Kant seems to deny any purpose for art, either practical or moral, and stipulates a third category aesthetics which is an end in itself. This has been taken as support for the view of arts for art's sake, the central concept of modernism. I do have difficulty with the art for itself idea because it allows nothing beyond the material artwork and whatever can be said about the artwork could be tipped into the practical or moral category. So it's ineffable. If we appreciate something for itself, some formal attributes, how do we know those are the best attributes or in any way distinguished from others, supposedly the not best but perhaps worst attributes? It seems obvious to me that our appreciation of formal attributes is affected by a second order of subjective elicitations, possibly emotions and memories, etc., which we somehow fuse to formal. This is why I always say that all art is associational or evocative of something not necessary to its formal attributes but dependent on them. I say it's impossible to look at anything and see it for itself alone, the aesthetic Kant speaks of. It may be an intellectual category but one that cannot be actually experienced. Everything looks like something else. I think that the aesthetic experience is that fusion of the formal and the subjective and while both may be defined separately they don't have aesthetic quality until remade in the fusion. Thus in my formative thinking on this, art has no purpose for and of itself but our own purposes can be objectified in it. wc
----- Original Message ---- From: Boris Shoshensky <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Fri, December 24, 2010 5:24:44 PM Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" I don't know to whom Kate addresses her comment. I believe in purpose in art and not only spiritual but physiological. I disagree with 'no purpose at all'. Kant agrees with me when he said: "Fine art ... is a mode of representation which is intrinsically final, and which, although devoid of an end, has the effect of advancing the culture of mental powers in the interests of social communication." Boris Shoshensky ---------- Original Message ---------- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 15:28:35 -0500 No specific spiritual purpose? Wouldn't a specific spiritual purpose what Kant did not want? And a hazy blurry spiritual purpose also be what he did not want? How would he define spiritual purpose if he used any variant of that concept? Kate Sullivan -----Original Message----- From: Boris Shoshensky <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Fri, Dec 24, 2010 1:26 am Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" It sounds like masturbatory process. Is enabling people to create contexts not enough for purpose? I read Kant differently. He meant absence of utilitarian purpose of applied art in fine art, but spiritual. Boris Shoshensky To: [email protected] Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2010 14:55:00 -0800 (PST) Not at all. We give purpose to our lives. Art inspires purpose but doesn't have it. Art attracts meaning but doesn't have it. The less it has, intrinsically, the better. Since it has no purpose or relevance in itself, it enables people to create contexts. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Boris Shoshensky <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, December 23, 2010 10:51:26 AM Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" It is sad to know that our careers have no purpose or value. Waisted professional lives?! Boris Shoshensky To: [email protected] Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 21:07:54 -0800 (PST) If it's art it's irrelevant. Art, as the aesthetic, has no purpose and value. WC ----- Original Message ---- From: joseph berg <[email protected]> To: aesthetics-l <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, December 22, 2010 7:25:01 PM Subject: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" Has art become like fiction" a poor relation of its ground-breaking modernist forebears?: http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2010/0730/Is-today-s-fiction -irrelevant
