by Robert Wicks
Dig Deeper
Henry Allison, Kant’s Theory of Taste: A Reading of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
Paul Crowther, The Kantian Aesthetic: From Knowledge to the Avant-Garde (Oxford University Press, 2010)
Paul Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Taste (Harvard University Press, 1979)
Eva Shaper, Studies in Kant’s Aesthetics (Edinburgh University Press, 1979)
John Zammito, The Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgement (University of Chicago Press, 1992)
Study questions
1 What is the difference between ‘aesthetic judgements of beauty’ and ‘aesthetic judgements of sensation’?
2 Why does Kant believe that the feeling of beauty is a feeling of universal validity?
3 Why does Kant say that we need to judge the beauty of things ‘disinterestedly’?
4 When judging an object’s pure beauty, why is it not necessary to know what kind of object it is?
5 What is the relationship between the feeling of universal validity and the harmony of the cognitive faculties?
6 What is the principle of the purposiveness of nature, and why is it important for scientific inquiry?
7 Why does science require us to regard nature as a work of art?
8 Why do all purely beautiful objects exhibit a ‘purposiveness without purpose’?
9 What is the significance of the ‘free play’ of the imagination and understanding in Kant’s theory of pure beauty?
10 Are human beauty and the beauty of fine art examples of pure beauty?
14
Human beauty and fine art
Kant’s account of pure beauty refers us to an object’s spatio-temporal design, considered independently of the object’s variable sensory qualities, and independently of the kind of object it happens to be. In many cases, however, we make judgements of beauty with these sensory and conceptual factors in mind. The beauty of colourful roses and sunsets, human beauty and fine art would be examples. This chapter will describe how Kant elaborates upon his canonical account of pure beauty to include the more complicating sensory and conceptual aspects of beautiful objects. Fine art, which Kant describes as the product of artistic geniuses who produce ‘aesthetic ideas’, is central to his discussion.
1 Beauty mixed with sensory and conceptual content
Kant’s theory of pure beauty describes the conditions under which any human being can judge an object’s beauty and legitimately expect all other humans to agree. Cultural, linguistic, psychological and physiological differences are set aside, and exclusive attention is paid to the object’s spatio-temporal form. Although strictly circumscribed, the resulting aesthetic is universalistic in its formalism, and it captures some of the familiar examples to which we apply the word ‘beauty’. The theory explains well why we regard snowflakes, seashells, crystals and all sorts of abstract designs as beautiful, owing to their rationally organized structure. The beauty of roses and sunsets, however, remains in need of further explanation, as does human beauty. The beauty of fine art, when judged as art, also requires a more elaborate account.
Kant, obviously, does not believe that the beauty of roses, sunsets, human beauty and fine art can be fully understood in sole reference to pure beauty. To fill out his theory and to account for such examples, he formulates two kinds of ‘mixed’ or ‘combinatory’ forms of beauty that widen his basic notion of pure beauty. The procedure is straightforward: calling upon his threefold division of spatio-temporal form, sensation and meaning, and using his conception of pure beauty as the ground, he considers the contemplation of an object’s spatio-temporal design in conjunction with (1) reflections on the object’s sensory qualities and (2) reflections on the object’s kind. The first combination gives us a conception of beauty that applies to objects such as roses and sunsets. The second yields a conception that covers human beauty and fine art.
The mixture of spatio-temporal form and sensory qualities in the first combination provides an account of the beauty of things such as roses and sunsets, since the rose’s delicate texture, perfume and colour, for example, now enter into consideration with its design. Kant is reluctant to refer to this fusion as beautiful in a genuine sense, since the term ‘beauty’ implies that we can legitimately expect others to agree with our judgements. Once we introduce sensory qualities into our judgement of an object’s beauty – qualities that vary unpredictably from person to person – we lose the legitimacy of that universalistic expectation. For lack of a label for this kind of beauty, we can refer to it as ‘unrefined’ beauty, since the object’s sensory qualities are intermingled with the appreciation of the object’s structural qualities. When judging aesthetically such admixtures of structural and sensory qualities, one cannot reasonably expect others to agree with one’s judgements of beauty.
In this aesthetic mixture of sensation with design, the colours (for example) can play different roles. They can remain in the background and function mainly to enhance our perception of an object’s delineation, supporting our judgement of pure beauty, or, at the other end of the continuum, they can permeate the object’s appearance to obscure our perception of the object’s spatio-temporal form. The beauty of sunsets is a revealing case of the latter. Given how a sunset’s colours typically predominate within its appearance, this kind of ‘beauty’ turns out to be the lowest kind in Kant’s theory. In Kant’s precise language, we should refer to the pleasing sensory qualities of sunsets as ‘charming’ or ‘agreeable’, rather than as beautiful.
Sunsets are nonetheless among our paradigm cases of beauty, and this suggests either that Kant is wrongheaded to locate sunsets at the lower levels of beauty, or that he correctly reveals that our delight over such things as beautiful sunsets, sparkling fireworks, and the multicoloured lights that decorate houses, windows and trees during the holiday season, betrays an unrefined sense of taste.
