Applied Aesthetics
Aesthetics have been applied to several aspects or department of study and a discussion on these would be rewarding and would prove the value, importance of such a study. Recent studies have gone to apply aesthetics in the fields of music, poetry, art criticism, information technology, mathematics, films, movies, television, video, plastic arts, Digital arts, Maps, Marketing, performing arts, literature, gastronomy, Website design, industrial designs etc. We may lay down some of these for illustration.
Literature
The term ‘literature’ is used with different senses, not necessarily related to art. In the most general sense it encompasses virtually all printed matter. In a second, more restricted, sense – literature as ‘belles-lettres’ – the term applies only to ‘fine writing,’ writing that has ‘literary merit.’ E.g. Certain philosophical or theological treatises, biographies, memoirs, letters, even some journalism. A third sense narrows the meaning further and is largely a modern (post-eighteenth century) innovation, under which literature denotes ‘works of the imagination.’ Poems, novels, dramas, short stories, sagas, legends, and satires are of this kind.
This third sense of ‘literature,’ in proper sense is called aesthetic, because, it is a fine writing of an imaginative/creative kind imbued with moral seriousness. One charge sometimes made against ‘literature’ is that it is already deeply tainted with historically situated political and ideological presuppositions. This may be an obstacle for art to have timeless and universal value.
Although the notion of ‘imaginative literature’ as described is relatively modern, the idea that writing can be a form of art is one of immense antiquity. Of course ‘art’ itself has evolved in meaning, with the distinction between ‘fine art’ and ‘craft’ also stemming from the modern age.
The art of writing (and speaking) was prominent in education from ancient Greece to eighteenth-century Europe, and literary skills were imparted through the teaching of rhetoric. But poetry has long been thought an ‘art,’ both in the sense of something crafted and as writing that is highly valued.
Until the advent of the novel (and prose drama) in the early eighteenth century there was no call for a new category of ‘imaginative literature’ because ‘poetry’ captured all that was needed for a distinct art-form. To treat the emerging novel, and other forms of imaginative prose-writing, together with poetry under the broad heading of ‘literature’ was in many ways a surprising move and doubts are still raised whether there really is a viable category of this kind.
The institution of literature: To capture the essence of literature as an art, one should look at literature institutionally. On this view literary works are defined not by their intrinsic properties but by the role they play in a human practice.
As money has value because of the economical institution of the society, literary works also have value because of literature as social institution. There would be no literary works without the ‘institution’ of literature, that is, without established conventions for creating, appreciating, and evaluating literary discourse.
Literary works are not ‘natural kinds’ but institutional entities determined by social interactions. If this is right then the role of the aesthetician is to identify the defining characteristics of the institution. This is a subtly different task from seeking common features intrinsic to all literary works.
The theorist must focus on ‘relational’ properties, notably between texts, authors and readers, with prominence given to the attitudes, expectations and responses conventionally attached to texts by participants in a ‘literary practice.’
It might be thought that nothing sufficiently determinate could be said about the conventions of reading and appreciating literature, given the heterogeneity of responses to literary works. Yet if we direct attention to literature as art, with the focus on the broad constraints already mentioned – including the ‘imaginative/creative’ aspect and ‘moral seriousness’ – we soon find that substantive indicators are identifiable.
The best place to start is to ask what it means to adopt a ‘literary point of view’ towards narrative, drama or poetry, and what distinctive expectations that raises. Clearly, not every approach to a text could be classed as a ‘literary approach’, so there should be general characteristics recognizable.
First, as with all art, a fundamental expectation regarding a literary work (treated as such) is that the parts cohere, more or less, into a unifying whole, that there is a design or purposiveness in the elements.
Second, it is expected, in line with the ‘moral seriousness’ requirement, that whatever the surface subject matter (narrative event or poetic metaphor) there will be underlying themes of a broadly human interest, indeed that reflection on the subject matter will elicit reflection, of an imaginative kind, on these broader themes.
Third, there is an expectation that the work will reward a process of interpretation which reveals the literary interest in the work, notably by showing in detail how the themes are sustained or developed by the work’s elements and design.
