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Preface, or, disclaimer, 10 years on…
Warning: Before reading this, please take a quick moment to see the preface to the essay Meta-Esthetics. It all goes for this too. By the way, these days i tend to think of it as Instantiationism rather than Concretizationism. But either is plenty a mouthful.
This essay constitutes a fulfillment of the need for a rational answer to the esthetic question. For a complete understanding of the nature of that question, i.e., to learn what esthetics is, what it studies and what facts of reality give rise to that which it studies, I must refer the reader to my essay Meta-Esthetics, which is also posted on this web-page (and which is, in fact, the first essay in the conceptual table of contents).
While there will, of necessity, be reference to the meta-esthetic principles discussed in that work, the reader is warned that this essay takes up where the last work left off and will not primarily concern itself with re-proving my meta-esthetic framework.
As a final introductory note, to those who are familiar with Ayn Rand’s ground-breaking work, The Romantic Manifesto, I would like to point out in advance, that Concretizationism is not anti-romanticism. Romanticism, when reduced to its essentials, is not an esthetic philosophy, but a thematic one, i.e., is the result of the choice to concretize a particular and fundamental metaphysical premise (the premise of volition) and its corollaries.
Concretizationistic procedures are a prerequisite for effectively portraying romantic themes. They are also a prerequisite for effectively portraying any theme. As a purely esthetic philosophy, Concretizationism is unconcerned with thematics. (I will elucidate these points in part one of this work.)
Esthetics is the branch of philosophy, the purpose of which is the identification of the proper intellectual tools which are needed in order to create art works. Art is a representation of a concretization of meta-values. (The term ’meta-values’ is my word for essentially the same thing that Rand calls ’metaphysical value- judgments’. For an explanation of the difference see Meta- Esthetics.)
Esthetics is not fundamentally concerned with the specific techniques of art. Esthetics does not tell the painter what the nature of man’s perceptual mechanism implies about the proper means by which to represent that which he chooses to represent—this is the task of psycho-esthetics. Neither does esthetics tell the artist what brand of paint to buy, or the sculptor whether to use clay or stone or glue for a particular purpose. This is the province of applied psycho-esthetics. Applied psycho-esthetics is concerned with the identification of effective techniques by which to portray entities (chosen by esthetics) in a manner which is consistent with man’s means of perception (defined by psycho-esthetics).
Art must be representational (and portray specific entities) because meta-values refer to reality as such, and to man as such, and to life as such, and would imply, by themselves, the concretization of an entire universe—which cannot be done. One must therefore create selective portrayals of entities which are selected and created on the basis of their representativeness of the kind of entities which would exist in the kind of universe which the artist’s theme implies.
Philosophy deals with intellectual needs of man qua man, i.e., needs which are inherently the result of the fundamental nature of man’s rational faculty. Man’s need to experience his abstractions as perceptible, concrete entities is one of those needs.
In almost all cases, this need is fulfilled without the necessity for specific action to be taken for no other reason than to fulfill that need. Most normative abstractions fulfill that need (i.e., are perceptualized) as a result of being acted upon—goal-directed action being the purpose of normative abstractions. Most cognitive abstractions are perceptualized in the process of reducing them to their perceptual referents.
Perceptualization (i.e., the reduction or translation of abstractions into concretes), when it is achieved through reducing an abstraction (i.e., a concept) to its concrete referents, is required in order to define that concept, and is called ’reduction’. When it is accomplished through the creation of new concretes which are based on the implications of a concept, it is called concretization.
Meta-values are cognitive abstractions, but unlike most cognitive abstractions they must be concretized through a specific and purposeful act of representation. This means that a set of normative abstractions are needed to form the basis of a set of principles to guide the artist in the creation of these concretizations.
The need for art is an intellectual need of man qua man because art fulfills man’s need to experience his meta-values as perceptually available concretes. While philosophy does not directly fulfill this need, it does fulfill the need for a set of principles to guide man in the creation of art.
Esthetics is the philosophy of art—which means that esthetics seeks to answer only one primary question. That question is: ’What are the proper principles by which to concretize meta- values?’.
The answer to this question lies in the nature of concepts themselves—specifically in the hierarchical nature of concepts.
2. The Epistemology of Concretization
Leonard Peikoff has written, in his work Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, a chapter on the hierarchical nature of knowledge and I will point out the pertinent concepts, along with the strong recommendation that the reader refer to Peikoff’s work. Rand and Peikoff’s ideas on the subject are the direct basis for the concepts in this chapter and are brilliantly and lucidly explained by Peikoff.
"A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their [the characteristic(s)] particular measurements omitted."—(Rand)
A unit, in this context, means some perceivable existent which can be regarded, because of some measurable attribute which it possesses in any degree, as a member of a group of existents which is defined as a group by virtue of the fact that all of the members of that group possess that attribute in some degree.
Being able to regard entities as units allows the human mind to abstract attributes (and actions and relationships) from entities, and to mentally unify (integrate) entities on the basis of those attributes, into mental structures called ’concepts’.
