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Added by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: How, if at all, are we to distinguish between the works that we call ‘art’ and those that we call ‘pornography’? This question gets a grip because from classical Greek vases and the frescoes of Pompeii to Renaissance mythological painting and sculpture to Modernist prints, the European artistic tradition is chock-full of art that looks a lot like pornography. In this paper I propose a way of thinking about the distinction that is grounded in art historical considerations regarding the function of erotic images in 16 th -century Italy. This exploration suggests that the root of the erotic art/pornography distinction was—at least in this context—class: in particular, the need for a special category of unsanctioned illicit images arose at the very time when print culture was beginning to threaten elite privilege. What made an erotic representation exceed the boundaries of acceptability, I suggest, was not its extreme libidinosity but, rather, its widespread availability and, thereby, its threat to one of the mechanisms of sustaining class privilege.
Eaton, A. W.. Feminist philosophy of art2008, Philosophy Compass 3 (5):873-893.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Abstract: This article outlines the issues addressed by feminist philosophy of art, critically surveys major developments in the field, and concludes by considering directions in which the field is moving.Comment:
Eaton, A.W.. A Lady in the Street But a Freak in the Bed: On the Distinction Between Erotic Art And Pornography2018, British Journal of Aesthetics, 58 (4): 469-488-
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Added by: Quentin Pharr and Clotilde TorregrossaAbstract:
How, if at all, are we to distinguish between the works that we call ‘art’ and those that we call ‘pornography’? This question gets a grip because from classical Greek vases and the frescoes of Pompeii to Renaissance mythological painting and sculpture to Modernist prints, the European artistic tradition is chock-full of art that looks a lot like pornography. In this paper I propose a way of thinking about the distinction that is grounded in art historical considerations regarding the function of erotic images in 16 th -century Italy. This exploration suggests that the root of the erotic art/pornography distinction was—at least in this context—class: in particular, the need for a special category of unsanctioned illicit images arose at the very time when print culture was beginning to threaten elite privilege. What made an erotic representation exceed the boundaries of acceptability, I suggest, was not its extreme libidinosity but, rather, its widespread availability and, thereby, its threat to one of the mechanisms of sustaining class privilege.Comment (from this Blueprint): Eaton argues that what really matters in the distinction between pornography and erotic art, has little to do with artistic or aesthetic features, value, or function. Instead, the distinction follows social power structures along the class line: the priviledged reserve art status (and positive value) to works available only in an exclusive ‘private iconic circuit’ but are otherwise no different from those available in the ‘public iconic circuit’ and labelled pornography (and evaluated negatively). Eaton likens the distinction to that between two kinds of prostitute: a ‘courtesan’ and a ‘whore’, suggesting that in both cases the distinctions originate in class divisions and serve to reinforce them. Eaton’s text can serve as a great case study in the debate surrounding the distinction between low and high art, as well as a sceptical argument against the classificatory project altogether: could all our attempts to distinguish art from non-art be just expressions of discrimination along various lines of priviledge?
Eaton, Marcia Muelder. A strange kind of sadness1982, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 41 (1):51-63.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Abstract: HERE IS a Steve McQueen, Jackie Gleason, Tuesday Weld movie called Soldier in the Rain that I watch whenever it comes on the TV late show. I have seen it at least half a dozen times. The first time I saw it, I cried at the end. The next time I saw it I began crying just before the end. Now I choke up when it starts and cry more or less steadily through the whole thing. My husband and son find this exasperating. "Why are you going to watch that if it is just going to make you unhappy?" they ask. What they do not understand is that very few things bring me greater pleasure than watching this movie, crying all the way through. Or perhaps my son does understand when he disdainfully concludes, "You're crazy".Comment:
Eaton, Marcia Muelder. Kantian and contextual beauty1999, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57 (1):11-15.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Introduction: Two conflicting but strongly entrenched intu itions about beauty hold sway in the hearts and minds of many. On the one hand, many people believe that attributions of beauty to objects or events are unmediated-that all that matters is one's direct, personal response. If something is beautiful, one just sees it; cognitive or ethical concerns matter little. On the other hand, many people are drawn to the view that the beautiful is not independent of other human values and atti tudes-that our attributions of beauty are related to beliefs or moral judgments. At the end of the eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant represented the former view with such cleverness that his ar guments continue to disturb even those who re main unconvinced by them. At the end of the nineteenth century, partly as a result of the influ ence of Kant's theory of beauty, Leo Tolstoy felt forced to downplay the importance of beauty's role in explaining the value of art-a trend that continued for several decades. At the end of the twentieth century, increasing numbers of aes thetic theorists and practitioners are persuaded that beauty does matter in art, and although many, including me, believe that beauty is a con textual property deeply connected to factual be liefs and moral attitudes, the tug of Kant's arguments remains strong.Comment:
Eaton, Marcia Muelder. Merit, Aesthetic and Ethical2001, Oxford University Press.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Publisher's Note: To "look good" and to "be good" have traditionally been considered two very different notions. Indeed, philosophers have seen aesthetic and ethical values as fundamentally separate. Now, at the crossroads of a new wave of aesthetic theory, Marcia Muelder Eaton introduces this groundbreaking work, in which a bold new concept of merit where being good and looking good are integrated into one.Comment:
Ellen Dissanayake. Art and Intimacy2000, University of Washington Press-
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Publisher's Note: To Ellen Dissanayake, the arts are biologically evolved propensities of human nature: their fundamental features helped early humans adapt to their environment and reproduce themselves successfully over generations. In Art and Intimacy she argues for the joint evolutionary origin of art and intimacy, what we commonly call love.It all begins with the human trait of birthing immature and helpless infants. To ensure that mothers find their demanding babies worth caring for, humans evolved to be lovable and to attune themselves to others from the moment of birth. The ways in which mother and infant respond to each other are rhythmically patterned vocalizations and exaggerated face and body movements that Dissanayake calls rhythms and sensory modes. Rhythms and modes also give rise to the arts. Because humans are born predisposed to respond to and use rhythmic-modal signals, societies everywhere have elaborated them further as music, mime, dance, and display, in rituals which instill and reinforce valued cultural beliefs. Just as rhythms and modes coordinate and unify the mother-infant pair, in ceremonies they coordinate and unify members of a group. Today we humans live in environments very different from those of our ancestors. They used ceremonies (the arts) to address matters of serious concern, such as health, prosperity, and fecundity, that affected their survival. Now we tend to dismiss the arts, to see them as superfluous, only for an elite. But if we are biologically predisposed to participate in artlike behavior, then we actually need the arts. Even -- or perhaps especially -- in our fast-paced, sophisticated modern lives, the arts encourage us to show that we care about important things.Comment:
Eva Kit Wah Man. Issues of Contemporary Art and Aesthetics in Chinese Context2015, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.-
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Added by: Meilin Chinn
Publisher's Note: This book discusses how China’s transformations in the last century have shaped its arts and its philosophical aesthetics. For instance, how have political, economic and cultural changes shaped its aesthetic developments? Further, how have its long-standing beliefs and traditions clashed with modernizing desires and forces, and how have these changes materialized in artistic manifestations? In addition to answering these questions, this book also brings Chinese philosophical concepts on aesthetics into dialogue with those of the West, making an important contribution to the fields of art, comparative aesthetics and philosophy.Comment: A timely discussion of the influence of the last century’s political, economic, and cultural changes in China upon its philosophical aesthetics. Man’s book addresses a number of key neglected topics of comparative aesthetics between China and the West, contemporary aesthetics and art in Hong Kong, the relation of gender and art in the politics of identity, and the role of tradition in new creative practices. Chapter 4 introduces the leaders of the major schools of aesthetics in new China, including Li Zehou. This text is best used in a comparative aesthetics context, especially in discussions of contemporary aesthetic mediums.
Related reading:
- Li Zehou. The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009. A timely discussion of the influence of the last century’s political, economic, and cultural changes in China upon its philosophical aesthetics. Man’s book addresses a number of key neglected topics of comparative aesthetics between China and the West, contemporary aesthetics and art in Hong Kong, the relation of gender and art in the politics of identity, and the role of tradition in new creative practices. Chapter 4 introduces the leaders of the major schools of aesthetics in new China, including Li Zehou. This text is best used in a comparative aesthetics context, especially in discussions of contemporary aesthetic mediums.
Related reading:
Feagin, Susan. Feminist Art History and De Facto Significance2010, In Peg Zeglin Brand & Carolyn Korsmeyer (eds.), Feminism and Tradition in Aesthetics. Penn State Press.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Abstract: In her excellent "Feminist Art History and De Facto Significance," for example, aesthetician Susan L. Feagin explains how her initial skepticism about Continental approaches-especially those drawing on Foucault, Marx, Levi-Strauss, Lacan, and "even Derrida and poststructuralist literary theory" - gave way to an appreciation of how these approaches encourage, in a way analytic aesthetics does not, "the trenchant analyses and acute observations that have emerged from feminist art historians" (305). And, indeed, although she goes on to suggest how traditional aesthetics might accommodate feminist and other politically informed analyses, she cautions that "it is too easy to miss the most innovative aspects of another's view if one tries to understand it only in terms of one's own theoretical perspective" (305).(from review by Sally Markowitz, Hypatia Vol. 11, No. 3 (Summer, 1996), pp. 169-172)Comment:
Feagin, Susan L.. The pleasures of Tragedy1983, American Philosophical Quarterly 20 (1): 95-104.-
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Added by: Laura Jimenez, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Summary: This article addresses a paradox that has puzzled philosophers of art since Aristotle: tragedies produce, and are designed to produce, pleasure for the audiences, without supposing any special callousness or insensitivity on their part. The author introduces a distinction which enables us to understand how we can feel pleasure in response to tragedy, and which also sheds some light on the complexity of such responses. The virtues of this approach lie in its straightforward solution to the paradox of tragedy as well as the bridges the approach builds between this and some other traditional problems in aesthetics, and the promising ways in which we are helped to see their relationships. In particular, we are helped to understand the feeling many have had about the greatness of tragedy in comparison to comedy, and provided a new perspective from which to view the relationship between art and morality.Comment: Really clear introduction to the nature of the relationship between aesthetic and moral value, and specifically to the topic of meta-responses to art. The last section of the paper also throws some light upon the differences between responses and meta-responses to real situations and to art. The reading is not very difficult so in principle, it could be used by undergraduate students. On the other hand, the paper contains some very specialised detail, so it might be recommendable to use it for postgraduate courses in both ethics and aesthetics.
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Eaton, A. W.. ‘A Lady on the Street but a Freak in the Bed’: On the Distinction Between Erotic Art and Pornography
2018, British Journal of Aesthetics 58 (4): 469-488
Comment: The paper has implications reaching far beyond the pornography debate. Could similar power relations not impact art classification elsewhere? It might be useful to discuss this in the context of Larry Shiner's 'The Invention of Art,' where the historical processes leading to the establishment of the modern Western system of the arts are analysed, including examples such as the exclusion of weaving as it became a female-dominated profession. Reaching even further, this can be applied to attitudes to art of other cultures, with (post)colonial power relations impacting on the way works are classified. Finally, Eaton’s text can serve as a sceptical argument against the classificatory project altogether: could all our attempts to distinguish art from non-art be just expressions of discrimination along various lines of priviledge? The paper has implications reaching far beyond the pornography debate. Could similar power relations not impact art classification elsewhere? It might be useful to discuss this in the context of Larry Shiner's 'The Invention of Art,' where the historical processes leading to the establishment of the modern Western system of the arts are analysed, including examples such as the exclusion of weaving as it became a female-dominated profession. Reaching even further, this can be applied to attitudes to art of other cultures, with (post)colonial power relations impacting on the way works are classified. Finally, Eaton’s text can serve as a sceptical argument against the classificatory project altogether: could all our attempts to distinguish art from non-art be just expressions of discrimination along various lines of priviledge?