Aesthetic Movement, English artistic movement of the late 19th century, dedicated to the doctrine of ‘art for art's sake’ – that is, art as a self-sufficient entity concerned solely with beauty and not with any moral or social purpose. Associated with the movement were the artists Aubrey Beardsley and James McNeill Whistler and writers Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde .
I want to hear your personal idea and opinion of the doctrine 'art for art's sake'.
Life is never too good nor too bad!
Art is fine, but when it comes to writing, there has to be content or there is no writing. A lot of pretty words strung together aren't beautiful, or even art.
"art as a self-sufficient entity concerned solely with beauty and not with any moral or social purpose."
I think...
Beauty is good, and producing things that are beautiful is a good end in itself.
It is not the only end, but it is a sufficient justification for a painting, a piece of music or a poem.
I half agree with PeterL. It is not easy to produce a piece of writing that is beautiful but otherwise meaningless - poetry in an unknown language may provide an experience of beautiful sounds without meaning, but clearly the major part of the poem would be lost, if the meaning were not understood.
On the other hand, the definition given was "beauty, and not with any moral or social purpose." So something like Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" could be included, or any description of a beautiful thing that only described the beauty without attempting to draw any moral.
On the other hand again - whether in writing or any other artistic form - the pursuit of beauty alone would be the equivalent of living on a diet of marshmallows. Marshmallows are good, and making marshmallows is a worthy occupation for a marshmallow maker, but....
.
Voices mysterious far and near,
Sound of the wind and sound of the sea,
Are calling and whispering in my ear,
Whifflingpin! Why stayest thou here?
It is funny that you mention "Kubla Khan", because I am of the opinion that there is a significant content in it, but it is obscured almost as much as "Finnegans Wake", and Coleridge was playing games.Originally Posted by Whifflingpin
Haha - I knew someone would say something like that!
But, just for the sake of the argument, accept the story that Coleridge dreamed it all, and rushed to write down as much as he could before he forgot it - only he was interrupted by "a stranger from Porlock."
Actually, of course, you bring another dimension to the discussion. Even assuming that the artist is attempting to make a work of art without hidden meanings, the viewer, listener or reader will bring his own experience and provide a meaning. So the work of art becomes for the beholder what a field of daffodils was for Wordsworth. The daffodils were completely innocent of any intent, but Wordsworth saw meaning in them. There is no escape.
Voices mysterious far and near,
Sound of the wind and sound of the sea,
Are calling and whispering in my ear,
Whifflingpin! Why stayest thou here?
my take on the notion of "art for art's sake" is that it is an approach to writing whereby the writer disconnects oneself from those who will come to judge his/her work. it's somehow about disconnecting from this noise of the world and from one's own demons of affectation, promotion, careerism. art for art's sake is less a creed and more a way of being---your life and the written word forming a seamless web.
there's an old story of W.H. Auden when he was a teacher giving advice to two university students who approached him expressing an interest to be writers. He asked the first, "well, why do you want to be a writer?" the student answered that he was inspired by the great writers and felt ultimately writing was his "calling." auden told him not to write. the second student approached with the same, and again Auden asked, "Why do you want to be a writer?" "because I love fooling with words," the girl answered. He told her she would make a wonderful writer.
that's art for art's sake.
Last edited by jon1jt; 12-15-2006 at 08:53 PM.
"He was nauseous with regret when he saw her face again, and when, as of yore, he pleaded and begged at her knees for the joy of her being. She understood Neal; she stroked his hair; she knew he was mad."
---Jack Kerouac, On The Road: The Original Scroll
Yes, there is no escape. We can't express no meaning. Everything that humans say and do has meaning, although the meaning may not be clear, even to the one who does the expression.
Yes, a lot of pretty words strung together is not necessarily art. So, therefore that's not really applicable to this argument. In other words, the people of this movement had a prerequisite that the work has to actually be "art." Hence, art for art's sake. Not art for meaningless drivel's sake.
"Art for art's sake" does not preclude content.
The Birth of Tragedy; I think his ideas on the subject deserve the highest regard.
This is my opinion.
Last edited by AdW2356; 12-15-2006 at 05:19 PM.
Care to elaborate, for those of us who've not read it, AdW?
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.
- John Berryman
That is true, but "Art for art's sake" implies that the artistry of the form is more important than the content. In writing there has to be a balance that leans toward the content being emphasized over the form, but writing must conform to gramatical forms, or it will not be comprehensible.
In an artwork, there is no form without content, as there is no content without form.
Surely, they are not seperating the two.
She knows all about "art for art's sake."
Jon1jt
Thank you for sharing Auden's wisdom.
PeterL, I would like to elaborate. Yet, its' ideas are so very fleet and often misinterpreted. The book takes a stance from which the existence of the world is justified only as an aesthetic phenomena. Morality, itself a phenomena, is seen among the 'deceptions' as "an illusion, delusion, error, interpretation, artifice, art."
I have seen visual art that had no content beyond the form itself.
Isn't this "art for art's sake" necessarily attempting to divorce human effort from its social and natural background? There would be no art without nature and society, and to suggest that art can stand alone, separated from its necessary origins seems absurd.
Yes, art can seem to be lacking content--in that case the form itself is an appeal to nature. It doesn't have to appeal to human sensibilties, but the mere fact that it does not should not mean that it stands as its own origin.
Interesting discussion.
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
James Joyce, the pirate.Why don't you write books people can read? -Nora Barnacle
Insupportable claim: Reading my stories will make you a better person. Do your best to prove me right.http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=20367
This is an interesting discussion. I won't add my thoughts yet. But let me throw this in as food for thought: what about music? How does a Beethoven symphony, clearly high art and yet having no intellectual content (it's all abstract), fit into this discusson?
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
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