INTRODUCTION The 19th century in France was a remarkable time for writers and painters, whose lives were thoroughly interwoven to generate copious literary works and visual chef d’œuvres. For instance, Honoré de Balzac depicted a painter’s life as he disclosed the story of Frenhofer in Le Chef- d’œuvre inconnu; les Goncourt, by extensively incorporating in their novels pictorial characteristics, such as colors and forms, initiated a new way of writing which was called l’écriture artiste; moreover, Emile Zola, besides frequently writing critiques on his contemporary painters, created in L’Œuvre a fictional account of his friendship with Paul Cézanne, one of the most celebrated modern painters of the 19th century. Analogously, the 19th-century painters composed numerous portraits of their colleagues of the literary world, such as Gustave Courbet’s portrait of Charles Baudelaire (figure 1), Édouard Manet’s depiction of Zola (figure 2), and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s portrayal of Stéphane Mallarmé (figure 3). Writers had become one of the most common subjects on painters’ canvases, as much as the lives of the painters triggered the curiosity of the writers and endowed them with countless inspirations.
Guided by their predecessors and contemporaries, Joris-Karl Huysmans and Odilon Redon also demonstrate an intimate relationship between the world of writers and that of painters. Redon, who started as a painter closely involved with the Decadent movement and later entered into the more fantastical world of Symbolism, drew inspiration from literary works. Moreover, his letters to Huysmans reveal that they saw each other regularly and were on friendly terms from 1882 onward (Gamboni 85). On the other hand, besides Huysmans’s early recognition of the of Redon’s genius, he declares Redon as an artist who “has recently come to the fore in France, in the field of painting the fanatics” (Gamboni 84). He continued with the esteem of Redon, above all, in his controversial novel, À Rebours, where the eccentric aesthete and antihero that he created, Duc Jean des Esseintes, decorates his house with numerous Redon's paintings. In this descriptive novel, Huysmans judges Redon’s works, along with those by Gustave Moreau, as having reached “the limit of the art of seeing and reproducing (Huysmans 196)”. Throughout decades, scholars and art critics have been investigating the interconnection between literature and painting. One prevalent approach towards this interdisciplinary study is to analyze how the writer-painter relationship affected both the form and the content of the works in both media, as well as their interpretations. However, the connection between literature and painting is not only confined to their form and content: as two distinctive expressions of art, it is the same atmosphere and sensations produced by them that demonstrate the most intimate connection with each other. In other words, the painting is a visual representation of the literature, and the latter is a literary counterpart of the former. This connection might not be made by the writer and the painter when they consciously relate one work to another, as most writers and painters in the 19th-century did; however, it can be drawn by the audience, who, by experiencing one work, have certain sentiments which remind them of another work. Think, for example, about the process of choosing a cover picture for a new album. In most cases, the designer would not write the lyrics on the picture, nor would he choose a painting made by a painter who is a friend of the singer’s; instead, he would select the photo that can best exemplify the emotions and moods brought about by the songs. This is how two seemingly distinct art forms communicate with each other—by arousing the similar sentiments which are hidden deep down in various elements of each work. It is from this perspective that I draw a comparison between Huysmans’s novel, À Rebours, and Redon’s painting, The Buddha (figure 4). Even though the painting is never mentioned in the novel, and Huysmans did not write many critiques of Redon’s Symbolist paintings, certain characteristics of the painting resonate with some of the key aspects of Des Esseintes’s life. Besides the outward colorism, the protagonist who decorates his house as a monastery isolated from the external world, parallels the subject matter of the painting—a Buddha holding stick, standing under the dazzling sun amid a landscape of lifeless plants. Figure.4 COLORISM IN À REBOUR AND THE BUDDHA From many aspects, Des Esseintes life can be described as a multi-colored painting which arouses the deepest sensual stimuli, not only for himself but also for the reader who experience his completely aesthetic life through Huysmans’s vivid descriptions. His incessant acquisition of the rare and exotic objects, including furnishings, books, paintings, flowers, and gemstones, decorates his life with excessive details and pigments. For example, Huysmans describes his antihero as a “connoisseur of colors both simple and subtle” (Huysmans 11), when Des Esseintes meticulously designs the structure of the dining room, the library, and the private bedroom, and ponders on the colors that can be used to decorate each room in order to most efficaciously cultivate his visceral sensations. Moreover, the emphasis that the Duke places on books, and his boundless knowledge of literature, including Latin texts and contemporary poems and prose, also supplement his life with endless fantasies and reveries which keep his life far from monochromatic. Additionally, although the paintings that Des Esseintes hangs in his room are mostly “steeped in an atmosphere of ancient fantasy, wrapped in an aura of antique corruption” (Huysmans 50) (such as Moreau’s Salome, his favorite piece of work), those canvases definitely paint his life with myriad shapes, rhythms, and textures. Regarding the flowers and the gemstones, he distills his selection from the most unusual natural objects to furnish his residence of solitude, indulging in the lusters of jewels and the aromas of plants. There is no doubt that Des Esseintes should be esteemed as a true aesthete, in that he manipulates his life as if creating a painting, which consists of all kinds of colors, forms, textures, as well as reveries, fragrances, and temperatures. The multicolored appearance of Des Esseintes aesthetic life resembles the mysterious palette that Redon uses to paint The Buddha, which also consists of a symphony of colors that speaks to distinct human sensations. The upper-left corner of the painting is filled with the pigment of aureolin yellow which is bedecked with discrete cells of glaucous and baby blue. Associated with sunshine and standing for joy, happiness, and energy, this bright color is interrupted by the gloomy color of greyish-blue. Moving towards the right, the yellow chalk in Redon’s hand spreads across the canvas, immersing with the color of celeste which occupies the first register of the painting. Below that, about the middle of the painting, a thread of indigo transverses from the left all the way to the right end, embellished irregularly with lemon-yellow and lavender-pink. In between the layers of the celeste and the indigo, Redon throws our eyes into a mixture of blues and purples, such as periwinkle and steel blue, to create a sense of disturbance upon the serenity associated with the mono-colors. Below the sky—which is well-represented by the blues—comes the regions of vegetation and soil, respectively symbolized by the color of viridian and amber. None of the subjects is depicted with forms—all by the amalgam of colors. The Buddha is overwhelmed with the colors in the palette of the capable artist, and, assigned in the most arbitrary way opposed to the naturalistic principles. The pigments produce a fantasy which the painter might have dreamed when creating this work. It is from the aspect of colorism that I want to draw the first connection between the work of literature and the painting. The rare and exotic objects that Des Esseintes chooses to decorate his life parallel the assortment of colors with which Redon paints The Buddha. The symposium of literature, paintings, furnishings, plants, and jewels in Des Esseintes life is expressed visually by the melody of colors. Even though colorism widely exists in the works of Symbolism—probably under the influence of Impressionism, it might not be merely coincidental that they both demonstrate a particular emphasis on colors: since Redon painted The Buddha about 20 years after À Rebours was published, and he also had an intimate relationship with the author, it is probable that the novel influenced the painter when he was creating. As Redon placed his magical pigments on the canvas, he might have the figure of Des Esseintes and the luxuriant room in his mind.
THE RELIGIOUS ASCETIC IMAGE Even though the background of the painting is mostly composed of colors without any shape, other subjects in Redon’s painting are represented by their distinctive forms. For example, the Buddha figure on the left side of the painting is portrayed by his clothes, gestures and facial expressions. Under the dark-green cloak that covers the Buddha’s shoulder lies his jointed kasaya which consists of small fabric swathes of dark red, black, and the orange. While the amber-yellow decorating the splices between the fabrics echoes the color of the ground, a strip of blue which comes out below the robe resonates with the color of the sky. His right-hand, holding a stick, hangs beside his body, and the mudra-gesture of his left-hand stands for another typical Buddhist iconography, which is used to evoke a peaceful state of mind. Without any other human presence in this picture, the Buddha seems to indulge himself in the state of meditation and the seclusion from the outside world. Traditionally, Buddha, the spiritual guide in Buddhism, is the figure who has achieved spiritual transcendence through removing every desire from his mind and at all times remains in peacefulness. However, not only in this painting but also in Redon’s other representations of the figure, such as Buddha Walking Among Flowers (figure 5) and The Buddha (Figure 6), show the fracas in the colors of the painting and the morbid religious ascetic. Besides the contrasting colors on the Buddha’s kasaya, Redon creates a mixture condition of the Buddha’s skin which opposes the traditional image of this of conflicting pigments behind the Buddha, which, far from cultivating a sense of peace, evokes every single human emotion. The disturbance of the colors places the Buddha, no matter how strongly he is determined to stay in his mental shelter, into a world of endless conflicts and desires. Moreover, despite his meditation pose which resembles that of a religious abstainer, the skin on his face, neck, and hands is of a weird light blue, a morbid tone that no healthy human being would ever have. This skin color also reveals the contrast between the ostensible tranquility and the inner struggling of the figure. Redon’s Buddha image perfectly represents Des Esseintes, who, having never received his parents’ love, remains in a lonely and detached existence. To escape from the external world, he moves to a villa in the outskirt of Paris, at Fontenay-aux-Roses, and creates a world of artifice which could be likened to that of a religious ascetic. He lives without any human company, except an elderly couple who, like Des Esseintes himself, is “inured to absolute silence of cloistered monks, barred from all communication with the outside world and confined to rooms where the doors and windows were always shut” (Huysmans 18). Even so, Des Esseintes arranges a code of signals with the couple, the only presence of human beings in his life, so that they should know what he needs by the sound of the bell that he rings. In short, he does everything possible to avoid contacting with anyone in this world—except the ones in his memories and dreams. Having renounced society, Des Esseintes opts for another rule: he follows a self-defined dogma and regulates his daily routine, like that of a monk, according to certain disciplines (Knapp 205). For example, he sleeps by day and remains awake at night: "At five o’clock in winter, after dusk had fallen, he ate a light breakfast of two boiled eggs, toast and tea; then he had lunch at about eleven, drank coffee or sometimes tea and wine during the night and finally toyed with a little supper about five in the morning, before going to bed (Huysmans 19)." Moreover, he has strict culinary specifications. Not only does he fix his mealtimes according to an unvarying schedule, but the meals themselves also need to be necessarily plain and simple (Huysmans 19). Besides, silence needs to be maintained at all times in his room, and his servants are required to wear thick slippers to make sure that he never hears the sound of their footsteps (Huysmans 19). However, like the Buddha in Redon’s painting—whose superficial meditation pose and mudra gesture conceal deep internal disturbances—Des Esseintes’s seemingly ascetic life masks his rebellious personality and incessant desires. He never seeks for the transcendence of spirit, and he segregates himself from the outside world because of his hatred for the vulgar, his contempt for the bourgeois world, and his hostility towards the mediocre. For example, in his selection of artworks that are used to decorate his walls, he veers away from any painting that might appeal to the masses or the bourgeoisie, in order to fulfill his desire to be a contrarian. As Huysmans puts it in the Prologue, “his contempt for humanity grew fiercer, and at last he came to realize that the world is made up mostly of fools and scoundrels” (Huysmans 8). Moreover, to avoid boredom, he spends his time cultivating the exotic, preternatural, and convoluted world of his fantasies. Everything that he deliberately arranges in his room, from the selection of literature to the scents of the plants, from the subtle differences in the colors of the walls to the frames of the paintings, has to keep his sensations constantly active to provide his visceral pleasures. His disobedient personality and insatiable desires push him as far as possible from a real religious ascetic, which is also reflected by the tormented Buddha in the painting as well. “AGAINST NATURE” AND ARTIFICIALITY Besides the colorism and the image of a religious ascetic, Des Esseintes and The Buddha also share the common characteristic of artificiality. The title of Huysmans’s novel, “À Rebours,” which is translated as “against nature,” or, “against the grain,” in English, best represents Des Esseintes’s hostility towards the nature. Artifice is considered by this decadent anti-hero as the “the distinctive mark of human genius (Huysmans 22)”. He thinks that “there is not a single one of her [nature’s] inventions, deemed so subtle and sublime, that human ingenuity cannot manufacture (Huysmans 23)”. Due to his extreme fondness for artificiality and his hostility against nature, he manipulates every physical existence to manufacture his own artifice. For example, he appoints the gem merchant, the only visitor allowed in Des Esseintes’s house, to paint a living tortoise in brilliant gold and encrust it with rare stones so that he can completely transform a natural being into an artificial object in order to serve his aesthetic purpose and his unremitting fantasies—even though his way of life proves to be unsustainable and the tortoise soon dies. Moreover, even when he becomes tired of the artificial flowers which are used to decorate his rooms, he acquires some natural flowers that look like fakes (Huysmans 83). Huysmans describes these eccentric plants as: "...some a pinkish color like the Virginale, which seemed to have been cut out of oilskin or sticking-plaster; some all white like the Albane, which looked as if it had been fashioned out of the pleura of an ox or the diaphanous bladder of a pig. Others, especially the one called Madame Mame, seemed to be simulating zinc, parodying bits of punched metal colored emperor green and spattered with drops of oil paint, streaks of red lead and white (Huysmans 84)..." None of these flowers looks like or is described as a healthy and natural plant. Des Esseintes uses them to assimilate other things, such as “Virginale,” “pleura of an ox,” “bladder of a pig,” and metals, whose appearances are distant from the plants’ natural forms. However, these portrayals by Huysmans offer numerous inspirations when one tries to describe the natural objects in Redon’s painting. Sprawling upward from the right bottom of the painting, a plant in the color of paris green is bedecked with black spots. Some of the black scatters on the sepals of the flowers, like cuttlefish’s ink squirted on the canvas; on some other leaves, the black almost completely covers the whole area, as if the plants are infected by a tumor. At the right foot of the Buddha, a plantain leaf is situated at the left corner of the painting. The center of the leaf is painted with harvest gold, and the verge is decorated with the paris green of the flowers—the combination of these two colors produces an unpleasant and unnatural feeling. Moving our sight upwards to where the “sun” is located, a cluster of yellow pigments is contaminated by greyish-blue spots, as if lymphoma has infected the healthy cell tissues. Analogous to the flowers decorating Des Esseintes’s rooms, the “plants” in Redon’s painting are not natural at all. They all embody certain morbid combinations of colors, creating an unpleasant feeling which can be liken to the feeling that one might have when reading À Rebours. Furthermore, the only “natural” being in the painting, the tree on the right side, is also sapped of its natural vitality and liveliness. Outlined by the brown pencil lines and filled with reddish brown on the surface of the trunk and beige-brown on the branches, the tree protrudes from the soil without a single leaf on it. The image of this lifeless tree can be compared to Des Esseintes’s irremediable illness as well as the deterioration of his mental health. Des Esseintes’s incessant escapism from nature places him in his world of hallucinatory reveries and dreams, which drains his strength and leaves him distressed to the extreme. He suffers from double vision, dizziness, and continuous nausea, and also finds himself unable to digest any food. Huysmans’s description of Des Esseintes’s appearance also shows the lifelessness in this decadent anti-hero: "He scarcely knew himself; his face was an earthen color, the lips dry and swollen, the tongue all furrowed, the skin wrinkled; his untidy hair and beard, which his servant had not trimmed since the beginning of his illness, added to the horrific impression created by the hollow cheeks and the big, watery eyes burning with a feverish brightness in this hairy death’s-head (Huysmans 191). "
CONCLUSION: There are many other paintings and drawing by Redon which I could have chosen to compare with Huysmans’s novel, À Rebours. As a matter of fact, the writer does spend multiple lines and paragraphs of the novel describing them: "In their narrow gold-rimmed frames of unpainted pear wood, they contained the most fantastic of visions: a Merovingian head balanced on a cup; a bearded man with something of the bonze about him and something of the typical speaker at public meetings, touching a colossal canon-ball with one finger; a horrible spider with a human face lodged in the middle of its body (Huysmans 59-60)." Granted that these depressing drawing might reflect the decadent hero’s inner loss and pessimism (Jullian 25), they do not offer a comprehensively visual representation of the literature and the conflicts constantly existing in the protagonist. Instead, by comparing the novel with The Buddha which is neither mentioned in the book (which partly can be explained by the fact that the painting was made 20 years after the book was published), nor similar to the drawing hanging on Des Esseintes’s walls, we can see a bridge between literature and paintings which is constructed with the similar atmosphere and sensations that both works produce. The colorism of the painting reflects Des Esseintes’s aesthetic life full of fantasies and reveries; the image of Buddha represents the inner conflicts within the solipsistic recluse; finally, the decoration on the morbid plants and the lifeless trees embody the antihero’s animosity against nature as well as his hopeless illness. Comparing a decadent hero in literature with a symbolist painting might not be a conventional way to approach the interdisciplinary study of literature and painting. However, the various connections between the visual, literary, and interpretative elements of these two works could probably show us the fascinating ties between the pen and the brush. Work cited
Figures
Taste is the most common trope when we talk about one’s ability in making aesthetic judgement on artistic object. Hutcheson, in the Treatise I: An Inquiry Concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony, Design[1], declares that taste relates to people’s internal sense and cannot be very much improved in a particular individual. On the other hand, in his influential work, Of the Standard of Taste[2], Hume states that taste is the foundation of people’s aesthetic judgements and can be improved through practice. In this paper, I will analyze each of their works critically and seek for the reconciliation between the two seemingly incompatible works. In particular, I will prove that, while Hutcheson starts from a more purely sensible aspect of taste, Hume includes cognitive analysis into sensory feelings and gives his explanation of why taste can be elevated. Afterwards, I will provide my own revision on both theories and argue that, even though everyone has the ability to perceive the idea of beauty, to what extent one can improve his taste still depends on, to a certain degree, his natural sensibility.
