1 Schopenhauer and art
This lesson briefly combs the aesthetic and ethical theories of these three people. For me, the most unforgettable aesthetic theory comes from Schopenhauer. Because I didn't bring "The World as Will and Representation (I)", here I will start by introducing how Schopenhauer subverts my understanding of art. I can't quote specific words here, and my explanation will not be particularly accurate. Please forgive me.
Schopenhauer believes that works of art are about presenting ideas. The concept here does not mean what truth or information the artist is trying to convey. For example, a hero reminds people what kind of personality is commendable. On the contrary, the concept refers to the thing itself, and such knowledge is pure sensory knowledge without anyone's judgment. This theory is based on Schopenhauer's metaphysics and "follows" Kang's transcendentalism. Schopenhauer believes that the world consists of two aspects. On the one hand, the world is a kind of blind and chaotic will, which promotes the development of the world, that is, what Kant said is the thing itself and the thing itself. On the other hand, the world is the phenomenology of this will, which has many forms of expression. For example, whether people, plants, animals or bricks, the same will presents its own form in different degrees through time and space. Because of the limitation of time and space, things are endowed with individuality. In this appearance, because we and our vitality are the expression of this will, when we only see the appearance of things and their individuality, our most natural reaction is to profit for our own survival and hurt other things.
Schopenhauer believes that the value of art lies in that it can help us become more perfect and less selfish. Because art presents ideas, ideas are no longer objects in the world of representation, but objects themselves, which transcend time and space, so we no longer look at them with what kind of relationship this thing has with me. For example, when a selfish person sees another person, he may think about whether this person has the resources I want and what kind of relationship she has with me. The idea is to present what it is.
Although many people in later generations questioned the existence and knowability of the thing itself, how can we say that we know the thing itself and try to describe how it exists if we can only know it in a way beyond our cognition, that is, beyond time and space? ), although this concept is not perfect, it is still very valuable to me. My understanding of art is greatly influenced by this theory. In my opinion, art is no longer just works that look beautiful, have vague meaning and are too abstract. But by a group of artists who pay close attention to things themselves and the world. In fact, this is similar to the concept of attention mentioned in my previous article, that is, Weil's attention is similar to the concept of seeing things themselves. Now when I look at these works again, attention will ask me to pay attention to what the painter sees or what the thing itself is, and how it is different from my understanding and cognition.
2 Art exhibition
I went to see the "Monet and Chicago" art exhibition today. Because I don't know much about art and want to maximize the value of this rare exhibition opportunity, I asked James H. Rubin, a professor of art history, to write Monet (The World of Art) a week ago.
There are many wonderful answers on how to watch art exhibitions in Zhihu. Among them, quite a few professionals understand and suggest not to read anything for the exhibition. Because art transcends the category of reason. Trying to understand and analyze works by reading books misses the original meaning of art. People should trust their intuition and use intuition to understand what artists want to convey [1]. Therefore, visitors are advised to browse the whole exhibition quickly and remember the location of their favorite paintings. Then we went to the second round to see the house in more detail, stopped at their favorite place and read the introduction above. [2]
As a layman, I prefer to read relevant books before the exhibition. Because some books can provide professional guidance, the exhibition will be clearer, more targeted and more comprehensive. My personal preference is that if I don't understand a concept at all, many times, when things are clearly in front of me, I won't and can't see them. So if you must read a book, you actually need more energy to choose a suitable book. I like this book very much because the professor kept teaching me how to look at Monet's paintings and why those places are unique, which made it have a certain weight in the history of art. When faced with similar paintings, it can help me to know them more clearly.
Reading this book also made me realize that viewing exhibitions requires a more comprehensive understanding of painting. The history of art, like the history of philosophy, and perhaps the history of any discipline, is constantly overthrowing the theories of predecessors, establishing its own innovation and pushing forward history. These are not presented in detail in independent art exhibitions. Although the general exhibitions in art institute of chicago are arranged according to the art history. However, because it is placed in the actual space, if visitors don't think carefully about the purpose behind the exhibition or read the introduction carefully, they will be in a fog to some extent.
This exhibition is arranged according to the time and theme of Monet's paintings. This is roughly the same arrangement as Racine's book. Another advantage of reading is to reduce my museum fatigue. Instead of spending a lot of energy to absorb all the information on the exhibition wall, I can appreciate these paintings more purely and recall what I read in a less distracting way. To my surprise, because Monet is a workaholic, although there are nearly 65,438+059 paintings in Rahim's book, most of the paintings I saw in the exhibition have never been mentioned or seen, but they are of the same period/style.
Although I have talked so much about the benefits of reading, I have to admit that many times reading can't help me think independently and explore ways to communicate with painting. Therefore, it is still necessary for readers to consider and choose the method that suits them. After all, I have not received an orthodox art education, so the feelings written here are not the most complete and correct. If anyone knows, please leave a message at the bottom and correct it.
Monet and Chicago and Monet
Art institute of chicago is the first museum in the United States to collect Monet's paintings. Therefore, the exhibition hall and exhibition hall official website have detailed explanations on the history of sponsors and Monet's paintings in Chicago, so I won't introduce them here. Rubin's changes in Monet's life, painting style and theme will not be combed here. I will briefly summarize some viewpoints of Impressionism, which will be helpful for future readers to understand Monet or Impressionism.
Impressionism and Monet have many innovations in the history of art, among which the main element is 1. Impressionism broke the tradition of studio painting in the past, and outdoor painting became more active and more in touch with natural things. 2. In the past, painters liked to give priority to lines, followed by colors, that is, they thought that colors were only used to fill the picture frames set up by lines. Impressionism, on the other hand, uses a lot of colors and seldom uses bright lines.
Compared with the traditional academic school, the Impressionist Revolution led art to modern art, headed by Manet, and through the more vague painting background, people challenged the idea that refined painting style was more valuable and made more efforts for painting. But this does not mean that Monet's early paintings did not truly and vividly reflect what he observed. On the contrary, many critics support Impressionism, because Monet still retains his true observation of nature. But unlike the academic school, Monet's painting objects generally have no meaning. For example, many traditional painters will use different ancient Greek gods as representatives in the four seasons, while Monet painted the four seasons purely to express the light and atmosphere of the environment in the most realistic way.
Rubin mentioned in the book that the artistic tradition dominated by lines and the culture dominated by men are inseparable from their advocacy of rationality. Lines and colors are the two most basic and different elements. He wrote,
Although Monet is not as interested in using art and political thoughts as some painters, his style has also broken the tradition of paying attention to lines. In addition, when he painted water lily series in Monet's later period, he changed from positivism, that is, the most concrete expression technique observed by the naked eye, to a more dreamy and imaginative symbolism style.
In this article, I briefly introduced Schopenhauer's understanding of art, discussed the choice between art exhibition and reading, and the recent Monet and Chicago art exhibitions and James H. Rubin's Monet (The World of Art).
Quote:
[ 1] [2]? /question/302 15 1534/answer/ 1595 1887 15
[3]? Henry james Rubin. Monet By the Thames. Hudson, 2020.