1. Department for
Continuing Education
Music and Art
Marilou Polymeropoulou
marilou.polymeropoulou@music.ox.ac.uk
Week 3 - The work of art pt. 2
http://musicandartoxford.wordpress.com/
Saturday, 4 February 2012
2. Previously
• Definitions of art and music
• Aesthetic theories
• Expression, beautiful, good, evaluation in
music
Saturday, 4 February 2012
3. This week
• Articles’ key points
• Visual and hybrid forms of art
• Examples
Saturday, 4 February 2012
4. 1. Sheldon Nahmod “Artistic Expression
and Aesthetic Theory”
• Purpose of article: artistic expression in jurisdiction. 1) Control of art, 2) concept of beauty, 3)
concept of sublime
• Plato and ideal society: 1) Control artistic expression 2) Mathematically beautiful
• From Plato to Kant: attempts to reconcile Greek Philosophy with Christianity: 1) Geometric
beauty 2) knowledge and power ascending from individuals not God (Cartesian theory) 3)
empiricism and subjectivity: psychological processes of art (sensation & reflection)
• Kant: centring on the human mind 1) feeling comprehends art, 2) aesthetic judgement separated/
disinterested from/in knowledge and desire, 3) aesthetic judgements refer only to the feelings of
their subjects (subjective universality), 4) art and beautiful cannot express ideas (as art is
removed from knowledge and desire) -- opposing to Plato’s perspective
• Hegel: theory towards humanism.1) spirit developing into self-consciousness (Absolute Spirit), 2)
art reveals truth through the material world
• Marx: dialectical materialism. 1) economic relationships determine everything (incl. art & culture),
2) art must represent a socialist reality, promote its ideas & behaviour -- similar to Plato’s
perspective
• Sublime: 1) historically, 2) definition in Burke and Kant, 3) Sublime and infinity
Saturday, 4 February 2012
9. • Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 In C Minor,
Op. 67, "Fate": I. Allegro Con Brio
Saturday, 4 February 2012
10. 2. Iris Murdoch “The
sublime and the good”
• Against elitism in art
• Aims to define art
• (Biased) assumption: Shakespeare is the greatest of
all artists. then forms aesthetic supporting this
judgement philosophically
• Morality and art (eg should art express society?)
• Plurality of definitions of art: according to values,
taste, morality, expressions etc
Saturday, 4 February 2012
11. 2. Iris Murdoch “The sublime and the good”
• Begins with Kant’s definition of art (beautiful and
sublime)
• Free beauty: true judgement, common sense
(universality)
• Dependent beauty: concept of perfection
• Sublime and emotion
• Beautiful is an analogy to good (symbolises) but
shouldn’t be tainted with it
Saturday, 4 February 2012
12. Criticism
• 1) Kant: pure/true art is a small area of what we
think of as art. Criticism on concept/set of rules
applied in order to achieve beauty (e.g. wordless
music).--liberal view
• 2) Tolstoy: good art - simple, understood by all (the
Iliad, Old Testament, folk tales,V. Hugo), bad art -
obscure, impressionism, Mallarme, Baudelaire,
Beethoven. Criticism on simplicity as a characteristic
of art.
2. Iris Murdoch “The sublime and the good”
Saturday, 4 February 2012
13. Is it bad art?
De Satan ou de Dieu, qu'importe? Ange ou Sirène,
Qu'importe, si tu rends, — fée aux yeux de velours,
Rythme, parfum, lueur, ô mon unique reine! —
L'univers moins hideux et les instants moins lourds?
Baudelaire, Hymne à la Beauté, Fleurs du Mal, 1861
From God or Satan, who cares? Angel or Siren,
Who cares, if you make, — fay with the velvet eyes,
Rhythm, perfume, glimmer; my one and only queen!
The world less hideous, the minutes less leaden?
William Aggeler’s translation, 1954
Saturday, 4 February 2012
14. 2. Iris Murdoch “The sublime and the good”
criticism (cont.)
• Reason within sociohistorical context (Hegel).
Example of Sophocle’s tragedy Antigone (442 BC)
• Antigone plot and issue for Murdoch: Conflict
between incompatible goods: 1) treason (human law),
2) Gods’ honour and brotherly love (divine, moral
laws)
• Catharsis: combination of Kantian and Hegelian
elements
Saturday, 4 February 2012
15. 2. Iris Murdoch “The sublime and the good”
Love and Freedom
• The essence of art and morals
• Discovery of reality: art, morals, love
• Praising individualism -- Ontological
perspective (hence tragedy is the highest art)
• Freedom: aesthetic theory incorporating
ontological theory, existentialism, historical
context, social understanding of otherness
Saturday, 4 February 2012
16. Examples
Delacroix, Liberty leading the people (1830)
Constable, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (1831)
Saturday, 4 February 2012
19. Hybrid forms of art
• J. Levinson (1984) “Hybrid art forms”
• Definition: hybrid art forms are art forms arising from
the actual combination or interpenetration of earlier
art forms.
• True hybrids (primarily thought as such) and Gedanken
hybrids (reconsidering works of art as hybrids)
• Combination of media (as art forms, eg. dance and
music, theatre and dance)
Saturday, 4 February 2012
20. Varieties of combination
• Juxtaposition (addition) - mixed media phenomena. Two or more arts are
joined together and presented as a larger and more complex unit (e.g.
accompaniment, audiovisual shows, installations)
• Synthesis (fusion) - two or more arts are brought together in a way that
they lose part of their original identities (e.g. Wagner’s Operas as a synthesis
of song and drama, Schwitters’ collages)
• transformation (alteration) - similar to juxtaposition but the arts combined
do not equally contribute to the result (e.g. kinetic sculpture)
Saturday, 4 February 2012
24. Observations
• Hybrid art forms tend to be examples of creativity
• Interaction is a central point
• Tracing common features/comparing arts used for the hybrid
form
• Integrative effects: rich and complex. Cognitive overload for one
purpose. (Wagnerian opera, with its ideal of a complete, all-
encompassing experience, achieved through an intimate union of
symphony, song, drama, and stagecraft )
• Disintegrative effects: symbolic or allusive of the psychological
fragmentation, informational bombardment, and pervasive
anomie of contemporary urban life. (Wilson/Glass Einstein on the
Beach)
Saturday, 4 February 2012
