“Aesthetic enjoyment is objectified self-enjoyment”. This sentence comes up many times. I kinda agree. I really enjoyed the part where the writer explains man’s “fear” motivates the development of realism in art.
The happiness sought from art lies in the “possibility of taking the individual thing of the external world out of its arbitrariness and seeming fortuitousness, of eternalizing it by approximation to abstract forms and in this manner, of finding a point of tranquility and a refuge from appearances.”(P16) This idea sort of links to an ancient theory of Chinese art, which states an artist’s ultimate goal is to achieve between “likeness” and “unlikeness”. And that’s why rational systems such as perspective and golden ratio were never the essence of ancient Chinese art. When being asked the difference between western and eastern art, I always think the urge of rationality and reason is clear in western art. I don’t think however that is a “lower” development as Riegl summarized. As for myself, I have been struggling to find a balanced amount of arbitrariness and unlikeness in my work. I start to feel there’s no formula. Every time I start a new surface it is a new battlefield. It’s like I don’t know where it should end until it ends. There’s never enough certainty and all I have is instinct and a tiny bit of courage.
Another part that I enjoyed reading is towards the end of the article when Worrigner points out the need for “self-alienation”. There’s “an urge to seek deliverance from the fortuitousness of humanity as a whole, from the seeming arbitrariness of organic existence in general. Life as such if felt to be a disturbance of aesthetic enjoyment.”
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