scholarly journals Orí (Head) as an Expression of Yorùbá Aesthetic Philosophy

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 59-70
Author(s):  
Olusegun Ajíbóyè ◽  
Stephen Fọlárànmí ◽  
Nanashaitu Umoru-Ọkẹ

Abstract Aesthetics was never a subject or a separate philosophy in the traditional philosophies of black Africa. This is however not a justification to conclude that it is nonexistent. Indeed, aesthetics is a day to day affair among Africans. There are criteria for aesthetic judgment among African societies which vary from one society to the other. The Yorùbá of Southwestern Nigeria are not different. This study sets out to examine how the Yorùbá make their aesthetic judgments and demonstrate their aesthetic philosophy in decorating their orí, which means head among the Yorùbá. The head receives special aesthetic attention because of its spiritual and biological importance. It is an expression of the practicalities of Yorùbá aesthetic values. Literature and field work has been of paramount aid to this study. The study uses photographs, works of art and visual illustrations to show the various ways the head is adorned and cared for among the Yoruba. It relied on Yoruba art and language as a tool of investigating the concept of ori and aesthetics. Yorùbá aesthetic values are practically demonstrable and deeply located in the Yorùbá societal, moral and ethical idealisms. It concludes that the spiritual importance of orí or its aesthetics has a connection which has been demonstratively established by the Yorùbá as epressed in the images and illustrations used in this paper.

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-82
Author(s):  
Julia Genz

Digital media transform social options of access with regard to producers, recipients, and literary works of art themselves. New labels for new roles such as »prosumers « and »wreaders« attest to this. The »blogger« provides another interesting new social figure of literary authorship. Here, some old desiderata of Dadaism appear to find a belated realization. On the one hand, many web 2.0 formats of authorship amplify and widen the freedom of literary productivity while at the same time subjecting such production to a periodic schedule. In comparison to the received practices of authors and recipients many digital-cultural forms of narrating engender innovative metalepses (and also their sublation). Writing in the net for internet-publics enables the deliberate dissolution of the received autobiographical pact with the reader according to which the author’s genuine name authenticates the author’s writing. On the other hand, the digital-cultural potential of dissolving the autobiographical pact stimulates scandals of debunking and unmasking and makes questions of author-identity an issue of permanent contestation. Digital-cultural conditions of communication amplify both: the hideand- seek of authorship as well as the thwarting of this game by recipients who delight in playing detective. In effect, pace Foucault’s and Barthes’ postulates of the death of the author, the personality and biography of the author once again tend to become objects of high intrinsic value


Author(s):  
Daniel Martin Feige

Der Beitrag widmet sich der Frage historischer Folgeverhältnisse in der Kunst. Gegenüber dem Gedanken, dass es ein ursprüngliches Werk in der Reihe von Werken gibt, das späteren Werken seinen Sinn gibt, schlägt der Text vor, das Verhältnis umgekehrt zu denken: Im Lichte späterer Werke wird der Sinn früherer Werke neu ausgehandelt. Dazu geht der Text in drei Schritten vor. Im ersten Teil formuliert er unter der Überschrift ›Form‹ in kritischer Abgrenzung zu Danto und Eco mit Adorno den Gedanken, dass Kunstwerke eigensinnig konstituierte Gegenstände sind. Die im Gedanken der Neuverhandlung früherer Werke im Lichte späterer Werke vorausgesetzte Unbestimmtheit des Sinns von Kunstwerken wird im zweiten Teil unter dem Schlagwort ›Zeitlichkeit‹ anhand des Paradigmas der Improvisation erörtert. Der dritte und letzte Teil wendet diese improvisatorische Logik unter dem Label ›Neuaushandlung‹ dann dezidiert auf das Verhältnis von Vorbild und Nachbild an. The article proposes a new understanding of historical succession in the realm of art. In contrast to the idea that there is an original work in the series of works that gives meaning to the works that come later, the text proposes to think it exactly the other way round: in the light of later works, the meanings of earlier works are renegotiated. The text proceeds in three steps to develop this idea. Under the heading ›Form‹ it develops in the first part a critical reading of Danto’s and Eco’s notion of the constitution of the artworks and argues with Adorno that each powerful work develops its own language. In the second part, the vagueness of the meaning of works of art presupposed in the idea of renegotiating earlier works in the light of later works is discussed under the term ›Temporality‹ in terms of the logic of improvisation. The third and final part uses this improvisational logic under the label ›Renegotiation‹ to understand the relationship between model and afterimage in the realm of art.


