What is the concept of art. §3

INTRODUCTION

One of the main tasks of our society facing the system of modern education is the formation of a culture of personality. The relevance of this task is connected with the revision of the system of life and artistic and aesthetic values. The formation of the culture of the younger generation is impossible without referring to the artistic values ​​accumulated by society in the course of its existence. Thus, the need to study the foundations of art history becomes obvious.

In order to fully understand the art of a certain era, it is necessary to navigate in art history terminology. Know and understand the essence of each of the arts. Only in the case of possession of a categorical-conceptual system, a person will be able to fully realize the aesthetic value of art monuments.

CLASSIFICATION OF ARTS

Art (creative reflection, reproduction of reality in artistic images.) exists and develops as a system of interrelated types, the diversity of which is due to the versatility of itself (the real world, displayed in the process of artistic creation.

Art forms are historically established forms of creative activity that have the ability to artistically realize life content and differ in the ways of its material embodiment (word in literature, sound in music, plastic and color materials in fine arts, etc.).

In modern art history literature, a certain scheme and system of classification of arts has developed, although there is still no single one and they are all relative. The most common scheme is its division into three groups.

The first includes spatial or plastic arts. For this group of arts, spatial construction is essential in revealing the artistic image - Fine Arts, Decorative and Applied Arts, Architecture, Photography.

The second group includes temporary or dynamic arts. In them, the composition unfolding in time - Music, Literature - acquires key importance.
The third group is spatio-temporal types, which are also called synthetic or spectacular arts - Choreography, Literature, Theater Arts, Cinematography.

The existence of various types of arts is due to the fact that none of them, by its own means, can give an artistic comprehensive picture of the world. Such a picture can only be created by the entire artistic culture of mankind as a whole, consisting of individual types of art.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ARTS

ARCHITECTURE

Architecture (Greek "architecton" - "master, builder") is a monumental art form, the purpose of which is to create structures and buildings necessary for the life and activities of mankind, responding to the utilitarian and spiritual needs of people.

The forms of architectural structures depend on geographical and climatic conditions, on the nature of the landscape, the intensity of sunlight, seismic safety, etc.

Architecture is more closely connected than other arts with the development of the productive forces, with the development of technology. Architecture is able to combine with monumental painting, sculpture, decorative and other arts. The basis of the architectural composition is the three-dimensional structure, the organic interconnection of the elements of a building or an ensemble of buildings. The scale of the structure largely determines the nature of the artistic image, its monumentality or intimacy.

Architecture does not reproduce reality directly; it is not pictorial, but expressive.

ART

Fine art is a group of types of artistic creativity that reproduce visually perceived reality. Works of art have an objective form that does not change in time and space. Fine arts include: painting, graphics, sculpture.

GRAPHIC ARTS

Graphics (translated from Greek - "I write, draw") is, first of all, drawing and artistic printed works (engraving, lithography). It is based on the possibilities of creating an expressive art form by using lines, strokes and spots of different colors applied to the surface of the sheet.

Graphics preceded painting. At first, a person learned to capture the outlines and plastic forms of objects, then to distinguish and reproduce their colors and shades. The mastery of color was a historical process: not all colors were mastered at once.

The specifics of graphics are linear relationships. By reproducing the forms of objects, it conveys their illumination, the ratio of light and shadow, etc. Painting captures the real ratios of the colors of the world, in color and through color it expresses the essence of objects, their aesthetic value, calibrates their social purpose, their correspondence or contradiction to the environment. .

In the process of historical development, color began to penetrate into drawing and printed graphics, and now drawing with colored crayons - pastel, and color engraving, and painting with water colors - watercolor and gouache are already included in graphics. In various literature on art history, there are different points of view about graphics. In some sources, graphics is a type of painting, while in others it is a separate subspecies of fine art.

PAINTING

Painting is a flat visual art, the specificity of which lies in the representation with the help of paints applied to the surface of the image of the real world, transformed by the creative imagination of the artist.

Painting is divided into:

Monumental - fresco (from Italian Fresco) - painting on wet plaster with paints diluted in water and mosaic (from French mosaiqe) an image of colored stones, smalt (Smalt - colored transparent glass.), Ceramic tiles.

Easel (from the word "machine") - a canvas that is created on an easel.

Painting is represented by a variety of genres (Genre (French genre, from Latin genus, genitive generis - genus, species) is an artistic, historically established internal division in all types of art.):

The portrait is the main task to convey an idea of ​​the external appearance of a person, to reveal the inner world of a person, to emphasize his individuality, psychological and emotional image.

Landscape - reproduces the surrounding world in all its variety of forms. The image of the seascape is defined by the term marinism.

Still life - the image of household items, tools, flowers, fruits. Helps to understand the worldview and way of a certain era.

Historical genre - tells about historically important moments in the life of society.

Household genre - reflects the daily life of people, the temper, customs, traditions of a particular ethnic group.

Icon painting (translated from Greek as "prayer image") is the main goal of directing a person on the path of transformation.

Animalism is the depiction of an animal as the protagonist of a work of art.

In the XX century. the nature of painting is changing under the influence of technological progress (the appearance of photo and video equipment), which leads to the emergence of new forms of art - multimedia art.

SCULPTURE

Sculpture is a spatial and visual art that explores the world in plastic images.

The main materials used in sculpture are stone, bronze, marble, wood. At the present stage of development of society, technological progress, the number of materials used to create sculptures has expanded: steel, plastic, concrete and others.

There are two main types of sculpture: volumetric three-dimensional (circular) and relief:

High relief - high relief,

Bas-relief - low relief,

Counter-relief - mortise relief.

By definition, sculpture is monumental, decorative, easel.

Monumental - used to decorate the streets and squares of the city, designate historically important places, events, etc. Monumental sculpture includes:

monuments,

monuments,

Memorials.

Easel - designed for inspection from a close distance and is designed to decorate the interior.

Decorative - used to decorate everyday life (small plastic items).

DECORATIVE AND APPLIED ART.

Decorative and applied art is a kind of creative activity in the creation of household items designed to meet the utilitarian and artistic and aesthetic needs of people.

Decorative and applied arts include products made from a variety of materials and using various technologies. The material for the subject of DPI can be metal, wood, clay, stone, bone. The technical and artistic methods of manufacturing products are very diverse: carving, embroidery, painting, chasing, etc. The main characteristic feature of the DPI object is decorativeness, which consists in imagery and the desire to decorate, make it better, more beautiful.

Decorative and applied art has a national character. Since it comes from the customs, habits, beliefs of a certain ethnic group, it is close to the way of life.

An important component of decorative and applied arts is folk art crafts - a form of organizing artistic work based on collective creativity, developing a local cultural tradition and focused on the sale of handicrafts.

The key creative idea of ​​traditional crafts is the assertion of the unity of the natural and human worlds.

The main folk crafts of Russia are:

Woodcarving - Bogorodskaya, Abramtsevo-Kudrinskaya;

Painting on wood - Khokhloma, Gorodetskaya, Polkhov-Maidanskaya, Mezenskaya;

Decoration of products from birch bark - embossing on birch bark, painting;

Artistic processing of stone - processing of hard and soft stone;

Bone carving - Kholmogory, Tobolsk. Khotkovskaya

Miniature painting on papier-mache - Fedoskino miniature, Palekh miniature, Msterskaya miniature, Kholuy miniature

Artistic processing of metal - Veliky Ustyug black silver, Rostov enamel, Zhostovo painting on metal;

Folk ceramics - Gzhel ceramics, Skopinsky ceramics, Dymkovo toy, Kargopol toy;

Lace making - Vologda lace, Mikhailovsky lace,

Painting on fabric - Pavlovsky shawls and shawls

Embroidery - Vladimirskaya, Color interlace, Gold embroidery.

LITERATURE

Literature is a kind of art in which the material carrier of imagery is the word.

The scope of literature includes natural and social phenomena, various social cataclysms, the spiritual life of the individual, her feelings. In its various genres, literature embraces this material either through a dramatic reproduction of an action, or through an epic narration of events, or through a lyrical self-disclosure of a person's inner world.

The literature is divided into:

artistic

educational

historical

scientific

Reference

The main genres of literature are:

- lyrics- one of the three main genres of fiction, reflects life by depicting a variety of human experiences, a feature of the lyrics is a poetic form.

- Drama- one of the three main genres of fiction, a plot work written in colloquial form and without the author's speech.

- epic- narrative literature, one of the three main genres of fiction, includes:

- epic- a major work of the epic genre.

- Novella- narrative prose (much less often - poetic) genre of literature, representing a small narrative form.

- Tale(story) - a literary genre that is distinguished by a less significant volume, fewer figures, life content and breadth

- Story- An epic work of small size, which differs from the short story in the greater prevalence and arbitrariness of the composition.

- Novel- a large narrative work in prose, sometimes in verse.

- ballad- a lyrical-epic poetic plot work written in stanzas.

- poem- a plot literary work of a lyrical-epic nature in verse.

The specificity of literature is a historical phenomenon, all the elements and constituent parts of a literary work and the literary process, all the features of literature are in constant change. Literature is a living, mobile ideological and artistic system that is sensitive to changes in life. The predecessor of literature is oral folk art.

MUSICAL ART

Music - (from the Greek musike - lit. - the art of muses), a type of art in which musical sounds organized in a certain way serve as a means of embodying artistic images. The main elements and expressive means of music are mode, rhythm, meter, tempo, loud dynamics, timbre, melody, harmony, polyphony, instrumentation. Music is recorded in musical notation and realized in the process of performance.

The division of music into secular and spiritual is accepted. The main area of ​​sacred music is cult. The development of the European musical theory of musical notation and musical pedagogy is connected with European cult music (usually called church music). By performing means, music is divided into vocal (singing), instrumental and vocal-instrumental. Music is often combined with choreography, theatrical art, and cinema. Distinguish music monophonic (monody) and polyphonic (homophony, polyphony). Music is divided into:

For genera and types - theatrical (opera, etc.), symphonic, chamber, etc.;

Genres - song, chorale, dance, march, symphony, suite, sonata, etc.

Musical works are characterized by certain, relatively stable typical structures. Music uses, as a means of embodying reality and human feelings, sound images.

Music in sound images generally expresses the essential processes of life. An emotional experience and an idea colored by feeling, expressed through sounds of a special kind, which are based on the intonations of human speech - such is the nature of a musical image.

CHOREOGRAPHY

Choreography (gr. Choreia - dance + grapho - writing) is a kind of art, the material of which is the movements and postures of the human body, poetically meaningful, organized in time and space, constituting an artistic system.

Dance interacts with music, together with it forming a musical and choreographic image. In this union, each component depends on the other: the music dictates its own laws to the dance and at the same time is influenced by the dance. In some cases, the dance can be performed without music - accompanied by clapping, tapping with heels, etc.

The origins of the dance were: imitation of labor processes; ritual celebrations and ceremonies, the plastic side of which had a certain regulation and semantics; dance spontaneously expressing in movements in movements the culmination of a person's emotional state.

Dance has always, at all times, been associated with the life and way of life of people. Therefore, each dance corresponds to the character, the spirit of the people from whom it originated.

THEATER

Theater is an art form that artistically masters the world through a dramatic action carried out by a creative team.

The basis of the theater is dramaturgy. Synthetic nature of theatrical art determines its collective nature: the performance combines the creative efforts of a playwright, director, artist, composer, choreographer, actor.

Theatrical performances are divided into genres:

- Drama;

- Tragedy;

- Comedy;

- Musical, etc.

Theatrical art has its roots in ancient times. Its most important elements already existed in primitive rites, in totemic dances, in copying the habits of animals, etc.

PHOTO ART.

Photography (gr. Phos (photos) light + grafo I write) is an art that reproduces on a plane, through lines and shadows, in the most perfect way and without the possibility of error, the contour and shape of the object transmitted by it.

A specific feature of photography is the organic interaction of creative and technological processes in it. Photo art developed at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries as a result of the interaction of artistic thought and the progress of photographic science and technology. Its emergence was historically prepared by the development of painting, which was oriented towards a mirror accurate image of the visible world and used the discoveries of geometric optics (perspective) and optical instruments (camera obscura) to achieve this goal.

The specificity of photographic art lies in the fact that it gives a pictorial image of a documentary value.

A photograph gives an artistically expressive image and captures with certainty an essential moment of reality in a frozen image.

Life facts in photography are transferred almost without additional processing from the realm of reality to the realm of art.

CINEMA

Cinema is the art of reproducing on screen moving images captured on film, creating the impression of living reality. Cinema is an invention of the 20th century. Its appearance is determined by the achievements of science and technology in the field of optics, electrical and photographic engineering, chemistry, etc.

Cinema conveys the dynamics of the era; working with time as a means of expression, cinema is able to convey the change of various events in their internal logic.

Cinema is a synthetic art, it includes organic elements such as literature (script, songs), painting (cartoon, scenery in a feature film), theatrical art (acting), music, which serves as a means of complementing the visual image.

Cinema can be conditionally divided into scientific-documentary and fiction.

Film genres are also defined:

Tragedy,

Fiction,

Comedy,

Historical, etc.

CONCLUSION

Culture plays a special role in the improvement of the personality, in the formation of its individual picture of the world, because it accumulates all the emotional, moral and evaluative experience of Mankind.

The problem of artistic and aesthetic education in the formation of the value orientations of the younger generation has become the object of attention of sociologists, philosophers, cultural theorists, and art critics. This educational and reference manual is a small addition to a huge layer of educational material related to the field of art. The author expresses the hope that it will serve as a good help for students, pupils and all who are not indifferent to art.

1. Problem-probable dynamics, or possibility.

However, one should not be carried away by only one becoming and only one action, which distinguishes the object of art from the object of science. It must be remembered all the time that in the field of art we are dealing not simply with action as an organic structure of becoming, but that becoming itself arose here in Aristotle as a result of opposing categorical reasoning (as well as logical necessity) precisely to problem-probable possibility. Only by taking this possibility in the realm of pure reason in the aspect of the becoming and integral possibility organically inherent in it, we for the first time get a more or less complete idea of ​​the object of art.

Aristotle writes: "... The poet's task is not to speak about what happened (ta genomena), but about what could happen, about the possible by probability or necessity" (Poet. 9, 1451 a 36 - b 1). This means that Aristotle broke once and for all with the object of art, as with actual reality. Bare facts, taken by themselves, do not interest the poet. He is interested in what is depicted in what is perceived not in itself, but as a source of other possible objects and representations, or, as we would say, the subject of an artistic image is always symbolic, or rather, expressively symbolic, always points to something else. and calls to another.

Aristotle's thoughts in this regard are quite categorical:

"The historian (158) and the poet differ not in that one speaks in verse, but in the other in prose. After all, the works of Herodotus could be put into verse, and yet it would be the same story in meters as without meters. The difference is that one tells about what happened (ta genomena), the other about what might have happened" (b 1-6).

2. The generalized nature of this possibility.

Finally, according to Aristotle, it is in no way possible to reduce the artistic object, which he declared to be only one possibility, in any way - both in terms of generality and in terms of convincingness of the image. One might think that if the artist is ordered to depict not what is, but what can be, the artist would have his hands untied in relation to the depiction of anything. No, this cannot be in any way, because we will not forget that the entire sphere of possibility is taken from the same theoretical reason, which always operates only in general categories.

“Poetry contains a more philosophical and serious element than history: it is more general, and history is particular. The general consists in depicting what one has to say or do by chance or necessity to a person who has certain qualities. To this Poetry strives by giving the characters names, and the particular, for example, what Alcibiades did, or what happened to him" (b 6-12).

3. The figurative nature of art.

Here it is important to note that the possible, about which art treats, is always characterized by some names. Now we would say otherwise. After all, until now, in principle, only pure, or theoretical, reason, which operates with the help of general categories, has been discussed. But a work of art is not simply a system of logical categories. It is always an image of certain persons with their names and certain actions that take place with these persons. Aristotle has already spoken about the action, but he has not yet spoken about the heroes of a work of art. And only now he says that a work of art always operates with one or another name, that is, with one or another hero bearing one or another name. If in comedy the plot itself is mainly important, and the names can be anything, and if in iambicography there are names, but no actions are depicted (b 12-15), then the situation is completely different in tragedy, where a certain plot is given. myth, that is, a certain set of actions, and "names" are given, that is, heroes who bear certain names belonging to them, and since mythology belongs to the past, the question of its actual reality is no longer raised. Since something was, then it could be; and therefore tragedy fully satisfies the artistic principle of possibility, not to mention its persuasiveness, which follows from this, and, consequently, its peculiar realism, which not only does not contradict the principle of possibility, but just most clearly realizes it.

Here is what we read from Aristotle on this subject:

"In tragedy, names are taken from the past. The reason for this is that a possible [that is, in this case, an incident] is credible. We do not believe in the possibility of what has not yet happened; and what has happened is obvious , perhaps, since it would not have happened if it had not been possible. However, in some tragedies only one or two well-known names occur, while others are fictitious, as, for example, in Agathon's "Flower. In this work both fictitious and events and names, and yet it gives pleasure" (b 15-23).

Not only the breadth of Aristotle’s artistic horizon is important here, but it is also important here that among these arguments about the integrity, generality, and peculiar realism of the mythological image, he does not forget to also say about the pleasure delivered by tragedy (eyphraifiein, or, rather, it would be translated, “joy ").

In conclusion, Aristotle once again emphasizes the non-factual nature of a work of art, namely, its madeness, fabrication, creative design, its virtuoso figurativeness, which, according to Aristotle, is always carried out through its effective creation:

“One should not necessarily make it our task to adhere to the myths preserved by tradition, in the field of which tragedy revolves. And it is ridiculous to achieve this, since even the well-known is known to a few, but meanwhile it gives pleasure to everyone. From this it is clear that the poet should be more the creator of plots, than meters, since he is a creator insofar as he reproduces, and he reproduces actions.Even if he has to represent real events, he is still a creator, since nothing prevents some real events from having the character of probability and possibility. That is why he is their creator" (b 23-33).

4. Expression as an aesthetic sharpness of an artistic object.

Now, finally, we come to the Aristotelian understanding of art as a sphere of expression. Indeed, here it becomes clear by itself that this kind of theory of an artistic object, calculated not simply on the content, but on the virtuosity of the formation of any content, which, moreover, delivers a specific pleasure, is just a seasoned aesthetics of expression, when it is not what is objectively important that matters. exists, and not what is invented in the order of subjective arbitrariness, but the virtuosity of the expression itself and the specific pleasure associated with it.

a) In the last of the previous quotations, we were convinced that Aristotle, although very fond of well-known and understandable mythological plots, nevertheless believes that the artistry of a work does not depend at all on these well-known and understandable plots. Plots may be completely unknown to the public and completely incomprehensible in their novelty, and yet the public can derive aesthetic pleasure from these plots. And why? Because for Aristotle in a work of art what is important is not "what", but "how", or rather, the complete fusion of both into one expressive and thus convincing formal-structural imagery. Below we will see how Aristotle defines the very origin of art by the natural tendency of a person to "imitate", that is, to creatively recreate everything around him, and to derive pleasure from this kind of imitation.

b) Now we will give a very interesting reasoning of Aristotle in "Politics":

“Children should be taught general useful subjects, not only in the interest of the benefits derived from this - such is, for example, teaching literacy, but also because, thanks to this training, it is possible to communicate to them a number of other information. This is the case with drawing: and its one does not study in order not to fall into error in one's own actions, or to avoid being deceived in the purchase or sale of household utensils, but drawing is studied because it develops the eye in determining physical beauty. people of high spiritual qualities and freeborn" (VIII 3, 1388 a 37 - 1388 b 4).

In other words, an artistic object, according to Aristotle, is equally vitally neutral and vitally useful. Art is a completely specific sphere, where neither "yes" nor "no" is said, and yet it is always a sphere of possible affirmations and denials. This is the sphere of expressive becomings-actions. Music is especially distinguished by this (Polit. VIII 4-5), as we will see below when considering the essence of music and musical education.

c) That the beautiful is generally higher than just the physical, is evident from the reasoning of Aristotle (Ethic. Nic. III 12) that it is pleasant for a fist fighter to receive a wreath and honors, but it is painful to receive blows during the struggle, and courageous deeds are performed for the sake of a beautiful goal and for the sake of avoiding shame, although wounds and death are by no means something beautiful or pleasant. Aristotle wants to say here that the beautiful is effective, but not in the purely physical sense.

"In works of art, perfection (to ey) lies in themselves, and it is enough that these works arise in accordance with the rules that lie in art itself" (II 3, 1105 a 27-28).

"Therefore, art cannot be criticized for depicting wrong, impossible, or improbable objects. Of course, it would be better if everything depicted in art were both objectively correct, and objectively possible, and objectively probable, but if, for example, a horse with two right legs put forward, then the one who criticizes the painter does not criticize the art of painting for this, but only its inconsistency with reality. The subject of an artistic image may even be objectively completely impossible. However, for poetry, the impossible is preferable, but probable than possible, but incredible" (Poet. 25, 1460 b 6 - 1461 a 9; 11-12).

Aristotle assumes the virtuosic structure of a work of art even when he appreciates in tragedy the very connection of events, that is, what he calls "myth", and not the events themselves. Thus, for example, tragedy, according to Aristotle, is possible even without the depiction of characters, but it is in no way possible without a finished and clearly expressed connection of events. This applies to all other arts as well.

"Without action, tragedy is impossible, but without character it is possible" (6, 1450 a 24-25). "The same is noticed among artists, for example, if we compare Zeuxis with Polygnotus: Polygnotus is a good characteristic painter, and Zeuxis' writing has nothing characteristic" (a 27-29). “If someone harmoniously combines characteristic sayings and beautiful words and thoughts, he will not fulfill the task of tragedy, but tragedy will achieve it much more, although using all this to a lesser extent, but having a plot and a proper composition of events” (a 29-33).

Consequently, the artistic meaning of tragedy lies only in the composition of incidents, that is, in its very structure, and not in incidents as such. The same happens in painting.

"If someone smears the best paints in a mess, he cannot even deliver such pleasure as a sketcher with chalk" (a 33-36).

5. Philosophical substantiation of the structural self-sufficiency of art.

Unfortunately, at the present moment we cannot, due to lack of space, give in full the philosophical substantiation of the structural nature of artistry, which Aristotle actually has. The first treatise, which follows the Categories in the Organon, is entitled On Interpretation. The fact is that in addition to being taken in itself, for a person there is always one or another interpretation of it, one or another interpretation of it. This interpretation exists, of course, in relation to the entire cosmos taken as a whole. But such an interpretation of the cosmos, as we well know, is the cosmic Mind for Aristotle. In the mentioned treatise, Aristotle defends the rights of human interpretation of being in the face of being itself. Interpretation has a specific nature: not everything that is true in being itself is true in thinking; and the very contradiction that Aristotle forbids for being itself is quite possible in thinking. So, "to be" and "not to be" is an unacceptable contradiction. However, in thinking, in addition to the real and categorical modality, there are also other modalities, in relation to which it makes no sense to talk about truth or falsehood. This is the whole realm of possible existence. It cannot be said of it that it is true, since it does not yet exist, nor that it is false, since it has not yet been categorically affirmed at the stage of possibility. And what is especially striking in this treatise is that Aristotle refers us specifically to poetics and rhetoric to consider this kind of being, in relation to which nothing is affirmed or denied.

Aristotle writes:

"Not all speech contains [judgment], but only that which contains the truth or falsity of something, so, for example," wish "(eyche) is speech, but not true or false. The rest of the types of speech are here released, for the study of them is more befitting of rhetoric or poetics; only judgment (logos apophanticos) belongs to the present consideration" (De interpret. 4, 17 a 2-7).

Thus, the impossibility of applying positive or negative judgments to art is proved by Aristotle in one of the most important treatises of his theoretical philosophy. Artistic being both is and is not. It is only a possibility, only a problematic, only predetermined and charged, but by no means a system of judgments about being, positive or negative. It is only expression itself, and nothing else.

All the above judgments from Aristotle and about Aristotle may, in the eyes of others, reduce the entire teaching of Aristotle on art to an empty and meaningless formalism. This would mean not understanding the aesthetics of Aristotle at all. The fact is that all this artistic "possibility", "neutrality" and, in general, specific modality represent (and we have talked about this many times) not form, in contrast to content, just as, it is true, not content without form, but that namely, in what form and content are identified, in what they do not differ from each other, and in what their being and their non-being merge to the point of complete indistinguishability. How then can one say that Aristotle is interested in art only in its forms and only in its structures?

The entire 17th chapter of "Poetics" is devoted precisely to questions of the concrete design of art.

“Tragedy,” says Aristotle, “should be written in such a way that it is the clearest, most convincing and that its constituent scenes are the most understandable. The most fascinating are those poets who experience feelings of the same nature. anger is one who is really angry. As a result, poetry is the lot of either a richly gifted person or a person prone to frenzy. The former are able to reincarnate, the latter - to come into ecstasy "(17, 1455 a 30-34).

Where is the formalism in Aristotle when he depicts the very essence of a work of art?

Enough has been said above about such "formal" categories of Aristotelian aesthetics as "beginning", "middle" and "end". We already tried to prove there that here Aristotle did not have formalism, but only a plastic, sculptural way of perceiving the world. Let us now look at what Aristotle has to say about the concept of a period and about the aesthetic pleasure that we get precisely because of its structural order:

"I call a period a phrase that in itself has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and whose dimensions are easy to see. This style is pleasant and understandable; it is pleasant because it is the opposite of an unfinished speech, and the listener always seems to be grasping something and that something has ended for him, but not to foresee anything and not to come to anything is unpleasant. Such speech is understandable because it is easy to remember, and this comes from the fact that periodic speech has a number, and the number is most easily remembered. That is why everyone remembers verses better than prose, since verses have a number by which they are measured "(Rhet. III 9, 1409 a 35 - 1409 b 8).

Let us ask here again, where is Aristotle's aesthetic formalism in evaluating works of art?

Aristotle, as a moralist, stands against all extremes and everywhere preaches the middle, moderation. But in relation to objects of art, he knows no middle ground and no moderation.

"Moderation must be observed in the lower, bodily pleasures, but not in the pleasures of the color of paintings, from listening to musical works and from subtle elegant smells." “We call neither moderate nor intemperate those who enjoy sight, for example, flowers, or forms, or pictures, although it may be that for such people there is a normal enjoyment, both excessive and insufficient. The same should be said about pleasures of the ear: no one will call intemperate people who enjoy too much melodies and theatrical performances, and no one will call moderate those who enjoy it in moderation. Neither will lovers of smells who enjoy the fragrance of fruits, roses or incense herbs "(Ethic. Nic. III) 13, 1118 a 1-9).

Such an attitude towards art cannot be called formalistic, when the possibility is preached of "without knowing any measure of immersion in colors and forms, in painting, in music, and even in incense. We find the same boundlessness of aesthetic enjoyment of art in another treatise, and, moreover, even in still more detailed (Ethic. Eud. III 2, 1230 b 31).

7. The danger of modernizing Aristotle's doctrine of art.

Reviewing all the previous materials on art by Aristotle and trying to analyze them from the point of view of artistic specificity, we really come across a number of surprises that are usually absent in the presentation of Aristotle's aesthetics. Even the very difference between dynamic being and pure being can be bewildering to many. After all, it turns out nothing more and nothing less than the fact that artistic being is neither positive nor negative, that it says neither "yes" nor "no", that it is existentially neutral, and that it ultimately has its roots in the subjective area of ​​the creative artist. It is very easy to go astray and put Aristotle's aesthetics on the same plane with those modern nihilistic idealistic forms of thought that found vivid expression for themselves in the epistemology of Mach and Avenarius. Apparently, the author who did so much to illuminate Aristotelian aesthetics and to consider it in the plane of modern European and American theories, V. Tatarkevich (159), tends to this wrong position. He noticed a lot in Aristotle that goes far beyond the traditional understanding and exposition of Aristotle; he cites many such texts from Aristotle, which also play an important role in our country (but only we have many times more of these texts). The main thesis of V. Tatarkevich boils down precisely to the fact that Aristotle allegedly taught about the neutral-existential sphere of art, in which, according to this author, he sharply differs from all ancient philosophy (excluding Cicero) and in which he is certainly close to our present. We also gave a higher developed teaching about the dynamic-energetic nature of the mind in Aristotle's philosophy and also cited texts about the primacy of subjectivity over objective being in Aristotle's theory of art. However, this whole side of Aristotle's aesthetics should not in the least obscure us and everything else that we find in it.

If Aristotle really preached this kind of theory, then V. Tatarkevich would be absolutely right that Aristotle is not at all an ancient, but contemporary art theorist. But a close study of Aristotle shows that this "Machist" element must be able to accurately and unconditionally be combined with the general antique ontologism of Aristotle, and its specificity of a work of art should be combined with the general antique teachings about art, nature and being. The mind taught by Aristotle not only does not contradict this dynamic-energetic concept, but, as we have proved many times, here Aristotle had an unconditional unity and none of his ontologism suffered from this at all. In order to actually characterize the state of affairs, we will not now go into theoretical reasoning, to which we already had many pages, but we will only touch on two narrower questions, where it is easiest to observe Aristotle’s general antiquity tendency towards a passive understanding of the human subject, despite that, according to Aristotle, it is in the human subject that what must be called art is rooted.

a) If we were to ask ourselves how such a first-class philosopher of antiquity, and, moreover, an exceptional encyclopedist, feels the whole inner element of art, then we would be amazed at the lethargy and passivity of the corresponding attitudes. In Aristotle, here too, as elsewhere in antiquity, the term enthoysiasmos, "enthusiasm" appears, which, however, is not enthusiasm in our sense, but rather a kind of passionate excitement, affective inspiration. Aristotle defines it this way: “Enthusiasm is an affect of an ethical order in our psyche” (Polit. VIII 5, 1340 a 11-12), and ethos, “ethos” here must be understood not in the sense of ethics, but in the same way as the French and English in modern and modern times understand the term "moral", that is, in a broad psychological sense. This enthusiasm, about which the philosopher talks a lot in relation to music, is in fact regarded by him very moderately and soberly. Enthusiasm, ecstasy, of course, is useful. Of one minor poet, Marakus of Syracuse, Aristotle says (Probl. XXX 1, 954 a 38-39) that he "would be a better poet if he were in ecstasy." But Aristotle rejects all extreme forms of enthusiasm, considering it a disease. Such ecstasies as that of Hercules, who killed his children, or that of Ajax, who killed the sheep instead of the Atrides, have for Aristotle all the signs of illness. In the same treatise (a 36-38) a purely physiological explanation of ecstatic states is given. For example, the sibyls and the Bakids act on the basis of morbid predispositions from nature. Black bile, malnutrition, and the like are the causes of this "enthusiasm." Aristotle refers to such "melancholic" many philosophers, including Empedocles, Socrates and Plato (953 a 27-32). Instead of these unnatural states, Aristotle gives very sound advice to writers, such as we find, for example, in the 17th chapter of the Poetics:

"When compiling myths and processing their language, it is necessary to present events as close as possible before your eyes. Under this condition, the poet, seeing them quite clearly and as if being present during their development, can find the right one and best notice the contradictions" (1455 a 22-26 ).

This is very calm and sensible advice, and puts questions about inspiration on very realistic and psychological grounds.

b) The question of fantasy is just as realistic. We find traits of passivity in this sense also in Plato. This is all the more characteristic of Aristotle, who is trying to give a sober psychological analysis here. Under the influence of ecstasy, people often take the images of their own representation for reality: "They say that the images of representation (phantasmata) were real and that they remember them" (De memor. 1, 450 b 10-11). In general, fantasy is much weaker than real sensory sensations. In Rhet. I 11, 1370 a 28-29 Aristotle explicitly states: "Representation (phantasia) is a kind of faint sensation." However, this passivity should not overshadow another, very important aspect.

c) The fact is that Aristotle, in objecting to Plato on the question of ideas, as we already know very well, in fact does not at all deny the existence of ideas, but only places them immanently in things, in reality. This immanentism, on the other hand, cannot be understood roughly. This only leads to the fact that the idea, taken together with the thing, acquires a more complex semantic pattern, becomes an expressive form, without ceasing to be pure meaning. Here is the key to the Aristotelian "whatness", or "form", "eidos". We observe the same symbolism in Aristotle and in his psychology. The soul is conceived by him as a pure form of the body, but it does not exist "without a body" (De an. II 2, 414 a 5-22), being, therefore, the semantic expressiveness of the body (415 b 7-27). Sense perception has pure eidos, but not without matter (417 b 28 - 418 a 6). Finally, the same teaching applies to thinking. According to Aristotle, thinking is in the same conditions as sensory perception, that is, it is a passive state under the influence of the thinkable (III 4, 429 a 13-15). But the conceivable itself is precisely such that it does not cause affection, and therefore the mind itself, properly speaking, is beyond suffering. It contains eidos, and there is the potency of everything imaginable. As one who thinks everything, he does not contain any admixture. It is only the potency of complete thought. And he does not participate in the body at all, because otherwise he would be warm or cold and would have some kind of organ. It is the place of eidos, and, moreover, first of all potential ones. Developed thinking already creates an entelechy of thought; here - entelechial eidos (429 a 15 - b 10). But the mind is not only pure and active. He is also suffering because he is not always thinking. Since the mind is in itself, thinks itself, being independent of anything sensible, it is a thought about thought, and, consequently, finds its expression in self-consciousness (in this case, thinking and the thought are identical, 430 a 3-5). Insofar as he thinks otherwise, being, as it were, affected by this other, he finds his expression in figurative thinking, or, better, in intuitively realized through a special mental representative of thinking.

Here Aristotle repeats the same involuntary antinomy that we can state in other problems: the soul is not a body, but not without a body; sensation is not movement, but not without movement. In relation to the mind, Aristotle says directly: "The soul never thinks without an image" (aney phantasmatos) (III 7, 431 a 16-17), and the images introduce into thoughts that same "change", or, according to our interpretation, "expression "what the respective light medium contributes to the color in general.

"The thinking principle thinks eidos in images" (413 b 2).

"Since, admittedly, there is not a single thing that would exist separately from (its) sensuously perceived quantities, the conceivable is given in sensible eidos, while both the so-called abstract objects and those that are associated with states and Hence, the one who perceives nothing sensually can neither recognize nor understand anything, and when he mentally contemplates, it is necessary for him to contemplate at the same time a certain image of the imagination (phantasma), since this image exists like images of perception (hosper aithёmata), except for [the latter's] matter. As imagination differs from affirmation and negation, so truth or falsehood is this or that combination of thoughts. But how do primary thoughts differ from sensible images? Of course, they are not [simply] other images, but they - not without images" (III 8, 432 a 3-14).

The mind is "pure" (III 5, 430 a 18, etc.), "eidos of eidos" (III 8, 432 a 1), is not something moving (III 9, 432 b 26-27) and is not even a soul at all (II 2, 414 a 4-14), and on the other hand, energetically it is impossible without sensuality. Here is a complete repetition of the problems that we state in a general way in the Metaphysics: eidos are not facts, but they have real significance only in things where they receive their final expression. And just as there energy is symbolically given in things semantic expressiveness, so here thinking is symbolically given in sensual images, all the same semantic expressiveness.

d) It is easy to see what a subtle passivity lies on all this symbolic descriptive aesthetics of Aristotle. Fantasy for him is a very balanced, calm connection of pure thought and sensual imagery, which turns pure thought into pictorial figurativeness and expressiveness, and makes sensual imagery from blind and deaf into transparently symbolic and artistic. This connection is, of course, elementary: every aesthetics postulates it on the very first page of its study of the psychology of art. Socrates demanded the same, as we know, from artists; Plato deliberately used "sensibility" in constructing his "probable myth" in the Timaeus; Plotinus will also remember his pure Mind by bodily signs, and so on. etc. But the whole of ancient aesthetics understands this fundamental connection in an internally passive, contemplative, "classical" way; Aristotle, in contrast to the dialectical constructions of Platonism in the field of self-consciousness (the mature form is in Plot. V 3) and in contrast to Stoic-Epicurean naturalism ("outflows", "atoms of the soul", etc.), gives an expressive and semantic description of fantasy , gives an expressive phenomenology of this general antique passive-plastic consciousness of the artist.

Based on the creative reproduction of the surrounding world in artistic images. In addition, in a broad sense, art can mean the highest level of skill in any field of activity, not even directly related to creativity (for example, in cooking, construction, martial arts, sports, etc.).

object(or subject) art is the world in general and man in particular, and the form of existence is a work of art as a result of creative activity. Piece of art- the highest form of the result of creativity.

Aims of Art:

• distribution of spiritual blessings;
• author's self-expression.

Functions of art.

1. Cognitive. Art acts as a source of information about the world or a person.
2. Educational. Art influences the moral and ideological development of the individual.
3. aesthetic. It reflects the spiritual need of a person for harmony and beauty. Forms the concept of beauty.
4. hedonistic. Close to the aesthetic function, but does not form the concept of aesthetics, but provides an opportunity for aesthetic pleasure.
5. predictive. The function of trying to foresee the future.
6. Compensatory. Serves to restore psychological balance; often used by psychologists and psychotherapists (fans of the Dom-2 program compensate for the lack of their own personal life and emotions by watching it; although I would not classify this show as art).
7. Social. It can simply provide communication between people (communicative), or it can call for something (propaganda).
8. Entertaining(for example, popular culture).

Kinds of art.

Kinds of art are different - it all depends on what criterion they are classified by. The generally accepted classification considers three types of art.

1. art:
   • static (sculpture, painting, photography, decorative, etc.);
   • dynamic (for example, silent film, pantomime).

1. expressive art(or non-pictorial):
   • static (architecture and literature);
   • dynamic (music, dance art, choreography).
2. Spectacle art(theater, cinema, opera, circus).

Degree of application in everyday life art can be

• applied (decorative and applied);
• graceful (music).

By creation time:

• traditional (sculpture, literature);
• new (cinema, television, photography).

In terms of time-space:

• spatial (architecture);
• temporary (music);
• spatio-temporal (cinema, theater).

By the number of components used:

• simple (music, sculpture);
• complex (it is also synthetic: cinema, theater).

There are many classifications, and the definition and role of art is still an occasion for incessant disputes and discussions. The main thing is different. Art can destroy the human psyche or heal, corrupt or educate, oppress or give impetus to development. The task of human society is to develop and encourage precisely the "light" types of art.

The concept of art

Word " art" both in Russian and in many other languages ​​it is used in two senses:

• in narrow sense it is a specific form of practical-spiritual development of the world;
• in wide- the highest level of skill, skills, regardless of the way in which they are manifested (the art of a stove-maker, doctor, baker, etc.).

- a special subsystem of the spiritual sphere of society, which is a creative reproduction of reality in artistic images.

Initially, art was called a high degree of skill in any business. This meaning of the word is still present in the language when we talk about the art of a doctor or teacher, martial art or oratory. Later, the concept of "art" began to be increasingly used to describe a special activity aimed at reflecting and transforming the world in accordance with aesthetic standards, i.e. according to the laws of beauty. At the same time, the original meaning of the word has been preserved, since the highest skill is required to create something beautiful.

