SEMINAR
In the 1960’s Barnett Newman declared that: “Aesthetics is for the artist what ornithology is to the birds”
Meaning that birds have coped perfectly well in ignorance of ornithology, and artists have coped just as well in ignorance of aesthetics.
Or
Birds don’t need to know their history to be able to fly just as well the artist don’t need to know aesthetics history to do art.
My personal opinion and view of this subject is that this 6th sense is purely subjective to each individual’s choice and judgement. The artist chooses what importance the aesthetic ideology takes in the making of artwork accordingly to their taste or intentions. I think it’s impossible to make artwork by a table of contents that tells what to put in or what to take out. Moreover this subject and ideology can cause confusion and hamper the artist artwork because surely artwork needs to have some beauty in order to work, however that doesn’t mean that everyone will like it.
From an academic perspective and point of view each artist have the option of analysing their work, disconnecting them self’s from their practice to formulate a critical opinion that might influence future ideas and in this sense aesthetics values may well be taken into consideration however this doesn’t happen in the making of the work but rather after the work being done.
This is a ill defined and highly disputed area of philosophy, and it’s principal concern is at the moment to define the concept of art its relationship to moral, political issues and providing a philosophy of criticism that explores how works of art are interpreted and evaluated.
The ideology is part of the art world and of the elite and it’s the way that art is valued and baptised as an artwork.
Mario Esteves
