Friday, December 6, 2019
Art and Happiness (Maybe Not Broken This Time)
Hi all,
Sorry if anyone has seen my crazy broken blog. I don't know what is happening or how to fix it so, if I'm allowed, I'm going to link to the google doc I had been working on.
Here it is (Ta da)
Have a wonderful break everyone,
Martin
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Excellent job Martin, and thank you for the special thanks. I’d like to follow up on the point Martin makes at the end of the post, that you can’t know yourself without art. To me, that is the relevance of this book to happiness. It turns out that art – as developed by Collingwood – is crucial to happiness. For Collingwood, art proper must be distinguished from pseudo-art, which regards the material work of art as the intended means towards a preconceived end. He characterizes pseudo-art as amusement (with the purpose of arousing emotion to be discharged in make-believe) and magic (with the purpose of arousing emotion to be discharged in practical life). Art proper is the expression of the emotion of the artist without a purpose of arousing emotion in an audience. The audience is important only to confirm for the artist that he or she has said (through the poem, or song, or painting, etc.) what they – the artists – were trying to say. And through “overhearing” the artist’s feelings, one can understand them as an expression of their own feelings. Collingwood says that “when a person reads and understands a poem, he is not merely understanding the poet’s emotions, he is expressing emotions of his own in the poet’s words, which have become his own words…. We know he is expressing his emotions by the fact that he is enabling us to express ours.” In attempting to express emotions, we discover our own feelings. You can’t know yourself without art. And since Socrates, knowing yourself has been part of the canon of happiness thinking. If you want to get a feel for what he’s saying, watch videos of two of Hank Williams’s songs; i.e, “I’m So lonesome I Could Cry” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WXYjm74WFI), and “Hey Good Lookin” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjCoKslQOEs). One is amusement (with the purpose of entertainment of the audience), and one is art proper, the expression by the artist of his own feelings and emotions, which when “overheard” can be the expression of the hearer’s own similar emotions through the artist’s words.
ReplyDeleteIf you can't know yourself without art, Plato really missed the boat when he proposed banning artists from his utopian republic. (In fact he missed the boat whether you can or not, I think.)
DeleteI don't know about the Hank illustration. Is "I'm so Lonesome" really so much more artsy than "Hey Good Lookin'"? I say no, even if Collingwood says I'm a philistine. Anyway, I don't know art but I know what I like. Maybe we should ask our friend Art?
Can things found in nature, such as a sunrise or misty mountains, be considered works of art? If so, who is the artist? Or does there need to be one?
DeleteThe artist is the audience, even an audience of one if there's no one around to share the sunrise with you. This is part of the point of Dewey's "Art as Experience": we're our own experts, our own curators of aesthetic experience as it comes to us in everyday life. "The tense grace of the ballplayer" (etc.) speaks directly to those of us who find it artful. Is this lowbrow? I don't think so, but I'm not going to stop appreciating the ballplayer aesthetic just because some highfalutin critic says I don't know art.
Regarding the DQ: Can things found in nature, such as a sunrise or misty mountains, be considered works of art? If so, who is the artist? Or does there need to be one?
ReplyDeleteSince you raise the question, I am curious to know is Collingwood directly addresses this topic in his book, and if so, what were his thoughts.
As an avid hiker, I wish to pitch in here. While I recognize that there is a lot a talent behind the art (both professional and passion), but I find that I see more beauty in a sunset, an overcast day, a clear lake, or mountains rising up out of the acres of forest. I find the woods to be more beautiful than the grandest cathedral. I do not know if Collingwood would consider it "art" under his definition, but I do see the beauty in nature and to me that is good enough to be called art.