PART 9 - THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AESTHETIC VIEW

The eighteenth century was dominated by British and French aesthetic theory with its strong interest in social theories of art but the nineteenth century as we will soon see was shaped by German thinkers who were fascinated by universal psychological and spiritual experiences. Some of the key names of the era were: Goethe, Humboldt, Schiller, Schelling, Schlegel, kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Wackenroder, Novalis and Schopenhauer. The overall mood of the period resonated with humanity's inherent need to establish a harmony with nature and achieve the mind's need for unity and purpose.

Nature was a model of what art and harmonious human existence should be for nature revealed clarity, utility and order. So it occurred to thinkers that a well-functioning mind should likewise be clear, balanced and well-functioning. Art that was based on the appreciative observation of natural pattern, balance, form, beauty, etc. would therefore have natural characteristics and in this way would assist humankind in achieving rational harmony and purposeful tranquility in thought and action.

There was a renewed interest in Greek Classical art at the beginning of the 19th century because Greek art and architecture featured unity, clarity and naturalness. This love of Classical art was a carryover of the rationalism of 18th century thinkers like Thomas Jefferson. It was evident to people like him that the Greek sculptors for instance had studied the human body and discerned its natural perfection and lawful construction. The beauty of Greek art had already prompted the Renaissance artist to copy Greek examples but the nineteenth century saw more of nature in Greek art and less of the philosophical idealism of Plato and Aristotle. The nineteenth century was more organic putting nature and observation firsthand and Greek philosophy in a secondary position unlike the Renaissance with its fascination with Greek texts and theories.

As the nineteenth century progressed the focus on nature expanded so that human consciousness and its ability to execute Judgment, determination and reflective states of mind while engaged in aesthetic activity became the life work of Kant who prompted a true psychology of art which he called "The Critique of Judgment." This much read work revolutionized aesthetic thinking forever.

Kant laid out principles of how the human mind bridges (through the 5 senses) the inner and outer realms of thought and the outer world of active experience. Kant was fascinated by aesthetics and how the meta-esthetical state of bridging could impact ones moral and ethical understanding. The idea was that nature's beauty and inherent design could filter into the deepest parts of the mind and prompt one to behave harmoniously, lawfully, reflectively and ultimately- morally.

Goethe then took Kant's ideas of the pure beauty of nature and human consciousness and enlarged them by focusing on Kant's interest in the sublime. The sublime has to do with experiences in nature that are so vast that they transcend the minds ability to fully grasp them. Included in the sublime would be the idea of outer-space, the vastness of the sea, mountains which are so large they cannot be fully known, blinding snowstorms, massive earthquakes, the revolving of the earth on its axis, etc.

Goethe said that art should attempt to evoke sublime awe and further, that art was a moral symbol of a state-of-being that was spiritual in essence and awesome because moral laws protect and harmonize society in the same way that the laws of nature keep it in balance.

Goethe stressed the importance of human imagination and its harmonious fusion with the intellect. Let the imagination lead you, he would say onto sublime thoughts and let those thoughts take you to moral insights on the purposes of existence including most importantly, human love which creates the desire for beauty.

Think he would say of how much art has stemmed from the experience of love and of the state of being in love as a sublime mind expanding state of consciousness. It is why we link love and Romance which are beyond our ability to fully understand. They have sublime features and the nineteenth century celebrated love in remarkable and complex ways because of the awe we have of loves power. Examples of a mother who out of love would die to protect a child or a man his family or the heroic ideal of dying for ones country. All of these were themes in 19th century art and literature and why Napoleon was able to convince over a million young Frenchmen to die for him and his romantic ideals of conquest.

Eventually the sublime of Goethe was taken up by many of the above thinkers who added mystical, romantic and religious ideas to the list. Wackenroder for instance said that art is a form of natural religious experience though it had no doctrine specifically. Novalis spoke of a mystical and magical universe which the human imagination was at-one with. There was much talk and poetic expression of the dream-life and even of aesthetic prophecy with the artist seen as a mystic, prophet and seer as in the case of William Blake and Samuel Palmer. Casper David Frederich, the German painter produced art that had mystical, prophetic qualities and was dominated by sublime images of mountains, fog banks, the vastness of the ocean or sky etc. Blake, like Casper Frederich used the Bible for visionary and mystical imagery in addition to seeking it in nature.

There was a renewed interest in Dante's "Divine Comedy" in the nineteenth century because Dante the 14th century Italian poet acted as a prophet and evoked awesome and mind-bogglingly sublime images in his poetic writings. Dore the great French 19th century illustrator illustrated the "Divine Comedy" with sublime views of heaven filled with angelic beings or hell filled with monsters and fearful and monstrous creatures.

So the view of these German thinkers was given powerful expression by artists who called themselves Romantics. The list is long but some of the key nineteenth century artists following Goethe and the other thinkers included in addition to the several listed: Geracault, Goya, Delacroix, Turner, Constable, Van Gogh for example in painting. In literature: Dickens, Hugo, Dostoevsky and in poetry: Wordsworth, Whitman, Emerson, Keats, Coleridge, Byron etc.

Here the poet/painter/writer is a seer who brings us into contact with the infinite, sublime, transcendent in order to transform our limited thinking and move us into deep insights and intentional living.