THL1501 EXAMINATION PREP.

THL1501 EXAMINATION. Aesthetics, as defined by Carusi & Oliphant (2007:42) commonly refers to the what is deemed as the most valued or best examples of some form of artistic activity. This essay will discuss the problematic endeavour of trying to define the ‘aesthetic’ with the use of a passage in Marcia Eaton’s book Basic issues in Aesthetics (1998). According to Carusi & Oliphant (2007:42-43), the difficulty lies not in the definition if the word ‘aesthetics’ itself, but instead in the difficulty in defining the words that are found in its definition. The Collins English dictionary (2000) defines aesthetics as: “2a relating to pure beauty rather than to other considerations. 2b artistic or relating to good taste.’’ The first problem we encounter in trying to define the ‘aesthetic’ is in the definition of beauty. In Basic issues in Aesthetics (1988:3-5), Marca Eaton describes beauty as based on subjective opinion. Eaton talks about how each person can justify their reasoning for why something is beautiful to them, while others simultaneously use the same reasoning to describe it as ugly. This means that the same judgement cannot be used to define beauty of different things and therefore, a universal definition of beauty doesn’t exist. A lack of universal definition creates issues in communication because a universal meaning of words is vital in a language. (Carusi & Oliphant 2007:48-49). Using this point, Eaton (1988:3-5) goes on further to say that we define what is artistic by its direct connection to what is deemed beautiful or aesthetic and illustrates that we encounter the same problems of trying to define beauty that we encounter when trying to define something as artistic. Trying to define beauty in a piece of art can call into This study source was downloaded by from CourseH on :21:32 GMT -05:00 This study resource was shared via CourseH question what ‘genuine artistic activity’ and forces an approach that looks at art as only the product of extraordinary talent (Carusi & Oliphant 2007:50-51). This can result in many people that would have produced art not having the courage or confidence of seeing themselves as extraordinary talented enough to even begin the process. In the next section of the passage, Eaton (1988:3-5) says that when we say “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” we are suggesting that specificity of an aesthetic object is therefore derived from the response to the object rather than the object itself. The focus then shifts to the problem of defining what constitutes an aesthetic response. In 2017 a white woman painted Emmet Till, a black boy who was lynched by two white men, and black people saw it as insensitive and immoral. Conversely, others appreciated the intrinsic features of the painting (Kennedy 2017). The problem is then that we sometimes find it difficult to succinctly distinguish between moral and aesthetic considerations in response to artwork we see (Carusi & Oliphant 2007:52). We can therefore conclude that the difficulty defining the ‘aesthetic’ is due to the difficulty in defining the many connotation associated such as beauty, art and aesthetic response. (approx 436 words without in-text refencing) QUESTION 2 Carusi & Oliphant (2007:55) describe Romanticism as a theory that is centred on the activity of the artist in the production of aesthetic objects. This essay will discuss this sender-centred approach below under appropriate headings. Object of study The focus is in this theoretical approach is not only on how works are produced but also the senders intention for the work. In other words, sender-centred approaches emphasize the conscious intention of the artist to create an aesthetic object and the way said artist goes about it (Carusi & Oliphant 2007:55). This study source was downloaded by from CourseH on :21:32 GMT -05:00 This study resource was shared via CourseH Main theory As a result of this focus, Carusi & Olipant (2007:55) explain that an aesthetic object (poetry, art etc) can be defined by the virtue of it being produced through an artist’s creative imagination. Theoretical terms In order to be said to possess creative/poetic imagination, Romantics believed that one had to have both creativity and originality . This was further emphasized by the belief that creative imagination made one “capable of ex nihilo creation, or creation out of nothing”(56). This is different from the imagination that philosophers Hume and Locke, amongst other, have conceptualized. These philosophers said that nothing new is produced by imagination, instead it is the work of using pre-existing impressions and bringing about innovative and new associations for them (Carusi & Oliphant 2007:55-56). Shortcomings According to this concept of imagination, this therefore means that originality, in terms of what the Romantics claimed as ‘creating nothing from something’ is impossible in terms of art because when creating something an artist must access things like prior knowledge of a language or even knowledge of what that constitutes an aesthetic object. This means that nothing is ever produced without influence or some form of external stimulation. Romantism claims that creative activity is what defines an aesthetic object, but if we focus on literary theory, we find that the primary interest is in the aesthetic object. This means that when we look at literature, we do not focus on the process or activity of the poet in producing, but instead on dissecting the end product of the creative activity. In addition, there are those that argue that an object can be aesthetic even if it has a different primary function. Things such as traditional African masks and weapons, whose primary functions is for rituals or daily use, but are now also displayed in museums all over the worlds have long been debated as aesthetic objects. Although the primary intention when making these objects was not to produce an aesthetic object, there is still some form of aesthetic intention that the sender had when creating. The converse to that is when a sender might have the intention to create an aesthetic object but not the skill or capacity to produce it properly