responsible film that shows flawed logic … it creates a space to reflect on important issues such as cruelty to animals,” Farnel said.

Genius: "(3) It cannot indicate scientifically how it brings

about its product, but rather gives the rule as nature. Hence, where

an author owes a product to his genius, he does not himself know how

the ideas for it have entered into his head, nor has he it in his

power to invent the like at pleasure, or methodically, and communicate

the same to others in such precepts as would put them in a position to

produce similar products.”

Kant

Kant here is using “slight of hand”. What would make this definition true would be if he were describing “talent”.  Talent is something we are born with. Great talents are recognized easily by teachers, coaches, and with parents (that possess a sprinkling of objectivity.) When a child has “magic” in their hand; or perfect pitch; or imagination, etc.

Talent does not make genius. Genius comes about by those individuals that work and nurture to bring about the most of their talents.

Maria Callas, considered by peers to be the greatest opera singer of the recorded era gave a very telling Master Class at Juliard recorded, a 3 cd set. By many critics she was considered an instinctual force of nature i.e. they didn’t know how her genius came about!

At Juliard she coached young singers on breathing, projection, hitting the note dead center, nuance, on interrupting the lyrics, being true to the style of the music, and bodily expression of the music and lyric. On a case by case basis what she communicated was easily understood, it was only when one realized that she had the ability to integrate all of the fundamental aspects of singing that one understood her genius.

Written by Vasari, friend and colleague of Michelangelo, is a story about an older artist criticizing unfairly a fresco of The Battle of the Cascina of Michelangelo’s.  He painted this when he was about 27, after the David and Pieta, and he painted it simultaneously with Da Vinci painting on the opposite wall! Both works don’t exist anymore. Michelangelo was peeved by the criticism and he launched into the old artist’s work giving a treatise on everything incompetent of the old man’s painting.

Martine Vaugel, who I consider brilliant, knows what she is doing from the emotional passions she is working with, even how certain techniques bring those to the fore, to anatomical knowledge, knowledge of proportion, theme, and etc.

What did Rand say about she knew exactly what every sentence in Atlas was about and why it was there?

“…[N]or has he it in his power to invent the like at pleasure, or methodically, and communicate the same to others in such precepts as would put them in a position to

produce similar products.”

You cannot elevate someone beyond their potential but passing on knowledge of universals and fundamentals gives everyone the possibility of maximizing their potential.

Kant’s take on genius reeks of the con, the false guru, the charlatan. His definition of genius has set in principal the concepts, which thousands of postmodernists now claim: that they don’t think; that they don’t know what they are doing; and that they let their creations come out of them, spontaneously, like “vomit”.   

Abstract expressionism, Pollock, http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/lm1024.jpg is a great example of this. Another more recent example is  Anatomy of Disgust, a BBC documentary, praising the current crop of postmodern artists in England (England is a world leader in this area.) One guy had positioned a video camera in his toilet and shot extensive video of him puking right at us and into the bowl.

Due to the assimilation of Kant’s definition into our contemporary postmodern culture these types postmodern artists are hailed by curators and critics as geniuses.

(Edited by Newberry on 9/01, 12:53pm)

Sat., August 28, 2004

It gets even loopier

Remember the Kids Who Killed a Cat, Filmed It and Called It Art? Mike Strobel Finds They’re Back

By Mike Strobel

CASUISTRY: (1) The act of deciding questions of right from wrong. (2) Clever but false reasoning.

AND HERE we thought the Kensington cat snuff film was evil, pure and simple.

That we were right to revile the three goofs who made it and be repulsed by their work.

That nothing, nothing, could justify it.

Now along comes Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat.

It premieres at the Toronto Film Festival Sept. 14.

The producer gave me a tape, since I wrote about the case.

You need not be a cat-lover to remember: Jesse Power, Anthony Wennekers and Matt Kaczorowski, all 20-ish, made a snuff film one Friday night in 2001.

For 17 minutes, they tormented, tortured, and oh, so, slowly, killed a gentle, striped female cat in a Kensington house.

The unlucky pet was later found skinned in a beer fridge.

It was art, said Jesse Power, the lead goof.

A few of Toronto’s loopier artistes defended them, but hardly anyone else did. I mean, this was the Bernardo/Homolka of animal cruelty cases.

Now, at last, the Three Stooges have their say.

Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat is produced by Linda Feesey and directed by Zev Asher. She made Sex and Cerebral Palsy. He made What About Me: The Rise of the Nihilist Spasm Band. They are not Disney.

To set the mood, they open Casuistry with scenes from a 1980 “performance art” flick, in which two cats are disembowelled and worn as hats.

Istvan Kantor filmed that gem. He has since won a Governor General’s Award.

But Jesse Power is the star of Casuistry.

(It’s his special word, right before “cat” in the dictionary.)

He’s even the soundtrack, yowling his “Anti-Meat Eating Song.”

He speaks first in shadow, then, as he warms to the topic, in full view.

His bangs dangle sexily. His eyes toy with the camera. “Man, am I charismatic,” they say. “And misunderstood.”

And a whiner.

The cops “went all righteous on me.”

Or, “I never got to eat the cat, but a lot of other people are feasting off of this cat.”

Or, things got gory because he and his pals were “disorganized” and one of them gave him a dull razor. Plus they were dozy on drugs.

And, anyway, “everything takes a long time to die, no matter what it is.” He got 90 days, on weekends.

He blames the papers, and society, and the young woman who called the cops (in hopes of a reward, says our Jesse).

Pal Wennekers even manages to blame cats, “just a smarter version of rats, an artifact of human culture.”

Sometimes, bull-fights or squealing swine flash across Casuistry. Remember, Power’s “art video” was to show the “hypocrisy” of pets in a world of abattoirs.

And, step right up, see Jesse Power chop off a runt chicken’s head. See him cuddle a rotting pig, play puppet with a baby orangutan’s corpse.

There is none of the Kensington tape. The filmmakers couldn’t get their hands on it.

They also couldn’t find any backers, even in usually fertile arts councils and grant offices. Total budget was, oh, $500.

Apologists were a dime a dozen, though.

A friend of Matt’s tells us how the guy is a talented writer and once asked for a teddy bear.

“Artists” say things like: “Young men, as they’re growing up and learning how things work, they always kill something. It’s part of growing and developing as a young person.”

Det. John Margetson, the humane society and the like, bring some balance and sense, thank goodness.

“I cannot condone, or condemn, what [Power and Co.] did,” says Zev Asher, down the line from Montreal.

“I think it was a misguided adventure, that they were inebriated and did something sick and stupid.

“I think Jesse is an artist. I don’t think this was art at all, though I understand what he was trying to do.”

I dunno. You should see those 17 minutes, Mr. Asher.

I have. So when Jesse Power smirks that maybe he’ll be “torn apart by a cougar” when he goes camping … it’s hard not to root for the cougar.