The reason I decided to do this sort of a book for the course was to be able to better understand what I was learning. I thought it would be easier to remember if I could find the philosophies covered in some sort of context that I am close to. As this is an art history course, I chose to see if I could find the aesthetic philosophies discussed in the course in the art around me. What follows are my thoughts about the aesthetics of three different art projects based on the philosophies covered in class.

When I looked at the landscape paintings that were being done in one of the painting classes, I thought about the writings of Plotinus about the beautiful. He does feel that anything that reflects divine beauty will be recognized by the soul and seen as being beautiful. Therefore, the beauty that we see in nature is a reflection of this divine beauty Plotinus mentions. He also gives art an important distinction as he feels that it can be used to point toward divine beauty in ways that nature is incapable of achieving.

The first thing I did notice about the paintings was the wide range of styles each artist had used in depicting the landscape. Some of the works were careful translations of the scenes that were chosen. The colors and forms were the same as the subject. The only real difference was that the artist had to take the visual information and break it down into something that could be put on a canvas with paint. Some works went to the other extreme. The artist had obviously based the painting on landscape, but the forms and colors had been interpreted in such a way so that the painting could go far beyond just the beauty in nature. Then there were works that went between these two styles. These had a few changes, but were still fairly literal translations of the subject depicted.

How does this fit with Plotinus' views? I think it could be argued that the beauty of the landscape resonated with these artists on different levels. Those artists that went beyond just a literal translation of the landscape may have felt this divine beauty and attempted to emphasize whatever it was that excited their souls. Assuming that the painting was an honest effort, the artwork would then end up being more beautiful than nature itself as it has been used to improve upon nature's beauty.

What about those paintings that were basically a literal translation of what the artist saw? It is possible that these artists haven't been able to set aside the distractions Plotinus mentions and focus on the search for a universal harmony and beauty. Yet, as a counterpoint, I'd like to bring in a phrase I've often heard. In more than one instance, somebody has referred to a specific place as ‘God's country.' In Plotinus' views, these people are in harmony with the universe enough to at least be able to see divine beauty in these places. Since the search for harmony with the one is entirely individual, it is possible that these people feel that they are in tune with the universe enough not to improve on what they see or rely on the symbolic nature of art to guide them to divine beauty. From this it could be that the artist who just does a fairly literal translation of the landscape also feels that the beauty in nature cannot be improved upon.

I think this point was well illustrated by the visiting artist Greg Hardy, who paints landscapes. Throughout the slide presentation of his work, he seemed interested only in capturing the beauty he experienced in the areas he was trying to paint. It was obvious that there is something in the landscape that deeply moves him as it is the only thing that he paints. He also referred to the beauty of the areas he was painting several times throughout his talk. As various slides were shown, he expressed his own dissatisfaction with his inability to capture the beauty he saw within that landscape. Not once did he give the sense that he was taking what he felt was beautiful and improving upon it through his paintings. Instead he conveyed the sense that the beauty in nature needed no ‘improvement' through the work of the artist. For him, the landscape by itself seems to reflect divine beauty more than adequately. I did notice that throughout his paintings that he did use various stylistic methods to capture the essence of the landscape he was seeking to convey, but he didn't think that he had hit upon anything that was personally satisfying. At the conclusion of his presentation, I got the sense that he was more interested in sharing what it was that moved him about that landscape, rather than symbolically improving upon it through painting.

When viewing landscape painting through the views of Plotinus, the whole concept of beauty becomes very complicated. In one sense, a knowledge of the artist's intent may be necessary to understand if they feel that they are in harmony with the divine or seeking to symbolically point to divine beauty. On the other hand, if you are in harmony with the ‘one,' then you should be able to ascertain for yourself whether or not a landscape painting is really beautiful.

The cardboard projects have been around in the atrium for a while now. It was only after looking at them for quite a while that I felt that I might be able to look at the aesthetics of the works from a philosophical perspective. The first thing that I thought about was the material that the works were constructed from. Was the form of the piece partially dictated by the material that it was constructed from? In Aristotle's view, the material does add to the concept the artist originally begins with. The only problem is that he uses the creation of statues from stone as his example and seems to point to natural materials when he discusses this point. Does this also apply to a man made material like cardboard? From my own personal experience and knowledge of other artists thoughts about materials, I think that this point does not apply to manufactured materials. It seems that such inspiration only comes from natural materials. The shapes or imperfections within a natural material can spark an artist's imagination and help to realize the idea that is being conveyed. The standardization of manufacturing removes the ‘discoveries' of the material. Therefore, the realization of the work has to rely solely on the thought processes of the artist. Whether or not this is harms the work depends on the skill of the artist in either case.

Although this point within Aristotle's writings doesn't really apply to these works, I think that they do follow the concepts of balance and measure that he mentions. Since the projects were to create figures in cardboard, they automatically have to follow the proportions of the body. Much of Greek art was based on the ideal proportion that was based on the body. For example, the ideal figure had to be 8 heads tall. From glancing at the works, it appears that each one followed body proportions so that they would be easily recognized as figures.

The second thing many of the pieces also used as a point of measure that Aristotle would recognize was geometric shapes. Any artwork that uses geometric shapes automatically follow the balances of mathematical formulae as that is the only way such shapes can be created. Using both geometry and body proportion within the same piece also requires a careful arrangement of the various elements to avoid the problem of excess and defect Aristotle mentions. To arrive at a balance obviously requires a form of reasoning that I think is obvious in many of the pieces.

