Stevens Blog

J O Urmson: What Makes a Situation Aesthetic?

This question is simple enough for an amateur photographer to consider. Really, if you found yourself in an orchard, and above you are laterally-consistent, high contrast clouds with a dim blue sky backdrop; in each direction around you are long and straight rows of apple trees; beneath you is freshly-tilled earth; and every leaf is side-lit by a fading sun, can you say this situation is aesthetic? Or, put another way, is that sudden flush of inner pleasure to be considered an “aesthetic response?” And, if you took a picture accurately representing this scene, and you intended this photo to evoke a similar inner pleasure to what you have now standing there, is your photograph strictly aesthetic? Or, will your photograph evoke a response different than just aesthetic, say intellectual or spiritual?

These questions are what frame J O Urmson’s evaluation of an aesthetic situation. His primary argument is that there need to be established criteria used to evaluate an aesthetic situation (the orchard), p. 20. Some examples that could be used as criteria are: repeated patterns; how the photograph looks; what type of medium on which it is presented; to what degree the photograph differs from the real-life scene; the colors present in the orchard and photograph; and, the difficulty involved in taking a photograph. These might apply to a photograph, but Urmson deals more broadly with situations and avoids saying that “art” is what is meant when we think of “aesthetics.”

Some sources of aesthetic pleasure:
Scenery
Natural objects
Formal logic
Wines and the gourmet (p.20)

Urmson wants to know how we can know when our response to the orchard (and its photograph) is not economic, personal, intellectual, moral, or spiritual. Think about it slowly: when you see that orchard, do you first think “Profit!”? Do you think, “My hard work has really paid-off” (if it’s your orchard)? Do you think, “The minute biological details of this area affect the greater culture and the climate of the planet”? What about, “As long as this orchard isn’t endangering any rare species of animals I’m ok with it”? Or even, “I can really connect with God out here”? These may be your first response. But, the aesthetic response is, “Wow! How beautiful and pleasing to just look at this, to take it all in.” This fits well with Urmson’s view of the functional view of aesthetics.

Urmson says that if something looks like it has a desirable characteristic, its looks ipso facto [by that very fact] deserve an aesthetic response, and that makes the situation aesthetic (25). So, if the orchard looks like it has the characteristic of becoming a great photograph, the looks of the orchard are worthy of a strictly aesthetic response, not the other responses mentioned above. The function of the looks is to evoke a pleasing response. And most regularly an ocular [of or pertaining to the eye] pleasure. For Urmson, “Beauty is not even skin-deep.” (25)

He has a very nice quote regarding the basic aesthetic response to a rose:
If I admire a rose because of its scent and you then ask me why I admire
its scent I should not in a normal context know what you want.

Urmson does point out that we can have an aesthetic response mixed with the other responses (moral, etc., p. 21). The orchard can please the eyes and the wallet. There can be degrees of the aesthetic response: tolerable to extremely pleased (21). He also says an aesthetic “tolerable” judgment is different from a judgment without any aesthetic response.

To his main argument, Urmson does concede that it’s over-optimistic to find precise principles of evaluation. Instead, overlap of these criteria will occur (24). The examples above about the criteria for a photograph will probably face deterioration as set rules for determining the orchard as aesthetic, but there can be general guidelines.

Finally, I haphazardly came across a non-philosopher’s perspective on this subject. Chris Cote, Editor in Chief of Transworld Surf magazine, wrote about the harsh juxtaposition of the Southern California fires in 2008 with the perfect surf that came in during such fires. The skies were orange, homes were burning down, lives were devastated, and hill-sides were scarred. He called the images of the surf and the fires “on both ends of gorgeous and ghastly- two forms of beauty, I guess you could say” (Feb. 2008). Urmson says that beauty and ugly are specialized descriptor words that we don’t really know the meaning of. “We have no independent way of knowing whether we are aware of beauty or ugliness on the one hand or rightness and wrongness on the other” (22). If Cote is right- if the vastly different content of the photos are both “beautiful”- that does not necessitate that they are both aesthetic. Could just taking the pictures be immoral? What about taking pictures of a corpse at a crime scene: is this aesthetic? This question leads into my next blog on the categories of photographs.

Application:
What situations have you recently come across that you felt were purely aesthetic?
Is beauty not even skin-deep, as Urmson claims? In other words, when you look at a person and say, “I find this person very attractive,” is it fair to say that your response is aesthetic strictly because you find certain features about the person to be possessing what you understand as aesthetically pleasing features?
From a child’s perspective:
Why do you enjoy the taste of chocolate so much?