When one integrates simple, perceptually available entities into concepts, these concepts are called ’first-level’ concepts. First-level concepts are concepts such as ’spoon’, ’hand’, ’cat’ and ’car’. No prior conceptual knowledge is necessary in order to form these concepts—one need only integrate the perceptual evidence with which one is confronted. To define a first-level concept such as ’cat’, in the simple, perceptual context of knowledge from which it was first formed, one need only to point to two or more cats and say: ’These’. Further conceptual knowledge, such as the genetic relationships of cats to other animals can refine and expand the definition, but do not change the meaning, i.e., the referents, of the concept. ’Cat’ is always a first-level concept and as such is, along with all other first-level concepts, the conceptual basis of the other kind of concepts: ’high-level’ concepts.
To explain the relationship between first-level and high- level concepts Peikoff uses, in the previously mentioned work, the example of the concept ’culture’. He writes:
"Like every concept, ’culture’ is an integration of concretes—in this instance, of certain human products and actions. But the point is that, in this kind of case, the concept cannot be reached directly from its concretes. It presupposes that they have been conceptualized earlier, usually in several stages, on increasing levels of abstraction. A definite order of concept-formation is necessary. We begin with those abstractions that are closest to the perceptually given and move gradually away from them."
Every concept then, can be described in terms of its ’distance’ from the perceptually given. The farther a concept is from the perceptually given, the greater the number of prior abstractions which have to have been made earlier in order to form that concept. While the ultimate units of high-level concepts are still concretes, high-level concepts are the result of integrating concretes within the context of relationships which concretes possess but which can only be understood as a result of prior, conceptual knowledge.
This implies that conceptual knowledge exists, and past the simplest level can only exist, in a hierarchical form.
"A hierarchy of knowledge", Peikoff later writes, "means a body of concepts and conclusions ranked in order of logical dependence, one upon another, according to each item’s distance from the base of the structure. The base is the perceptual data with which cognition begins."—(ibid., italics mine)
I would like to emphasize one element of the relationship of logic to the hierarchical nature of knowledge.
To the extent that a man’s knowledge corresponds to reality, every level of this hierarchy is linked to the levels both above and below it (and, by extension, to all other levels) by means of logic. Further, it is only the application of logic to our identifications which allows us to hierarchize our knowledge. Without logic there would be no standard either for the formation or for the organization of our concepts. Such high-level concepts as a ’non-logical’ mind did accept could not really even be high-level concepts in that individual’s mind, but merely floating, meaningless words devoid of a connection to reality.
Concretization is the act of identification (and creation) of concretes which are the implications of an abstraction. Just as the integration of concretes into concepts must be done by means of the most strict, ruthless use of logic—which means: without contradiction—in order to insure that the higher abstractions do indeed correspond with concrete reality, so too must concretizations be strictly logical, i.e., they must reflect the step-by-step method by which the abstractions being concretized were formed, in order to assure that no resulting concrete contradicts the source abstraction.
This is the true meaning of unity in art. Art which is well concretized, i.e., which is based exclusively on the non- contradictory concretization of a single meta-value (or meta-values which are themselves non-contradictory), can only result in concretes which lead to a unified effect, i.e., they cannot contradict one another on the metaphysical level, which is the level at which art operates. Unity is not then, epistemologically, a primary value in art, but must be understood in reference to the proper process by which it is achieved. A painting which is composed of nothing but horizontal lines is not unified qua art. The unifying elements in an art work must not exclusively be incidental, technical elements, but must be the fundamental, metaphysical nature of the concretes themselves unified by epistemological means.
Unity means that no part of a whole contradicts the fundamental nature of that whole. Artistic unity means that no existent is represented which could not have been integrated without contradiction in the original formation of the meta-values being concretized.
Concretization is then, in many ways, the reverse of concept-formation.
Just as all successful concept-formation must be performed without contradiction and hierarchically, whether the individual is aware of that fact or not—and Ayn Rand’s theory of concept- formation recognized and codified that fact, so too must the creation of art which is successful qua art be performed without contradiction and hierarchically—and the doctrine of Concretizationism recognizes that fact. All past art (with the exception of non-representational ’art’) has been based in some degree (often only very slight) on the premise of concretization. Concretizationism is the explicit recognition of that premise and of its implications.
Why ’Concretizationism’? Because there needs to be a name for a rational theory of esthetics, as against strictly thematic systems (such as Romanticism or Fatalism), any of which must employ concretizationistic procedures to be effective but which are themselves not fundamentally concerned with esthetic means, but with thematic ends. Ayn Rand referred to her art as (lacking a better term, I believe) Romantic Realism. I would call it Romantic Concretizationism, or even better, Volitionistic Concretizationism. (See my forthcoming essay, Volitionism to see why.)
3. Concretizationism and Metaphysics
Metaphysics, as a field of inquiry, is concerned with the systematic identification of the corollaries of metaphysical axioms, and with their immediate implications regarding existence and man. The premise of Concretizationism is the premise of non- contradiction with regard to the selection of entities for artistic representation. If this premise is held, then any meta-values which are chosen as the basis of the thematic idea(s) must themselves be non-contradictory. It is a logical impossibility to concretize contradictory premises without contradiction. Remember that art demands, by its nature, the identification, by the artist, of concretes which (logically) could have been among the entities which were originally integrated in the formation of the abstractions which are being concretized. As Rand has shown, the integration of abstractions must be accomplished without contradiction, therefore, the essential natures and relationships among the entities which are selected cannot themselves be contradictory. This leads us to a fundamental conclusion about art: All art can be divided into two broad groups. On the one hand, there is art which is the non-contradictory concretization of non-contradictory meta-values, which means: art which is based on the premise of non-contradiction, which is based on the premise that A is A; that existence exists, as a primary, independent of any consciousness which perceives it. This is art which, in the most basic sense, is a concretization of the axiomatic concept of existence (in the Randian sense of the term).
On the other hand, there is art which, on any level of the conceptual hierarchy, contradicts itself—concretes which are selected without reference to unifying meta-values or, in some of the best, most excusable cases (such as, as Rand pointed out, the work of novelist Victor Hugo), concretes which consistently TRY (of course never with total success) to concretize, without contradiction, meta-values, or high-level implications of meta- values, which are themselves contradictory. The basis of this type of art, in all of its manifestations, is the rejection, on some level, of logic and of its basis, the principle of non-contradiction—which is based on the axiom of identity. Such art stems from the same error which underlies all attempts to escape from reality—the failure to recognize the primacy of existence, i.e., the failure to apply the law of identity to the entity which is consciousness.
This is the connection between esthetics and thematics. Ultimately, those who would create art which portrays an irrational universe cannot rely on the means of rational art to do it; and if they are willing to allow into their art any degree of irrationality, then ’all bets are off’—the logic of their position will, in differing degrees with different people, move them toward the final and total break with reality—non-representational ’art’.
This is the reason for which I describe concretizationism as the explicit recognition of a principle which is present in some degree in all art that represents entities. That which does not represent entities is not art. Further, that which is not a concretization of meta-values is also not art.
There is such a thing as art which is brilliantly concretized, and there is such a thing as art which is poorly concretized (and any gradation in between) but there is no such thing as non-concretized art. Non-concretized art would mean something which is not the result of selection of entities to portray on the basis of metaphysical premises.
Can there be such a thing as art which is not based on meta-values? No. Any object which is made by men and portrays entities other than itself, but does not serve any other, specific, utilitarian purpose, will and can only be interpreted as having been based at least in some sense, as far as the selection of the entities which are portrayed, on metaphysical premises, and as being, therefore, a concretization of meta-values, i.e., art.
When a thing is made by men, it is made with a purpose in mind and will, for better or for worse, reflect that purpose. If the only purpose of a thing is that it be contemplated, i.e., perceived, then, outside of any other, narrower context of selection dictated by a specific purpose, the only context which can serve as a means of selection of entities to portray must be the ultimate context—reality, i.e., meta-values; which means that the object in question is art. This is why a normal, intelligent child has a clear concept of, and ability to identify a thing as art. Confusion about whether or not a thing is or is not art is primarily the prerogative of those adults who have lived long enough and accepted enough nonsense about art (and probably everything else) uncritically to have seriously damaged their conceptual faculty.
The degree of adherence to the principle of non- contradiction, and the degree of contextual integration are the only proper standard of esthetic evaluation, because they are the cardinal estheic values of the rational artist.
Now, let me elaborate on this statement. I have here implied that there are two elements to keep in mind when creating and evaluating a work of art. Of these, the first, the degree of adherence to the principle of non-contradiction, I have already explained. If one were to imagine the hierarchy of knowledge as a pyramid; the base of which represents the base of knowledge—first- level concepts; and the apex of which represents the height of abstraction—meta-values, then the adherence to the principle of non-contradiction relates primarily to the vertical axis of the pyramid—to the degree to which the concretes one chooses to portray, or the concepts on which one bases one’s choices of concretes to portray, do not contradict those higher-level abstractions on which they themselves are based.
The second essential element, the degree of contextual integration, means the degree to which all of the actual, concrete existents (all of the entities, attributes, actions and relationships) which are physically portrayed exist, metaphysically, in a non-contradictory relationship, not specifically with their hierarchical antecedents, but with each other. In other words, contextual integration relates to the horizontal axis of the pyramid.
This is why one can say that some of the works of Victor Hugo are better concretized than many other works which contain no more actual contradictions. Imagine that pyramid of knowledge once again. It is clear that the higher up the pyramid one goes, the larger the number of first-level concepts that will be affected if a change is made at that level. As an artist starts the process of identifying chains of lower and lower level abstractions from his chosen meta-values, the earlier in the process he makes a mistake, the larger the number of resulting concretes which will be affected by that mistake.
Thus, when the artist makes a mistake very high on the hierarchy or very low on the hierarchy, the result may be a work which is, in fact, very highly (but not totally) unified. An artist who commits errors at the metaphysical level may still create a fairly well concretized work. Further, the artist who commits an error at or very near the first level of abstraction, can create a work which is almost perfect except for that one error. It is, however, the mistake that lies in between the highest and the lowest level of abstraction which can lead large portions of a work to exist in contradiction to the rest of the work.
In any case in which an artist allows any contradiction into his work, it is not the number or egregiousness of the contradictions which are relevant, but the degree to which the artist integrates the concretes which he portrays into their own context in spite of those contradictions. It is for this reason that the most important esthetic work an artist does is that which follows immediately after the choice of meta-value(s) which he will concretize. For the novelist, the choice of theme, plot-theme and plot structure are paramount. Because of the scope of the implications of the decisions at this point, any mistake at this point is esthetic suicide, i.e., will lead to major elements in the work which contradict other major elements. The situation is fundamentally the same for all art forms. While perfect concretization of irrational meta-values is impossible, one is relatively free in one’s choice of meta-values to concretize in that it is possible to create mostly consistent concretizations of almost any meta-values. Furthermore, minor mistakes on the first level of abstraction are just that—minor. They are a flaw, but do not necessarily lead to other, larger flaws. But as I have said, mistakes in the early stages of concretization are impermissible because they have the most wide- ranging and detrimental effect on the degree to which the concretes portrayed are integrated with one another,i.e., on the degree to which one fashions a self-consistent, contextually consistent world out of meta-values.
These are the reasons for which I call Concretizationism the esthetics of consistency. Both because the rule of non- contradiction leads to logical consistency in terms of the relation between the entities which are portrayed and the meta-values on which they are based; and because the rule of contextual integration leads to consistency among those entities themselves.
5. Concretizationism and Philosophy
I would like to expand, in this context, upon an issue on which I have touched in a number of contexts (especially in my essay, Meta-Esthetics), and it is that Concretizationism is specifically and strictly an esthetic philosophy.
Esthetics is the philosophy of art, and, in the words of Rand, ’[p]hilosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of Man, and of Man’s relation to existence’. (Philosophy: Who Needs It?) The important element in this context is the word ’fundamental’. Philosophy does not deal with any chance concrete which might or might not be a part of some one man’s existence, but with the issues and principles of which any human should be aware by the very nature of his identity as a human.
Esthetics, then, does not examine artistic questions which require for their answers specific, concrete, empiric knowledge of any given artistic medium or the specific, scientific details of man’s perceptual mechanisms, but it examines one of the two strictly philosophic questions. In any process of artistic creation, there are three fundamental steps which must be taken:
The first (in order of logical dependence) is the choice of theme, i.e., the choice of meta-value(s) which the artist will concretize. This is a philosophic question, but it is strictly a metaphysical question. In the context of art, any meta-values may be chosen for concretization. The proper definition of art—as a representation of a concretization of meta- values—does not make any statement as to what meta-values can or cannot be concretized. From a purely esthetic point of view, the concretization of any meta-values fulfills the requirement of art.
The artist must choose some meta-values to concretize (either consciously or, willy-nilly, by implication) and should base that choice on something (as against simply accepting, unconsciously, any meta-values which his environment happens to provide)—and that something must (rationally) be metaphysics, not esthetics.
The second step is the esthetic question. After choosing some meta-value(s) to concretize, the artist must proceed to concretize them. He must choose some concretes to portray on the logical basis of his chosen meta-values. This is the step which Concretizationism addresses. Esthetics answers the need to select concretes for artistic portrayal by means of an epistemological process—mainly by reference to the hierarchical structure of knowledge—and not through empiric data such as the details of the specific medium involved (except in one philosophical respect, which will be elaborated on in chapter seven of this work).
The third step is the actual physical creation of a portrayal of those concretes. It is vitally important to keep the distinction clear. The subjects of thematics (What do I concretize?), esthetics (How do I choose concretes which concretize it?) and applied psycho-esthetics (How do I represent the result?) are addressed to different needs of the artist—needs which imply different questions about the creative process and which must be answered by reference to different facts (not, I might add, by reference to different epistemological systems).
Those interested in the evaluation of art take special note: one can describe an art work as possessing esthetic quality only when one can answer the question, ’Do the concretes chosen for representation in an art work serve effectively to concretize a theme (some meta-value[s])?’ with a ’Yes’. I must point out that the question is not directed at the artist, but at the art. As long as SOME meta-values are concretized effectively the criterion is satisfied—the artist’s intentions are irrelevant in this context. Esthetically good art may effectively concretize meta-values which the artist had no intention of concretizing. This is because esthetic value must be judged in the context of the purpose which art serves and only on that basis.
As for the manner of portrayal of the concretes involved, this is a separate (though ultimately related) issue. It is a psycho-esthetic question, to be answered by reference to that field and to applied psycho-esthetics—which means artistic technique as derived from the principles of psycho-esthetics. (For more on the concept of psycho-esthetics, see my essay, Meta- Esthetics’, and Steve Clarian’s essay, ’Perceptionism: The Ergonomics Of Art’.)
As I implied earlier, this order is not necessarily the chronological order in which an effective art work will be created—but the logical order. For instance, a writer may suddenly be struck with the idea for a particularly interesting scene or character, or the composer may come up with a particularly striking melody without knowing quite why it seems to be so. In this sort of case, it is the artist’s sense-of-life—his implicit meta-values—which provides him with his appraisal and with his sense that the idea is appropriate to…something.
The key to creating an effective concretization in such a case is to, even if after the fact, make sure that one knows just exactly what it is for which the idea is appropriate—to decide what kind of theme the material is effective as part or all of an effective concretization; to decide whether that theme is acceptable and then, if it is, to proceed from the premise of that theme as if it were the starting point (because it must be, logically, in order to ensure unity.).
6. Some Common Esthetic Mistakes
Before continuing, I will describe briefly a few of the most common esthetic mistakes which artists make—not all of them by any means, but some of the most common and broad in scope. Then I will, in the final chapter of this essay, discuss the specific, different artistic mediums from the point of view of esthetics (as against that of psycho-esthetics).
First, given the premise of Concretizationism—that esthetic value derives from the degree to which the artist successfully concretizes his theme—it follows that the degree of complexity of an art work is not the determining factor in evaluating esthetic value. The artist who starts with the purpose of creating something which is ’complex’ does so only because he has thought of no more sensible reason to create art. Also, such an artist is likely to succeed at creating complexity (it is not difficult) and at nothing else—the result being esthetic un- intelligibility.
This premise in esthetics has a counterpart in psycho- esthetics—the premise that an art work must be difficult to integrate, i.e., to comprehend, in order to be interesting. Both mistakes result from defining the purpose of art in non-essential terms. The fundamental purpose of art is not to provide men with interesting mental challenges (though on some levels this may be an esthetically incidental part of the experience), but to provide men with a concretization of their meta-values. Any so- called esthetic value must be weighed on this standard and no other. Those who preach, out of context—as an absolute—that the complex in art is the good and that the ’simplistic’ is the bad (or ’boring’—which they invariably pronounce with the self- righteousness of a moral absolute), relegate themselves to an esthetics of the non-objective; in which anything goes so long as it is incomprehensible.
What, if the artist believes that complexity is the standard of esthetic value, will determine the degree of complexity? If a little complexity is a value, then a lot of complexity must be a great value. It would be wrong to argue that this isn’t what is meant when someone says that complexity is a primary value. If not, then, outside of the wider context of the purpose of art, by what objective means can the artist decide how much complexity is appropriate?
The mere manner in which this question has to be phrased indicates its own answer. The word ’appropriate’ implies the further question: ’Appropriate for what purpose?’. The artist must keep in focus the purpose of art when he seeks to decide whether or not something is an esthetic value. Esthetics is the philosophy with which the artist can define the proper means by which to achieve his thematic ends.
Elegance is the degree to which a man-made object’s means match its ends. When every chosen concrete in an art work is not only consistent with, but actually serves to advance the thematic purpose of the work, it is elegant. Whether in the case of a simple O Henry short story or that of a massive and incredibly complex novel by Ayn Rand, it is the requirements of the theme which determine the appropriate degree of complexity—and, if met, which result in elegance.
I am not here referring to the common (and inaccurate) view of the term ’elegant’. The anemic, passionless music of a Mozart is often regarded as elegant—and it is—but that bloodless thematic content is too often taken as that which defines it as elegant—it is not. Mozart is elegant because his esthetic methods result in an effective concretization of his meta-values. George Crumb or Goya are also elegant to a degree, but this is because, given a totally different metaphysics, they did not attempt to bend the means of a Mozart or a Fragonard to their thematic ends. They chose their own means on the basis of the ends which they had in mind.
Another concept which is often mistaken for the standard of esthetic value is: originality.
First, it is necessary to understand just what is originality in the context of art. Ayn Rand has written on the subject in her journals and the following quote of Rand’s journals comes from Leonard Peikoff’s introduction to the thirty-fifth anniversary edition of Atlas Shrugged. Rand writes explicitly about fiction writing, but her words can apply to any artistic medium:
’Incidentally, if creative fiction writing is a process of translating an abstraction into the concrete, there are three possible grades of such writing: translating an old (known) abstraction (theme or thesis) through the medium of old fiction means (that is, characters, events or situations used before for that same purpose, that same translation)—this is most of the popular trash; translating an old abstraction through new, original means—this is most of the good literature; creating a new, original abstraction and translating it through new, original means...(A fourth possibility—translating a new abstraction through old means—is impossible by definition: if the abstraction is new, there can be no means used by anybody else before to translate it.)’
In other words, one must distinguish between originality on the thematic level and on the esthetic level. I would point out a third level on which there is the possibility for originality and which must also be kept separate—the psycho-esthetic level.
Originality is a moral value for the creative artist, not an esthetic one—and is certainly not a rational standard of esthetic value. The artist who intentionally copies the work of another artist is guilty of plagiarism (i.e., theft) as is the case with any form of intellectual property. Further, the artist who employs the manner of his betters merely because he is not capable of doing otherwise—either psychologically, because he is a secondhander, or intellectually, because he is a simpleton, places a limit upon the value of his work and the reward which he can rationally expect for it.
However, the artist who employs some (but not all) elements of the manner of other artists because he is rationally convinced that these are the best means by which to concretize his theme is not guilty of plagiarism nor even of any sort of leeching, so long as he IS rationally convinced. This is, however, a moral issue, not an esthetic one. The only thing which esthetic philosophy has to say on the subject is that originality is not a standard of esthetic value.
The newness of any elements of an art work is not a valid indicator of the degree to which is an effective concretization. Much of the art of the 20th century is symptomatic of the un- reasoned worship of originality—the doing of absolutely anything which is ’new’ without reference to meta-esthetics, i.e., without reference to the purpose and meaning of art. If one holds originality not as a moral value for oneself—the artist—but as the standard of esthetic value, then the result will be ’art’ which is new—and nothing else. A standard of esthetic value must provide the artist with a standard by which to select concretes for artistic portrayal. What does ’newness’ or ’freshness’ mean by itself—as separate from the question of whether or not the work is an effective concretization of some meta-values? The answer is: nothing. Only the objective standard provided by Concretizationism can guarantee esthetic value. The concretizationist chooses concretes to portray not on the basis of whether or not they are new, but whether they are right.
One would not tell the composer that he had to invent some new emotions for men to experience, hitherto undiscovered, in order to represent them on the premise that only then could his work be of value. One would not tell the dancer to grow new limbs nor the writer to write only about inanimate rocks, nor the painter to paint exclusively with the use of new, hitherto undiscovered colors—yet these are exactly the things which the cult of originality demands.
Esthetic newness is only a value if it represents a real advance in the perceptualization of meta-values—either in terms of the epistemological extensiveness or intensiveness involved i.e., either by making a more complete, non-contradictory concretization of the meta-values involved or by providing a more complete, non- contradictory concretization of some one realm which is effected by those meta-values—most original art falls into the second category (again this is due to the hierarchical nature of knowledge); psycho-esthetic newness is only a value if it represents a real advance in the portrayal of entities. Knowledge of psycho-esthetics is not invented—it is discovered. Useful psycho-esthetic ideas are a value and since they are not property as such, it is actually immoral for an artist who is aware of them NOT to employ them when relevant—whether he discovered them himself or not.
As for thematic, i.e., metaphysical newness—this is not a value. Remember that the purpose of art is to provide man—any given man—with a perceptualization of his meta-values, not just some or other meta-values. For those who live on the basis of ’Randian’ metaphysics, there is not a fundamental need to contemplate a concretization of ’Byronic’ metaphysics. And for those who live on the basis of ’Byronic’ metaphysics, there is not a fundamental need to contemplate a concretization of ’Randian’ metaphysics, or of ’Bosch-ian’ metaphysics etc. While exposure to new metaphysical views as concretized in art can affect the viewer for the better, this is incidental to the need which art fulfills—which is the perceptualization of one’s own meta-values.
To sum up the concept of artistic originality: There are three realms in which an artwork can be original. (1) Thematic (not in the sense of the ’theme’ of a novel—which is already at least one step towards concretization, but in the sense of meta-values)—which is not, as such, a value to be sought and will only occur if one’s chosen meta-values happen to be unique. (2) Esthetic—either in the form of a more extensive concretization of some given meta- values or in the form of a more intensive concretization of those meta-values (which means the use of a new, but narrower context). If we were to speak in terms of the purpose which is served by art, one (extensive) allows us to experience our meta-values on a wider scale and the other (intensive) allows us to integrate our meta- values into some new, smaller context. And (3) psycho-esthetic—which is a moral value like any other advance in knowledge, but not an esthetic value.
Yet another false standard of esthetic value that I will point out is: Realism.
Concretizationism is the doctrine of selection of concretes for artistic representation on the basis of conceptual hierarchy and non-contradiction. The opposite method, that of the selection of any chance concretes with which the artist is confronted, without reference to their relationships and without reference to the meta-values which they might or might not imply, on the grounds that such concretes are ’real’ and that art should be ’realistic’—that it should portray literal reality as it is—has a name. It is: Naturalism. Contrary to what is often thought, Naturalism is not a thematic category, but an esthetic one. Naturalism is not specifically non-Romanticism, but it is the negation of that on which effective Romanticism, or any effective art depends—Concretization. A naturalistic work of art could be interpreted as concretizing (poorly) any type of theme. The essential attribute of Naturalism is its specific method of selection—which is observation of that which the artist happens to see. A naturalistic work could be, for instance, about a hero, or a villain, or a ’man- in-the-street’ nobody—depending on what happened to collide with the artist that day. Naturalism can be about people who seem to possess volition, or people who seem not to. Naturalistic art can, more or less by accident, concretize any meta-values, but it can never do it well because Naturalism rejects a fundamental esthetic principle—that art concretizes abstractions and that abstractions are hierarchical—and so concretization must be a step-by-step, hierarchical process.
If the purpose of art is the perceptualization (by means of concretization) of meta-values, then any artist who fails to explicitly choose that which he represents on the logical basis of those meta-values is doomed to a life in which he can only regard artistic (and therefore personal) success as accidental; a crap- shoot which he rarely—if ever—wins. What he doesn’t know is that in his case it is a crap-shoot. In his case, effective concretization only occurs on those random occasions when his environment happens to be devoid of the irrelevant.
Thus, such an artist is doomed to assume that artistic ability can only be in the nature of a mystic, unknowable ’gift’ which god or genetics provides to a lucky few and which exists causelessly, enacting the causeless—he must think of artistic success as the miraculous, and himself as powerless to act with any reasonable chance of success toward its achievement.
Concretizationism, by contrast gives the artist exactly the intellectual tools which he needs. Because concretizationism provides the artist with the epistemological means by which to most effectively concretize any theme which he chooses, the psychological reward of concretizationism (all other things being equal) is professional self-confidence.
A pure naturalistic artist is in fact an impossibility. That mostly-naturalistic artists occasionally appear who do create art which possesses something like a unified effect is testament, not to any power of naturalism ’in the hands of a master’, but to the fact that any art which has any success as art does so by means of smuggling some element of the premise of Concretizationism into itself. When an artist sees a dirt clod on one day, and an automobile the next, and chooses to paint the one and not the other, he is, all other things being equal, already basing his decision on meta-values—even if he is totally unconscious of them and is simply guided on sense-of-life terms.
Naturalism, then, is not a viable or even independent esthetic. Naturalism is nothing more than the failure to concretize effectively—effective concretization being the task of esthetics— which simply means that esthetically bad art is the same thing as naturalism.
The premise of Naturalism is not a positive, but the negation of a positive. Just as an entity is not the negation of a non-entity; just as a fact is not the negation of a non-fact, Concretizationism is not the negation of Naturalism. Naturalism is non-esthetics. The purpose of esthetics is to provide the artist with the principles by which to select entities to represent in art. Naturalism, which tells the artist not to select entities, but merely to record them as they are, literally has nothing to offer anyone except a momentary release from the responsibility of decision-making. It has no meaning outside of the context of Concretizationism—and only as its negation. Naturalism is, in essence, the abortion of art.
Next I would like to mention a common and faulty esthetic methodology which is, like all others—but rather more obviously, directly rooted in a false Meta-esthetic: Symbolism.
Symbolism in general is the use of a concrete to represent something other than itself (another concrete, an event, an idea or ideology etc). Symbolism as an esthetic methodology is the portrayal of entities which are not selected on the basis of their ability to directly concretize the given meta-values, but on the basis of some relationship (often a nonessential one) which the chosen concretes have with those entities which would concretize the meta-values. There is an important difference between concretizing and implying. Implication can illustrate a conceptual relationship, but it cannot actually serve to perceptualize meta-values, as concretization can.
It is important to understand that while art is a representation of a concretization of meta-values, that representation must be made in a perceptually available form. Thus just any old method of representation will not do. The representation must be in the form of a portrayal. Symbolic representation of one entity by means of another is not the same thing as perceptually available portrayal of the entity itself. Art, from the aspect of the means of presentation must work only on the level of perception, not conceptualization.
As a final note before turning to the subject of artistic forms, I will mention a type of esthetic mistake which amounts to the simple evasion of the fact that esthetics exists. This often takes the form of substituting Psycho-esthetics for esthetics. Remember that the manner of portrayal in art does not, by itself concretize meta-values. It can imply some meta-values and must itself be based, as it is a choice made by a human being, on some meta-values which may or may not themselves be consistent with the meta-values which the artist is attempting to concretize—but it does not concretize meta- values. Only the concretes which are portrayed do concretize meta-values, and only the concretes which are portrayed can concretize meta-values. Of course, the best art will be consistent in these terms, but it is not the case that the concretization of irrational meta-values will be somehow assisted by irrational psycho-esthetics. No concretization of any sort can benefit from portrayal which makes it difficult or impossible to perceive the result.
Similarly, no portrayal, no matter how effective on the perceptual level, can substitute for a lack of correct selection of the entities which are represented. A novel about an insignificant accountant or a painting of a rock do not concretize heroism, no matter how well represented. They do not even concretize a positive view of man’s perceptual mechanism. They imply it through non- esthetic means, but qua art, they make no statement except that boring people and rocks are metaphysically important (with which, I might add, I very much disagree). Perceptual availability is an unqualified value for art because it is necessary by virtue of the very purpose which art of any kind serves.
Still lifes, landscapes and much portraiture as an artistic style are excellent examples of art which is (or can be) psycho- esthetically as good as any other form of art, but which is not merely bad on esthetic terms (unless such a sterile meaninglessness is really the thematic aim of the artist), but is actually, in many (though not all) cases, a meta-esthetic evasion of the meaning and function of art. I will repeat: artistic technique is meaningless in the absence of esthetic selectivity on the part of the artist. Let me point out that this means esthetic selectivity, i.e., selection of entities to represent on the basis of meta-values, not primarily on the basis of the methods of portrayal of those entities—i.e, not on the basis of psycho-esthetics. The still life artist who carefully selects glasses and fruit to portray in his paintings only on the basis of their shape, color and luminosity cannot claim esthetic selectivity in his work.
7. Concretizationism and the Artistic Medium
Before the artist can begin to apply the ideas of Concretizationism to his work, he must understand the specific, esthetic requirements of his own form of art—which means he must identify an esthetic definition of his form.
Esthetics itself does not delimit what may and what may not be considered a valid form of art. This is part of the work of psycho-esthetics. A primary art form must be defined by the manner in which the entities portrayed are perceived and thus, the fundamental divisions are between visual (visual arts), auditory (music), kinesthetic (dance) and introspective—i.e., through imagination (literature). This means, incidentally, that there can be no such thing as a purely olfactory or culinary art. Art must portray perceptual entities—not discrete sensations which do not possess attributes which allow for conceptualization—conceptualizability being a requirement because the entities must be capable of having been included in the original conceptualization of the meta-values which are being concretized.
Thus esthetics itself takes the existence of any particular form of art for granted and then proceeds to define that form in esthetic terms. The process of concretization is the selection of existents (in the form of perceptually available entities) to portray on the basis of some meta-value(s). In the case of the novel, there are no limits to the number and type of existents which can be portrayed. Objects, states of being, attributes, actions, relationships, ideas, etc. all can be portrayed through the medium. This is the esthetic definition of the novel. The number and type of existents which a form of art can portray (not just imply, but actually portray) is the esthetic definition of that art form.
Note that art forms which are actually mixtures of primary arts as defined by psycho-esthetics such as opera or ballet (of the ’pantomime’ sort) can still be accurately defined in esthetic terms.
Close to the novel in esthetic definition is the novella which is only limited in terms of the number of existents it can portray. Also there is the short-story, which is differentiated from the novel not only by the lesser number of existents which it portrays, but, more significantly, by the time element—in that it is properly focused on a single event and whatever is the minimum context of that event, rather than, as in the case of the novel, upon a series of logically connected events. The limited type of existent in the short story is: time.
In the case of poetry, there are two distinct types. First is dramatic poetry, i.e., poetry which tells a story and is thus a hybrid of pure poetry and of the short story or novel. This is, because of the rule of perceptual dominance (see Perceptionism: The Ergonomics of Art, by Steve Clarian), to be judged as fundamentally a form of story and must be created and judged on that basis.
Second there is pure poetry which is even more limited in terms of the time element than the short story. Pure poetry does not fundamentally concern itself with actions or events through time, but with entities and their attributes.
As for the visual arts, I will exclude drama and film (and animation) again due to the rule of perceptual dominance. These are more properly categorized as literary arts—they are special versions of the story. The primary existents which cannot be portrayed in these arts are existents of consciousness (implied, yes, but not actually portrayed).
Painting, drawing and sculpture are all visual arts and totally exclude the portrayal of actions. One of the greatest and most tedious mistakes which artists make on a regular basis is to attempt to make their specific art form into something which it is not. They always fail, of-course. In the case of the visual arts this often occurs in the form of the attempt to somehow show ’action’ or ’motion’. Of course it is possible to imply motion in a painting, but the static visual arts are not media OF motion. These media cannot support concretizations which rely upon motion and specific or complex time-based relationships. As Steve Clarian has shown, both the attempt to actually portray motion (for instance by means of intentional blurring of moving bodies) or the attempt to structure the observer’s experience of the work in a temporal manner, by means of creating visual fields which are too complex to integrate as a perceptual entity (as is often the case in ’crowd-scene’ paintings), represent attempts to make an artistic form into something which it is not. The result is work which tries to imply anything and manages to actually show little or nothing.
On the opposite end of the spectrum from the novel is music, which is limited to the portrayal of only one kind of entity—emotions. I am here speaking of pure music, i.e., music without a verbal text—in which form it is the text which is dominant—not the music. Music is a form of art which represents emotional states by means of the organization of sonic events. Composers of music are also very often guilty of trying to evade the law of identity. Music cannot show rivers in eastern Europe or caves in Scotland or heroes or storms or gardens or lovers or villains. All that music can portray is emotions themselves and nothing more. Esthetically good music concretizes meta-values by means of the portrayal of emotions—music says, in effect, ’These are the emotions which are metaphysically important in life’.
(The medium of music, by the way, is successive sonic events. Psycho-esthetically good music portrays emotional states by means of the organization of sonic events into perceptually integratable entities—see Perceptionism and Formal Organization in Music, by Todd Drullinger.)
And finally, dance. Artistic dance (as against purely recreational dance), as it has been defined by Steve Clarian, concretizes meta-values by means of the representation of kinesthetic existents. These representations are portrayed by means of movements of the human body which are then perceived visually by the observer. If this seems somewhat complicated, I commend the reader to Steve Clarian’s essay, The Medium of Movement: Esthetic and Psycho-Esthetic Parameters in Dance. All that is important to know about it in this context is that the entities which are represented by dance are kinesthetic in nature and no other kind.
What esthetics has to say for the specific artistic mediums is that it is vital for the artist to be aware of the fact that any given form of art is limited in terms of what kinds of existents it can portray and that the artist must not try to take dance, or any other form of art ’outside of itself’ by attempting to portray existents which the medium is not equipped to portray or by attempting to make the focus of an artistic work such existents as can be implied, but not actually portrayed. The artist must, when choosing concretes for portrayal, keep in mind that only those kinds of existents which are portrayable within his own medium may rationally be chosen.
The conclusion is that, like any pursuit which is defined by a specific goal and which possesses a specific nature, the creation of effective art is not—cannot be—haphazard in nature. Neither whim-worship nor slavish adherence to tradition or any other methodology save the correct one (i.e., the rational one) can be consistently expected to yield high quality results—and the correct methodology is that which is provided by Concretizationism.
Concretizationism is the one, valid theory of esthetics because art, like anything else which exists, possesses a specific nature—and Concretizationism is the only esthetic theory which is based on that nature; and because art exists for a specific purpose—and Concretizationism is, again, the only esthetic theory which is based on the recognition of that purpose.
It is time that the artists of the world throw off the shackles of un-reason; of whims and ’urges’ as the arbiter of artistic value; of the belief that your work is doomed to failure, at best, and that your financial success is an impossibility; of the insane notion that ’difficulty’ and incomprehensibility are the stamp of artistic value. It is time that men begin to create art FOR MAN—in the full knowledge of the nature of the purpose which art fulfills for man and of the nature of the minds which respond to it.
If the world is drowning in a flood of bad art, then there is only one solution to the problem—to create more good art. Now is the time to fight for art as never before. There has never been such a great market for good art as now, the age of super-commerce and of super-integrated information networks—never has there been such an esthetic vacuum so desperate to be filled. Now is the time for a few, or even a great many heroic individuals of courage and vision to fill that need—and to reap the enormous financial rewards they will deserve for doing it.
Boulder Colorado 1997.8 -- 1997.10 |
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