1977 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Dutton

If a catalogue were made of terms commonly used to affirm the adequacy of critical interpretations of works of art, one word certain to be included would be “plausible.” Yet this term is one which has received precious little attention in the literature of aesthetics. This is odd, inasmuch as I find the notion of plausibility central to an understanding of the nature of criticism. “Plausible” is a perplexing term because it can have radically different meanings depending on the circumstances of its employment. ln the following discussion, I will make some observations about the logic of this concept in connection with its uses in two rather different contexts: the context of scientific inquiry on the one hand, and that of aesthetic interpretation on the other. In distinguishing separate senses of “plausible,” I shall provide reason to resist the temptation to imagine that because logical aspects of two different types of inquiry—science and criticism—happen to be designated by the same term, they may to that extent be considered to have similar logical structures.


Author(s):  
Edbert Jay M. Cabrillos ◽  
◽  
Rowena S. Cabrillos ◽  

Pottery is seen as creation of ornamentals, cooking and storing materials. Yet, while economic gains are often considered from producing these materials, the artistic and linguistic aspects have been ignored. This study discusses the factors influencing the culture of pottery, the processes of pottery making, and seeks to uncover the language used in processes of pottery making in Bari, Sibalom, Antique. A qualitative research employing ethnographic study with participant observation and face to face interviews using photo documentation, video recording and open-ended questions in gathering the data was employed. There were five manugdihon, or potters, purposively selected as key informants of the study. The study revealed that environmental factors influenced the culture of pottery making in the barangay. There were seven main processes in pottery making. These included gathering and preparing of materials, mixing the needed materials, cleaning the mixed clay, forming of desired shape, detaching, drying, and polishing and varnishing. Further findings indicate that, together the other processes, the language used in poterry making was archaic Kinaray-a, the language of the province. This language pattern suggests a specialized pottery making. Ultimately, the study suggest that the manugdihon should continue their artistic talents so that the language may be preserved. The educational institutions of the province may provide ways to include pottery making in the curriculum so that the art and language of pottery making will be preserved and promoted.


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotte Philipsen

This article analyses how works of art that make use of or refer to digital technology can be approached, analysed, and understood aesthetically from two different perspectives. One perspective, which I shall term a ‘digital’ perspective, mainly focuses on poetics (or production) and technology when approach- ing the works, whereas the other, which I shall term a ‘post-digital’ perspective, focuses on aesthetic experience (or reception) when approaching the works. What I tentatively and for the purpose of practical analysis term the ‘digital’ and the ‘post-digital’ perspectives do not designate two different sets of concrete works of art or artistic practice and neither do they describe different periods.[1] Instead, the two perspectives co-exit as different discursive positions that are concretely ex- pressed in the way we talk about aesthetics in relation to art that makes use of and/or refers to digital technology. In short: When I choose here to talk about a digital and a post-digital perspective, I talk about two fundamentally different ways of ascribing aes- thetic meaning to (the same) concrete works of art. By drawing on the ideas of especially Immanuel Kant and Dominic McIver Lopes, it is the overall purposes of this article to ana- lyse and compare how the two perspectives understand the concept of aesthetics and to discuss some of the implications following from these understandings. As it turns out, one of the most significant implications is the role of the audience. 


Perception ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Blount ◽  
Janet Holmes ◽  
Jill Rodger ◽  
Max Coltheart ◽  
Chris McManus
Keyword(s):  

Subjects were shown pairs of slides; one member of each pair represented a painting in its correct left-right orientation and the other a mirror image of the same painting. For each pair, subjects were asked (a) to choose which they preferred, (b) to choose which they thought was the original, and (c) to rate their confidence that they had seen the picture before. Subjects were only able to discriminate between originals and mirror images for those paintings they were highly confident of having seen before.


1947 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 34-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Cook

The year 1947–1948 has been one of limited activity. The presence of rebel bands continues to restrict movement in parts of mainland Greece and the Peloponnese; and the financial policy of the Greek Government has allowed little progress to be made this year in reconstituting the museums. The ban which the Ministry of Education imposed on excavation in Greece has not been withdrawn, though there are signs of a more liberal interpretation of it. On the other hand, the foreign archaeological institutions in Greece have intensified their activities within the limits imposed by present conditions; they have been happily strengthened by the founding on 10th May 1948 of a Swedish Institute in Athens.The Kerameikos Museum is now opened by appointment for students. The principal sculptures of the National Museum have been unpacked in preparation for replacement; an exhibition of early Greek sculptures and works of art was formally opened in the new year; it includes the Delphi charioteer and the new kouros from Anavysos. Additions to Mrs. Stathatou's private collection include a Late Geometric amphora and stamped gold head-band which were found in a grave in the Mesogaia, a small archaic bronze steer's head, and a grave relief of the later fifth century B.C.


Author(s):  
Lydia Lyashenko

The purpose of the article is to prove the expediency and scientific, methodological, conceptual, and categorical potential of Cultural studies as a science that may offer an updated perspective for the study of the problem of aesthetic values. Methodology. Methods of scientific analysis, comparison, and generalization during the elaboration of the source base and the method of systematization are used to determine the traditional and innovative directions of research of the problem of aesthetic values. Scientific novelty. The article considers the interdisciplinary and generalizing potential of Cultural studies on the example of the problem of study aesthetic values. The existing tendency to move the analysis of problems of humanities from separate sciences to the plane of interdisciplinary is emphasized. It was accented on the novelty and relevance of such interdisciplinary research within Cultural studies. Conclusions. The approach of Cultural studies offers an increase in the scale of generalization from aesthetic to actually global, which combines the experience of studying scientific problems in the traditional and extended areas. Given the fact that on the one hand, all material and spiritual values which surround man were born from culture, because culture is the cumulative result of productive human activity, and, on the other hand, culture absorbs them, being phenomenon generalized, interdisciplinary approach of Cultural studies is able to suggest an updated perspective on this problem on the border of traditional and non-traditional sciences and through the improvement of its conceptual and categorical apparatus to offer new ways to study.


Author(s):  
Vrushali Dhage

Works of art can be read at various levels: from being objects of simple retinal pleasure to the other extreme of being significant critical statements of their time. This chapter aims to strike a cerebral dialogue through the works of art. The current study shall consider the latter function of art and analyze the methods in which contemporary Indian artists have made attempts to provide a critique of the early initiatives towards developing Delhi and Mumbai as ‘smart cities'. The review of works from India concludes the essential role of infrastructural projects and envisioned spaces built in the era of economic liberalization. The study aims at drawing a methodological approach, with an art historical perspective, with the artists analysing and translating the urban experiential phenomenon, into artworks.


2021 ◽  
pp. 163-186
Author(s):  
Tom Cochrane

This chapter presents Aestheticism as a general approach to life. It is argued that a dedicated aestheticist will be inspired to create works of art. In alignment with this view an aesthetic functionalist account of art is defended, incorporating aspects of the expression theory of art and the cognitive theory of art. It is then suggested that the way an artist creatively responds to the value of the world is an ideal of living well. Moreover, although there are other such ideals, the artistic paradigm can apply to a variety of human activities, including the pursuit and expression of one’s understanding (as in philosophy). In the latter part of the chapter it is then argued that, in distilling aesthetic values, the artist has an important social role to play. Artworks help us to discern value ideals, and our capacity to discern values is a vital component of virtue.


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