Subject The arts are the world and man in the totality of their relations with each other.

Form of Existence art - a work of art (poem, painting, play, film, etc.).

Art also uses special means for reproduction of reality: for literature it is a word, for music it is sound, for fine art it is color, for sculpture it is volume.

Target art is dual: for the creator it is artistic self-expression, for the viewer it is the enjoyment of beauty. In general, beauty is as closely connected with art as truth with science and goodness with morality.

Art is an important component of the spiritual culture of mankind, a form of knowledge and reflection of the reality surrounding a person. In terms of the potential for understanding and transforming reality, art is not inferior to science. However, the ways of understanding the world by science and art are different: if science uses strict and unambiguous concepts for this, then art -.

Art, as an independent and as a branch of spiritual production, grew out of the production of the material, was originally woven into it as an aesthetic, but purely utilitarian moment. an artist by nature, and he strives to bring beauty everywhere in one way or another. The aesthetic activity of a person is constantly manifested in everyday life, social life, and not only in art. going on aesthetic exploration of the world a public person.

Functions of art

Art performs a number public functions.

Functions of art can be summarized as follows:

• aesthetic function allows you to reproduce reality according to the laws of beauty, forms an aesthetic taste;
• social function manifested in the fact that art has an ideological impact on society, thereby transforming social reality;
• compensatory functions allows you to restore peace of mind, solve psychological problems, “escape” for a while from the gray everyday life, compensate for the lack of beauty and harmony in everyday life;
• hedonic function reflects the ability of art to bring pleasure to a person;
• cognitive function allows you to know reality and analyze it with the help of artistic images;
• predictive function reflects the ability of art to make predictions and predict the future;
• educational function manifested in the ability of works of art to shape a person's personality.

cognitive function

First of all, this cognitive function. Works of art are valuable sources of information about complex social processes.

Of course, not everyone in the surrounding world is interested in art, and if they are, then to a different degree, and the very approach of art to the object of its knowledge, the angle of its vision is very specific compared to other forms of social consciousness. The main object of knowledge in art has always been and remains. That is why art in general and, in particular, fiction is called human science.

educational function

Educational function - the ability to have an important impact on the ideological and moral development of a person, its self-improvement or fall.

And yet, cognitive and educational functions are not specific to art: other forms of social consciousness also perform these functions.

aesthetic function

The specific function of art, which makes it art in the true sense of the word, is its aesthetic function.

Perceiving and comprehending a work of art, we do not just assimilate its content (like the content of physics, biology, mathematics), but let this content pass through the heart, emotions, give sensually concrete images created by the artist an aesthetic assessment as beautiful or ugly, sublime or base. , tragic or comic. Art forms in us the ability to give such aesthetic assessments, to distinguish the truly beautiful and sublime from all kinds of ersatz.

hedonic function

Cognitive, educational and aesthetic are merged in art together. Thanks to the aesthetic moment, we enjoy the content of a work of art, and it is in the process of enjoyment that we are enlightened and educated. In this regard, they talk about hedonistic(translated from Greek - pleasure) functions art.

For many centuries, in socio-philosophical and aesthetic literature, the dispute about the relationship between beauty in art and reality has continued. This reveals two main positions. According to one of them (in Russia it was supported by N. G. Chernyshevsky), the beautiful in life is always and in all respects higher than the beautiful in art. In this case, art appears as a copy of the typical characters and objects of reality itself and a surrogate for reality. Obviously, an alternative concept is preferable (G. V. F. Hegel, A. I. Herzen and others): the beautiful in art is higher than the beautiful in life, since the artist sees more accurately and deeper, feels stronger and brighter, and that is why he can inspire with his the art of others. Otherwise (being a surrogate or even a duplicate), society would not need art.

works of art, being the substantive embodiment of human genius, become the most important spiritual and values ​​that are passed down from generation to generation, the property of the aesthetic society. Mastery of culture, aesthetic education is impossible without familiarization with art. The works of art of past centuries capture the spiritual world of thousands of generations, without mastering which a person cannot become a person in the true sense of the word. Each person is a kind of bridge between the past and the future. He must master what the past generation left him, creatively comprehend his spiritual experience, understand his thoughts, feelings, joys and sufferings, ups and downs, and pass it all on to posterity. This is the only way history moves, and in this movement a huge army belongs to art, expressing the complexity and richness of the spiritual world of man.

Kinds of art

The primary form of art was a special syncretic(undivided) complex of creative activity. For primitive man, there was no separate music, or literature, or theater. Everything was merged together in a single ritual action. Later, separate types of art began to stand out from this syncretic action.

Kinds of art- these are historically established forms of artistic reflection of the world, using special means to build an image - sound, color, body movement, word, etc. Each type of art has its own special varieties - genera and genres, which together provide a variety of artistic attitudes to reality. Let us briefly consider the main types of art and some of their varieties.

Literature uses verbal and written means to build images. There are three main types of literature - drama, epic and lyricism and numerous genres - tragedy, comedy, novel, story, poem, elegy, short story, essay, feuilleton, etc.

Music uses audio. Music is divided into vocal (intended for singing) and instrumental. Genres of music - opera, symphony, overture, suite, romance, sonata, etc.

Dance uses means of plastic movements to build images. Allocate ritual, folk, ballroom,

modern dances, ballet. Directions and styles of dance - waltz, tango, foxtrot, samba, polonaise, etc.

Painting displays reality on a plane by means of color. Genres of painting - portrait, still life, landscape, as well as everyday, animalistic (image of animals), historical genres.

Architecture forms a spatial environment in the form of structures and buildings for human life. It is divided into residential, public, landscape gardening, industrial, etc. There are also architectural styles - Gothic, Baroque, Rococo, Art Nouveau, Classicism, etc.

Sculpture creates works of art that have volume and three-dimensional form. Sculpture is round (bust, statue) and relief (convex image). The size is divided into easel, decorative and monumental.

Arts and Crafts related to application needs. This includes art objects that can be used in everyday life - dishes, fabrics, tools, furniture, clothes, jewelry, etc.

Theatre organizes a special stage action through the play of actors. The theater can be dramatic, opera, puppet, etc.

The circus presents a spectacular and entertaining action with unusual, risky and funny numbers in a special arena. These are acrobatics, balancing act, gymnastics, horse riding, juggling, magic tricks, pantomime, clowning, animal training and so on.

Movie is the development of theatrical action based on modern technical audiovisual means. The types of cinematography include fiction, documentary films, animation. By genre, comedies, dramas, melodramas, adventure films, detectives, thrillers, etc. are distinguished.

Photo fixes documentary visual images with the help of technical means - optical and chemical or digital. The genres of photography correspond to the genres of painting.

Stage includes small forms of performing arts - dramaturgy, music, choreography, illusions, circus performances, original performances, etc.

Graphics, radio art, etc. can be added to the listed types of art.

In order to show the common features of different types of art and their differences, various grounds for their classification are proposed. So, there are types of art:

• by the number of means used - simple (painting, sculpture, poetry, music) and complex, or synthetic (ballet, theater, cinema);
• in terms of the ratio of works of art and reality - pictorial, depicting reality, copying it, (realistic painting, sculpture, photography), and expressive, where the artist's fantasy and imagination create a new reality (ornament, music);
• in relation to space and time - spatial (fine arts, sculpture, architecture), temporal (literature, music) and space-time (theatre, cinema);
• by the time of occurrence - traditional (poetry, dance, music) and new (photography, cinema, television, video), usually using rather complex technical means to build an image;
• according to the degree of applicability in everyday life - applied (arts and crafts) and fine (music, dance).

Each type, genus or genre reflects a particular side or facet of human life, but taken together, these components of art give a comprehensive artistic picture of the world.

The need for artistic creation or enjoyment of works of art increases along with the growth of a person's cultural level. Art becomes the more necessary, the further a person is separated from the animal state.

ART

I. in the broad sense of the word, denoting a high level of skill in any field of activity, non-artistic and artistic, i.e. the perfect execution of this work, thereby acquires directly aesthetic. meaning, because skillful activity, wherever and however it manifests itself, becomes beautiful, aesthetically significant. This also applies to the activities of the artist-poet, painter, musician, whose creations are beautiful to the extent that they capture the high skill of their creator and evoke aesthetics in us. admiration. However ch. The distinctive feature of artistic creativity is not the creation of beauty for the sake of exciting aesthetic pleasure, but the figurative exploration of reality, i.e. in the development of a specific spiritual content and in specific. social functioning.

In an effort to determine the meaning of the existence of I. as a special sphere of activity, fundamentally different from I. in the broad sense of the word, theorists throughout the history of aesthetic. thoughts went in two ways: some were convinced that the “secret” of I. consisted in some one of his abilities, one vocation and purpose - either in the knowledge of the real world, or in the creation of a fictional, ideal world, or in the expression internal the world of the artist, or in the organization of communication between people, or in an end in itself, purely playful activity; others Scientists, discovering that each of these definitions absolutizes some of the qualities inherent in I., but ignores others, asserted precisely the multidimensionality, versatility of I. and tried to describe it as a set of various qualities and functions. But at the same time, I. was inevitably lost, and appeared in the form of a sum of heterogeneous properties and functions, the method of combining which into a qualitatively original remained incomprehensible.

Marxist-Leninist aesthetics considers I. as one of the main. forms of spiritual assimilation of reality. Relying on the knower. the ability of societies. man, I. is on a par with such forms of societies. consciousness, as a science, although it differs from it in its subject, in the form of reflection and spiritual assimilation of reality, in its social function. Common in both science and art. consciousness - the ability to objectively reflect the world, to know reality in its essence. In this, I. is opposite to religion (although they were closely connected at certain stages of historical development), since religion. consciousness reflects reality wrongly and is incapable of penetrating into the objective essence of things.

Unlike science, which theoretically masters the world, I. masters reality aesthetically, embracing the world holistically, in all the richness of living manifestations of essence, in all feelings. brightness of a single, unique. But, at the same time, it is in its best works, the disclosure of truth, a deep penetration into the essence of societies. life. Aesthetic man's relationship to the world is manifested in society in a variety of forms and, in particular, in any objective activity, in which creativity is more or less freely revealed. the nature of work. This, in particular, explains the presence of art. element in certain products of material production. However, I. is historically formed as a special, specific. the area of ​​spiritual production, designed to master reality aesthetically: it generalizes, identifies and develops aesthetic. society's relationship to the real world.

Arts. consciousness does not aim to give any special knowledge, it is cognizable. is not associated with any private branches of material production. or societies. practice and does not aim to highlight in the phenomena some special chain of patterns, for example. physical, technological or, on the other hand, specifically economic, psychological. etc. The subject of I. is "everything that is interesting for a person in life" (Chernyshevsky N. G., Poln. sobr. soch., v. 2, 1949, p. 91), it masters the world in all the richness of its manifestations, since they turn out to be the object of practical-concrete interest of people. Hence the holistic and comprehensive character of the arts. consciousness, contributing to the individual in the realization of his "generic essence" (Marx), in the development of his social self-consciousness as a member of society, defined. class. I. is called upon to expand and enrich the practical-spiritual experience of a person, it pushes the boundaries of the "direct experience" of individuals, being a powerful tool for the formation of human beings. personality. Specific The social function of I. is that it, being a form of awareness of reality, condenses in itself the infinite variety of spiritual experience accumulated by mankind, taken not in its general and final results, but in the very process of living relationships between societies. man with peace. In the work of I., not only the result of knowledge is embodied, but also its path, a complex and flexible process of comprehension and aesthetic. processing of the subject world. This is the most important difference. a feature of "artistic ... development ... of the world" (see K. Marx, in the book: Marx K. and Engels F., Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 12, p. 728). Since in I. the world appears mastered, meaningful, aesthetically processed, the picture of reality in a large, truly classic. I.'s work has orderliness, harmonious logic, beauty, even if it is about reproducing the base or ugly phenomena of life. This is not introduced into the objective world by the arbitrariness of the subject, but is revealed by the artist in the process of spiritual assimilation of reality (man creates "according to the laws of beauty" - see K. Marx, From Early Works, 1956, p. 566). Perceiving the work of I., a person, as it were, re-performs creativity. mastering the subject, becomes involved in the practical and spiritual experience fixed in I., which causes a special feeling of joy in the spiritual possession of the world, aesthetic. , without which neither the creation nor the perception of art is inconceivable. works.

The awareness of societies also has a long history. the role of I. Understanding I. as a means of social education is outlined already in antiquity (Plato, Aristotle) ​​and in the classic. aesthetics of the East (for example, in China - Confucius). According to the thinkers of antiquity, I. has the ability to adjust the definition. image of the human psyche, to make him a full-fledged member of civil society, a useful servant of the state. Wed-century. philosophy interpreted this role in a perversely theological way. sense; The Renaissance opposed it with the idea of ​​the significance of I. in the free and all-round development of the individual (Campanella). Enlightenment aesthetics clearly revealed the significance of art. consciousness in practice. social struggle, emphasizing the moral and educational (Shaftesbury) and socially mobilizing function of I. (Didero). The most important role for understanding I. as an active society. forces in the struggle for the liberation of man played by representatives of it. classical aesthetics (Goethe, Schiller, Hegel), who understood I. as "freedom". However, this problem was posed by her idealistically, which led to the opposition of "fettered life" to free art (Kant). On the contradictions of it. idealism indicated Rus. revolutionary democrats who saw in I. a "textbook of life" and saw its function in a "sentence" to its phenomena (Chernyshevsky).

Marxism-Leninism set about educate. the role of I. on the historical. soil. Being a tool for realizing reality, I. is an active force in societies. self-consciousness, in a class society - class. Knowledge of the world in I. is inextricably linked with its aesthetic. assessment, which, being social in nature, necessarily includes the entire system of views of societies. person; arts. the work is able to organically express in its aesthetic. content of philosophy. morality, society and political ideas. I. advanced, responding to the act. development of mankind, plays a progressive role in the spiritual development of people, in their comprehensive ideological and emotional development. growth. A measure of freedom in the exercise of this will educate him. role is determined by specific social conditions. The exploitation of man by man inevitably leads to a one-sided and sometimes ugly manifestation of ideological education. functions I. Only socialist. provides I. the opportunity to freely form each member of society in all the richness of his life relationships and subjective abilities.

The syncretic and predominantly ritual-magical nature of the “works” of primitive art of the late Paleolithic era (30-20 thousand years BC), despite the lack of manifestation of aesthetic principles proper, nevertheless allows us to attribute them to the facts of art. Ancient sculptures, figurines of animals and people, drawings on clay, rock “frescoes” are distinguished by liveliness, immediacy and authenticity of the image, testify to knowledge and command of the language and means of conditional reflection on a plane, the ability to work with volumes. The definition of primitive art as “realistic”, “naturalistic” or “impressionistic” essentially captures the “blood relation” between the distant initial and subsequent stages of the development of art, its modern forms and typological characteristics.

Various interpretations of the concept of art reflect various aspects of its social nature and species specificity. Thus, ancient aesthetics emphasized the mimetic, “imitative” moment, emphasizing the cognitive significance and moral value of art. In the Middle Ages, art is seen as a way and means of familiarization with the “infinite”, “divine” principle: they see it as a carrier, albeit imperfect, of the image of spiritual, “incorporeal” beauty. The Renaissance returns and develops the antique about art as a “mirror”, “imitation of beautiful nature”, joining Aristotle rather than Plato. German classical aesthetics (Kant, Schiller, Hegel, etc.) considers art as “an expedient activity without a goal”, “the realm of visibility”, “the play of creative forces”, the manifestation and expression of the being of the “Absolute Spirit”, makes significant adjustments to the understanding of the relationship of art with empirical reality, science, morality and religion. The Russian aesthetics of realism insists on the idea of ​​an organic connection between art and reality, considering it the main subject “everything that is interesting for a person in life” (Chernyshevsky N. G. Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 2. M., 1947, p. .91). Modern “postmodern aesthetics”, questioning and denying the tradition and value of the “old”, humanistic culture, tries in the spirit of “new mimesis” (J. Derrida) to reinterpret the relationship of works of art with what lies beyond the edges of the “text” and is classified as “ reality".

Revealing the relationship between art and reality does not exhaust the problem of defining its essence. The concrete universal nature of art is embraced and revealed by a whole range of approaches that presuppose and complement each other; among them it is customary to single out epistemological (epistemological), value (axiological), aesthetic and sociological (functional) ones. Considering art in the epistemological plane, which Plato emphasized, or within the framework of the function it performs, with which Aristotle began his analysis of the Greek tragedy, the theorist somehow determines the value of artistic knowledge and activity. In turn, the value approach cannot neglect the sociological characterization of the essence and function of art. To understand the specifics of art, the epistemological and value aspects are of particular importance, and the place and role of art in public life is adequately grasped and revealed through aesthetic and sociological analysis. Kant, having analyzed the “judgments of taste”, convincingly showed the independence (albeit relative) of the epistemological aspect. The question of the social essence of art arises only within the framework of a discussion of its communicative possibilities and functions. After all, art in the proper sense of the word itself forms an audience that understands it and is able to enjoy beauty.

Historically, art arises when a person goes beyond the satisfaction of his immediate physical needs, practical utilitarian interests and goals and gets the opportunity to create universally, freely, producing things and objects that give him pleasure by the very process of activity. The emergence of art is connected with the satisfaction of the need, first foreseeable, and then realized, in the production and reproduction of the proper human nature of one's life activity, and of oneself as a universal and universal being. Art reveals, exposes and presents illusoryly, in “appearance” what is hidden - how, purpose and mode of action - is contained in the subject-social content of human activity, which is an objective source of individual activity. At the same time, art affirms the potential possibility of the universal development of the social individual as a real possibility and an actual force, without losing sight of the fact that it is realized under the dominance of the “realm of necessity”.

Art, by its very nature ahead of the norms and ideas of its time, in a certain sense is capable of setting a goal. In the world of artistic imagination, a person, as it were, hovers above the necessities, not fitting into the framework of mandatory compliance with “existing”. In this sense, art creates “a possible “dynamic” being” (Aristotle), a world of “expediency beyond any purpose” (Kant). External circumstances do not have absolute power over the internal norms of human attitude to reality, which art develops “ideally”. Therefore, a work of art is a projection of spiritual aspiration, a search for feelings, a fantasy of desires, because it is born from a person's need to transform his sensual attitude to reality, which supplies this need with all the necessary material. Art does not turn away in disgust from the fullness of the manifestations of life (and in this sense there is nothing “forbidden” for it), but at the same time, as L. Feuerbach noted, it does not require recognition of its works as reality. The power of art is manifested in its well-known freedom from the factual side of life. It was precisely this peculiarity that Hegel had in mind, representing the history of art as the “self-movement” of the aesthetic ideal embodied in images, and Belinsky, who saw in “longing for the ideal” an illusory form of expressing the urgent needs of a social person, inherent precisely in art. The ideal as a matter of course and possible reality receives in art its object-true embodiment and justification. Reflecting and expressing reality from the standpoint of the highest needs of a developing person, art shows how the present enters the future, what belongs to the future in the present.

In principle, art is created by the individual and appeals to the individual. No area of ​​human creative activity can compete with it in the completeness of the reflection of the entire diversity of human sensations. This also applies to the artist, the author of a work in which he “expresses himself”, often believing the reader, the viewer, the innermost secrets of his heart, mind, soul (cf. Flaubert’s words about the heroine of his novel: “Emma is me”). Unprecedented possibilities of art in revealing the motives of human behavior, deed, experience. Removing the already known, fixed meanings of facts, phenomena, events, the artist exposes and reproduces their inner meaning in an individually unique shape and form, which significantly and obviously differs from the theoretical scientist (for more details, see: Leontiev A. N. Problems of the development of the psyche. M ., 1965, pp. 286-290). Being a creative and biased act, art counts on an adequate response. In the process of perceiving a work of art, as a rule, a deeply individual, uniquely personal act, the fullness of the universal, universal nature of the reader, viewer, listener is manifested. All kinds of deviations due to the difference in the level of development of taste, imagination, general and emotional culture of the recipients do not cancel this norm of truly artistic perception.

The “imaginary being”, the “possible reality” of art are no less (often more) valid than the objectively existing world that served as the starting point for contemplation and representation; and in form, it is an image of the whole in the “look” of an artistic representation, where generalization is built through the transition from one specificity to another, and in such a way that image-creation necessarily acts as meaning-creation (see Artistic image. Typical). So, through art - a special kind of spiritual and practical assimilation of reality - the formation and development of the ability of a social person to creatively perceive and transform the world around him and himself according to the laws of beauty takes place. Unlike other spheres and forms of social consciousness and activity (science, morality, religion, politics), art satisfies the most important human need - perception, knowledge of reality in developed forms of human sensibility, that is, with the help of a specifically human ability of the sensual (“aesthetic ”, visual-expressive) perception of the phenomenon, objects and events of the objective world as a “living concrete whole”, embodied in works of art through creative, “productive”, imagination. Since art includes, as it were, in a filmed form, all forms of social activity, its impact on life and man is truly limitless. On the one hand, this deprives any sense of art's claim to any exclusivity, except for that which is dictated by its species essence. On the other hand, having a transformative effect on many social spheres and institutions, art retains its inherent features and relative independence. Historically, art develops as a certain system of concrete types. These are literature, music, architecture, painting, sculpture, arts and crafts, etc. Their diversity and differences are fixed and classified according to criteria developed by aesthetic theory and art history: according to the way reality is reflected (epistemological criterion) - pictorial, expressive; according to the way of being of an artistic image (ontological criterion) - spatial, temporal, space-time; according to the method of perception (psychological criterion) - auditory, visual and visual-auditory. However, this is relative. A work that is predominantly “pictorial” is at the same time “expressive” (for example, a pictorial portrait or landscape, acting, etc.). etc.), and “expressive” also includes a “pictorial” element (as, for example, “Pictures at an Exhibition” by M. Mussorgsky, a dance or an architectural image). The classification, which is based on the principle of the dominant attribute, does not take into account the fact that each type of art uses and represents (in different proportions) all forms and means of artistic “language” - figurativeness, expressiveness, symbolization, temporal and spatial characteristics. A special place in this system of art forms is occupied by literature, as the most “synthetic” form of artistic imagery. Types of art are a dynamically developing system: in one or another era, one of the types prevails, becomes dominant (epics and tragedy - in Ancient Greece, architecture and iconography - in the Middle Ages, cinema and television - in the 20th century). With the development of science and technology, the improvement of communication means, new types of art arise; so, in the beginning 20th century cinema appears, and at the end of it - artistic photography, using the principle of "collage" (a technique developed by Braque and Picasso) and claiming the status of a new visual art.

The question “what is art?” acquires relevance and urgency with the advent of postmodernism, which puts under many “old”, classical ideas, including about aesthetic, artistic, and therefore, about art. For postmodernists, they retain their meaning only as "transcultural, transtemporal values." Antique ideas about realism are being revised. The idea of ​​the so-called priority is defended. tangible, rather than illusionistic objects, representing an original means of interaction between artistic expression and the experience of everyday life. The “postmodernist” artistic practice corresponding to this principle is considered (more precisely, it is passed off) as a new and unpredictable step in the convergence of art and life, supposedly merging into a “simultaneous experience”. Such an approach to art is quite consonant with and adequate to the modernist rejection of a holistic picture of the world, which is actually discrete and incomplete. However, such a decisive break with the past, the classical heritage is unlikely to be more powerful than the spiritual and practical power of art itself, which continues to amaze and give pleasure to new generations of people.