DeWitt H. (ED) Parker

Ron Mueck working on one of his hyperrealistic sculptures

The Principles of Aesthetics grew out of lectures delivered in 1920 at the University of Michigan where Professor DeWitt H. Parker conveys his love for art and the philosophy of art in the following chapters: The Purpose and Method of Art, Definition of Art, The Intrinsic Value of Art, The Elements of the Aesthetic Experience, The Structure of the Aesthetic Experience, The Standard of Taste, The Aesthetics of Music, The Aesthetics of Poetry, Prose Literature, Painting, Sculpture, Archetecture, Art and Morality, Art and Religion.

Although much has happened in the world of art in the last one hundred years, this book remains an excellent introduction to the subject. To share a small flavor of what’s contained in its pages, below are ten direct quotes coupled with my accompanying comments:

“People who do not love art, yet study it from the outside, may contribute to our knowledge of it through isolated bits of analysis, but their interpretations of its more fundamental nature are always superficial.” ---------- This is perhaps the key reason aesthetics as a branch of philosophy is not nearly as popular, not even close, as the other branches – metaphysics (the nature of reality), epistemology (the nature of knowledge) and ethics (the nature of right action). Looking through the various threads within one prime Goodreads group devoted to philosophy, I could see where dozens and dozens of members posted lengthy comments on various philosophical topics covering reality, knowledge and action, however, when it came to art and aesthetics –barely a comment! Sorry to say, our modern world doesn’t put a high value on beauty and delicacy of taste. Relatively few are the men and women who both love art and are willing to discuss subjects relating to aesthetic appreciation.



“For the intelligent lover of beauty, aesthetic theory requires no justification; it is as necessary and pleasurable for him to understand art as it is compulsive for him to seek out beautiful things to enjoy." ---------- Not every artist, musician or writer is required to be a philosopher of art or have any interest in the field of aesthetics. Probably a good thing! There is that famous Barnett Newman quote: “Aesthetics is for artists what ornithology is for birds.” Curiously, many artists, writers and musician have, in fact, written extensively on the process and theory of their art, to name several: Wassily Kandinsky, Max Beckmann, Ad Reinhardt, Henry James, Milan Kundera, Stephen King, Francine Prose, John Gardner, Vladimir Nabokov Arnold Schoenberg, John Cage. This to underline how Parker’s observation that thinking about art can enhance aesthetic appreciation and, in turn, aesthetic appreciation along with the actual creation of art can enhance understanding.

“The work of art is the tool of the aesthetic life, so, through works of art, aesthetic capacity and experience are enhanced and become common possessions, a part of the spiritual capital of the race.” ---------- If anybody wants to study aesthetics and art philosophically, they will not only be required to read in the field of aesthetics but also actively engage with the arts. And when Parker writes above: “become common possessions, a part of the spiritual capital of the race” we can think in terms of how our lives are enriched by art on various levels: for those living in a city - the art of Florence, the temples of Kyoto, the architecture of Athens; and for citizens of a country – the great nineteenth century Russian novelists for Russians, Shakespeare for the English, Zen gardens for the Japanese. Actually, in addition to the specific benefits bestowed on those living in these respective cities and countries, in a very real sense, all of the above mentioned art belongs to all of us, the great human family.


Thanks for Being Friends - print by Contemporary Dutch artist Wim Heesakers

“In art the sensuous medium of the expression receives an attention and possesses a significance not to be found in other types of expression. Outside of art, sensation is a mere transparent means to the end of communication and recognition.” ---------- Very much in the tradition of modern aesthetics, DeWitt Parker goes into great length about the intrinsic value of art, that is, how art is an end in and of itself; art isn’t a tool to further religious or moral values or any other set of values. This is a specific development in Europe beginning in the renaissance. In more traditional cultures, including Medieval European culture, art is directly linked to the moral and religious. Let’s take music: Benedictine monks or Tibetan monks chant to augment their spiritual life; a string quartet plays Mozart and Schubert for the value of the music itself, in other words, “art for art sake.”

“The fundamental reason for the superiority of sights and sounds remains the possibility of communicating the larger and deeper life of feeling and thought through them.” ---------- There’s no question painting, sculpture, music, theater, dance, literature and the other major fine arts rely primarily on our eyes and ears. Perhaps this is why the “feelies” from Huxley’s Brave New World, where you can actually “feel” as you watch a movie. captures our imagination. But are we well served in discounting smelling, tasting and feeling? In recent years there has been an entire area of aesthetics devoted to “everyday aesthetics” where all of our senses are valued as we encounter our day-to-day world – the smell and taste of our morning coffee; the feel of our morning shower. Also, other cultures have highly developed art forms devoted to these usually neglected senses, the Japanese Tea Ceremony, for example.



“The life of the imagination is, moreover, the only one that we have in common. Actually, to lead another’s life would involve possessing his body, occupying his position, doing his work and so destroying him.” ---------- Think about this for a moment - this is such a great point! Although we can’t get into the head of another person, even our loved ones, through the magic of art, most specifically prose fiction, we can all get into the head of the characters. This is why first-person stories and novels are among my favorite forms of art. I feel as if I’m given a chance to live life as someone else. Case in point, here is the opening line from Colin Harrison’s Electric Bodies that instantly pulled me into the novel: "My name is Jack Whitman and I should never have had the first thing to do with her - not with what was happening at the Corporation at the time. But I'm as weak hearted for love and greedy for power as the next guy, maybe more so. And I was crazy for the sex - of course that was part of it."

“Art is the more valuable because it encompasses the things which tend to separate and distinguish men than it would be if it were limited to those that unite them. There is nothing so bizarre that art may not express it, provided that thereby it may be communicated.” ---------- Indeed, the subject of any art can be as bizarre and as weird and as far out as can be imagined. As long as the artist communicates their vision, bizarre, weird, and far out are all perfectly fine. Two example, one ancient, one modern: the cyclops from Homer’s Odyssey and Claes Oldenburg’s Clothespin in Philadelphia, a work I’ve enjoyed dozens of times.





“First, the work of art is primarily an expression of the artist’s personality and, second, its purpose is to provide a common medium of expression for the experience of all men. If interpretation remains a purely individual affair, both the relation of the work of art to the artist and the possibility of a shared experience are destroyed.” ---------The author is saying it takes two to tango – the individual and the community. An artist must place their very personal stamp on their work but it must be done in a way that can be appreciated by others. Of course, in our modern world, many artists have stretched the point to see how far they can take it, as in John Cage’s 4’33” – link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTEFKFiXSx4

“Music is the most signal example of a mode of expression that has attained to a complete and pure aesthetic character, an unmixed beauty. . . . Yet-and this is the central paradox of music – despite its abstractness, may, because of this very quality, it remains the most personal and intimate of the arts.” ---------- Everybody might not have their favorite type of art, sculpture, architecture, poetry or prose but everybody has their favorite music. Rhythm is so much part of the pulse of the cosmos and everything in the cosmos.

“There is a feeling, expressed in many common phrases, that prose literature is not one of the fine arts. The reason is this: in prose literature there is a conspicuous absence of beauty of form and sensation, of the decorative, in comparison with the other arts. The vague expressiveness and charm of the medium, the musical aspect, is largely lacking.” ----------- What! Those are fighting words, DeWitt Parker. Is this statement about the inferiority of prose and especially the novel a product of the author writing in 1920? Henry James once referred to nineteenth-century novels as “large, loose, baggy monsters.” But, still, many readers, including myself, find a great deal of beauty in novels.


“No matter what further purpose artistic expressions may serve, they are produced and valued for themselves; we linger in them; we neither merely execute them mechanically, as we do automatic expressions, nor hasten through them, our minds fixed upon some future end to be gained by them, as is the case with practical expressions.”
--DeWitt H. Parker… (lisätietoja)