Reflecting on some essays and in-class dialogue, I'm not sure if Hume or Kant or some of the others can simply experience beauty ... as opposed to using their heads to analyze or rationalize it.
Some simply experience beauty - whether in nature or in human-created art forms - and find the experience of beauty to be expansive and enriching. Some seem to want to analyze something to death, and then use their powers of logic and reasoning to become the "taste experts" of the day. They're essentially elitists.
If a chef works for years to create fine dining, and experiments with different methods for cooking or seasoning the foods, the chef may become a master of the technology. Others, tasting the meal so prepared, may (or may not) sense the unique flavors, and may (or may not) appreciate the subtle skills expressed by the chef. But does that make the dining experience exquisite?
I happen to have three woodblock prints created by Goyo, a Japanese artist who took woodblock printing to new levels of accomplishment. In one print, you can see falling rain, with rain colors that adjust to the color of the background at that point in the scene. Done about 100 years ago, having to register some 25 woodblocks to produce such images required true mastery in the medium. But would the product - the resulting work of art - necessarily be "beautiful"? My knowledge of the medium may enhance my appreciation of his skills - more than, perhaps, someone who didn't know how the image was created. But the "experience of beauty" has nothing whatever to do with being knowledgeable about technical skill.
Referring to Kant, on page 63 ...
"So far as beauty is concerned, so be fertile and original in ideas is not such an imperative requirement as it is that the imagination and its freedom should be in accordance with the understandings conformity to law. For in lawless freedom imagination, with all its wealth, produces nothing but nonsense; the power of judgement, on the other hand, is the faculty that makes it consonant with understanding."
I disagree. Here's a different perspective ...
Freedom to express, in whatever context is felt by the artist, is the basis of creativity. To constrain and conform limits freedom and therefore limits creativity. It may make whatever is created more comfortable for others to review or critique, but artists - of all people on the planet - need their freedom in order to express. Without freedom, nothing changes.
The creativity that was not allowed in China has made their paintings the same for a thousand years. If the critics of the time were followed, then the Impressionists would never have existed.
Judgment must come from the artist. Others will judge art, but the artist must be comfortable with what is presented.
When we witness art - and experience it - part of our discernment, and therefore our judgment, determines whether or not it's beautiful ... for us, as an individual.
Stu Rose
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