Fee-Alexandra Haase BEAUTY AND ESTHETICS MEANINGS OF AN IDEA AND CONCEPT OF THE SENSES. An Introduction to an Esthetic Communication Concept Facing the Perspectives Of Its Theory, History, and Cultural Traditions of the Beautiful. 1 The Definition of Beauty is That Definition is none - Of Heaven, easing Analysis, Since Heaven and He are one. Emily Dickinson - The Definition of Beauty is 2 – CONTENTS – 1. INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................4 2. THE THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE: THE BODY OF ESTHETICS CATEGORIES AND ELEMENTS FOR MEANINGS OF ESTHETICS IN THEORIES AND RESEARCH OR ‚HOW TO GET AN APPROACH TO ESTHETICS?’ ......................................................................5 2.1. Elements of Esthetics....................................................................................................9 2.2. The Senses or ‚How do Esthetic Phenomena Come To Us?’ .......................................11 2.3. The Perception or ‚How Do We Notice Esthetic Phenomena?’....................................26 2.4. Categories of Reception or ‚How Do We React On Esthetic Phenomena?’..................33 2.5. Esthetic Values or ‘How Do We Judge On Esthetic Phenomena?’ ...............................41 3. THE PERSPECTIVE OF APPLICATION: OBJECTS OF ESTHETICS FORMAL CATEGORIES FOR MEANINGS OF THE BEAUTIFUL. APPLIED ESTHETICS OR ‘HOW DO WE USE ESTHETICS’?........................................54 3.1. Applied Esthetics........................................................................................................60 3.2. What is Beauty?..........................................................................................................71 4. THE GENERIC PERSPECTIVE: HISTORY OF ESTHETICS MEANINGS OF HISTORICAL CATEGORIES OF ESTHETICS IN A CULTURE. THE PERSPECTIVY OF AN EUROPEAN HISTORY OF ESTHETICS OR ‘HOW DID ESTHETICS BECOME A SCIENCE’?.......................................................76 4.1. Ancient Esthetics ........................................................................................................70 4.2. Esthetics in the Middle Ages.......................................................................................93 4.3. Esthetics of Modern Times........................................................................................105 4.4. Esthetics of the 19th Century .....................................................................................125 4.5. Esthetics of the 20th Century .....................................................................................141 5. GLOBAL PERSPECTIVITIES: ESTHETICS AND CULTURE CULTURAL ESTHETIC CONCEPTS MEANINGS OF CATEGORIES OF ESTHETICS IN DIFFERENT CULTURES…..…….155 5.1. Esthetic Perspective of the Middle East and Near East ..............................................155 5.2. Esthetic Perspective of India .....................................................................................171 5.3. Esthetic Perspective of Asia ......................................................................................187 5.4. Esthetic Perspective of Africa ...................................................................................198 5.5. Esthetic Perspective of America and Australia………….…………..………..............213 6. Appendix Index………………………………………………………………………..237 3 4 1. INTRODUCTION Beauty is a concept of humanity we find in all cultures. Esthetics is the science and practice dedicated to beauty. Bazon Brock stated that what we call ‘esthetics’ is the theory of the conditionality of our perceptions and judgments and their applicability in our relations to others. Objects as materializations of abstract statements - i.e. esthetic objects - obtain their meaning because man is obliged to create equivalents in the world of objects in order to be able to communicate and to establish meaningful relations with others. Therefore, the differentiation between esthetic judgment and the justification of the judgment is necessary. Individual esthetic judgment only expresses a person's ability to become aware of the totality the materialized object refers to. The objects do not contain totality itself. This has to be constituted through the mediation of the subject. As stated in Arts Connected for African arts, the answer to the question ‘What is art?’ is not the same for all cultures. The idea of special objects made as ‘fine art’ is not common to all cultures. In some cultures, what Westerners have traditionally called ‘art’ represent principles that guide every thought and action. Esthetic traditions are visible in everything such a culture produces, including functional objects.1 Brock stated: In the middle of the eighteenth century Alexander Baumgarten, the founder of modern German esthetics, used the term for following statements: though man's physiological structure is the same for everyone, different people pass different judgments about the same objects. Human perception and its transformation into judgments obviously depends on social conditions in man's development.2 As Roberts stated: “Culture is socially shared. Culture patterns are shared by human beings living in organized groups and are kept relatively uniform by social pressures. Culture represents the ideal forms of behavior. The group habits that comprise the culture are viewed as ideal patterns of behavior. Culture is gratifying. Culture satisfies human needs and in this sense is gratifying. Culture is integrative. The part of a given culture and to form a consistent and integrated whole.” 3 Foucault made in What is Enlightenment? (Qu'est-ce que les Lumières?) the statement that knowledge in form of opinions is already available in contemporary culture: “Today when a periodical asks its readers a question, it does so in order to collect opinions on some subject about which everyone has an opinion already; there is not much likelihood of learning anything new. In the eighteenth century, editors preferred to question the public on problems that did not yet have solutions. I don't know whether or not that practice was more effective; it was unquestionably more entertaining.”4 Access to Esthetics in this Book When we ask for the definitions and forms of esthetics from a post-modern Perspective, we must take into account that the perspective of today is a re-constructive one allowing us to trace back historically, but also can engage into systematical forms of research such as empirical research, or quantõtative and qualitative research. This book is devided into four chapters. Each of them has a different approach towards esthetics according to the definition of esthetics as a theoretical field, esthetics as a phenomenon of beauty, and esthetics as a specific phenomenon in a certain cultural context. Our method facing the phenomenon of esthetics will consist in the first part of this book in an analysis of the parts of terminology and physical conditions necessary to describe esthetic phenomena. Therefore, we will also focus on the contemporary state of research regarding esthetics from branches of the humanities and natural sciences. Our interest here is to join the classical theoretical terminology of esthetics derived from the humanities with contemporary concepts of research also not related to the humanities. Based upon this conjunction we can be able to communicate in both directions –empirically and in terms of the humanities – about esthetic phenomena. In the second part we will focus on the applied eshetics expressed in beauty. Therefore we will look at traditional fields of esthetics – the arts- as well as other groups of objects, since mainly esthetics in the perspective of an applied –or better said- attached quality 5 of objects is not related to only a specific group of objects. The third part contains a historical review regarding the relation between European culture and esthetics, while the last part is related to esthetics and its cultural background in non-European cultures. These last two parts are intended to serve as a conjunction between cultural assets and their theoretical (philosophical, ideological, and religious) esthetic background system. The background in empirical sciences will serve as the tool for empirical research on esthetics. The tradition of the humanities gives us the terminology to describe esthetic phenomena. The research question of this study for the third and forth part is: Which mind concepts underlay the esthetic concepts in different cultures and different epoques. Therefore we will examine the basic terminology of the concepts as the linguistic background, on which the concepts are based. Practical studies in the applied fields of esthetics such as arts are another way to get access to the local concepts of esthetics. Esthetics as Empirical Science and as a Branch of Philosophy Methods of Research in Esthetics: Between Empirical Studies and Theory In the 21st century, esthetics is subject to interdisciplinary studies. From a philosophical perspective, an esthetic idea cannot become cognition, since it is an abstract concept that stands next to the real phenomena.5 Traditional esthetics assumes that universal and timeless criteria for the evaluation of taste of works of art exist.6 The metaphysical esthetics of the German idealism was criticized as an ordered esthetics.7 Philosophical concepts interpret among other things the so-called ‘esthetics of the ugly’ as a higher form of beauty.8 We can differentiate between several methodological approaches to esthetics: