I reject this idea of three kinds of abstraction. Frances' description below defines three degrees of abstraction. Because all referents are subjective, they can't be said to belong to any sort of abstraction. And I insist that "everything can look like something else" (a crumpled handkerchief may "look like" like a clamshell) or even evoke association to something that is entirely different (as in symbols, like a flag evokes a national identity). Put less vividly, any object, including any shape, may evoke multiple associative referents, subjective and different for each person, but likely not widely different. Also, I claim that all objects or shapes are inherently abstract, non-referential, meaningless, until a person regards them as-if something else (subjectively prompted, culturally associated).
Back to Abstraction and Empathy: Worringer made it rather clear, I believe, that he was speaking of a particular degree of abstraction, one that employs a regularity, by which he means symmetrical formulaic geometry, as in grids or triangles, etc. (mosaics and the pyramid) and opposed to the infinite irregularity of the organic. I don't think Worringer was trying to define types of abstract art but to claim that the tendency for abstraction has always been a psychological refuge for people in dread of nature's overwhelming complexity and boundless change. Again, this was, in his view, opposite the well entrenched view of empathy (in 1908) which is the projection of self into other, as if it becomes the other. Worringer felt both poles of his model are necessary and fundamental in human art experience. Before him, Western philosophers of psychological aesthetics argued for empathy alone and used canonical, imitative examples in the Greco-Roman-Renaissance tradition to justify and explain their view. So, with Worringer, we are not speaking of abstract art and representational art in particular examples but of the most basic human impulses in seeking the happiness of art experience: "Esthetic enjoyment as self-enjoyment." We may speak of abstract art, but only if we remain mindful that all art, all things are inherently abstract and yet all art and all things are inherently evocative of other art and things. We name things by projecting primary uses for them or indexing them by comparison and contrast with other things and also by regarding them as metaphors --- a projection of symbolic subjectivity. I propose that we can say that the ambiguity we feel is evoked by something is an indicator of its abstractness. The more ambiguity (in the poetic sense of multiple meanings, identities, uses) we can project into something, the more abstract it is. The opposite would be the case for representational art and things. The less ambiguity we can project for them, the less abstract they are, although a one-to-one match, where one artwork or thing refers only to itself or to its copy, is impossible. Again, everything looks like something else. Anything can be as-if anything else, in metaphor. wc ________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, July 5, 2009 6:09:05 PM Subject: RE: Worringer: Abstraction and Empathy I see perfect case for Cheerskep's doctrine in this post by Frances. "Abstract" or "natural" in visual arts was never defined on this forum. Without agreement on terms we can't discus the subject on the acceptable level. "The tern of art would thus be as" the word 'abstract' should be present in all three point given by Frances:" (1) abstract with possible referents; or (2) concrete with actual referents; or (3) discrete with agreeable referents". Boris Shoshensky ---------- Original Message ---------- From: "Frances Kelly" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Subject: RE: Worringer: Abstraction and Empathy Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 14:02:43 -0400 It occurred to me that the Worringer thesis as a global approach considers only two main kinds of objects as artworks: (1) the abstract; and (2) the natural. If however there were more kinds of objects to consider as artworks, then the thesis might work better. It could also then even be made consistent with the tridential approach of Peircean pragmatism, which as a global approach would hold that there are three main kinds of objects with contents as artworks. The tern of art would thus be as: (1) abstract with possible referents; or (2) concrete with actual referents; or (3) discrete with agreeable referents. Each of these three could be further divided into those that were: (1) a formal icon of similarity; or (2) a causal index of contiguity; or (3) a conventional symbol of arbitrarity. This would yield a matrix of nine building blocks upon which to perhaps determine objects as artworks. All that would remain is to use Peircean "objective relativism" as the support philosophy, rather than "subjective relativism" as Worringer wrongly does. -FCK ____________________________________________________________ Workers Compensation Legal Advice. Click here http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2241/fc/BLSrjpYbk8p9UuAHMeVqaLEaEIqpDH sKN8nhQJJ2DWeFdAIhVk1S6arfJ9e/