In Treatise I, Hutcheson states that the presence of external objects can raise different ideas in human mind, and that “their acting upon our body [or mind] is called sensations (Hutcheson 7).” The power that human beings have of perceiving these ideas are called senses. For example, we can feel the temperature and texture of a glass when we hold it in the hand, because we have the sense of touch. However, Hutcheson thinks that just as the human mind does not have the ability to prevent the perception of the ideas, neither can it vary the idea’s reception as long as the body is fit to receive these ideas. In other words, the mind is passive and takes no control over which ideas can be perceived and how they are received. For example, when the color of red is presented before one, he cannot declare that he sees another color unless he is lying, for the idea produced by the object is immediate, and it goes directly from his physical organ and thus forms the perception in his mind without the examination of his cognition. Therefore, our mind is involuntary when receiving the idea. Moreover, Hutcheson thinks that everyone should have the same in perceiving these ideas, and the same idea cannot evoke different sensations in different individuals. As he states in the essay:
In other words, our knowledge of an object, or our prospective aversion or desire related with the object, might change our rational perceptions, but it can never make our sensible perception any different from what we experienced at the very first time. For example, one might initially find the taste of wine agreeable. This idea is perceived purely by his senses so this agreeableness is his sensible perception. However, after getting drunk and suffering from hangover several times, he no longer likes wine that much because the feeling of hangover recurs with the idea of wine so that whenever he thinks of wine now, he finds it disgusting. He then speculates that he senses have changed so that the agreeable idea produced by wine originally now becomes disagreeable. In this case, Hutcheson would argue that the only thing that has changed is the man’s rational perception. Due to presence of additional idea—the recurrence of the experience of hangover—the man consciously knows that drinking wine cannot be a pleasant experience for him. Therefore, his rational sense alters his desire of the wine. However, his unconscious and passive perception, which is his sensible perception, never changes. The presence of wine still brings about agreeable ideas deep down in his most sensible structures even though he might not even know it. Therefore, people’s senses, according to Hutcheson, should all be the same without existence of additional idea. The only exceptions are cases where the person has bodily flaws. Hutcheson says that “no definition can raise any simple idea which has not been before perceived by the senses (Hutcheson 8).” If one does not have the sense, he can never get the idea of any perception which need to be received by that particular sense. For example, a deaf person can never perceive the sound because he does not have the sensibility for sound, just as an achromate can never discern the differences between colors. Apart from these unusual cases, our senses, the power of perceiving ideas from external objects, are passive and involuntary, and they remain the same in each person, except that the person has physical defects which causes his insensibility. Among all of our senses, there are external senses and internal sense. For each external sense, we depend on a distinct physical organ to receive sensible ideas. For example, we perceive colors from the eye and distinguish sounds from the ear. On the other hand, the internal sense , which can also be called taste, is our power of receiving the ideas of beauty and getting pleasures from them. Besides their difference in the objects of perception (for external senses, the objects are colors, sounds, temperature, etc., and for internal senses, the objects are ideas of beauty), external senses and internal sense are also different in that, while most people are equipped with external senses, there are much fewer people who have internal sense. Hutcheson says that “I should rather choose to call our power of perceiving these ideas as an internal sense, were it only for the convenience of distinguishing them from other sensations of seeing and hearing which men may have without perception of beauty (Hutcheson 10).” He thinks that while all the people, as long as their bodies are fit to receive external sensations, can hear the music performed by an orchestra or identify the colors in a painting, not all of them can sense the idea of beauty, harmony, and regularity. However, although different from external senses, our internal sense is still a sense, which means that it embodies all the characteristics which are inherent in human senses. First of all, the ideas perceived by internal sense are also immediate so that our mind is passive when receiving these ideas. For example, when we receive a pleasant idea of beauty when looking at an artwork, we can never deceive our internal sense and think that we see something ugly, because the idea is produced by the idea of beauty and directly enters into our mind without being analyzed cognitively. Secondly, everyone should have the same ability in perceiving these internal sensations as long as they have this internal sense. If a person with perfect external senses cannot perceive the idea of beauty, it is not because his internal sense has not been explored or practiced, but it is because he does not have this internal sense at all. Just like a blind person can never perceive the idea of color because he does not have a physical organ for the reception of the idea, a man without taste can never perceive the idea of beauty, harmony, or regularity. Therefore, Hutcheson thinks that there is no development in anyone’s internals sense—you either have or not. However, since additional ideas can influence our senses, our taste can also be influenced—rationally—by customs, education, or example. Custom, education, and example can enlarge the capacity of our minds to retain and compare complex compositions, which are the ideas beyond simple ideas of sight, touch, and auditory sense—such as the idea of beauty. For example, if we expose a baby to harmonious music since he was little, it is possible that he will have greater ability in analyzing such harmonious sound, for he has been educated at a very early stage so that he has greater ability in retaining and comparing this complex composition. Nevertheless, Hutcheson says that “there is a natural power of perception, or sense of beauty in objects, antecedent to all custom, education or example” (Hutcheson 38). In other words, having influence on our internal sense does not mean that custom and education can change the fact whether we have internal sense or not. In particular, when we try to make the baby more “sensitive” to the harmony in sound, we presuppose that the baby has this internal sense, because if he does not have this internal sense, no matter how many harmonious melodies we play to him, he can never perceive the beauty in the sound. Here, I think Hutcheson is making a parallel between the deprivation of taste and of any external sense. As stated earlier, it is impossible for a blind person to receive the idea of color because he innately lacks this ability of perceiving color, regardless of how many various colors that the object has. Likewise, a person without taste can never perceive the idea of beauty, and there is nothing that we can do to change that fact. In short, Hutcheson thinks that human beings have various senses to perceive the ideas produced by external objects. In this perceiving process, our mind is passive and involuntary so that it cannot change our perception of any idea without any additional idea which turns sensible perceptions into rational perceptions. While external senses are senses perceived by distinct physical organs, internal sense is our power of perceiving the idea of beauty. This internal sense is our taste. Like external senses, taste cannot be acquired through custom, education, and example. If we want to improve someone’s taste by enlarging his capacity of retaining and comparing the idea of beauty, we have to make sure whether the person has the natural internal sense or not. On the other hand, Hume, in the Of The Standard of Taste, states that there is a great variety among people’s taste. He starts his essay by saying that “the great variety of Taste, as well as of opinions, which prevails in the world, is too obvious not to have fallen under everyone’s observation (Hume, 226).” Influenced by Hutcheson’s sentimentalism, Hume believes that aesthetic judgments do not rely on reason but on sentiments. These sentiments might refer to Hutcheson’s internal sensations. For example, one finds a harmonious music agreeable and a discordant song displeasing: our perceptions and feelings about the music are our aesthetic sentiments. Human taste is formed by these aesthetic sentiments, and it is the source of our judgments of natural, moral, as well as aesthetic beauty. It is, therefore, the foundation when we judge a work to be beautiful. Moreover, sentiment, different from reason, does not refer to the inner qualities of the object, but solely depends on the feelings of the subject himself. Hume’s idea that aesthetic sentiments are subjective relates to Hutcheson’s opinion that the idea of beauty is the perception formed in ourselves rather than merely the characteristics of an external object. Hutcheson says in his treatise that “beauty is taken for the idea raised in us, and a sense of beauty for our power of receiving the idea (Hutcheson 10).” Therefore, according to Hume, our tastes, comprised by various aesthetic judgements, are subjective and capricious. However, while Hutcheson thinks that different people are inherently the same, despite the fact that additional ideas can affect our rational perceptions of sensations, Hume seems to persist in the view that an infinite variety and caprice is innate in people’s taste. He thinks that “the variety of taste is obvious to the most careless enquirer (Hume 227).” Different people have different sentiments even when they are observing the same object: one person might be more pleased with the color of blue while another person gains pleasure from the color of cyan. Such caprice of taste also exists in the same individual at different times: what a person likes in his twenties might not appeal to him anymore when he is thirty years older. Moreover, according to Hume, the infinite variety in taste is due to people’s different sensibilities. He states that