Finally, the value of the work also depends upon the following features:
Are literary works essentially fictional? No satisfactory answer can be given without an adequate conception of fiction. It can mean ‘false,’ or ‘unreal,’ or ‘invented,’ or ‘product of the imagination.’ It can have both positive and negative connotations. Being false is not sufficient for fiction. Arguably fictions can be compatible with a high degree of literal truth, as with many historical novels. Nor does fiction, as normally understood, imply the presence of fictional characters; again, historical fiction can be exclusively about real people.
Perhaps the best way of accounting for fictionality is not by appeal to falsehood or unreality or failure of reference but – as with literature – by reference to the intentions and attitudes of those who engage with fictions. Fictional works are imaginative not just in the sense that they emanate from the imagination, but because they invite an imaginative response in those who read them.
Fictional works might also seek to change our beliefs but the focus of their effort is make-believe, they aim to stir our imagination, to transport us into their own worlds.
The concepts of literature and fiction are not identical: the terms have different meanings. ‘Literature,’ for example, possesses an evaluative component not present in ‘fiction.’ Nor are they extensionally equivalent: not all works of fiction are deemed to be literature. Nevertheless, there are connections, most evident when we recall what it is to attend to a work ‘from a literary point of view.’
The literary reading attends to such matters as: the congruence of structure and content, the aptness of the linguistic qualities as a vehicle for a thematic vision, the way the parts cohere into an aesthetically satisfying whole. In fact it fits more naturally with the response invited by fictions: imaginative involvement, immersion in fictional worlds, an emphasis on make-believe over belief.
We need to distinguish different levels of evaluation. At the base level there are judgements about specific details in a work: the aptness of phrase or image, the coherence of a scene, the predictability of plot development, the psychological insight of character interaction, the obtrusiveness of narrative voice.
At the next level, value judgements can be made about whole works. These judgements are more likely to be considered controversial. For one thing, they are associated with the formation of ‘canons’ or ‘great traditions’ in literature; also they are more likely to be dismissed as ‘matters of taste’ or at any rate culturally conditioned.
The literary ends can be determined only through an interpretation which assigns symbolic, figurative, or thematic significance to a work’s elements. Aesthetic appreciation of literature can recognize no deep division of ‘form’ and ‘content.’ The ‘seriousness’ of the moral ‘content’ must always be a function of the imaginative exploitation of linguistic means.
Applied Aesthetics of Musicology
Musicology is a vast area and involves lot of concepts and it is not possible to study every aspect of it. Music is considered a great art and aesthetics too. It is different from noise or voice or poem, though all these come from the same organ of speech and all these are communicable. It has been observed in free encyclopedia, “Traditionally, the aesthetics of music or musical aesthetics concentrated on the quality and study of the beauty and enjoyment of music. Many musicians, music critics, and other non-philosophers have contributed to the aesthetics of music.
Aesthetic is ‘cultural-construct’, and so it is also believed very often, that music are culturally influenced, that the music’s appeal seems to be dependent upon the culture in which it is practiced.
Music As Historically Viewed
Taken into historical perspective in the 18th Century, music was considered to be out of the realm of aesthetics. William Hogarth, in his treatise, ‘The Analysis of Beauty’, held that music’s role is relevant, only in so far as it is in its proper accompanishment for the dancers. By the end of the century, “the topic of music and its own beauty came to be distinguished from other art forms. I. Kant was the most influential figure on the work of aesthetics, argued that instrumental music is beautiful, but ultimately trivial-compared to fine arts, it does not engage the understanding sufficiently and it lacks moral purpose”.
The 19th Century is called the ‘era of romanticism in music’, during which some critics and composers argued, that, “music should and could express ideas, images, and emotions. In 1813, E.T.A. Hoffman contended that music was fundamentally the art of instrumental composition. Five years later, Arthur Schopenhauer, in his book “The World as Will and Representation” argued on accounts of linking music and metaphysics, that instrumental music has representational capacities. Edward Hanslick seriously countered this thesis and waged “war of the Romantics”. This resulted into division of aesthetics in two competing groups, the one group pleading for formalism (eg. Hanslick) who emphasized that the rewards of music are found in appreciation of musical form or design, while on the other side, Richard Wagner, etc the anti-formalists who regarded musical form as a means to other artistic ends.
