Kant’s Aesthetic Theory and the Philosophy of Art
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What Is Kant’s Criterion for Recognizing Art?
Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgement is the most important contribution to aesthetics. Kant creates a criterion for recognizing and assessing art, which remains influential to this day.
Kant describes four stages in the aesthetic judgement of beauty:
- Disinterestedness: There should be no feelings of the object or strong emotions aroused.
- Universality: The object should be beautiful to all who behold it.
- Purposiveness: Judgements of the beautiful have no end or purpose.
- Necessity: Judgements of beauty have an element of necessity.
The link between the object and the subject is one of a particular form of pleasure felt by the subject for the object in itself.
Art as a Representation and Its Problems
The view that art can convey truth and go beyond mere imitation has become predominant in Western art. It began with Aristotle, who thought that art could convey universal truths and that it was especially adept at doing so in an understandable manner.
Problems with Representation
- Forgeries: Forgeries are not considered art because they fail to bring anything new out of the subject.
- Non-representational Art: Abstract art in both painting and sculpture holds significant value despite lacking representation.
- Defining Truth: It is difficult to define in what sense art represents truth or how to measure it.
- Intrinsic Value: Art possesses an intrinsic value apart from its representational qualities.
Is Form the Essence of Art?
If you take a strictly formalist approach to art, you are considering only its formal features. However, how can you separate, for example, the lines of a painting from what they are supposed to represent?
In the case of genuinely abstract art, this may be possible, but even then, there is a distinct tendency to find mental comparisons between the image and things that it reminds us of. Even music, the most abstract art form of all, frequently draws a link between the formal element and a representational element.