8/13/2019 Aristotles on Art

1/5

http://www.jstor.org/stable/426876.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Wileyand The American Society for Aestheticsare collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 82.13.86.190 on Sun, 2 Feb 2014 18:37:45 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

8/13/2019 Aristotles on Art

2/5

ART AND AESTHETIC IN ARISTOTLE*JOHN S. MARSHALL

The results of modem classicalscholarshiphave made it abundantlyclearthat Aristotle'sPoetics does not present us with an aesthetics, but with ananalysisof poeticcreation.There s a dangern constructing theoryof aestheticsfrom the Poetics,becausethe idea of imitationis not the sourceof Aristotle'sphilosophyof beauty. Imitation is a method of artistic construction,but it isnot the criterionof beauty. It has been very unfortunate hat the Poeticshasbeentreatedas a manualof aesthetics, hat is, as the expositionof a philosophyof poeticbeauty. It has beenwidelyheldthat Aristotleconsideredbeautyto belike truth, and to consistin a correspondencef artisticcreationswith reality.As truth is a correspondencef our ideas with reality, so beauty is the corre-spondence fourartisticproductionswith reality.This,however, s not Aristotle'sconceptionof beauty.The Poeticsis not a manualof aesthetics; t does not tell us the nature ofpoeticbeauty.It tells us, rather,howa gooddrama s produced,andthe criticalmethods of ascertaining he literaryvalue of poetic production.The Poetics is,of course,relatedto aesthetics,and cannot be understoodapart fromAristotle'saesthetic doctrine.However,the most generalconceptsof the Poetics are notthe generalconceptsof Aristotle'saesthetics.To understand he place of thePoetics n Aristotle'sgeneralphilosophic cheme,and to understand he relationof the Poetics o Aristotle'saesthetics,we mustrecognizehe Aristotelian lassifi-cationof the sciences,and then determine he place of poeticproductionn thisscheme.Aristotledivides all knowledge nto three kinds. First, there is theory, andit dealswith that which is characterized y exact law. Although hat character-ized does involve change, the change is itself determinedby exact laws. As-tronomy, orexample, s a strictlytheoretical cience.The standard n astronomyis mathematical,and the subject-matters the eternal.However,biologyis alsotheoretic.The secondfield of knowledge s the domainof ethical and politicalmatters. This domain of thought is called practical knowledge.Ethics andpoliticsgive us generalrules;but the rulesare not rigidand fixed.Rather,theyare subjectto variationsand exceptions.Today we would call them normative.It is in the field of practical ife that we can say de minimislex non curat,thelaw is not concernedwith negligibleand triflingmatters.Or we say in the samespirit, It is the exception hat provesthe rule. The domainof humanpracticeis an inexactfieldof thought.A thirdfield of knowledgedeals with the makingof things, whether housesor poems.This kind of knowledge s concernedwiththe fieldof humancreativity.This knowledge,ike practice n morality,requiresa perceptive nsight very unlike theoretic cognition.It is a field in which wehave a knowledgeof how to make things. Aristotle'sPoetics s concernedwith

* The author read this paperbefore a meeting of the Aesthetics Division of the SouthernSociety for Philosophy and Psychology.228

This content downloaded from 82.13.86.190 on Sun, 2 Feb 2014 18:37:45 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

8/13/2019 Aristotles on Art

3/5

ART AND AESTHETIC IN ARISTOTLE 229this productiveknowledge, or it tells us the rulesfor creatingpoetry.Does thePoetics, hen, have any relation o aesthetics? believeit does,and that Aristo-telian aestheticsthrowslight on the Aristotelianconceptionof artistic produc-tion. However, hat is onlybecause heorycan be of aid to production.Beauty for Aristotle s a theoreticnotion;and for that reason t is definedbyhim in the Metaphysics.Metaphysics is, for Aristotle, par excellencetheoretic.Early in the Fifth Book we are told that the good and the beautiful are thebeginningboth of knowledgeand the movement of things. In this sense, thegoodand beautifulareused in muchthe samesense;and that is becausemeta-physically hey have a commonroot. The generic dea is that of the appropriate,the seemly, that which has symmetryand proportion.Aristotle'sown wordsare these, Now since the good and the beautifulare different(for the formeralwaysimpliesconductas its subject,while the beautiful s foundalsoin motion-less things), those who assert that the mathematical ciencessay nothingof thebeautifulor the goodare in error.For these sciencessay and provea very greatdealaboutthem;forif they do not expresslymention hem,but proveattributeswhich are theirresultsor theirdefining ormulae, t is not true to say that theytell us nothingaboutthem. The chiefforms of beauty are orderand symmetryand definiteness,which the mathematicalsciences demonstrate n a specialdegree. (Met. 1078a,32 if.) The clue to all this is to be found in Aristotle'sdefinitionof beauty in the Topics, the beautiful s the appropriate. 102a, 6)Beauty is a theoreticnotion, and in its very lofty formsmay characterizeheeternal.From all indicationsbeauty is a conceptwhich can be applied to theDeity becauseof the proportionand symmetryof God's life. Beauty shares allthe characteristicswhich are essentiallymetaphysicaland theoretical.In itshighest form, it is fixedand eternal.Natureis characterized y the appropriate.n all naturethe detailsworkoutin such a way as to produce ymmetryandproportion; nd this is truenot onlyof the heavensbut of the sub-lunarworldas well. In the worldof animatenaturethe detailsso work ogether hat they produce inalcauseorpurpose.Thehighestbeautyis to be foundin the heavens;but in the sub-lunarworldthere is a per-fection of beauty seldomfoundin artificialproduction.The art of man is, as awhole, inferior n its beauty to the perfectedbeauty of nature.Nature is themasterartist. It is nature which createsbeautypar excellee. Thereis no hintin Aristotleof a conceptionof natureas degraded nd ugly. For himthe heavensdo declarean eternalglory, andthe earth s full of a resplendent eauty.Becauseof the essentialbeautyof nature,welearn o createbeautifulobjectsby imitatingthe beauty of nature. Human beings do like to imitate, and as we have nospontaneouspower of creating the beautiful,we learn to create beauty bycatchingthe clue fromnature.We are like studentswho learn to be craftsmenby following he methodsof the mastercraftsman.Nature is the master of theappropriate; nd we learnthe appropriate y following he guidinghand of ourmastercraftsman.We arenow in a positionto understand he notion of imitation.As sometimesinterpreted,t commitsus to the position hat the photographs the most perfectform of art. Aristotle is then interpretedas if he were exclusivelypreoccupied

This content downloaded from 82.13.86.190 on Sun, 2 Feb 2014 18:37:45 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

