This is the actual
question, "The main problem i'm pondering is..... where does mimesis sit when it comes to finding the balance between realism and abstraction. How much
information do I give to the new copy ?"
Mimesis is a very
complex subject and in the time I've got I will have to deal with it in a few
different posts, some first thoughts:
Mimesis
One of the most
important issues that anyone making a drawing that looks like something has to
deal with is the concept of mimesis.
Mimesis operates in a
variety of ways when making a drawing (or any other artwork) and these can be
broken down into different approaches to thinking about how a dialogue is set
up between the ‘real world’, the viewer or perceiver and the drawing itself.
Nature creates similarities. One need only think of
mimicry. The highest capacity for producing similarities, however, is man’s.
His gift of seeing resemblances is nothing other than a rudiment of the
powerful compulsion in former times to become and behave like something else.
Perhaps there is none of his higher functions in which his mimetic faculty does
not play a decisive role.
— Walter Benjamin, “On the Mimetic Faculty” 1933
— Walter Benjamin, “On the Mimetic Faculty” 1933
Benjamin is thinking
about verbal language here but it applies just as well to visual languages.
Aesthetics, sometimes
defined as critical reflections on art, often reflects on perception. Perception is
mainly concerned with ‘sensations’ or the sensuous elements, however when
perceiving artworks sensation
is only part of the picture. Other issues such as the role of memory, emotion
or reasoning can play a part, this is why aesthetics has to take into account
both psychological and cognitive processes when coming to an understanding of
what has been called "sensuous cognition." Baumgarten together with
Kant set out the terms by which we now understand aesthetics, one could say the
‘thinking senses’ or as Kant would say, the ‘perceptual embodiment of ideas.’
Kant states that the products of an artist's imagination are essentially mimetic,
because they are based on the appearance of nature. He would term nature‘objective
reality.’ Kant went further than this and explained that a work of art “does
not merely copynature it embodies concepts more fully than any single
instance in nature”. (Kamhi, 2004) Donald in his book, A Mind So Rare: The
Evolution of Human Consciousness goes further, he states “Whereas mimicry
attempts to render an exact duplicate of an event or phenomenon, and imitation
also seeks to copy an original, mimesis adds a new dimension: it re-enacts and
re-presents an event or relationship in a nonliteral yet clearly intelligible
way.”(Donald, 2002)
Mimesis is therefore a
concept that is not just about copying. It is a concept that suggests that we
model our understanding on perceptions or experiences of the real world and
when we try and communicate these understandings we reflect back on the way we
shape communications using these experiences. In the gap between the experience
of reality and reflection upon it we create ‘mimesis’. In making a drawing that
‘looks like something else’ we are operating at a deep level of meaning making.
One of the first dialogues surrounding these issues
was set out by Plato. He wasn’t too happy about mimesis, he was worried that it
caused confusion between what was real and what wasn’t, he saw it as a type of
lie. It could never be as good as the original; it was less than real and
therefore removed from the
Truth. However Aristotle argued that art adds something, it doesn’t just
imitate, it is not like a mirror. He argues that artists select from nature and
that this selection has purpose. (By using this argument you could start a
debate as to whether or not Duchamp and his selection of the readymade, was
simply illustrating the core implication of Aristotle’s concept). An artist,
according to Aristotle develops an idea related to reality and this idea is
perceived during the perception of the world and afterwards as the perception
is thought about and this idea is then shaped into the art object. This
definition of mimesis allows for a much wider argument to be developed in relation
to the how we might think about art and its relationship with the world. Garry Hagberg opens out these arguments in
his article, ‘Aristotle's Mimesis
and Abstract Art, in this article he also gives a good account of the basic
ideas and issues surrounding the original debate. (This would be a very useful
text to read in relation to Stephen’s question)
This is where drawing as a discrete activity can
perhaps be used to open this debate out. Because drawing tends towards
abstraction, (it reduces the world down to line, tone, mark etc.) you could
argue that in comparison to film, video, painting and sculpture it is not very
good at imitating reality. Instead of being a tool that facilitates mimicry, it
facilitates selection and concept development. For instance if you examine how
a contour line works, it creates a concept of the world as much as it actually
tells us something about the world. Contours (think of what happens when you
draw from the figure using a single continuous line) are invented to help the
moment of perception become realised, they don’t create a picture of reality,
or mirror it. It has been said many times, but it is always worth repeating,
“there is no such thing as a line in nature”.
Because the basic tools of drawing are clearly
devices that allow us to abstract information from the world and because
mimesis is a key concept in the development of theories about art, (aesthetics)
we can start breaking down the various elements that make up a drawing and we
can try and unpick how the mimetic facility helps us construct communication
with others.
Vija Celmins
Keith Coventry
Both these artists are making a point about art. Celmins work is always 'realistic' and relies on mimesis to give the viewer an entry point into her ideas. The eraser being a key tool of the abstract expressionists that were one of the most powerful art movements around when she started off as an artist. In particular Rauchenberg had made a deeply insightful comment on their work with his 'Erased De Kooning' drawing. Celmins' image is pink and suggests another issue, the lack of women in the Abstract Expressionist ranks. Coventry has copied the plans of an existing housing estate and painted an image that looks like early modernism, (it could almost be a Mondrian), he is using two different types of mimesis, looking like art and looking like life. He points to the fact that Modernism has influenced housing design as much as painting. Both these artists use mimesis to carry ideas, but quite different ones. In the next post I'll try to open out how this works.
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