How Art Evokes Different Emotions: Drawing Perspective from Plato, David Bell, and Karl Barth.
1.0 Introduction
Various philosophical approaches have described art in different forms, and over the years, thoughtful contributions from diverse disciplines have converged to form an integrated whole. Plato used the desired unattainable beauty, which is beyond the form of body and face to describe how, when coupled with imitation and inspiration, gives a perfect kind of divine aesthetic. Karl Barth made an extensive contribution to the discipline of theology aesthetics. He explained how the church builds on new forms of aesthetics in the twentieth century to commission its work. David Bell, an influential contemporary art scholar, is bringing a unique perspective into art by advocating for aesthetic engagement. This is an approach of introducing aesthetics to an early childhood learning for both learning art comprehensively as well as developing advanced techniques of learning at an early age. I agree that art evokes emotions, and with aesthetics as an aspect of art, it goes beyond beauty to give inspiration, power, and religious influence. Understanding these emotions as they come from art requires extensive learning and understanding through aesthetic engagement. Art emotion has found its way into religion, thereby bringing a strong connection between aesthetics in the art that has given rise to power influence. This paper, therefore, looks at “How Art Evokes Different Emotions” by drawing on the perspective of Plato, David Bell, and Karl Barth. The first section of the paper looks at the philosophical approaches by three scholars, i.e., Plato, Karl Barth, and David Bell. The second part then gives an insight into aesthetics as a source of power as well as aesthetics as an influence in religion, which is finally followed by a conclusion from the literature reviewed.
2.0 Philosophical Perspective
2.1 Plato
Pappas states how Plato does not define aesthetics as it is diverse but that the aspects of aesthetics are based on beauty, imitation, and inspiration. Plato describes Kalon, the Greek word for beauty, from the face, body, and natural scenery. With time, Plato shifts in his works on beauty and art and moving away from its original premise, beauty starts to encompass other forms and as Pappas states, “Diotima describes the poet’s task as the begetting of wisdom and other virtues“.1 Beauty is therefore related to good behavior, and not just looks and at this level beauty starts becoming a standard used to measure many different aspects both attainable and unattainable. “Beauty engages the soul and draws it toward philosophical deliberation, toward thoughts of absolute beauty and subsequently (as we imagine) toward thoughts of other concepts” (Pappas) which explains, why aesthetics were tough for Plato to define but at the same time only be related to desired states that every being wants to copy and reproduce. Beauty, therefore, seizes to be just art at this point and becomes a driving force towards perfection. With the elevation of beauty into a higher level through imitation, aesthetics get to be ultimate symbols that give not just inspiration but are connected to divinity.2 “Religion has not been explored in connection with Plato’s aesthetics to the degree that it should, even though a religious orientation informs what he has to say about beauty, inspiration, and imitation” (Pappas).
1Pappas work looks at how Plato evaluates Poems to investigate on aesthetics and gives reference to many other poets he is working with.
2Plato further explains how from inspiration, divine sources give talent in arts and with divine connections, artistic works become more durable and influential.
This statement connotes how much aesthetic becomes divine overtime thus finding its way even into forces we believe control our destiny like spiritual forces in our religions. In the end, Pappas explains how imitation and inspiration, builds ‘Plato’s aesthetics’ and the lack of clarity of what it is crucial for purposes of continuity in improving on the doctrine. According to De Gruchy (13), “As such aesthetics is about the arts, but it is about more than the arts. It is about perceiving reality in ways other than through rational inquiry and moral endeavour”.