Hutcheson might argue against Hume’s theory in that he thinks that there is not any difference in people’s sensibilities and tastes. The only difference that could exist in people’s tastes is whether one has it or not. If two people both possess the power of perceiving the idea of beauty, the sensation produced by the same object should be identical for both of them. In other words, as long as they have taste, the idea perceived by one person as pleasant should not be recognized by the other as displeasing. Moreover, Hutcheson would explain the obvious variety between the people’s perceptions by saying that different people infuse additional ideas into the merely sensible perception. For example, one person might find the dark red more pleasing because the color is related to one of his most precious memories. However, this difference, according to Hutcheson, does not exist in his sensible perception of the idea but in his rational perception of the idea, which has influence his judgement and makes him think that his taste is different from that of others. Furthermore, Hume thinks that people’s taste can be improved, particularly by sufficient practice. In the Of The Standard of Taste, Hume states that:
At least on two points, Hutcheson’s theory contradicts with Hume’s argument on the improvement of one’s taste. First, Hutcheson thinks that the strongest sensation is perceived by one at the first presence of the object. He says that “customs may make us in apprehending the truth of complex theorems, but we all find the pleasure or beauty of theorems as strong as first as ever (Hutcheson 39).” In other words, customs might enlarge our ability in apprehending more complex ideas, such as the idea of beauty, but the intuitive sensation that we gain from an object is always the strongest at its first presence. Moreover, Hutcheson would think that practice, analogous to customs, education, and example, can only improve our sensibility in rational and cognitive perception rather than merely sensible perception. He thinks that if the person in the earlier case becomes more capable at distinguishing sounds and perceiving the idea of beauty through years of practice, it is only because he knows how to analyze and apprehend these ideas rationally. Since he is not aware of the fact that it is his cognitive perception that influences judgments, he thinks that it is his sensibility that has changes. However, the seemingly obvious contradiction between Hutcheson’s and Hume’s theories can actually be reconciled if we analyze more thoroughly from their distinct positions: while Hutcheson focuses more on the intuitive and sensible aspect of taste, Hume does not distinguish the sensible part so much from the rational part. To be more specific, Hutcheson thinks that taste, which measure the ability of our internal sense, is only concerned with the immediate ideas perceived by us upon the presence of external objects. Therefore, our mind is passive and involuntary when receiving such ideas and does not have the space for any cognitive analysis or judgment. People thinks that their sensibilities can change only because they blur the idea of sensible perceptions with rational perceptions. Thus, even though we become more capable of discerning the idea of beauty though customs, education, and example, the passive reaction of mind does not change at all. On the other hand, Hume thinks that taste, which is comprised of our aesthetic sentiments, does not stand apart completely from our aesthetic judgments which concerns with rational analysis of the perception. However, the rational analysis can be infused into our intuitive perception of ideas so that, since we do not feel this analysis cognitively, we will think that there are some improvements that can be made on our sensibilities. For example, a person sees a masterpiece of painting and is told by some professional that it is aesthetically beautiful. Even though he does not “feel” that the painting is beautiful, he cognitively “knows” that it is beautiful. Hume will not consider this person has good taste because his cognition still works separately from his sense. However, if, being told by the professional, the person alters his sensibility and starts to “feel” that this painting is indeed beautiful—his mind can be calmed by the smart combination of colors, and his heart is touched by its balanced structure—then, Hume will say that the person’s taste has been improved because his sentiments towards the painting are different now. Nevertheless, there are still certain points in each theory with which I do not quite agree. For Hutcheson’s argument, I do not advocate for his analogy between external senses and the internal sense. It is true that we cannot implant a sensibility into a person who has physical flaws, however, it is not as hard to give a person an external sense as to foster an internal sense. In other words, while the ability of the external senses is inherent in a person after he has been born, the power of perceiving the idea of beauty, the internal sense, is, to a large extent, acquired. For example, if a person was born blind, he will stay blind forever and will never have the sensibility of sight, unless we conduct surgeries on his brain or replace his retina. On the other hand, the ability of perceiving the idea of beauty is not inborn with us because almost everyone did not have the sense of beauty when he was a little child. If we play a most beautiful melody to a crying baby, he might neither be attracted to the music nor strop crying, but it does not mean that the baby will not have the sense of beauty forever. As a matter of fact, he might be highly talented in music if he is exposed to elegant music constantly by his parents. Therefore, even though external senses and internal sense are both senses so that they involve certain passive reactions of the brain toward outward stimulants, internal sense depend more on fostering and practice than external senses. We can say that an external sense can never be gained by someone who has serious defects in the physical organ concerning that particular external sense, but we cannot say that the sense of beauty can never be gained by someone who does not have the sensibility—none of us is born with the sensibility of beauty. On the other hand, although I agree with Hume’s idea that practice can help improve our taste, I do not think that it is a universal solution that can be applied to any individual. Hume seems to admit that there is a natural variety in people’s sensibility and taste, but he does not address how big this natural variety is and whether it can affect each person’s potential in improving taste. To be more specific, would there be a limit for an individual in the improvement of his taste so that, no matter how much practice is received by him, his taste can no longer improve? In the previous paragraph, I claim that people’s tastes rely more on postnatal fostering than on inborn ability, however, I concede that there is a great difference in people’s capability in improving their taste. For example, there are two young people who were born in different families and raised in their own distinct way. One was born in a well-educated family so that, since he was little, his parents have taken him to different concerts and galleries in order to foster a good taste in him. However, even though through years of practice, the boy become, to a certain level, sensitive to the idea of beauty, he does not have as good a taste as expected. The other boy, who was born to a comparatively poor family, does not have so much experience in shaping his taste as the first boy. However, he is inherently more sensitive to colors and sounds so that, after he moves in a big city where more artistic experiences are provided, his taste is improved speedily and soon surpasses the taste of the first one. Although both of them have the sense of beauty and have undergone certain amount of practice, the potential in improving the taste is much greater in the second boy than in the first one. Therefore, even though practice helps us improve taste, the effect it has on different individuals still depend on the particular person’s sensibility. In conclusion, both of Hutcheson’s and Hume’s theories shed light on the issue of human taste. Hutcheson thinks that taste, or our internal sense, can be likened to our external sense in that the mind the passive when receiving the idea of beauty, and that our tastes cannot be much improved because not everyone has that sensibility. Hume, on the other hand, states that taste is the foundation of our aesthetic judgment and can be improved through abundant practice. By combining both theories and revising them critically, I draw the conclusion that taste, which cannot be not completely likened to external senses which are determined since our birth, can be improved by a certain extent depending on our natural sensibility. [1] Francis Hutcheson, Philosophical Writings. Edited by R.S.Downie, University of Glasgow [2] David Hume, Of the Standard of Taste, Essays Moral, Political and Literary. [Revised edition, edited by Eugene F. Miller. Liberty Fund Indianapolis] --An analysis on French Comedians and the relation between painting and balletFigure 1, Antoine Watteau, French Comedians, playing a tragi-comedy, 1720, Oil on canvas, 22 1/2 x 28 3/4 in. (57.2 x 73 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York. Under Louis XIV’s reign in the seventeenth century, a particular style of dance was developed for ballet to correspond with the new use of the proscenium stage; presenting the body outwardly, the whole scene was a picture “framed” by the proscenium.[1] French Comedians, playing a tragi-comedy (figure 1), a painting made by Antoine Watteau in 1720, borrowed that proscenium stage, or to be more exact, the proscenium arches, and put it into the background composition. However, it was not only a stage or some other fragmented elements that painting “borrowed” from ballet, it was the whole system of body gestures, the costumes, as well as the aesthetic idea of creating certain extent of gracefulness that impacted painting by ballet. Nevertheless, the influences between ballet and painting never followed a one-way direction; they have shaped each other’s composition and aesthetics during centuries. By taking into account of Watteau’s painting French Comedians and Noverre’s writing on ballet d’action, Lettres sur la danse et sur les ballets, one could conclude that the association between ballet and painting, two art forms which have learned from and impacted by each other through centuries, is more likely a product of shared means and goals. Louis XIV not only summarized his power through ballets, he also used dance as a kind of social etiquette which influenced other aspects of art world. Even though Louis did not invent the connection of dance and etiquette since they had long been bedfellows, however, he took this fixation on etiquette to unprecedented extremes. In the books written by dance masters at the time,[2] one could learn the fine details of how to bow and take off one’s hat; how to enter an apartment, pass a superior on the street, or show respect in leaving a room; how to hold one’s skirts, when to lift the eyes, and how deeply to bend when and for whom; how to become, in a word, a “beautiful being.”[3] The zeal for categorization and codification of bodily refinements established a new system of nobility which was represented by those aristocratic bodies so that styles of bodily representation can themselves probe questions of nature, identity, and social dynamics. However, this establishment of etiquette was not only restricted within the art of dance or to showing off the King’s political power, it was intertwined with architecture, graphic arts, and most importantly, paintings, whose manipulation or portrayals of the body emphasized qualities of movement and gestures as a central expressive goal.[4] As a result, many painters at the time employed dances into their paintings, and among them the most renowned was Jean-Antoine Watteau, who used forms associated with the aristocratic body to create his personal artistic project.[5] In his famous paintings of social gatherings of noble people, the fête galante paintings, even though the figures seem to imply social actions of conversing, grouping, and amusedly regarding one’s neighbor, one would find it hard to interpret the scene as a descriptive recording of everyday activity, given the intense artfulness with which the figures are posed and positioned.[6] The painter designed the grouping and postures of those figures in such a delicate way that as if he were the choreographer himself, composing a scene of ballet. It was from Watteau’s paintings of fête galante that the phenomenon of galanterie came into appearance. Even though this concept of galanterie, as Aaron Wile recently argued, resists easy characterization, it above all promoted an ideal based on refinement, variety, and a desire to please in which the cold dominion of reason and the fiery excesses of the passions alike were rejected in favor of playing and douceur, which encompasses the notions of softness, gentleness, and sweetness.[7] However, the aesthetic of galanterie is not exclusive to Watteau’s fête galante paintings, it also comes forth in other paintings by him, including French Comedians, playing a tragi-comedy. Besides the appearance of the imagery of a putto on the right side of the painting which can often be seen in other paintings, French comedian is comparable to fête galante paintings in a way that it is composed with artful bodies and thus creating a scene of gracefulness, softness, or douceur. Instead of trying to interpret the anecdote implied by this painting, I put efforts in observing the details of its composition, especially of the costumes of characters and of their body languages, to find the implicit relationship between dance and painting. First of all, in all kinds of visual art comprised by bodies, posture is the key, and refined and beautiful body representation require characters, according to dance theory, to “stand erect but easy, head upright and shoulders sloping back with arms held loosely to the side, hands curved and posed, toes gently turned out.”[8] These features can be easily noticed in our painting, especially with two main characters in the center of the painting standing gracefully with shoulders slightly bent backwards. Moreover, even though the feet of the actresses are concealed under their dresses, the two actors are standing with feet turned out forty-five degrees at the hip, which is considered as the “true” or noble position.[9] By doing this their postures demonstrate “an air of ease” which can only be achieved from dancing. In contrast with the four characters on stage, the fifth figure on the right side of the painting, stepping onto the stage from the back, does not demonstrate such kind of galanterie. His stout and bouncy body might indicate that he is comic actor who is the least refined type.[10] Apart from their postures, the painting also implies a hierarchy of bodies—not all bodies are equal. In this painting, the main actor stands in the center of the painting while the actress stands slightly behind him. On each of them stand a male and a female minor character. This fits with the idea of ballet of the eighteenth century which says that “graduation, inequality, and difference” were both natural and desirable.[11] In this way, the whole painting can achieve certain extent of “balance” which is not only important in ballet but also primary in painting composition. Moreover, this hierarchy is not only shown by their position to one another but also implied by their costumes. At the time, ballet dancers dressed in the latest fashions using the most expensive and luxurious fabrics, and their social status was implicated by their body decorations—who a dancer was onstage also depended on what he wore. In this painting, the principle male figure wears an old-fashioned formal costume: a hat with plumes, a wig, and a fringed, skirted silver garment lavishly embodied with palmettes, all of which were symbols of high birth.[12] His silk stockings and red boots draw attention to his bowed legs and skinny ankles, revealing a resemblance with ballet players in contemporary court dances. Moreover, this also indicates that the convention of costume gave men a distinct advantage—their Roman-styled dress or fashionable skirted waistcoats, breaches, and silk stockings left the leg free and visible.[13] On the other hand, women had no such freedoms. In our painting, the two female wear heavy skirts that fall to the floor, worn over petticoats and topped with mantuas, aprons, and stiff bodices and corsets, conspired to constrain movement in the interests of upright posture and dignified carriage.[14] All these body decorations and make up were designed to build up from nature and make the body a work of art. Moreover, as Jennifer Homans put it in her book Apollo’s Angels, “the point was not accurately to depict a character but to respect the rules of decorum: dress was a way of indicating a character’s place in the social hierarchy, and the quality, number, value, and length of fabric, plumes, jewelry, and trains were all calibrated to status.”[15] Everything in this painting, from the stage composition to the costumes of characters, is not only influenced by the art of dance, but more fundamentally by its social context. Many of the details in French Comedian, playing a tragi-comedy were influenced by dance, however, this also makes me wonder whether it was the dance that influenced painting or the other way around. In other words, all the evidence that we see in this paintings, such as the figures’ gestures, their costumes, the bodily hierarchy, and other components, could not only be learned by painters from dancing, but it is also possible that dance choreographers at the time examined masterpieces made by former painting masters and “stole” the methods of composition from them. As a matter of fact, Jean George Noverre, one of the most renowned dancing theorist of the eighteenth century, encourages the maîtres de ballet to compose a dance like a painter in his famous dance treatise, Lettres sur la danse et sur les ballet. Noverre thinks that the maîtres de ballet should, like the painting masters who had been handed down to posterity, infuse their works of ballet with their own emotions, ideas, and sensibility. He says in his first letter in Lettres sur la danse et sur les ballets that “a ballet is a picture, or rather a series of pictures connected one with the other by the plot which provides the theme of the ballet; the stage is, as it were, the canvas on which the composer expresses his ideas; the choice of the music, scenery and costumes are his colors; the composer is the painter.”[16] The reason why those of the maître de ballet could not made themselves so celebrated in their day as most painting masters did is that, according to Noverre, they were only mechanical repetition composed with beautiful physical proportions, great precision in execution of airs, graceful development of arms and an extreme lightness in making steps.[17] However, this kind of ballet did not have the power of paler à l’âme[18], or, speaking to the heart. The good ballet, or Noverre termed as ballet d’action, should speak with fire and energy, replacing the symmetrical and formal figures with transgressing truth and shocking possibility. However, to achieve this, he thought, the maîtres de ballet must consult the works of great painters, because the examination of masterpieces of paintings could remind the maîtres de ballet of what the “truth” is. To be more specific, by looking at different figures in paintings and observing their actions, expressions, emotions, and other visual representations, the maîtres de ballet could learn the individuality of each character. Therefore, their sensibility could be sharpened and thus help them bring about well-composed ballets which were supposed to be a “living picture” of the passions, manners, customs, and all other kinds of emotions.[19] As Watteau and other painters represent emotions with body language, Noverre thinks that gestures are offspring of feeling and the faithful interpreter of every mood. [20] By arguing that previous gestures were confined within too restricted limits to produce great effects, he thinks that each gesture, each attitude, each port de bras,[21] must possess a different expression. In other words, instead of putting so much energy into execution of movements, he thinks that maîtres de ballets should put it into expression—gesture is the “countenance”[22] of soul, and its effect must be immediate and cannot fail to achieve its aim when it is true. Moreover, just as painters tell emotions from their figures’ facial expressions, dance is not only composed of bodily representation but also expressed by faces. According to Noverre, “a man’s face is the mirror of his passions, in which the movements and agitations of the soul are displayed, and in which tranquility, joy, sadness, fear and hope are expressed in turn.”[23] When one look at a painting, he can hardly ignore the importance of face because, apart from costumes, colors, and body gestures, faces sometimes tell us most about the character’s emotions. However, even though facial expressions might be considered more importantly in painting than in dancing, Noverre thinks that all the movements would become purely automatic and meaningless if the face remain speechless and do not animate or invigorate them.[24] Watteau may not be the greatest painter in history, nor does Noverre sound as radical as he thought he did, however, both of them, as well as their works, demonstrate some connection between ballet and painting. In French Comedian, many components are influenced by ballet dancing, including the character’s body gestures, their costumes, and the composition of the painting. At the same time, Noverre says in his famous dance treatise, Lettres sur la danse et sur les ballets, that dance masters should learn from and be compared with great painters in capturing the true emotions of human beings. As I mentioned earlier in this paper, ballet and painting might not be considered just as separate art forms; instead, the association between them was, is, and will be more likely a product of shared means and goals, the ways to achieve great aesthetic values. Notes: [1] Sarah R Cohen, introduction to Art, Dance, and the Body in French Culture of the Ancien Régime (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p5 [2] Jennifer Homans, Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet (New York: Random House, 2010), p21 [3] Ibid. [4] Cohen, introduction to Art, Dance, and the Body, p6 [5] Ibid, p8 [6] Sarah R Cohen, “Watteau’s fête galante and the Artful Body” in Antoine Watteau: Perspective on the Artist and the Culture of His Time edited by Mary D Sheriff (Newark: University of Delaware, 2006), p94 [7] Aaron Wile, Watteau, Reverie, and Selfhood (The Art Bulletin: 96:3, 319-337, DOI: 10.1080/0043079.2014.889526, Published online: 02 Oct 2014.) [8] Homans, Apollo’s Angles, p21 [9] Homans, Apollo’s Angles, p23 [10] Ibid, p27 [11] Ibid, p26 [12] Ibid, p27 [13] Ibid, p28 [14] Ibid, p29 [15] Ibid, p27 [16] Jean Georges Noverre, Lettres sur la danse et sur les ballets (Londres: et se trouve a Paris, chez la veuve Dessain junior, Seconde édition, 1783), p5 [17] Marion Kant, “PART II: The eighteenth century: revolutions in technique and spirit” in The Cambridge Companion to Ballet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p56 [18] Cyril W Beaumont, trans, Letters on Dancing and Ballet (Brooklyn, N.Y., Dance Horizons, 1966), p5 [19] Ibid, p16 [20] Beaumont, Letters on Dancing and Ballet, p16 [21] Noverre, lettres sur la danse et sur les ballet, p199 [22] Beaumont, Letters on Dancing and Ballet, p100 [23] Ibid, p78 [24] Ibid, p78 Bibliography Primary sources:
A Visual Analysis on Botticelli’s Primavera (left) and Birth of Venus (right) During Early-Renaissance, Florence was dominated by the Medici family. Nobles hired artists to paint for them and exerted their power through paintings. Compared with the artists of earlier age, the artists of Early Renaissance, influenced by Neo-Platonic worldview, started to use a more mathematical and realistic method to present subject matters in their artworks. Many influential artists of the time, including Brunelleschi and Donatello, imitated the nature more precisely than those had done before, by using one-point perspective and depicting figures in real size—the true spirit of Naturalism. Facing these challenges established by his predecessors, Sandro Botticelli, a Florentine painter, intended to make something different and elevated. Compared with other artists of the time, he depicted his subject matters more idealistically. As a humanistic artist, he transformed Naturalism into a more idealized form, by using blurred colors, dynamic positions, and poetic effects. He focused more on the “beauty” itself than his contemporaries did. From my perspective, this is the elevation of artists—they transformed from mere craftsmen, who helped nobles seek power through paintings, to real philosophers and intellectuals.
The two paintings by Botticelli, the Primavera and the Birth of Venus, were commissioned by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’Medici, the second cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent[1]. Both paintings were hung above a couch outside the wedding chamber in Lorenzo’s residence and were seen as wedding paintings that suggest appropriate behaviors of the bride and the groom[2]. The central figure of the two paintings, Venus, is the goddess of love, fertility, and desire. She connects divine love with secular love, embodying elevated meanings for the Medici’s marriage. Both paintings, styled in a feminist way with blurred colors and floral patterns, served as visual tools to teach the bride how to behave in a marriage. In the following paragraphs, I will focus on how visual details of these two paintings reflect their central theme—marriage and love. Then I will explain how Botticelli demonstrated them in a more idealistic way than other Early-Renaissance painters had ever done. The Primavera was painted to commemorate Lorenzo’s wedding which took place in the spring (month of May) of 1482. “Primavera” itself means springtime in Italian[3], and the painting depicts a dance in a garden which serves as a staging platform for love. The background of the painting, decorated by orange trees and flowers, symbolizes fertility, and its delicacy demonstrates the painter’s efforts invested into this artwork. In the center of the painting, Venus, who is fully clothed but veiled, looks as if she is pregnant. As the goddess of love and marriage, she represents the wife of Lorenzo, and that her image is depicted by Venus indicates the power of the Medici family at the time. On the very left of Primavera (our right), the wind god, Zephyr, representing the divine power of love, sweeps down and grabs the almost naked forest nymph Chloris, in a moment when Chloris will be raped. This rape scene signifies the bride’s absolute submission to the groom[4]. After being raped, Chloris transfers to Flora who, in Roman mythology, is as much a goddess of fertility as she is of flowers. On the right side of Primavera (our left), three graces who represent the qualities in the bride that inspire the groom’s love are Beauty, Chastity, and Voluptas ( who represents carnal delectation of sex)[5]. The Cupid above Venus is aiming his arrow at Chastity, indicating that the bride is about to lose her virginity. Behind the three graces stands a handsome and masculine man trying to reach the orange above him. He is an idealized portrait of Lorenzo de’Medici. Lorenzo’s appearance in the painting, as in the case of depicting the wife as Venus, shows the Medici’s power of the time. In the Primavera, Botticelli depicts classical Christian figures to express the theme of love and marriage for the Medici family in Renaissance Florence, combining classical themes with contemporary humanism. The Birth of Venus, which was painted several years after the wedding, derives its characters from the Primavera. Using the same floral decoration as background, this painting depicts the birth of Venus who is just coming out of water. Although the original idea of the Birth of Venus remains in question, one possibility is that it was painted after the wife had already given birth, because the Venus, radically naked and standing on a shell, gives people a feeling of new-born. Her beautiful body is not strictly contrapposto, but is more flexible, giving the viewer a feeling of sensual and erotic beauty. Likewise, other figures in this painting also evolve from the original ones in the Primavera. On the right of Birth of Venus (our left), Zephyrs and Chloris, who originally appear in the rape scene in the Primavera, now intertwine together, implying that the husband and the wife have already united. Floral, on the left side of the painting (our right), is no longer the static figure representing fertility, but becomes the attendant who is going to wrap the body of Venus. In this Renaissance painting, Botticelli did not depict classical figures in a classical context; however, as he did in the Primavera, he associated divine love with secular love, depicting Christian figures in a more humanistic theme. Just as other artists of the time, Botticelli portrayed classical figures in his paintings to help the Medici family exert their power. However, his style of painting is less realistic than those of other Naturalist artists who depicted nature precisely. All of the figures in Botticelli’s painting are dynamic. He focused on their movements and revealed their psychological characters. In the Primavera, the Venus seems a little sad to me because she is about to get married, and marriage has never been a simple thing for a woman, especially for women of the time when they did not have a high status in family. On the other hand, the Venus in the Birth of Venus looks more serene, because after giving birth, she has the peaceful expression of a mother. Botticelli’s idealized Naturalism can also be seen from the structure and the background of his paintings. For example, the Primavera can be read as a poem from (our) right to left[6], and four people are in a group with the last person, the Venus and the image of Lorenzo, as the final line of the verse. This poetic characteristic of the Primavera reveals the beauty of Botticelli’s paintings, which is idealistic instead of mathematical and realistic. On the other hand, in the Birth of Venus, all the figures are flowing on the bluish background where the sky and the water seem to melt together. Even though he did not use the atmospheric perspective invented by Leonardo da Vinci, this blurred background still shows his idealistic style of Renaissance naturalist paintings. As a humanist, Botticelli depicted beauty in a more idealistic and dynamic way than other artists of the time. He elevated the idea of an artist, initiating the transformation of artists from mere craftsmen to real philosophers and intellectuals who create beauty in their own forms. The Primavera and the Birth of Venus show these characteristics in their visual details and structures. Both of the two paintings by Botticelli not only fascinated people of the time when the paintings commissioned, but also make nowadays audience like us enthralled by their stylish accomplishments aesthetic meaning. References: [1]Kettlewell, James. Rethinking Classic Themes in Art History. http://www.jameskettlewell.com/botticelli.html. [2]Zirpolo, Lilian. Botticelli’s Primavera: A Lesson for the Bride. New York: Icon Editions, 1992. [3]Kettlewell, James. Rethinking Classic Themes in Art History. http://www.jameskettlewell.com/botticelli.html. [4]Zirpolo, Lilian. Botticelli’s Primavera: A Lesson for the Bride. New York: Icon Editions, 1992. [5] Zirpolo, Lilian. Botticelli’s Primavera: A Lesson for the Bride. New York: Icon Editions, 1992. [6]Kettlewell, James. Rethinking Classic Themes in Art History. http://www.jameskettlewell.com/botticelli.html. A visual analysis on Antemann’s “European banquet” and Sandlin’s “Chinese totem” The Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery of Scripps College has a world famous tradition of holding annual ceramics exhibitions. The 73th Ceramic Annual this year is named the “Sense of Place” and features new creative artworks by eight artists. As one of the most ancient forms of art, ceramics has always fascinated me, particularly because I was raised in China and saw all kinds of Chinese ceramics since I was little. Compared to most Chinese ceramics works, which are painted in a traditional way, the ceramic works presented in this exhibition seem more like modern interpretations of classical themes. All eight artists work in their own distinctive styles—some of their works are made with traditional red clay, and others are made with porcelain adorned by colorful glaze. The exhibition conjoins the various artworks in a fusion of different cultures and a very creative mix. The whole exhibition room is like a giant ceramic artwork in its exquisiteness and elegance. Applying white walls as the background, the curators installed a series of hanging ceramics at the center of each wall. In every one of the four corners, there is a series of ceramic works by a different artist. For me, the theme of this exhibition, “The Sense of Place” can be interpreted in three ways. One is that ceramics, made originally from different kinds of soil, connects us to the earth, or the “Place of Origin.” On the other hand, the title can also be interpreted as pointing to the place that the artists are longing for—the place that they depict in their artwork could also be their “Place of Inspiration.” The third meaning is that since the artworks are installed here, at this particular time and location, it connects the viewer with the artwork’s place of origin and its place of inspiration. As Carol Duncan says in her essay The Art Museum As Ritual, “the installations thus take visitors on a kind of mental journey, a stepping out of the present into a universe of timeless values.”[1] The gallery itself and the way that curators installed these artworks, give a new representation of each artwork, and this is their “Place of the Present.” In this Exhibition paper, I will focus on two particular artworks, one by Chris Antemann and another by Red Weldon Sandlin, to illustrate how their artworks express this “Sense of Place”, and how these three senses of place are interconnected. As a French learner who has always been fascinated with European art, “An Occasional Craving” by Chris Antemann caught my eye immediately when I walked into this exhibition. Inspired by 18th century European art, Antemann depicts an 18th century lavish European banquet with this porcelain. Decorated by over-glazed painting and floral colors, it depicts a scene of joy, a frozen moment of pleasure. Applying rococo-style light blue as the theme color, Antemann uses floral decoration—a very feminine, baroque, and Chinoiserie style of decoration—in every detail of this work. There are flowers on the floor, on the back of chairs, on the tables, and even on the bodies of the women. Six pair of males and females are sitting around a table on which fruits and desserts are served. This “banquet-style” theme of artwork is also reflected by its location of the whole exhibition. Installed by curators in the center of the room and surrounded by all the other ceramics, “An Occasional Craving” does not only represent a celebration of 18th century European life, but also epitomizes a celebration of this exhibition. In this Rococo and Chinoiserie-style banquet, all the men are naked while all the women have floral tattoos on their bodies. Everyone is flirting with the person next to them. With all the desserts and fruits on the table—chocolates, strawberries, cakes, macarons towers—this is a delicious, heavily saccharine, presentation of ceramics. A man and a woman are sitting in the middle of the table, leaning towards each other. The woman, with her highly raised, exaggerated hair style, places one hand on the man’s shoulder, and the other on his hand. The man, bending slightly backwards, passionately looks into the woman’s eyes. Their hands are tightly clasped as if they are isolated from the outside world. Each part of their bodies are so close to the utensils on table that any movement of theirs would knock the utensils over and ruin the whole scene. However, time is frozen at this moment—not a moment of love, of course—but a moment of desire, temptation, lust, and primitive satisfaction. After looking at its visual details, I started to think about how it might relate to the theme of this exhibition, “the Sense of Place.” Raised in the rural areas of Oregon, Chris Antemann has been fascinated with the lavish life in big cities since she was young. Her “sense of place” is not embedded in where she lives, or her place of origin, but is instead embedded in the place which gives her emotional inspiration, which she found in the life in 18th century Europe. Art can always help people express their feelings. Antemann projects her longings for a time long past onto the porcelain works, and presents to us this unrealistic and whimsical fantasy. The life that she depicts in her works is a life without ordinary concerns. All of the people in the scene enjoy a patrician way of life, which is categorized by abundance and luxury. Everybody is enjoying this lavish banquet, and no one seems to care about other more mundane aspects of life – politics, military affairs, labor. This was the true spirit of Europe, or particularly, the spirit of 18th century France, from whence the styles of rococo and Chinoiserie had originated. As Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand said in 1814, “he who has not lived during the years around 1789 cannot know what is meant by the pleasure of life.”[2] The artist, Antemann, however, depicts the fairy-tale of 18th century Europe, which is usually represented in old-fashioned oil paintings, through this three-dimensional porcelain work. Furthermore, her representation of the decadent European lifestyle of the 18th century also call to elements of life in the present day. This lavish life style also represents the extravagant life of those people, especially the young millennials, who live in the Cosmopolitan areas today. This way of life embodies absolute pleasure, which always gives people conflicting feelings because it is just “too good to be true.” Antemann may have created these artworks just for the pure visual pleasure, but it is also possible that she wants to express her complicated feelings towards this lifestyle that is beautiful but “unreal.” In contrast to “An Occasional Craving,” which is a visual display of a snapshot in time, the second artwork reveals the artist’s attempt to tell a story with ceramics. “The Chinese Quin Teapots”, made by Red Weldon Sandlin, depicts a Chinese boy, whose body is comprised of five teapots (Picture 4, 5, 6, 7). Inspired by ancient Chinese ceramics from the Ming Dynasty, Sandlin covers the work with typical Chinese blue and white decorations. Placed in the back of the room, just behind the epitome of 18th century fantasies, “The Chinese Quin Teapots” looks like a totem built from teapots standing against the white wall (Picture 8). As a Chinese student, I first found this piece of ceramics very hard to interpret: apart from the signature Chinese patterns that I observed—a rooster, a dragon, plum blossoms, etc.—the other parts of this ceramics are rather enigmatic. Different from the previous artwork which can mostly be interpreted by analyzing its visual details, the “Chinese Quin Teapots” requires some background information to better understand the work. This artwork was inspired by “The Five Chinese Brothers,” an American children’s book written by Claire Huchet Bishop. It tells a story of five identical brothers, each possessing a superpower, who are accused of murder and sentenced to death, even though they were innocent. However, the five brothers were able to save each other with their collective wisdom and special talents, and they finally return home to live happily with their mother. After knowing the background story, we can interpret the visual representation of this work. Their collective power can be reflected by the form of the five teapots—each carrying the weight of the other to support a totem-like porcelain column. A boy’s head rests on top of the five teapots, and the butterfly on his right cheek expresses the “fantasy” of this artwork. The five identical teapots which comprise the body of the boy are inscribed with different characters and patterns. From top to bottom, each teapot carries a different Chinese character, which respectively means “Water,” “Iron,” “Fire,” “Sun,” and “Smoke.” Each character stands for the special talent of one boy. The patterns on each teapot depict a part of the story, and the five teapots complete each other to give us a sense of this “Five Chinese Bothers” tale. At the bottom of “The Chinese Quin Teapot,” there is an inscription of “媽媽” (Mother), which represents the ultimate home of the five brothers. This ceramic work, which is grounded in the tradition of storytelling, also expresses the story of the artist. As a young girl raised in a small town in Georgia, Sandlin was attracted by Chinese culture at a very early stage[3]. Without much access to the outside world, she used to spend her time in the local library, pouring over Chinese children’s books. For her, China represented an exotic culture which she could not easily understand. Due to her fascination with children’s books about Chinese culture, she put a children’s book under every piece of her artwork. It functions not only as a base of her artwork, but also as the root of her inspirations. The inscription on each teapot stands for each boy’s superpower, and the base, which reads “mother,” represents the notion of home. Like Antemann, Sandlin’s “Sense of place” does not originate from the place where she was brought up, but is embedded in somewhere that she had never been to, somewhere that she never got to know, somewhere which is also the place that inspires her. For her, those Chinese stories take her on journeys to the exotic land and are the origin of her imagination. Depicted in her artwork is her “Place of Inspiration.” We all have our childhood fantasies, and, for Sandlin, these are the exotic world of China. Even her first name “Red”, which she changed from “Laura,” can imply her fascination with Chinese