Reframing Aquinas on Art and Morality

2018 ◽  
Vol 92 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-311
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Simpson ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Distinct Species ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Jacques Maritain ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Crucial Assumption ◽  
Etienne Gilson

Can a work of art be defective aesthetically as art because it is defective morally? Étienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain both develop Thomistic accounts of the arts based on Aquinas’s distinction between the virtues of art and prudence, but they answer this question differently. Although their answers diverge, I will argue that both accounts make a crucial assumption about the metaphysics of goodness that Aquinas denies: that moral and aesthetic goodness are distinct species, not inseparable modes, of metaphysical goodness. I propose a new way to develop a Thomistic account of the arts that begins with Aquinas’s treatment of the three inseparable modes of metaphysical goodness: the virtuous, the useful, and the pleasant. This foundation seems metaphysically, methodologically, and explanatorily prior to the accounts of Gilson and Maritain, because art is a virtue, and virtue is related to goodness, and goodness is “divided” into three inseparable modes.

scholarly journals Idealism and the Aesthetics of Instrumental Music at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 387-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Evan Bonds
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Musical Thought ◽  
Absolute Music ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Aesthetic Principle

The growing aesthetic prestige of instrumental music in the last decades of the eighteenth century was driven not so much by changes in the musical repertory as by the resurgence of idealism as an aesthetic principle applicable to all the arts. This new outlook, as articulated by such writers as Winckelmann, Moritz, Kant, Schiller, Herder, Fichte, and Schelling, posited the work of art as a reflection of an abstract ideal, rather than as a means by which a beholder could be moved. Through idealism, the work of art became a vehicle by which to sense the realm of the spiritual and the infinite, and the inherently abstract nature of instrumental music allowed this art to offer a particularly powerful glimpse of that realm. Idealism thus provided the essential framework for the revaluation of instrumental music in the writings of Wackenroder, Tieck, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and others around the turn of the century. While this new approach to instrumental music has certain points of similarity with the later concept of "absolute" music, it is significant that Eduard Hanslick expunged several key passages advocating idealist thought when he revised both the first and second editions of his treatise Vom Musikalisch-Schönen. The concept of "absolute" music, although real enough in the mid-nineteenth century, is fundamentally anachronistic when applied to the musical thought and works of the decades around 1800.

What if we think of the classroom as a work of art? Performance, collaboration, and social engagement considered as pedagogic practices

2020 ◽  
pp. 147402222096694
Author(s):  
Theron Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Performance Studies ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Performance Practices ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
Socially Engaged Art ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Pedagogic Practices

This article brings into relation critical perspectives and practical tactics from a range of different fields—performance studies, visual art practice, pedagogy and educational theory, and activism and community organising—in order to create some space for re-imagining what might be possible within the dynamics of the Higher Education classroom. It proceeds through a series of speculative modes: ‘what if we think of the classroom as a market?’, which for many is the currently dominant metaphor under neoliberalist economies; ‘what if we think of the work of art as a classroom?’, which traces the recent ‘pedagogical’ or ‘educational’ turn in visual art practice; and finally, ‘what if we think of the classroom as a work of art?’, in which the creative impulses and tactics drawn from performance practices, activism and community organising, and socially engaged art are speculatively applied to the arts and humanities classroom.

The Immediate Realism of Léon Noël

2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-189
Author(s):  
Gaven Kerr ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Jacques Maritain ◽  
Important Contributor ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Epistemological Position ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Epistemological Realism ◽  
Etienne Gilson

After the emergence of the neo-Thomist movement in the early twentieth century, the question of how best to present Aquinas’s latent epistemological realism came to the fore. Léon Noël was an important contributor to this area of neo-Thomism, but his work has unfortunately been eclipsed by that of other more recognizable authors such as Etienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain. Noël argued that Aquinas’s realism is a form of immediate realism that recognizes the challenge of modern representationalist epistemologies but does not succumb to non-realist ways of thinking. Hence Noël presented immediate realism as an epistemological position that is inspired by Aquinas but also capable of addressing philosophical concerns that emerged after his death. In this article I present Noël’s view as interesting in its own right and capable of engaging with contemporary non-Thomist trends in epistemology.

A Chapter on the Æsthetics of the Quadratic

1928 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 121-134
Author(s):  
J. B. Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Fine Arts ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
The Arts

It may not have occurred to the student that mathematics is one of the fine arts, and exhibits the same characters as those we find in poetry, music, painting, and sculpture. The material or medium of mathematics is of a more subtle stuff than that used in the arts mentioned, for it is dealing with purely ideal or non-material objects. But it takes little reflection on the problem to see that we may find in every part of mathematics instances of the qualities that determine a work of art. The object of this chapter is to bring some of these to the notice of the student.

A Few Missing Words

PMLA ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Bruccoli
Keyword(s):  
Ernest Hemingway ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The People ◽  
American Authors

Ernest Hemingway said it:—“A country, finally, erodes and the dust blows away, the people all die and none of them were of any importance permanently, except those who practised the arts. ... A thousand years makes economics silly and a work of art endures forever.” But works of literature endure in printed texts that become cumulatively corrupt. The definitive editions of the Center for Editions of American Authors restore and preserve the purity of the author's work.

scholarly journals The role of architecture in an engaging and meaningful experience of the physical exhibition

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-53
Author(s):  
Bárbara Dos Santos Coutinho ◽  
Ana Cristina Dos Santos Tostões
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Spiritual Intelligence ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
The Public ◽  
Exhibition Space ◽  
Digital World ◽  
The Arts

While recognising the part that digital media play in bringing about greater accessibility to artworks display and ensuring that they are more visible, this paper argues that the physical exhibition continues to be the primary place for the public to encounter the arts, as it can offer an engaging and meaningful aesthetic experience through which people can transcend their own existence. As such, it is essential to rethink now, in the scope of an increasing digital world, the exhibition in conceptual and methodological terms. For this purpose, the exhibition space must be considered as content rather than container and the exhibition as a work, often with the intentionality of a “total work of art”, rather than just a vehicle for exhibiting artworks and objects. Having the former purpose in mind, this paper proposes a re-reading of the exhibition designs of Frederick Kiesler (1890–1965), Franco Albini (1905–1977) and Lina Bo Bardi (1914–1992) in order to evaluate how their theory and practice can provide useful lessons for our contemporary thinking. The three architects, assuming the role of curators, use only the specific language of an exhibition and remix conventional modes of communication and architectural vocabulary, exploring the natural and artificial light, materials, layouts, surfaces and geometries in innovative ways. They considered the exhibition to be a work of art, overcoming the container/content dichotomy and trigging an intersubjective and self-reflective participation. Kiesler, Albini and Bo Bardi may all be considered visionaries of our time, as they offer a landscape that stimulates our curiosity through a multiplicity of information arranged in a multisensory way, allowing each visitor to discover associations between himself and his surroundings. None of them simply created an opportunity for distraction or entertainment. This perspective is all the more pertinent nowadays, as the processes of digitalising information and virtualising the real may well lead to the dematerialization of the physical experience of art. By drawing upon these historical examples, this paper seeks to contribute to current study on how an exhibition can stimulate the cognitive, emotional and spiritual intelligence of each visitor and clarify the importance of this effect in 21st century museums and society at large.

scholarly journals La correspondencia entre J. Maritain y É. Gilson en 1923. Precisiones en torno a la segunda edición de El tomismo

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-75
Author(s):  
Ceferino P. D. Muñoz ◽  
Juan Heiremans Correa
Keyword(s):  
Jacques Maritain ◽  
Siglo Xx ◽  
Etienne Gilson

El siguiente escrito muestra el breve pero enjundioso intercambio epistolar entre quizás los dos filósofos cristianos más importantes del siglo XX: Étienne Gilson y Jacques Maritain. Las cartas están centradas en torno a algunas de las tantas temáticas que inquietaron a los tomistas del siglo pasado –la intuición de Dios, el primer objeto de la inteligencia, la función propia del intelecto humano, entre otras– y que aun muestran su plena actualidad en el debate contemporáneo. Ofrecemos la primera traducción al español de las cartas enviadas en el año 1923 –inicio de una fructífera correspondencia entre ambos filósofos–, con ocasión de la publicación de la segunda edición de El tomismo, uno de los libros más emblemáticos de Gilson.

scholarly journals O EMERGIR DA MÚSICA POPULAR E SUAS INTERFACES COM A INDÚSTRIA FONOGRÁFICA

Caderno CRH ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (87) ◽  
pp. 517
Author(s):  
Anderson Costa ◽  
Lucas Barreto Catalan
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Culture Industry ◽  
Mots Clés ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Artistic Production ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Mode Of Production

<p>O presente artigo tem como objetivo central compreender os processos de interferência da indústria fonográfica sobre a música popular. Diante da expansão da lógica formal capitalista no campo da arte, a relação entre objetividade e subjetividade será a mola propulsora que utilizaremos para analisar paradoxos no processo de reprodução da música popular moderna, tais como indústria cultural e a reprodutibilidade técnica. Assim, partindo da análise do reggae jamaicano, buscamos ampliar o postulado adorniano sobre massificação da música para uma análise na qual seja possível investigar a experiência de produção artística periférica, como a da música popular jamaicana. Essa problemática abriu espaço para a discussão acerca da possibilidade de a indústria fonográfica ter múltiplas formas de atuação, a partir das contingências geradas pela singularidade do funcionamento desigual das condições econômicas, políticas e culturais de cada região, não perdendo de<br />vista que as configurações locais são partes integrantes do modo de produção capitalista.</p><p> </p><p>THE EMERGENCE OF POPULAR MUSIC AND ITS INTERFACES WITH THE PHONOGRAPHIC INDUSTRY</p><p>This article is about popular music, focusing in the relations built by music in face of capitalism’s expansion in the arts’ field. For this instance, the<br />relations between objectivity and subjectivity will be the plot from where we will analyze the paradoxes in the process of modern popular music reproduction, such as: culture industry and the work of art in the age of its technological reproduction. So, starting from the Jamaican reggae, we seek to wise Adorno’s perspective about music investigation to an analysis where is possible to<br />investigate the outlying artistic production, as the popular music that rises in Jamaica. This argument opened space to a discussion about the possibility of the phonographic industry have multiple actuation forms developed from its contingencies that are created by the singularities of its unequal way of work in face of different economic, political and cultural circumstances, keeping in sight that local realities are integrated to the capitalism mode of production.</p><p>Keywords: Popular music. Jamaican reggae. Culture industry. Phonographic industry. Aesthetics.</p><p> </p><p>L’EMERGENCE DE LA MUSIQUE POPULAIRE ET SES INTERFACES AVEC L’INDUSTRIE PHONOGRAPHIQUE</p><p>Le sujet de cet article c’est la musique populaire. On prend la question des rapports entre la musique et la logique de l’expansion capitaliste au domaine<br />de l’art. Pour cela, la relation entre l’objectivité et la subjectivité c’est la force motrice de notre analyse sur les paradoxes du procès de reproduction de la<br />musique populaire moderne, tels que : l’industrie culturelle et la reproductibilité technique. On part de la musique jamaïcaine pour faire la critique au postulat adornien de la négativité appliqué à la musique erudite, en visant comprendre avec lui, aussi, la musique populaire, particulièrement la musique pop des régions périphériques du monde. Cette voie des discussions nous ouvre des multiples possibilités des investigations sur l’industrie phonographique, issues des contingences générées par la singularité du fonctionnement inégal des conditions économiques, politiques et culturelles de chaque région, sans oublier que les configurations locales font partie intégrante de mode de production capitaliste.</p><p>Mots-clés: Musique populaire. Reggae jamaïcain. Industrie culturelle. Esthétique.</p><p> </p>

scholarly journals MAKNA NYANYIAN MA’KAARUYEN DALAM KEHIDUPAN MASYARAKAT MINAHASA

Tumou Tou ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 44-67
Author(s):  
Markus Wibowo
Keyword(s):  
Community Life ◽  
Musical Work ◽  
Musical Meaning ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Musical Elements

This research is a meaning of Ma'kaaruyen; a traditional musical work of art originating from Minahasa. Ma'kaaruyen is assumed to be one of the arts that reflects the life of the Minahasa community. Through a musicalological approach to the analysis of musical elements and the analysis of the texts of the Ma'kaaruyen song, meaning is found that integrates with the values ​​of the life of the Minahasa community. In the musical meaning it is known that Ma'kaaruyen has musical elements that form this song included in the category of melancholy singing, so that with lyrics or without lyrics this song is a melancholy song that is able to influence the soul. Ma'kaaruyen's extramusical meanings of the musical elements refer to the nature and character of traditional Minahasa community life, including: rhythm, melody, intervals, harmony, texture, and song form. The elements of music in Ma'kaaruyen are a reflection of the character and nature of traditional Minahasa society, which is associated with simplicity, calmness, gentleness, cooperation (mapalus), and mutual affection. Ma'kaaruyen's extramusical meaning from lyrics is that Ma'kaaruyen is a song that conveys religious messages, advice, affection, and expressions of heart (lamentations and regrets).

The Problematic Status of the Literary Work of Art in Contemporary Aesthetics

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-144
Author(s):  
Ioana-Eliza Deac
Keyword(s):  
Literary Work ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Dual Nature ◽  
Shared Set ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Literary Work Of Art ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Physical Manifestation ◽  
Different Levels

Developing a system that would reunite all the arts and account for their similarities and differences on the basis of a shared set of criteria was one of the main objectives of the aesthetic discipline, whose roots run deep into romantic philosophy. The diversity of modernist experiments poses a number of challenges to such systematisation and invites theoreticians to start anew. To illustrate some of the main difficulties arising from this situation, particularly in the case of the literary work of art, this article will focus on Gérard Genette’s two volume work L’œuvre de l’art (1994, 1997). Genette’s main purpose is to offer a conceptual framework for the description of the work of art that would find a place in the system for its material mode of existence. His objective is achieved at the expense of the coherence of the model since the structure of what he terms allographic and autographic works proves to be asymmetrical. Thus, the autographic works are presented as having a dual nature: transcendental and immanent (that is, physical), while the allographic works comprise three different levels: transcendence – immanence (understood as ideal) – and (physical) manifestation. After confronting Genette’s premises with the conclusions of several disciplines which study the same object of immanence from a different perspective, this paper will propose a revised and more coherent version of his system.

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