Oh hail the Abhorsen Lizzie!
Theme song now: Arkarna - So Little Time
So little time... so much to do...
And the Lizzie version...
Don't you just want to SCREW IT ALL?
Downloaded Danny Elfman's The Piano Duet... The one in the Corpse Bride OST. =D
And then, there's Anela's notes:
The Morphology of Arts as a Branch of Aesthetics
By: Thomas Munro
1. Aesthetics as a way of studying the arts
• What is aesthetics?
- “A Philosophy of Beauty”
- A subject that aims primarily at a theoretical understanding of the arts and
related modes of behavior and experience; deals with all the arts
- It investigates not only products but also the process and abilities involved in
creating, using, enjoying, appreciating and evaluating the arts
- It is not confined to any one period of art but compares the different periods to
reveal their common and divergent traits
- Could find out and demonstrate some eternal “laws” of beauty, inherent in the
Universe
• Why study aesthetics?
- To satisfy an intellectual curiosity about the arts and their place in human experience
- In art, we should not only look at the artwork but also dig deep and examine the procedure and abilities
2. Its transition to science
• Aesthetics becomes more empirical, basing its conclusions on the observation of works of art and related phenomena
• Aesthetics is a humanistic science (man and his arts are contrasted with nature
• 3 Prerequisites to the scientific study of arts:
1. Psychology: general, naturalistic conception of human nature
2. Anthropology: shows how art arises and functions in different cultural settings and changes as a factor in social evolution
3. Securing of an extensive range of works of art for observation, representing nearly all major art-producing cultures and periods
§ Humanistic subjects can progress gradually toward scientific status as the prerequisites are used to develop it. Scientific status: observe and describe their phenomena more accurately, infer by controlled logical methods , to guard against prejudice, classify results systematically, formulate and test hypotheses about recurrent phenomena, predict and control outcomes with increasing reliability
* Aesthetics becomes more empirical, concerned with observing and describing concrete data, becomes less purely abstract, less highly generalized, there is a more analytic observation of a particular work of art alone or in comparison with one or two others
§ There is a close cooperation between the philosophic and scientific approaches to aesthetics
3. Description and Evaluation
§ Description:
- Confusion arises when statements of fact are mixed with judgment of value; yet values are facts in one sense (a peculiar kind of fact, unusually hard to investigate empirically)
§ Evaluation:
- One must observe not only the artwork itself but its effects and functions, its consequence in human action and experience along various lines.
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* Axiology or value theory: praising or condemning a style or art
* Its chief concern is with the nature and varieties of form in the arts
4. Aesthetic morphology as descriptive study of aesthetic form
§ Two main groups of phenomena:
1. Works of art
- Concern is for aesthetic morphology
- Describing the works of art: how it affects observers, social functions for which they are adapted
- Attention on the products
- Pays close attention to both forms and ingredients in art; to their interrelations and mutual influences
- Describes the nature and varieties of form in the arts and by extension in other objects of human or natural origin, in so far as they are used as stimuli to aesthetic experience
2. Consists of related human activities, modes of behavior and experience
- Concern is aesthetic psychology
- Describing behavior and experience in the aesthetic realm: focus upon works of art (before and after)
- Attention on the people who make and use them
* There are FORMS in both these phenomena
* Morphology: to study of the forms which are observable in works of art
8 Aesthetic Axiology refers to both AM and AP
§ Form: mode of arrangement, includes physical and chemical structure of objects and events
Task of aesthetic morphology to distinguish these various kinds of form:
a. Elements, details, parts, materials, ideas or other ingredients involved
b. The ways in w/c these are interrelated
* Kinds of forms are what AM tries to analyze, compare, describe and classify
§ Functioning of art: the ways in w/c it pleases or displeases people
§ Apperception is the sense perception w/c involves a comparatively large amount of interpretation and understanding of meanings
5. Difficulties in observing and describing works of art
§ The complexity, subtlety and variety of forms in art are so elusive and intangible as to defy normal modes of observation
§ Difficulty in finding words for describing art w/c will not imply evaluation, praise or disparagement: must be accepted by all kinds of people
§ Over-specialization in studies of the arts: terms are used differently in different branches
6. Aims and values of aesthetic morphology
§ Form: entire structure of each individual example, its particular selection of materials and its way of arranging them; individual form is what distinguishes AM from other kinds of morphologies
§ Aims and values:
- Primarily intellectual and scientific
- Classify particular works of art under different headings (i.e. epic, lyric sonata etc.)
- Pointing out how it exemplifies this or that quality, style or historic trend
- Studies the peculiarities of individual artists and their works provide the basis for all judgments of value and of greatness
- Improves techniques for perceiving and understanding the distinctive nature of a particular work of art
§ Morphology: begins and ends with detailed, analytical observation of the work of art, along with the attempt by each observer to report objectively what he has seen or heard; comparison of findings by many observers. It is gradually building a tested body of knowledge about the forms and species of form in art; we proceed to study how each kind of art operated in human experience: its functions and effects, actual and possible, under varying life conditions