culture, as “red” is the signature color of China, which represents luck and good fortune. It is difficult to read her artwork until you know the story behind it. As Sandlin said, “clay gives me a voice.” For all artists, their pieces do not come out of nowhere, but from the voice of their hearts as an expression of their inspirations. “The Sense of Place” carries three meanings, it is not only the “Place of Origin”, but also the “Place of Inspiration” and the “Place of Present.” From the work of Chris Antemann, “An Occasional Craving,” and that of Red Weldon Sandlin, “The Chinese Quin Teapot,” we can see how artists embed their “Place of Inspiration” into their works, not only through the form of the work, but also through the stories that they tell. Moreover, the artworks’ place in the exhibition, installed by curators, also express the theme of each artwork—the “banquet” in the center of the room, and the “totem” in the back. With a history of almost thirty thousand years, ceramics can be considered a form of art which is ancient and primitive compared to phytography, oil painting, and others. However, when put into the hands of contemporary artists, this old form of expression merges perfectly with the modern times, telling current stories in its old-fashioned way. As Joan Takayama-Ogawa, the curator of this exhibition says in the Curatorial Statement of this exhibition, “these artists are not typical in today’s restless world of instant gratification; instead, they are willing to labor for months, with exacting precision, to keep the spirit of each piece alive[4].” Using their hands and time, these artiest laboriously mold their works, little by little, to present their “Sense of Place” to the world. References:
[1] Duncan, Carol. The Art Museum as Rituals. Preziosi, Donald. The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. [2] Jacobson, Dawn. Chinoiserie. London: Phaidon, 2007. [3] Lauria, Jo. A Sense of Place. Scripps: 2017 Scripps College 73rd Ceramics Annual, 2017. [4] Takayama-Ogawa, Joan. Curatorial Statement. Scripps: 2017 Scripps College 73rd Ceramics Annual, 2017. In her article, Hämälänen describes a “thick use” of fiction. She thinks that fiction might express philosophical positions that are hard to express in ordinary philosophical prose. However, Hämälänen does not offer much explanation or defense of this point of view. In this paper, I will try to offer an argument on her behalf for thinking that fiction in particular might present philosophical positions that are “difficult to get at in the regular argumentative style” (21). However, before giving my argument, I want to first clarify the term “philosophical positions.” People might think that a different “philosophical position” means a brand new philosophical theory or philosophical conclusion, such as “we should make decisions that maximize social utility.” However, in this paper, a “philosophical position” means more than that: it can also represent a new philosophical “argument” for the same principle or theory. In other words, if fiction, by using substantial details, which I will explain later in this paper, can offer a stronger or more objective argument of the same principle stated in any philosophical prose, we consider that fiction can offer a different “philosophical position” which cannot be expressed in regular argumentative prose.
My first argument is that fiction, by providing substantial details, can make more reliable and stronger arguments that cannot be equally made by philosophical prose. Reading philosophy can only impel people to think about which principle is right or wrong. People know that “we should make choices which maximize social utility” because utilitarian theories persuade them to do so in a plain, argumentative way. However, fiction offers lively portrayals of characters, their motives, their thoughts, and the consequences of their actions. All of these details can invoke people’s empathy with the characters, therefore prompting people to develop moral feeling that accompanies moral thought. In other words, since these details appeal to people’s own emotions and feelings, they can form more accurate judgements about moral principles and act more reliably. For example, philosophy has taught people that slavery is immoral. However, if people learned this moral principle merely through philosophical argument, they would just have an impartial mental representation of this idea. This mental representation might not be reliable because, if another philosophical argument tells people that “slavery is a good thing,” they might change their minds easily. Expecting a mind to work on logic alone is similar to trusting in the functions of an unfeeling machine. A machine may be exact, but its function depends on an intricate conjunction of interdependent parts and contingent motions. The malfunction of any one part leads to the failure of the whole. However, fiction might offer a more reliable and impactful philosophical position than philosophy can. By reading the sentimental novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, people can understand what the life of a slave really feels like. They feel his miserable life, the inequality that he suffers from, and the awful society that he lives in. Fiction arouses people’s empathy with Tom, motivating them to think, on an intuitive level, that “slavery is immoral.” This philosophical position is much reliable than the previous one because people come to this conclusion by the impulse of their own feelings. Because of the moral feeling that fiction cultivates, the mind is motivated to work towards the general conclusion that slavery is wrong. Therefore, even though fiction and philosophy tell people the same moral principle, fiction offers a stronger or more impactful philosophical position that cannot be expressed in ordinary philosophical prose. One of the potential arguments against mine might be that, if philosophy cannot express more impactful positions because of its relative lack of detail compared to fiction, philosophers can just add more details to their examples and make them as invocative as fiction. I do not deny that philosophers can add more detail in order to express more impactful philosophical positions; however, if philosophical prose contains too many details, it is hard to categorize them as “philosophical prose.” From my perspective, philosophical prose, or, as Hämälänen put it, “regular argumentative prose,” is supposed to be logical and inductive, with only some help from simple examples. If we write philosophical prose as we write fiction, adding complete storylines and vivid portrayals of characters, the product will contradictory the definition of philosophical prose. Even though philosophy might not be as detailed as literature, it should, at least, be somewhere in the intermediate state, which I call “philosophical fiction.” This intermediate state shares the features of both philosophical prose and fiction. However, we should not discuss this form of prose in this paper. We should just focus on the differences between pure fiction and regular argumentative prose. However, even though fiction arouses people’s feelings, it does not mean that it cannot offer any objective philosophical position. As a matter of fact, my second argument is that, fiction offers a third point of view of the world, through which a more objective philosophical position than ordinary philosophical prose can be achieved. Most people agree that it is harder for people to understand their world if they live in their world. Sometimes, we can better understand our behavior through other people’s eyes. Fiction enables us to do this. By reading fiction, we can see other people’s life as an outsider. We can achieve a certain detachment which enables us to make more objective judgments. Here, I take self-deceit as an example. Many philosophers theorize self-deceit, and they think that it is immoral even though sometimes they admit that our tendency to deceive ourselves in order to achieve happiness or other benefits is within human nature. When reading these philosophical theories, I can completely understand what those philosophers mean, and I agree with them that self-deceit is, to some extent, immoral. However, when I try to think of my philosophical position on this subject, I do not always think that it is immoral to self-deceive, for the reason that I gain benefits from it. In other words, I am employing self-deceit when thinking about self-deceit, because it is so closely related to my personal interests, and everyone is self-interested. However, when I was reading the novel, The Tremor of Forgery, it is quite easy for me to tell when the main character, Ingham, is deceiving himself, and when his self-deceit becomes immoral. I am an outsider to his world, and my detachment makes me think more objectively. If the same situation happens to me in real life, even if I have been influenced by many philosophical theories, like Ingham, I would not be able to make the equally objective judgement. Therefore, fiction, by giving us the opportunity to see others’ worlds as an outsider, offers more objective philosophical positions than philosophical prose does. However, people might think that most philosophers also write in a very objective position, and that they can be considered as “detached” from the real world, too. I do not deny the objectivity that philosophical theories can have. However, when people read philosophy, they subconsciously apply those principles to their own world. Being a self-interested creature, people unconsciously think of questions like “how would this principle affect my world and my life if it is put into practice.” However, when we are reading fiction, we are not concerned with our own interests because the world in the fiction is a different world from ours. No matter what consequences the philosophical principle can have on a fictional world, the consequences will only stay there. With this subconscious detachment, people can be more objective towards different ideas and principles. Aside from my argument, we can never separate fiction and philosophy completely. Unlike other forms of expression --visual arts, music, or film--both fiction and philosophy are expressed verbally, which makes the distinction between them much smaller than that between them and other forms of expression. However, even though fiction and philosophy can be considered “close” to each other, it is true that fiction can offer stronger or more objective philosophical positions which are harder to express in regular argumentative prose. According to my arguments, reading fiction enables us to have more reliable and objective view of the world. |
AuthorLayne |