Weitz says theory in aesthetics is “never forthcoming”

The first article I am evaluating is titled “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics” by Morris Weitz. He finds the pursuit of necessary and sufficient conditions to be applied to art pointless. Weitz would say no one can determine “art” as a closed-concept because what we call art is always changing. New art movements and pieces are looked-at through the history of art, and the history of art gives us some criteria to apply to new art. History of art will also show us that what we call art is always changing.
Art is not a closed-concept like math and logic are. This is Weitz’s point, but it is open to debate. A closed-concept is a concept (math, language, truth, life, etc.) that has fixed definitions which are logically sound and determine a “fenced-off” arena of debate. Math is a closed-concept because there are certain conditions that concepts must meet in order to be considered “math.” Something like “truth” as a concept is an open-concept because there are many factors that make-up the things we consider truth, and those factors get very complex, as do they for art. Here’s an example.
We have an image. We want to know if this image can be called “photographic art” or something else, say “graphic art.” The first thing we do is reference other works we call “photograph” and make a comparison. We have seen other works that inherently demonstrate the criteria for a “photograph,” criteria like, “visual, produced via a capture media, representing some physical phenomena, thematic…” But let’s say this new work employs some strictly digital elements as part of the image, say paintbrush strokes while edited in Adobe Photoshop. Do we include it into the “photograph” category? Or, do we emend [to make corrections] the category of “photograph” to now include the new work? This short example can use a lot more exploration. But, it does show the challenge of fencing-off what we call “art.”

Some projects that challenge the definition of “photograph”:
-Exposing 3-dimensional objects as a silhouette onto photo-sensitive
paper in a darkroom.
-Sequencing individual photographs to convey a message, but not
the 29.97fps video image capture.

Application: Which option can you see yourself enjoying more?
1) First explore new methods and results in photography, then worry about defining it later?
2) Get a good grasp on what defines photography, then a priori [preceding experience] set-out to challenge the definition of photography?

This entry begins my journey through a large textbook that will establish a framework from which I can posit the nature of visual art, and photography in particular. “Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition,” edited by Peter LeMarque and Stein Haugom Olsen, is an anthology that examines the current discoveries in the sub –field of philosophy known as aesthetics. Chapter titles include: “What Makes a Situation Aesthetic?” “Categories of Art,” “The Constructivist’s Dilemma,” and “How Can We Fear and Pity Fictions?”

There are a total 543 pages in this anthology, all covered in approximately size 10 font, double-column format. What motivates me to explore this topic is the curious power that images have on the emotions, dreams, values, and abilities of pictorial art audiences. I want to know why I, and many others, are moved somewhere inside when we view an exceptional photograph, and I want to know what makes an exceptional photograph.

The book is very heady. I plan to consult other sources to help expand the highly condensed content found in Aesthetics. One such resource is “The Oxford Guide to Philosophy” edited by Ted Honderich. Only $10 at Borders, this thick yet light print provides field-standard definitions of philosophical terms, as well as descriptions of contributions made by the many philosophers throughout the previous centuries. From page 13 of this helpful work, I insert a short definition of aesthetics as it is known in the field of philosophy: “Aesthetics is that branch of philosophy which deals with the arts, and with other situations that involve aesthetic experience and aesthetic value. Thus only part of aesthetics is the philosophy of art. The rest, which might be termed the philosophy of the aesthetic, centres [sic] on the nature of aesthetic responses and judgements [sic].”

Come back to this blog if you find the formal evaluation of art, under which category photography falls, interesting.

SS 06-07-2010

I’m teaching free photo classes for anyone who wants to learn practical tools about their camera and photography. I’ve seen many pictures posted and in albums, and I have seen those pictures taken in person at various birthdays, parties, outings, and sundry events. One of the main reasons for photography is remembrance. When with friends we want to have proof of the event to conjure-up our memory. Photo-aids are great for this exercise. There are a couple of tricks that take virtually no time to make these catalogue pictures even better. My classes will explain these in person, which I believe is the best way to learn.

This is Steven. No, not the lame spam hacker that put a bunch of nasty links on my website that I left untouched for over three years. This is the one who you probably know if you are reading this. I’ll be attempting to moderate this blog, and when I feel it’s safe I’ll be posting an active blog here to offer intellectual fodder. Stay posted.

-SS 12-14-2009