Some of the works have a narrative element to them. Although Aristotle credited tragic drama as being the best means of communicating philosophical truths to the masses I wonder if an artwork is able to illustrate such concepts just as well. Could a well composed artwork that depicts just the right moment of vice provide the same cathartic release as a tragic drama? A tragedy has the element of live action that usually causes an immediate reaction from the viewer. The narrative element with its supporting parts grab the attention of the audience and leads them through the story to its cathartic release. The truth is revealed quickly and directly. A possible problem with this is that the truth can also be just as quickly forgotten by the viewer.

I think an artwork can have a similar effect but a longer time element is involved. In general, art shows one moment of a narrative and has to be analyzed to understand what is going on. Because of this, the underlying message tends to be more subliminal than direct with no immediately apparent effect. In a sense, this nature of art could make it a more powerful messenger than a tragic drama as the slow revealing of truth may linger in the memory of the viewer longer than something that is basically given to the viewer. Of course, the drawback of making the viewer work at finding the message in a piece is that it does require more than the mere passing glance that most works get. In a world where information is transferred in sound bytes of a few seconds, truth revealed in art analysis is practically pointless as the masses will miss what the truth actually is due to short attention spans.

Are the cardboard projects actually art? I think that from Aristotle's point of view they would be considered art, particularly as these figures do have the potential to be used as a vehicle to pass on philosophical truth to the masses. From his writings, this seemed to be the most important point in determining the usefulness of ‘art.'

For these silkscreen prints, the whole project is based on the idea of making an ugly print. The subject matter dealt with the concept of disguise. All of the aesthetic decisions are left up to the artist with the exception of color. The project specifies that the artist is to use color that each individual considers ugly. Since color is a large element of a successful silkscreen print, it raises the question of whether an artist can create an ugly artwork.

In his writings, Plotinus raised that question when he talked about beauty and the soul. He felt that someone who had reached an inner balance and reached a state of harmony with the One was incapable of creating anything ugly. Any soul that had reached this state would have purged evil and ugliness, as Plotinus linked both, from it. The soul is left with only goodness and beauty. Therefore, a truly good soul can't make anything ugly.

Assuming that everyone in the silkscreen class has a good soul, then there should be no ugly artworks produced, even if the artists are using ‘ugly' colors. After looking at the projects on display, I could not find one ugly print. The only odd thing about these prints is that the color relationships are quite interesting, but each of the prints have an aesthetic balance that give the images its own individual beauty. Do these works prove that Plotinus was correct?

On first glance, it appears that the pieces do show that it is impossible to create ugly art and does lend merit to his argument. Yet, there are a few things that I had to consider. First of all is the fact that these were done in an art school setting. The whole visual arts program is designed to train the students to look at visual information in a certain way. That is such a large part of the art school that students automatically use the concepts of aesthetics they have been taught to make a picture that is balanced and pleasing to the eye. I think that the color balance of the silkscreen prints comes more from artistic training rather than spiritual oneness.

The second thing to consider is that only one element of the piece was supposed to be ugly; i.e. color. It is fairly easy to compensate for the ‘ugliness' of one element of a piece with conscious choices about other aesthetic elements, like composition. This also falls back to the point on artistic training as we are taught to be able to manipulate visual elements as much as possible to get ‘beautiful' images, even with restrictions. It may have been a better idea to either change the element that the class had to make ‘ugly' or further restrict the aesthetic choices they could make freely. The project could have been to make an ugly artwork using both ugly colors and an ugly composition. Such a project might be a better test of whether a good soul can make ugly art.

Although it seems that the philosophy of a good soul being incapable of doing anything ugly can be explained away with practical considerations, there are still existing works that support what Plotinus writes. I am thinking of the works of Marcel Duchamp where he attempted to create works without any aesthetic. He took whatever object he had and tried to use it without having any aesthetic judgements, like leaning a shovel against the wall as a piece. Even without using any artistic judgement, none of the works of his I have seen are ugly. Obviously, there must be something that prevented Duchamp from making the ugly artwork. Could it be the oneness of soul that Plotinus writes about?

If, according to Plotinus, a good soul can't make ugly art, then can an evil soul make beautiful art? In his philosophy that would also be impossible. The article on Bill Reid seems to point to the argument that an evil soul can make beautiful art. I think that Plotinus would consider Reid to have not reached that state of oneness. From the content of the article, I think that he would find Reid closer to evil than good. Yet, despite Reid's personal conduct, he does create art that is beautiful.

What value does that place on art? I think that the correctness of Plotinus' beliefs depend upon the individual circumstances that they are used in. That is clearly illustrated by discussing the aesthetics of the prints, as well as including Duchamp and Reid. In the end, I think that Plotinus wasn't entirely correct in his philosophy, but he wasn't totally wrong either.

I was really surprised to find that the ideas on beauty written by some of these philosophers are still quite present today. I didn't find it too difficult to find something in each project I discussed that pertained to some philosopher's writings, even if it was to point out flaws in their beliefs. The one thing that did strike me was that none of the works I covered fit neatly into one philosophy of aesthetics, even though I did use one philosophy when I wrote about the work. I think that may partially be due to the changes that have taken place in society since these philosophers lived. Some societal structures have changed greatly, which I think affects how these philosophies are used today. One of the other things I noticed is that all of these philosophers tend to write about a universal oneness and how important it is to reach this. Today's society thrives on postmodernism, a principle of fracturing rather than oneness. This changes the way philosophies of aesthetics are interpreted and used. Postmodernism does not totally invalidate those philosophies. Instead it opens up discussion and allows alternative views to be examined, without eliminating existing theories. I think that is why these philosophies are reflected in the works I discussed, and also why they do not neatly fit in with a particular philosophy. Instead there is a mixing of ideas that may lead to the truth all philosophers are searching for.