In 20th Century, some scholars like the poet, Ezra Pound tried to bring Poetry closer to Hanslick’s ideas about the autonomous, self-sufficient character of music. It was believed that music was pure because it did not represent anything, or make reference to anything beyond itself. Albert Schweitzer is one of the dissenters of this view and has argued against the alleged ‘purity’ of music in a classic work of Bach. “Far from being a new debate this disagreement between modernists and their critics was a direct continuation of the 19th Century debate about autonomy of music.”
Igor Stravinsky, a most prominent composer in 20th Century defended the modernist idea of musical autonomy. He contends that the only relevant thing “is his apprehension of the contour of the form, for form is everything. He can say nothing about meanings although it is the common phenomenon that listeners often look for meanings in music, but Stravinsky says that these are distractions from the musical experience. The most prominent development of 20th Century is that distinction has been drawn between ‘higher’ and ‘lower music as analogous to the distinction between art and popular music.
In 2004, Simon Frith said that “bad music” is a necessary concept for musical aesthetics. He held that there are two types of bad music. He gives three characteristics of bad music, inauthentic, (in) bad taste and stupid.[1] His method is based in sociology. ‘Bad’ is ‘Keyword here, it suggests that aesthetics and ethical judgments are tied together here: not to like a record is not just a matter of taste; it is also a matter of argument, and argument that matters. It even takes to ethical characteristics of the listener.
In "Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music" Simon Frith argues that the popular music has four social functions that account for its value and popularity in society.[2] Popular music:
allows us to answer questions about our own identity and place in society
help us manage the relationship between our public and private emotional lives
help us organize our sense of time and shapes popular memory
is something that is possessed.
Adorno was a Marxist and he was hostile to popular music on the ground that popular music is simplistic and repetitive and encourages a fascist mindset”. He held that whether good or bad it sounds to audience… music is genuinely good if it fulfills a positive political function. In tune with Adorno, Theodore Gracyk argues that ‘conceptual categories and distinctions developed in response to ‘art’ music are systematically misleading when applied to popular music”.
The term “digital art’ is a word which forcing the present world people for clear and categorical acceptance; it is a by-product of computer programming that raises some fresh questions as to what truly constitutes art. People working in this area have to justify (as their bounden duty), why to use computer rather than a traditional medium. Computer art has been in use for over 25 years and that a majority of the images are flooding our senses each day, through a wide number of different media are created digitally. These new developments in art-making tools have made a revolution in commercial art, photography, television, music, film etc.
The digital art is now making inroads in the world of fine arts, which has started haunting the mind of people for a serious consideration, what the art has to offer”! what separates it from what has been and what are the characteristics that will determine what digital art brings to the unfolding contemporary art scene and the continuing history of artistic to expression?” what does this imply? Has all art now become dead, Is there no new artist to give profound art. Has artist failed to create anything “new and improved”? What people now are searching for, it is style. That style-makers have by now, created a sufficient number of broadly defined styles to fit all occasions and visual statements. Style is new tool of expression.
Some great scholars have now realized that the most important thing about current digital art is not how it looks, but who is making it and why? In the present scene no Pop art which grew against “Abstract Expressionism”[3] which is an example of aesthetics of today’s two dimensional digital art, it grew after cold-war through 40s and 50s. The Abstract Expressionism which once served the purpose of incorporating the metaphysics of American Romanticism into modern style, but then subsequently art wanted a return to the real world and the return they chose “was not that of nature but post war mechanized and mediate world of mass communication, mass production and mass consumption.” Pop Art have harvested good returns and it has been providing a basic structure providing and supporting formation of a Digital Art aesthetics and computers have served the ends of any number of styles, genres, etc. The European Pop artists were connecting aesthetics to Social comment.
Digital art was pressed into service in advertisement, photography, comic strips, mass media, prints, in business, in culture, POP Art, Photo-Realism, Installation, Conceptual, Environmental/Earth works, Video Art, visual art, writer, designer, film maker, musician, mass communication, digital imaging of software.