8/13/2019 Aristotles on Art

4/5

230 JOHN S. MARSHALLwith photograph-like painting. This is not his meaning, as we see when werealize the relation of creative art to beauty. The artist can see beauty concretelyrealized in nature; and he can learn the trick of creating beautiful objects bytaking his clue from nature. Art is primarily productive; and what is requiredfor it to be satisfactory is for it to be characterized by the appropriate. Theappropriate is found in its perfected form in nature, and may be learned by theimitation of nature. Thus, it is possible for the artist to create works of beautywithout a theoretic insight into the nature of beauty. He learns to create beautyby using the appropriateness of nature as his guide.Therefore, painting of a photographic sort is not Aristotle s norm for artisticcreation, and that is proved by his assertion that music is a typical imitativeart. (Pol. 1340a, 12 ff.) This assertion has troubled the commentators. But itwould not if Aristotle s theory of imitation were properly understood. Thistheory of imitation rests in a certain conception of artistic production. Whatmust be achieved in an art is the production of the beauty which is like thebeauty of nature; and this is not slavish imitation. Rather, it is the productionof the appropriate in the artistic medium. Of course, the portrayal of thingshuman is most satisfactory when it expresses that appropriateness which char-acterizes nature; and that is what music does.The glory of music lies in its ability to reproduce the rhythm of actual humandesire and purpose. Purpose is desire passing through emotion into action.There is a certain form of the expanding desire, and this expanded desire iswhat Aristotle thinks of as emotion or passion. Thus, hate, love, fear, ambition,friendliness and curiosity are desires which, as they expand, are also emotions.Each desiderative emotion has a certain rhythmic form of its own, and a certaintonality of its own. It is the rhythm which is most characteristic of the diverseemotions. The philosophers of the school of Aristotle, particularly Aristoxenus,put a great deal of stress on the diversity of rhythm as expressing the differentemotions. The full meaning of such musical analysis has been made clear by thework of Rudolph Westphal, and has been summarized by Gevaert and Laloy.The variety of rhythm recognized by the School of Aristotle was very compli-cated and complex; and this complexity was necessary to express the manyforms of human emotion.In musical rhythm we have imitation in one of its highest forms. Imitation inmusic is not slavish reproduction, but the recognition of the complexity ofnature as a clue to the legitimate complexities of art. Nature leads us to subtleforms of the appropriate, and art has meaning as it reveals in artistic reproduc-tion similar forms of the appropriate. As nature is more complex than the artist,he learns best by using her as a guide to the appropriate in artistic creations.We are now in a position to understand the meaning of Aristotelian catharsis.The long debate as to the exact significance of this term itself is not of primaryimportance, since any one of the various meanings given to it by scholars issatisfactory if seen in the context of Aristotle s aesthetics and theory of artisticproduction. Catharsis can be interpreted in terms of medicine, and then itbecomes a kind of psycho-analytical means of curing emotional disturbances.It can be interpreted as a technic of religious excitement used by the mystery

This content downloaded from 82.13.86.190 on Sun, 2 Feb 2014 18:37:45 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

8/13/2019 Aristotles on Art

5/5

ART AND AESTHETIC IN ARISTOTLE 231religions. The important thing is expressed in both of these theories. The re-pressed desires the fears and sympathies of a man are released by being re-produced in a dramatic or a musical form. The desire finds an expression; andif the drama or the music is correct the emotional release takes a form that isharmless instead of harmful. This is a technic used both by psychological medi-cine and by religions both ancient and modern. The explanation of catharticrelease lies in the capacity of music and drama to reproducethe emotions. Thisis done in music by expressing the inward character of the emotion itself.It is now clear that neither imitation nor catharsis is a fundamental aestheticnotion. They belong rather to the technic of artistic production and are there-fore concepts of the sciences of production rather than those of the sciences ofthe aesthetic. The science of the aesthetic is however related to artistic produc-tion since the comely or the appropriate is important for artistic production.However this aesthetic notion of the appropriatetranscends artistic productionand is originally an ontological rather than an artistic concept. Beauty is funda-mentally cosmic and metaphysical and appears in artistic production becausethe appropriate is a feature of nature which needs to be embodied in humancreativity to make the creation satisfactory. The appropriate in nature is prob-ably the most important single aspect in nature; and in order for man to createanything which is really satisfactory he must try to be an artisan who matchesnature in this most fundamental aspect of its creativity.Nature is fundamentally appropriate and man should be appropriate. Mancan produce either the appropriate or the inappropriate. The appropriate aloneis satisfactory and yet humans do become wayward and reject the appropriatefor wild and uncontrolled creativity. Imitiation is a help in this process of pro-ducing the appropriate because it keeps the appropriate before us. Once theaesthetic canon of the appropriate is learned we can use it even when naturefails us. And that is the reason why the human artist may grasp that perfectiontowards which nature is striving but which at times she fails to achieve; fornot imitation but the appropriate is the fundamental aesthetic canon.

This content downloaded from 82.13.86.190 on Sun, 2 Feb 2014 18:37:45 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions