Literature & Language Essay: Philosophy Aesthetics

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Philosophical Aesthetics
Although beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, I argue that the artwork lacks aesthetically significant values to consider it as exceptionally good art. Specifically, the artwork lacks instrumentalism, focused on formalism, based on bad imitation, and devoid of contextualism. The arguments presented in these four art natures reveal that the artwork to be aesthetically bad.
The artwork I am going to criticize is a clay sculpture I once made. Because the task at the time was to learn sculptures by other artists and create a form of sculpture myself, I only designed the shape without giving it other meaning. It conforms to Monroe Beardsley’s I.C.U formalism theory where he claims, “any work of art possessing some degree of intensity, complexity, or unity possesses some degree of aesthetic goodness” (in Goldman, 186), but it does not have any contextualism.
Although varying taste so the people promote subjectivity in the evaluation of art, Beardsley used complexity as an objective value to criticize art. He argued that people can train to observe the difference between artworks and create a personal taste that is based on objective standards (186). Others would argue that the simplicity in the artwork contributes to aesthetic value; however, Beardsley agreed that simplicity is not the basis for artistic praises, but the degree of complexity of the art (186). Therefore, based on Beardsley’s theory I believe that this artwork only focuses on formalism, and lacks significant complexity to be considered aesthetically good.
According to the immortal words of Plato, “art is imitation” (in Golden, 118). Plato in his theory of mimesis argues that our perception of art is based on the realistic representation of the actual objects seen in nature or actual real-life experiences of a person (118). For instance, the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci were imitated from nature that appears as realistic and close to the texture and feel of flesh and blood. The most well-known painting of Da Vinci, the Mona Lisa, is one realistic panting where he imitated the aesthetic appeal of the model and immortalized it into a canvas. In the case of the theory of mimesis, we can argue that imitations were derived from a divine inspiration that an artist wonderfully tried to replicate the good aesthetics of nature or real-life experience. However, in the case of my artwork, the clay sculpture is just an imitation of an imitation without the aid of divine inspiration to make. The lack of realism in the way it is made or even closeness to the original copy limits its aesthetic appeal to be considered as bad rather than good.
Although Plato's theory can only represent physical objects or experiences, we can extend the meaning of mimesis to match modern art, including abstract work and expressionism. Most abstract and expressionist works try to imitate the emotion and materialize it into an artwork. The artists try to imitate the feelings that they experienced and try to make others feel the same way using art. In this sense, imitation is powerful in turning complex ideas or emotions into a simple and more understandable medium. Mimesi...