In the same way, music does not fare well within Kant’s aesthetics. Thinking of how people are often pleased – one should say ‘charmed’ – by the sheer sound of musical instruments, as when appreciating a mellow French horn, a spooky oboe, a dreamy sitar, or a sensitive violin, he describes music as an art which ‘occupies the lowest place among the fine arts (just as it occupies perhaps the highest place among those that are judged according to their agreeableness), because it merely plays with sensations’ (Critique of Judgement, Section 53).
Spotlight: Aesthetic formalism
Kant is frequently referred to as a ‘formalist’ in aesthetic theory, and correctly so, as he defines pure beauty – a quality that natural objects, dream images and works of art can equally possess – in reference to an object’s spatio-temporal form. In more recent aesthetic theory, the term ‘formalism’ is typically used not in reference to defining beauty, however, but more narrowly in defining art. A classic example is found in the writings of the British art critic, Clive Bell (1881–1964), who wrote the following:
What quality is shared by all objects that provoke our aesthetic emotions? What quality is common to Sta. Sophia and the windows at Chartres, Mexican sculpture, a Persian bowl, Chinese carpets, Giotto's frescoes at Padua, and the masterpieces of Poussin, Piero della Francesca, and Cézanne? Only one answer seems possible – significant form. In each, lines and colours combined in a particular way, certain forms and relations of forms, stir our aesthetic emotions. These relations and combinations of lines and colours, these aesthetically moving forms, I call ‘Significant Form’; and ‘Significant Form’ is the one quality common to all works of visual art.
(Clive Bell, Art (1914), Chapter I, ‘The Aesthetic Hypothesis’)
Notice how Bell includes colours within the realm of ‘form’, as do most contemporary formalists, whereas Kant sets colours aside as merely sensory charms, restricting his attention to the object’s spatial and temporal configuration. When discussing Kant’s formalism is it important to keep distinct these two projects of defining beauty as opposed to defining art
.
Kant’s interest in mixed modes of beauty is less concerned with music and sunsets, than with the second kind of combination mentioned above, namely, those cases where a conceptual factor enters into our judgement of beauty. Here, we judge an object’s beauty in view of the kind of thing it is. Suppose someone draws our aesthetic attention to a snowflake which has a few broken points. We can judge the snowflake’s beauty in reference to its pure design, or we can judge its beauty ‘as’ a snowflake, including in the latter judgement, a comparison of the given snowflake’s design with an idealized image of what snowflakes are supposed to look like.
In the first case, we make a judgement of pure beauty. If the snowflake’s design happens to be well-balanced, systematically organized, complicated, etc., then the broken points, as ‘broken’, will not disturb the aesthetic quality, since our judgement attends only to the object’s bare configuration. In the second case, we make a judgement that adheres to the kind of thing we are judging, and since ideal snowflakes have no broken points, the broken points on our given snowflake will detract from its beauty. The very same design can thus be judged as beautiful, or as not very beautiful, depending upon whether we judge it purely or in relation to the kind of thing it is.
In such instances of ‘adherent’ or ‘dependent’ beauty, we appreciate the object’s design as in a judgement of pure beauty, except that we factor into the judgement, a comparison of the object’s abstract design with an idealized image of the ‘perfect specimen’ of the kind of thing in question. The number of possible snowflake designs that are consistent with the ideal image of the ‘perfect snowflake’ is limitless, but a positive judgement of adherent beauty requires that any given snowflake’s particular design does not conflict with the image of the perfect snowflake.
In the best examples of adherent beauty, a design that is purely beautiful on its own, helps make the image of the perfect specimen shine through. Such a harmonious relationship between the abstract design and the image of the perfect specimen is possible in the case of snowflakes, because the image of a perfect snowflake is itself beautifully structured. This is not true for all species of thing.
Kant’s notion of adherent beauty thereby opens up some new areas for reflection and clarification. The structures of the ideal versions of naturally occurring objects are not all systematically organized and beautiful, and this introduces some further confusion in the use of the term ‘beauty’. Some people would be disposed, for instance, to refer to a perfect specimen of a flea – the appearance of which is particularly unattractive, if not scary – as a ‘beautiful flea’, but Kant would resist this way of speaking. His theory distinguishes between beauty and perfection, just as it distinguishes between beauty and sensory charm. The sheer, but exact, match between an object’s (say, a flea) structure and its ideal form, without any consideration of what the ideal form happens to look like, relates to the object’s perfection, not to its beauty.
Key idea: ‘Judgements of adherent beauty’ versus ‘judgements of free beauty’
There are at least two ways to judge an object’s beauty. The first is to consider how an object’s design makes us feel in view of what kind of object it is. This is a judgement of adherent beauty. The second is more simply to consider how the object’s design makes us feel, without being concerned about the kind of object it is. This is a judgement of free beauty. In the first case, we adhere to and respect the object’s kind. In the second, our judgement is free from considerations of the object’s kind.