There is a difference between Pop Art and Digital Art. Pop art was a movement a distinctive genre of art that popped up in post-war Britain and America. It is primarily characterized by an interest in popular culture and imaginative interpretations of commercial products. Pop Art dealt with ideas observed in a culture of commerce and mass communication, while Digital Art Springs forth from the artists that are now living in the unfolding of that culture.
There have been lots of criticisms against Digital art itself, rather than on the role of aesthetics in the process of applying it to Digital art etc. The question is: what is style? In the above discussion the word ‘style’ has been used. The word ‘style’, it may be mentioned in relation to visual arts that refers to the aspects of the visual appearances of a work of art. Now this term is used almost in all forms of art. This may involve all the elements and principles of art, and other factors, often very difficult to analyze precisely.
The word “visual art’ covers a very wide area. We have the whole art history to show its length and breath, it covers painting, sculpture, and architecture. Art history covers a survey of art throughout human history, “classifying cultures and periods by their distinguishing features, it also includes art historians, museum curators, auction house, personnel, private collectors, and religious adherents.
These topics of various disciplines are also covered under applied aesthetics. The aesthetics of cinematography is said to be closely related to photography. Sound recording, editing and mixing are highly important areas of films and are often closely related with the musical composition. Art direction, costume design, make up, sets of shooting are all intertwined and are controlled, under the director’s guidance and sensibility. Montage or editing is one very important area unique to film, Video and television. The timing, rhythm and progression of shots form the ultimate composition of film.
Aesthetical consideration play important part is visual art i.e. related to sense of vision, for example in painting, sculpture, whereby not only sense of vision is important but also sense of smell, hearing and touch are considered essential. The form of work is subject to an aesthetic as much as the content. In painting, conventionally, there is three dimensional representation rather than a two dimensional canvas, so well understood that most people do not realize that they are making an aesthetic interpretation. This notion is the basis of abstract impressionism,” Some of the aesthetics effect in visual art include” variation, juxtaposition, repetition, field effects, symmetry/asymmetry, perceived mass, subliminal structure, linear dynamics, tension and repose, pattern, contrast, perspective, three dimensionality movement, rhythm, unity/gestalt, matrix and proportion.”
Many simple devotees who visit the temples, mosques, churches may not be aware of the philosophy behind the architecture involved in the construction of these buildings. The architects who designed these places of worship had a vision through which they want to communicate to the people what these buildings signify.
Gothic architecture and sculpture are vertical. The figures of middle ages are tall and it is accentuated by long garments reaching to the ankles. Their poses are restful but rarely smile – deliberately designed to leave the worshipper’s thoughts away from the world of flesh to the things of the spirit.
The Gothic Churches for example have the construction in which the tower and even the small designs will be pointing upwards. This is one of the characteristics of the gothic architecture. The idea behind this is to draw attention of the visitors that their abode is on high and they have no permanent place here on earth. So the perspective is always pointing upwards.
In India the temple towers, though tall, are solidly based on earth. Gods and demi-gods are young and handsome; their bodies rounded and well-nourished (sorrow is rarely portrait). The usual inspiration of Indian art is not so much a ceaseless quest for the Absolute as a delight in the world as the artist found it, a sensual vitality, and a feeling of growth and movement as regular and organic as the growth of living things on earth.
The Hindu temple is designed in such a way that the sanctum sanctorum – the garbagrha – is a small windowless structure with a single entrance. The idol will be inside this structure. Inside it will be dark. One can see the face of the deity only with the help of a lamp lit by the priest. The idea behind this architecture is to show that God is transcendent, beyond our horizon we can have a look through this door dimly what is present inside. And even this vision is possible only with the help of the priest. Obviously, the role of the priest is very much emphasized in this theology of the Hindu temple.
Hindu art is through and through iconic. Hinduism rejoices in images and has a subtle theory of them. The temples seem to overflow with vivid sculptures. These decorations are not the mere optional extra; it is what gives the buildings life.
Hindu architecture is merely all of them beam-and-pillar kind, rarely using the arch. Its design is based on entirely different liturgical functions; to offer worship and to get darshan of the deity by individuals and small groups. There is no provision for congregational worship, which is manifested in great processions, where the deity leaves the temple and is adored by the devotees in the streets. The long corridors attached to the temples served as resting place for the pilgrims.
The Gopuras open directly into the surrounding countryside. Places of worship are never isolated from the wider cosmos but on the contrary, absorbed within the vaster unity of sacred nature. Indian architecture therefore far from being an end in itself, is content to provide the frame for an essentially cosmic worship.
Muslim architecture historically is developments of Byzantine and other early Christian styles. So Christians and Muslims can easily interchange architectural ideas.
The Islamic architecture while designing the mosque buildings has the philosophy of teaching the people humility. When anyone stands under the gigantic dome of any mosque, he will be struck by the majestic dome in comparison to which the onlooker will be so tiny little creature. This itself brings home to the onlooker that he is standing before the Almighty.
It is true the Islamic faith forbids the development of a “personal” cult in its literal sense. The mosque therefore bears no figured ornamentation whatever, only the words of the Quran being illustrated by volutes and arabesques.
In the wide and lofty mosque then man feels himself minimized and humbled in the presence of an invisible God; similarly in the uncanny spaciousness of a Moghul place a visitor feels unsafe and helpless, an intruder constantly watched by a thousand invisible eye.
Islamic architect, unlike their Hindu colleague, avoided the immense and indefinite proportions and mysterious darkness of grottoes and palm forests and erected their fortresses on some commanding hill-top, and within this are usually the mosque and palace, the audience-hall and mausoleum, completed by crowning domes, whose mighty curves are calculated with mathematical precision.
Glossary
Juxtapositionis is one of the aesthetic effects of visual art. It means placing two or more things side-by-side, often with the intention of comparing or contrasting the elements. It is commonly used in the visual arts to emphasize a concept, form unique compositions, and add intrigue to paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other type of artwork. The viewer's attention is drawn to the similarities or differences between the elements.
Variety and Variation: Using a range of different qualities or instances of an art element to create a desired visual effect - e.g., a variety of shapes, colors, etc. Variety can add interest and break the monotony of simple repetitions.
Shape and Mass: Shape is a two dimensional area with identifiable boundaries. Mass is a three-dimensional solid with identifiable boundaries. Volume may be synonymous with mass except that volume can also refer to a void as in an empty enclosed space. Mass in painting is any quality in a painting which implies or suggest or emphasises the physical weight. ... Mass in sculpture is a quantity or aggregate of matter that occupies space, or the principle part or main body of a sculpture.
A subliminal message is a signal or message designed to pass below the normal limits of perception. For example it might be inaudible to the conscious mind (but audible to the unconscious or deeper mind) or might be an image transmitted briefly and unperceived consciously and yet perceived unconsciously.
Visual Art Matrix: the cultural, social, or political environment in which art develops.
[1]Frith argued that bad music is a necessary concept for musical pleasure and for musical aesthetic. He distinguishes two common kinds of bad music; the first is the Worst Records Ever Made type, which includes:
"Tracks which are clearly incompetent musically; made by singers who can't sing, players who can't play, producers who can't produce,"
"Tracks involving genre confusion. The most common examples are actors or TV stars recording in the latest style."
The second type is the "rock critical list", which includes:
"Tracks that feature sound gimmicks that have outlived their charm or novelty,"
"Tracks that depend on false sentiment (...), that feature an excess of feeling molded into a radio-friendly pop song."
[2]Frith, Simon (1987). Music & Society: The Politics of Consumption, Performance and Reception. Cambridge University Press. pp. 133–151.
[3] Abstract expressionism is the term applied to new forms of abstract art developed by American painters such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often characterised by gestural brush-strokes or mark-making, and the impression of spontaneity. The name evokes their aim to make art that while abstract was also expressive or emotional in its effect. They were inspired by the Surrealist (Surrealism in art aimed to revolutionise human experience, rejecting a rational vision of life in favour of one that asserted the value of the unconscious and dreams. The movement’s poets and artists found magic and strange beauty in the unexpected and the uncanny, the disregarded and the unconventional.The word ‘surrealist’ (suggesting ‘beyond reality’) was coined by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire.) idea that art should come from the unconscious mind