2.2 David Bell
David Bell is a scholar on art and aesthetics and gives the contribution that art can make in the 21st century by not just being viewed as a passion but being given a functional purpose to enhance learning, especially in early age. Aesthetic engagement fulfils various purposes for humanity. It enables learners to understand who they are as well as their environment. In addition, aesthetic engagement gives learners the historical importance of their identities. Bell (1) states how Wilks explains, “accessible aesthetic engagements inform sophisticated thinking, in observing, selecting, discriminating, visualizing, hypothesizing, validating, adapting, refining and intuiting, reviewing, criticizing, reflecting, comparing, analyzing, synthesizing, contextualizing, assessing and appraising art experiences.” Different learning techniques are put into practice unconsciously, making the learning process interesting. Art can be learned, but at the same time, aesthetic engagement can act as a catalyst for comprehensive learning when applied in the right manner.3
3 The lack of interest in aesthetics has resulted from the lack of many instructors being familiar with artwork as well as the inadequate criticism of art due to distance and unfamiliarity in art language that can be used for expression.. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
This comprehensive learning is enabled by the improvement of both cognitive and intellectual skills that involve organizing, categorizing, evaluating, interpreting, and extrapolation and as stated by Bell (10), “these skills provide sophisticated tools for informing the evaluative process that lies at the heart of the aesthetic experience.” The aesthetic engagement process in learning is, therefore, very holistic.4
2.3 Karl Barth
Karl Barth has his writings revolving around theologian aesthetics, which is highly concerned with sensation, feeling, and imagination as an expression of beauty and art. Aesthetics in theology have greatly evolved over time. The Early church uses prevalent themes of God’s glory and the image of God in believers with sin idols. Medieval churches focus on the image of Christ and later, the Reformation period being more iconoclasts. De Gruchy gives an example of how in the Great Citadel of Prussian Protestantism, protestant reformers images stand, unlike the St. Peter’s Square, which has images of apostles, a practice that Barth calls reformed heritage. Beyond the seventeenth century, hymns were used for communication with the twentieth century exhibiting the coexistence of art and theology. Popular works of Barth include ‘The Epistle of the Romans,’ 1919 and overtime Barth came to embrace liberalist theology that had an interdisciplinary approach and realized how theology was intertwined with art, and as stated by De Gruchy (23), the concept of a confessing church and Christian ethics gained great development from Barth. The collection of church dogmatic by Barth gave guidance on how God can be seen around us by the beauty in creation and his word.
4Bell also gives an insight into how the younger generation can show expressive appreciation of artworks.
De Gruchy (19) states how “Karl Barth insisted, we cannot describe God’s beauty on the basis of our own definition of what beauty might be, but only with reference to the form in which God’s beauty is revealed both in creation and redemption.” Believers through the church committed themselves to work on building and creating awareness on the Kingdom of God. With a divine end normally being attached to believers in the after-life, Christianity dictates that God’s beauty is more valuable, and all other beauties of this world are not worthy, thereby only embracing the aesthetics that Christianity brings along. To be attracted to God, man has to embrace the beautiful things to God and states that the acceptance or rejection of particular mass media production is dependent on how “beautiful they are in the eyes of God.” Iconoclasm always ends up being practised on images, sculptures, and art with a replacement of others to depict reform and acceptance. With Barth advocating for confession, which is one of the beauties of God, faith as an element that keeps the oppressed hopeful, and they get to accept their tough situations at particular times with a focus on eternal life as a reward for perseverance through worldly hardships. Barth insists, “embraces death as well as life, fear as well as joy, what we might call the ugly as well as what we might call the beautiful” (De Gruchy14), and this again puts across the idea that when oppressors like iconoclasts come to power, there is room for redemption through confession and therefore injustice might not be so ugly after all. The Holy Spirit, holiness, and crucifixion are highly regarded by the Hebrews to explain the beauty of God from the early church, and these aesthetics of ‘beauty’ have found their way into modern theology to depict redemption, hope, faith, and love.5
5De Gruchy discusses how John Calving argues on the impact of lack of use of art to the doctrine of Christianity giving its adverse effects
3.0 Philosophy and Aesthetics
3.1 Aesthetics as a Source of Power
Aesthetics De Gruchy (14) states how Elaine Scarry explains that the use of aesthetics as a source of beauty can be used as a political force to demand justice from oppressors and this is evident by how in the 17th century, with colonialism being spread in various societies all over the world was using education and religion to minimize the use of traditional aesthetics. For a more “civilized” world, the forever deeply rooted use of traditional aesthetics across communities was becoming unpopular with those continuing with the use of aesthetics being termed as rebellious.6 Elaine Scarry further discusses how political complaints about lack of supporting aesthetics show how much a people’s identity gets lost, which is an injustice on its own right. Oppressors who come into our worlds always seek to in ways of denouncing aesthetics, terming them as unworthy, ugly, and inferior. Theodore Adorno emphasizes how art has to harbour the real unpleasantness (De Gruchy 15) as perceived by other groups in order to give a more valuable meaning that will distinguish the particular groups owning such aesthetics as unique and worthy. Adorno further adds, the dynamism of life becomes absent if aesthetics are to be equally accepted by everyone. During the apartheid era in South Africa, in an essay by D.H. Lawrence in 1929, “Nottingham and the Mining Country,” he expressed how the inhumane actions of industrialists was written all over by ugly hope, ugly love and even ugly relationships with those who provided labour for these institutions (De Gruchy 16).
. 6In his statement, De Gruchy (14) explains that aesthetics are more than just beauty but with beauty remaining as its key subset.
3.2 Religion in Aesthetics
Aesthetics in the aspect of religion is equally important for humanity. “Indeed, a failure to engage in theological aesthetics has dire consequences both for theology itself (that `beautiful science’) and the life and witness of the church” (De Gruchy 17). However, such a statement can only be positively perceived to a Christian. Controversies over how much religions and their superiority are used in making aesthetics of the masses inferior give evidence that this will be a forever battle with no end. There is normally an explicit denial that the source of divine power for the oppressed is never as superior and powerful as that of the oppressor. This still brings back the concern of injustice to banishing the use of aesthetics by those in power for the sake of forcing their subjects to embrace the oppressor’s own religion; in this case of colonialism being Christianity. Those in power will, therefore, pursue social transformation and integrate the components applied for this transformation to achieve their own selfish reasons which may include aesthetics, ethics, and education.7
4.0 Conclusion
In conclusion, art is an expression of creativity that is made up of various elements that influence emotions at different degrees. Similarly, various philosophers from different disciplines have made scholarly contributions on their perspective of the existence of mankind and the universe at large and how these two affect each other and how to better coexist. With regard to creativity, Plato defines aesthetics as an important subset of art lacking in definition due to its intense nature of being only able to be defined in terms of beauty, imitation, and inspiration and how these three elements interact to give rise to desired beauty which can no
7 De Gruchy further mentions how reformed dogmatic is a work of Barth which explains the intricacies required to make independent all the facets involved in enforcing social transformation in order to have a more liberal Christian approach that has not necessarily deviated from.
longer be attained as it becomes divine in nature; enough to be integrated into the spiritual realm defined by religion. At this point, beauty shifts from a known object to an unexplained form. By the works of David Bell, it is crucial to change the approach of traditionally perceiving art as a form of creativity but as an approach that can be used in learning. Through aesthetic engagement, a more systematic approach to learning art can be used to scientifically develop complex learning abilities, especially in children, because early childhood gives more positive results. The holistic approach to learning based on aesthetic engagement, learners will develop both cognitive and intellectual skills to understand the dynamics in the art, which have long been distant to learners with a lack of adequate knowledge on the words necessary for an art critic. To add on, Karl Barth explains how theology aesthetics have brought the concept of confession and Christian ethics in the church due to aesthetics like creative God, crucifixion, Holy Spirit, and beauty of God is emphasized upon. The three philosophical works together explain how aesthetics are used in evoking the feeling of power influence on the oppressed and how the oppressor always perceives the aesthetic of the ‘weaker’ group as ugly and inferior. However, it is this ugliness that gives an aesthetic its distinct uniqueness and identity. Similarly, religion is a product of aesthetics where today, divine power gives inspiration to followers. A good example is how the church uses God’s beauty and redemption to enforce social transformation. I therefore strongly agree that art evokes emotions, and with aesthetics as an aspect of art, it goes beyond beauty to give inspiration, power, and religious influence.
Bibliography
De Gruchy, John W. “Holy Beauty: A Reformed Perspective on Aesthetics within a World of Ugly Injustice.” Reformed Theology for the Third Christian Millennium 2003: 13-25.
Pappas, Nickolas. “Plato’s Aesthetics.”, Edited By Edward N. Zalta, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fall 2017. 25 February 2020.
Bell, David. “Talking about art with young people: Conversational strategies for aesthetic learning in early childhood settings.” International Art in Early Childhood Research Journal 3.1 2012: 1-17.