Aesthetics of the Avant Garde

I read an essay by Arthur Danto called "The Abuse of Beauty". This piece attempts to approach art through a philosophical lens, referencing figures like Kant and Hegel, and commenting on the intersection of natural beauty and artistic beauty.

One section of the text stood out to me: a discussion of Jesus in art. As a former Christian in the process of trying to make a comeback, I had never realized the significance that Jesus' suffering, as depicted in art, is a very ugly thing at face value. This is a man being whipped, nailed to a cross, and hung up to die a slow death. Of course Christians see the beauty behind all of this, because of what the crucifixion means (or perhaps because they become desensitized to the images of torture after years in the church). The Passion of the Christ, the ultraviolent film that follows the events of Jesus' death, and little else, is the epitome of this torture as art. Danto's essay mentions how representations of the crucifixion in art have varied in severity over the centuries, as a reaction to different public taste. In this way Jesus' crucifixion is almost like a weathervane for artistic taste in general, because it the most universally accepted artistic subject that happens to also be "ugly".

Because violence is so central to the story of Christianity, it makes sense that Christians seem to have no problem with endorsing films like Saving Private Ryan or Gladiator, because all the violence has a noble cause at its root. They identify with those violent struggles, and it ends up informing their critical taste. At the same time, they are extremely cautious about movies portraying sex, even if it is good and healthy intercourse between a married couple. Sex is simply more taboo than violence in Christian culture.

When it comes to my own taste in art, especially music, I CRAVE dissonance. It satisfies me like food. Does that make me weird? Danto would argue no. He is of the opinion that after many artistic boundaries were shattered in the twentieth century, certain personal tastes that were formerly on the fringe entered the mainstream.

But it all relates back to the revelation that anything can be beautiful. A still life of flowers is beautiful, sure, but so is a photo of unemployed adults during the Depression selling apples on the street, because STRUGGLE is beautiful. And when we recognize those humans qualities in art (struggle, survival, desperation), we make an empathetic connection.

We should also keep in mind that the goal of art should be to provoke any number of emotions. This is a difficult situation, though, because a piece of art created for mere shock value, with empty content, provokes anger in the viewer; the viewer feels manipulated. But we should find equal joy in engaging with art that pleases us and art that makes us uncomfortable or unbearably sad. It's a romantic sort of ambition: feeling the full of spectrum of emotions and just being excited to feel.

This Danto essay is one I'll be rereading a lot. I feel that I can't adequately respond to all the deep philosophy at the moment, but as it sinks in more perhaps I'll offer more thoughts.