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Despite having a seemingly bad ass title, this article is
quite mild. This article references Lessing and
deals with some of the same issues. Dutton uses a series of thought
experiments in order to relate different perceptual meaning, i.e. two men
hear a piece on the piano and one lavishes this new song with praise. The
other man scoffs at the piece and explains that the pianist played at a
practice tempo, much slower than performance speed, and through electronics
and musical engineering it is sped up to the tempo at which it would be
agreeable to the original performance or better. The man who lavished praises
now quickly retracts his earlier statements. Dutton argues that the reason
the man feels that this is of less aesthetic value is because the song was
misrepresented through his experience on how pianist's
should play. He believed that the pianist alone was responsible for the
superb performance. Dutton argues that "Every work of art is an artifact, the product of human skills and techniques...the
work of art has a human origin, and should be understood as such." He
goes on to agree with another author in saying that aesthetic value is
connected to how it was made. Dutton is saying that one should recognize the
achievement in an artwork, whether it was whittled with a spoon or with a
high tech air powered chipping tool.
In dealing with forgery, forged pieces misrepresent the achievement of the
artwork. However, there is an achievement in and of themselves.
Van Meegeren's achievement is not equal to the
achievement like that of Vermeer. While he can create works of art equal to
or greater than some of the celebrated artists, he did not have the same
novelty or originality of the time period some 300 years earlier. When it is
discovered that a work of art is a forgery, in the case of Van Meegeren, one should view the art differently; with
different achievements. One can evaluate an achievement in two ways, if an at
is successful on it's own terms, and/or the art has
a goal that it cannot achieve or is problematic. Van Meegeren
was successful in fooling art critics into believing ha had original Vermeers, but it is completely different from a true
Vermeer paintings intention.
A prime example of extraneous factors that could possibly
affect our aesthetic sense was offered by Professor Beisecker
in class, Guernica. Guernica
was a town in Spain that was bombed during World War ll.
Here is a portion of the town following the blast: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/images/guernica.jpg
Here is Picasso's painting entitled 'Guernica': http://homepage.mac.com/dmhart/WarArt/Picasso/Guernica/Guernica.JPG
The painting itself could very will stimulate an aesthetic sense, however the
question remains, can the aesthetic properties relevant to an artwork only be
perceived intrinsically? Also, to what extent should extraneous factors
affect our aesthetic judgment? Had one known that the portrait was of such an
egregious state it would seem that they could potentially notice the subtle
contexts of the art work better than someone who had no knowledge of the
background. For example the ample severed body parts and the smattering of
live stock. Lessing, the author of our previous
reading, would argue that this information matters artistically but not
aesthetically.
Dutton proposes a light "aesthetic essentialism," art is inherently
connected to human activity and should be judged by and with the performance
of the artist, the creation of the work. This seems to be important for many
people. As illustrated with the two men listening to the electronically
enhanced pianist(unfortunately not a cyborg pianist, but just an enhanced recording.), if the
man had only appreciated just the sound waves, just the noise that had been
produced, then he would not have aesthetically cared how it was performed.
Similarly, if one were to appreciate a well cut stone, suitable for flaying a
fish, one could marvel at the craftsmanship of the creator of the stone. One
could appreciate how smooth, sharp and well proportioned the stone was
created to be. If it was shown that the stone had not been shaped by man but
had happened to be formed naturally, it could be appreciated for it's
properties but it could not be novel in the same way it had before.So, Dutton accuses Lessing
and others as having somewhat "Aesthetic Philistinism," which is
leaving something relevant out of the context of achievement.
- Elliott Ploutz
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