Wittgenstein and aesthetics

From Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 

When I was an art student in the late 60s and early 70s the key philosopher in relation to the way we were discussing art was Wittgenstein. In his books his thoughts were laid out in numbered mini statements (see illustration above), each of which was treated at the time as a way of on the one hand cutting down metaphysical speculation about grand ideas and on the other as a way to develop a lever with which to develop ideas. He was at times both the subject of our work and a means towards a process by which we could make it. 

Looking back it seems very restrictive, but it taught us to grapple with complex texts and read philosophy. It also made sure that you had to think about how art operated as a language.

One issue that has I would have thought been of concern to generations of art students is that link between the act of perception or experience and an expression that has something to say or is a reflection on it. It is quite natural to ask yourself, “What does my work communicate?” It is also of course an area fraught with pitfalls and art tutors will often advise students to “Not go there.” because you can get lost in layers and layers of philosophical speculation and many art students have lost the desire to create after been sucked into trying to answer this question.

On our reading lists at that time was Richard Wollheim’s Art and its Objects. A complex book that asked a lot of questions as to whether or not an artwork had to be a physical object. I don’t remember coming to a conclusion about this but what I do remember is that Wollheim opened up the possibility for being able to think about the fact that what constituted an artwork did not have to be an object. The debate at the time was often looking for the art in different situations. For example, one of us might propose that the conversation we were having was to be seen as art. If so, we would argue at what point did the conversation move from being something we were experiencing to something that was now a reflection on that experience. Was it enough to simply quote Judd’s dictum, “If the artist says it’s art, it’s art.” or should we be looking at an underlying structure that could confirm that this was a universal activity common to all cultures and not just something particular to a sub-group preoccupation of what was coming to be known as the ArtWorld. People were often polarized in their opinions and you had on the one hand those who yearned for a universal validity for what they were doing, these people, including myself, would often quote Jung and Chomsky, believing that universal languages were possible, whilst others would argue that we were only able to deal with specific targeted speech acts, each one only readable within the sub-group interests of a very specific community. I.e. we were restricted to making work that was always going to be a comment on and a reflection about art and its associated activities and practices.

Because Wittgenstein was being read by all of us he often became the arbiter. One area I was particularly interested in was that of ‘correspondence’. This was a Baudelairian concept, and it questioned the link between what could be perceived or experienced and what could be expressed that accounted for the perception or experience. Was there or was there not a ‘correspondence’ between the two. Wittgenstein had looked at the link between lived experience and expression, expression he seems to argue being essentially the face of experience. As we experience the world, perception is shaped as it is perceived, so that there is in fact no difference. So you could argue that as an artist you are perceiving the world ‘as an artist’. ‘It’s like searching for a word when you are writing and then saying: “That’s it, that expresses what I intended!” – Your acceptance certifies the word as having been found and hence as being the one you were looking for’ (Wittgenstein [1978]: 68). He asks at another point ‘what happens when we try to find the right expression for our thoughts?’,  (Wittgenstein [1953]: 335) and suggests that this expression is a form of translation and that there is some sort of fusion between perception and expression.

This was for myself a position around which I would argue that the artist could therefore have experiences and communicate something about them to others. But for the ‘institutional theory of art’ adherents they would say that the experiences I was having were mediated by the fact that I belonged to the Artworld and that I could only demonstrate a sub-group preoccupation focused on art.

There is a diagram that illustrates the issues involved, and as this is a blog about drawing I suppose it’s time to get some drawing into the frame. What the drawing illustrates is that these arguments could be set out as being diametrically opposed poles centered on or surrounding some sort of notion of real world experience or perception. 

The diagram is very clear and simple and sums up all the complex arguments that too many words have tried to explain. It shows Goodman as situated opposite Danto, i.e. Goodman believes in the ‘languages of art’ and Danto believes in the language of the institution of art. Wollheim is opposite Sibley, Wollheim argued that a work of art is a structure which is has a physical actuality, (i.e. not just in the mind as Collingwood would argue) but Sibley would argue that aesthetics are prior to art, i.e. we apply them to all sorts of things, a flower or the look of a landscape, art not being the important thing here, but our propensity to judge things in relation to how they are both perceived and experienced. 

There is no answer to these types of questions, simply a range of standpoints but, I would suggest at some point it is useful to look at the standpoints on offer and decide where you want to be yourself. Personally I would like to believe that I could communicate with people that are outside of my specialist sub-group preoccupation. If so an image like the one below ought to mean something to people reading this blog if they can find a meaningful connection with an image from their own experience.

Detail of one of my own images from a sequence of drawings done in response to immigrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea in unseaworthy, overcrowded boats. 

Goodman would have suggested that there was a language that could be read across times and cultures, therefore he would have seen a link between the image above and the one below, which is a hand-coloured copper engraving used for a magic lantern projection. It shows ships on the Strait of Messina during a sequence of earthquakes in 1783. In a previous post, see I suggested that water itself has been a constant source for visual invention by artists from different times and cultures, in many ways it could therefore be argued that I am very much in Goodman's camp. 

Wittgenstein, L. 1953: Philosophical Investigation, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe, Blackwell,
Oxford.

Wittgenstein, L., 1978: Culture and Value, ed. by G.H. von Wright, Blackwell, Oxford.

See also: Drawing and philosophy