Let us now move to fine art, since judgements of beauty in fine art also fall under Kant’s conception of adherent beauty. This is because any judgement of an artwork’s beauty as art, rather than as a pure design, immediately introduces the concept of ‘art’ in connection with the object’s beauty. Since ‘art’ signifies intentional and intelligent production, the judgement of an artwork’s beauty must adhere to a concept of what the artwork’s meaning is supposed to be. As such, judgements of the beauty of fine art are adherent, and are never pure.
The usual way to postulate a meaning for an artwork is in reference to the artist’s intentions. Since these intentions are often unclear, the legitimacy of pressing upon other people to agree with our judgements is considerably weakened, since others’ conceptions of what the artwork is supposed to mean can easily differ from our own.
In most cases, judging the beauty of an artwork does not compare well to judging the beauty of snowflakes and fleas, since we tend to have relatively clear ideas of how natural objects are supposed to look, whether they happen to be fleas, snowflakes, turtles or tulips. In fine art, the artist’s intentions are less easy to determine, and so it can be difficult to decide how the work is ideally supposed to appear.
Realizing this, Kant observes that judgements of the beauty of fine art can be more universalistic if they embody humanly shared themes such as love, death, courage, friendship and suffering. By incorporating such themes into the artwork, the concepts upon which the artwork depends can be more clearly discernable and shareable by everyone. This allows the demand for universal validity that follows with the mere use of the term ‘beauty’, to hold more reasonably.
At this point, we have seen how Kant’s conception of adherent beauty applies to the aesthetic judgement of natural objects and fine art. Human beauty is yet another example. This species of adherent beauty, moreover, is among the most direct expressions within Kant’s aesthetics of the fusion of beauty and morality.
Kant maintains, as we know, that human beings are essentially rational and hence, essentially moral, since morality is a matter of rationality’s practical application. This signifies for Kant that insofar as humans unconditionally ought to respect themselves, human beauty unconditionally ought to respect morality. If someone decorates his or her body with designs that obscure or conflict with natural moral expression, then despite how well the designs may be systematically organized and beautiful on their own accord, Kant maintains that their proper place is not upon a human body. His example is elaborate and extensive facial tattoos – he refers to the Maori warriors of New Zealand – that make it difficult to discern what a person’s facial expression happens to be.
At first, this prescription for human beauty may sound too morally conservative to be plausible. Kant has a solid reason in its support, though, alluded to above. He identifies an unconditional dimension of our being – our rationality – that is immune to physical change and is at the basis of morality. The concept to which human beauty must adhere is therefore timelessly fixed. Insofar as we have an unconditional moral duty to respect everyone, including ourselves, Kant believes that one cannot present oneself as a humanly beautiful person, if one’s appearance is marred by designs that display a lack of self-respect.
This leads to a classically inspired ideal of human beauty, central to which is the image of a physically well-proportioned and well-functioning person with a morally developed character. Here, Kant echoes the ancients in his own prescription that a beautiful human being must be both physically and morally sound. Whereas the classical expression – credited to the ancient Greek philosopher Thales (624–546 BCE) and appearing in the work of the Roman poet, Juvenal (first century CE) – reads ‘mens sana in corpore sano’ (‘a healthy mind in a healthy body’), Kant modifies the notion of a ‘healthy mind’ into that of a ‘morally well-constituted mind’. This aligns his ideal of human beauty with the greater systematic project of establishing a compatibility and harmony between morality (the mind) and nature (the body), which is Kant’s primary concern.
2 Artistic genius as the expression of aesthetic ideas
Although Kant acknowledges skill-centred technical arts – we can think of basket weaving, furniture making and pottery – his theory of artistic beauty leans towards fine arts such as painting, sculpture and literature. These are typically rich in meaning and serve accordingly as powerful stimulants to our imagination. Since his theory of pure beauty rests upon a non-sensory cognitive f
eeling that arises when the faculties of understanding and imagination are set into harmonious ‘free play’ with one another, Kant is motivated to account for the beauty of fine art in reference not only to its spatio-temporal form, but also in reference to how its richness of meaning stimulates our imagination. In a departure from his canonical and formalistic theory of pure beauty, he believes that the beauty of fine art involves both form and content.
One of the motivations for Kant’s theory of fine art derives from an observation about the quality of the artistic images. He asserts that in high-quality fine art, the images are so multidimensional in meaning, that is it impossible adequately to capture their significance by precisely spelling it out. Expressive portraits of the quality that Rembrandt typically painted, simply defy words. Insofar as the artwork’s meaning-laden images are interpretively inexhaustible, Kant maintains that they set the imagination and understanding into a free play that generates the cognitive feeling of beauty.
Kant’s technical term for these richly meaningful images requires some caution in our understanding of it. He refers to the images as ‘aesthetic ideas’, recalling his philosophical use of the term ‘idea’ in the context of ‘ideas of reason’ – conceptual constructions that extend imaginatively and comprehensively beyond the contours of possible human experience. Our examples in earlier chapters were the rational ideas of ‘soul’ and ‘world’. In the present usage, the meaning of ‘idea’ is more tempered, referring more simply to how rich aesthetic images can stimulate thoughts that are too complicated to articulate in any conclusive way: