Notes on Session Two of Modern Aesthetics, Tate Modern
Friedrich Nietzsche's first book The Birth of Tragedy was written while he was still somewhat in thrall to Schopenhauer's ideas (though Raymond Geuss has suggested that contemporaneous notebooks indicate that he already saw flaws in Schopenhauer's system as he was writing The Birth of Tragedy). Although ostensibly about the decline of Greek tragedy, most readers take it to have far wider significance. At its core is Nietzsche's discussion of the Dionysian and Apollonian forces at play in art and life more generally. Dionysus, god of intoxication, corresponds approximately to Schopenhauer's notion of the Will. In a Dionysian frenzy the participants lose all sense of individuality and are immersed in the life force. In contrast the Apollonian provides form, rationality and order to balance the Dionysian. A purely Dionysian art would be unsustainable. But art with a substantial Dionysian element achieves a profundity unavailable to a predominantly Apollonian art. For a short time we can lose ourselves in unity with the Dionysian force, the equivalent of the Schopenhauerian Will.
For a clear overview of Nietzsche's views on Art, listen to Aaron Ridley on Philosophy Bites (more audio interviews with philosophers on a wide range of topics are at www.philosophybites.com).
You might also be interested in a talk I gave at a Tate Modern about the influence of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche on Mark Rothko's late painting (details about how to download and navigate this audio file here.). Rothko wrote of The Birth of Tragedy 'It left an indelible impression on my mind and has forever colored the syntax of my own reflections in the questions of art' (in Writings, p.109, c 1954)
In contrast to the metaphysical theories of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche (and for that matter, Plato), the novelist Leo Tolstoy's account of art in his What is Art? focuses on art as a communication between people. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche both believed that art put us in close contact with deeper levels of reality, Plato that it gave us misleading illusions at several removes from reality; Tolstoy believed that it allowed us to be infected with one anothers' emotions.
Not only was Tolstoy explicitly anti-metaphysical in his approach, but also resolutely anti-elitist. He believed that those who define art typically start from what a small subclass of society take as paradigms of art and then retrospectively conjure up theories that explain why these works really are art. Tolstoy thought this was going about things the wrong way. Instead he proposed to begin with a coherent theory and then apply it rigorously.
His theory: art is essentially a communicative act between people. Art begins from lived emotion, not from ideals of beauty or from an attempt to produce pleasure. The artist experiences an emotion and finds a way of communicating that emotion that affects the viewer by producing that same emotion. This is not simple contagion like one person yawning and others around doing the same. In Tolstoy's example, it is more like the boy who has been terrified by seeing a wolf communicating in words the situation and describing it in such a way that his listeners come to feel the fear he felt. Great art is art that evokes intense emotion, that is simple (accessible), expresses highly individual emotions, and, most importantly, is sincere. Tolstoy saw far more virtue in simple folk music than in sophisticated classical music. Indeed, he explicitly condemned the work of Beethoven and Wagner on the basis of his theory.
Ultimately, for Tolstoy, art that is great embodies Christian values. The brotherhood of humanity can be expressed and felt through art, making art a force for good in the world.
In the Gallery
We looked at work in Tate Modern, Level 3 East 'Contemporary Art' in particular asking whether the paintings and collages there could be understood in terms of sincerely communicated emotions. For many works, this was clearly not relevant. But for several it was, notably Chris Ofili's 'No Woman No Cry' (1998). This was explicitly about grief. The stylised image of an African woman, presumably a mother, crying. Within each of her tears is a tiny image of Stephen Laurence (the victim of a violent racist attack that left him dead and which was not properly investigated by the police at the time). Although an image of a woman in grief, the emotion in the picture could plausibly be seen as communicating the artist's own emotion about Stephen Laurence's murder as well as being symbolic of grief in general. The question of the artist's sincerity does here seem relevant to our assessment of it as art. There is every indication that the emotion is genuine, both in the way the image has been made, and in background knowledge about Ofili and his approach to his art. The simplicity of statement and the use of the motifs of folk art make this a far more accessible work than those around it in the Contemporary Artists gallery. There is also every indication that Ofili is attempting through the work to communicate emotion and his feelings about the murder while suggesting broader issues about the grief of a mother's loss (and knowing that he has painted similar images of Mary is relevant here).
The point of looking at this painting in this way was not to somehow prove Tolstoy correct, nor to suggest that paintings that did not match his account were somewhow less important, but rather to entertain Tolstoy's approach to art and to see what perspectives it might give on particular paintings.
- this reading gets much easier to understand from section 34 - don't be put off by the daunting opening).
