Apples and pears - the ancient and the modern concept of art

Eyolf Östrem

When P.O. Kristeller in 1951 wrote his article "The Modern System of the Arts" he was among the first to point out that the modern system of the fine arts as we know it is relatively new. Not only was the term "aesthetics" invented in the 18th century, but so was the concept of the arts as we know and use it, and even the system of the beaux arts: music, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, dance, theatre. The polish aesthetician W. Tatarkiewicz follows Kristeller closely in his books "History of Aesthetics" and "A History of six Ideas", a main objective of which is to trace the development of the modern concept of art. It is my aim in this article to discuss certain problems inherent in this line of thought, however justified their contribution may be.

The argument of Kristeller and Tatarkiewicz may be summarized as follows: The concept of art that was valid for 2000 years, from antiquity and throughout the middle ages and the renaissance, differs from our concept on several points. It had as its foundation the notion of a skill, resting upon a knowledge of certain rules, which were specific for each art. That is the reason, for instance, why antiquity counted the making of figures in stone, in wax, in wood, in metal and in clay, as different arts, with no single term to unite them as "the art of making a figure": because although the outcome was similar, the techniques required were different. On the other hand, they did not distinguish between "art", "craft" and "science" in the modern sense. All these activities were contained in the terms techne (gr.) or ars (lat.).

Beginning in the renaissance, theorists began to single out subsystems of arts that were similar to "our" Fine Arts, but not until Charles Batteux's Les beaux arts reduits à un même principe, which appeared in 1747, did this concept take root. The term "aesthetics" itself was invented at the same time by Alexander Baumgarten. In the 250 years that have passed, it has rooted itself so entirely and obviously, that it is difficult to imagine a time when it had not been there.

This means, according to Kristeller and Tatarkiewicz, that the concept of art has gone through a change, and that we must therefore operate with two different concepts of art: one prior to 1750, which translates fairly well to our concept of technique, and one from 1750 to the present, with which we are all too familiar. This understanding has become an accepted truth of modern aesthetics, and I will not dispute that position. An idea of change, however, invites to a further discussion around change and continuity: what has changed? For what reasons? Has everything changed, or are some elements left? Is it a transformation, where the same substance has only been reshaped, or is it a change of substance as well?

Let us imagine that the ancients had a concept called "a pear", which denoted a round, juicy, sweet, usually red or green outgrowth appearing on certain trees at a certain time of the year. Over the years - through a complicated socio-linguistic process, a transitory step of which was the denotation of the whole category of such annually recurring outgrowths - the term gradually changed its meaning, until around the middle of the eighteenth century common usage settled on what we now know as "a pear": a pear-shaped (!), juicy, sweet, usually green or brown outgrowth etc., while the ancient concept of "a pear", through a similarly complex process, came to be called "an apple". My point is threefold: 1. one cannot easily compare pears and apples, 2. the greeks too had apples. 3. Sometimes it takes a bite to know the difference.

1. Apples and pears compared

Several attempts has been made to define the modern concept of art. Exactly which criteria should be included in this definition has been subject of continuous dispute, but recurring themes are: beauty, creativity, expression, form, craftsmanship, emotion. Tatarkiewicz proposes this definition:

Art is a conscious human activity of either reproducing things, or constructing forms, or expressing experience, if the product of this reproduction, construction, or expression is capable of evoking delight or emotion or shock.(1 Tatarkiewicz 1980, s. 38)

This definition is by no means obvious or unssailable, but it largely covers what most of us mean by "art". Now, one of Kristeller's main concerns in his article was to point out the dangers of reading our concept of art into the writings of anyone between Plato and Baumgarten. That was certainly justified. But it seems that the argument can be turned the other way around: Even though the intention is to point out that their concept differed from ours, the discussion is still centered around one single term, "art", seen from our perspective, so that what we have is in reality a history of how the term "art" came to be connected with the specific content that makes up the modern concept of art, instead of the content that it had earlier. Since the contents are different, it is also impossible to compare them directly. If that is what we are after, we also need a description of the development of the specific content itself. In other words: we know the modern word for the ancient "pear", but we still don't know the ancient word for our "apple".

In order to find that word, it is not enough to know the meaning of the term seen in isolation. The ancient concept of "art" can be compared to a large room with different things in it and with several adjacent rooms. From this room there leads a corridor - the term "art" - up to our time. When we trace the history of the term back through the corridor, we only see one tiny portion of the room, possibly missing some of the items in the room and the connections with other rooms. Likewise a concept of art consists of a whole set of constituent sub-concepts or categories, all of which vary over time to a bigger or lesser degree. Each of the elements of this "catalogue of sub-concepts" is itself determined by its own context, and how many and which elements belong to the catalogue varies greatly (infinitely in theory, although in practice the number is limited). That would imply that we have not only two different concepts of art, but - at least hypothetically - infinitely many, and any discussion of a concept of art will have to take into consideration this whole range of contexts and connotations inherent in the concept at each stage. The sum of these sub-concepts taken together makes up a "thick" description of the concept of art as it was understood at any specific time.

2. Greek apples.

In the search for the roots of our concept in one single term, one easily overlooks the possibility of finding other terms which fit our concept better at a certain time. It has been established that the greek concept of art lies closer to our concept of "skill" or "technique", and that they lacked a unified concept comparable to the modern concept of art. The lack of a unified concept, however, does not mean that the constituent parts of the concept must necessarily have been lacking, nor even that it is impossible to imagine that greeks, too, appreciated works of art in a manner similar to us: That even the greeks had apples.

In fact, all the elements of Tatarkiewicz' definition of art given above occur in some form or another by the greeks - several are taken directly from them. "Reproducing things" is nothing else than mimesis, which is the central concept used by the ancients to describe artistic activity beyond mere technique. "Constructing forms" is at the heart of the ancient concept of beauty: the proportion and arrangement of the parts. Likewise the ancients had well developed ideas about the effects of such works: delight, emotion.

What seems to be lacking, speaking of ars, are creativity, expressivity. But even these can be found, if only one knows where to look. One of the main points of Tatarkiewicz in his book "A History of six Ideas" is that originally poetry did not count among the arts whereas mathematics and pottery did, and his aim is to show how the former was incorporated and the latter excluded, to reach the fully developed, modern concept of art.

The reason why poetry did not count among the arts, was that it was considered a far more important undertaking than painting and the other crafts, since it was considered to be connected with divination, prophecy. At the same time painting and poetry were compared in ancient time, as in Horace's famous - though often mis-interpreted - dictum ut pictura poesis. Tatarkiewicz's whole discussion in ch. 3 of the book, (Previously printed as an independent article in <...>) centers around the question of division between "art" and "divination" as related to poetry, and sees every comparison between them as different "approximations of poetry to art" (or vice versa, as ways of "incorporating visual art, or at least part of it, into divination"). What can be read between the lines in what the ancients say on the matter, but what Tatarkiewicz never states explicitly, is that what they mean by "divination" and the "prophetic" aspect of poetry actually comes close to our understanding of "creativity", "inspiration", "expressivity", even "genius", thus notions that have been at the heart of the concept of art since 1750.

This could imply that the closest parallel to our concept of art by the ancients, is not art but prophecy, but since prophecy belongs to a different sphere - that of religion - there was no reason why this concept should be merged with the practical skills of the "arts" into a unified concept of art, although they may have sensed that some of the arts - notably music and painting - had a close affinity with this part of the religious sphere. Or put the other way round: since the production of art-works contains this semi-religious element of creation, there are good reasons why comparisons of this sort could surface under specific circumstances, when needed, despite the lack of a unified concept embracing both.

This interpretation is supported by the close bonds between different arts and various kinds of mysticism up to the renaissance, and the disappearance of these bonds thereafter, when the cartesian movement purged the arts of all religious mystique, and in rationalistic zeal tried to lay down the rules governing art production. (Baumgarten, Batteux and Lessing were all closely connected with cartesian methodology and epistemology. Beardsley 1966, s 166) In this perspective too, the modern concept of the arts can be seen as a direct descendant of rationalism.

3. The proof of the apple pie.

In the previous line of thought I have tried to establish that certain ideas central to our concept of art were felt to be in effect in some or all of the arts belonging to the modern system, but that they were not brought togheter into a unified theory or concept of art. But this does not explain why these arts themselves were not regarded as a unity in ancient theory. I will suggest an answer in three parts.

The first part of the answer lies in a consideration of the scope of theory itself. I have previously said that a concept of art is made up of a series of sub-categories, like beauty, form, social institutions etc., all with their own context. I would argue that the theory of art is but one of these categories. Most aesthetic history seems to be oriented at the history of the theory of art, and not necessarily at the historical understanding of art - among the consumers, producers, or, for that matter, the so called "ordinary people" or "the whole group of people who may have an informed opinion about art". The difference may be slight or non-existant, but still theoretical speculation belongs to a specific sphere with specific goals and means - and, presumably, specific answers that may be different from common understanding. If this common understanding is what one is after, one must distinguish between what is expressed in contemporary theory, and what elements can be present in the perception and understanding of a work and in artistic practice.

Augustine discusses "whether things are beautiful because they please, or please because they are beautiful." (T s. 132) He gives the "doubtless reply" that they please because they are beautiful. On one level this is a fairly straightforward expression of the objectivist stance dominant throughout antiquity and the middle ages: that beauty is a quality of the object itself, as opposed to the sbjectivist opinion that "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder." But could it not also be interpreted in the light of Augustine's manicheically influenced attitude against everything carnal, including pleasure? This pleasure, which is so problematic because of its carnal associations, can hardly be the defining element of beauty, one of the attributes of God. Then rather the other way around, let beauty be the stable principle and pleasure derive from it, to be used righteously or not.

Two comments are worth making. First: one reason for the bias in favour of theory, is that it is much easier to analyse what someone says about something, than to deduce from the thing in question what someone may have thought about it. Yet most often it is this "thought" that we are after. That deduction should be a main concern of style history, which in turn tends to drown in its own technicalities and forget about the ideas behind the techniques.

Secondly it is obvious that theory and practice are not entirely separated areas - theoretical ideas do have an impact upon "common understanding". The degree of this impact may vary, depending on the degree of contact between thinkers and doers, and the status of the thinkers in this relation. In some periods this connection may have been practically non-existant -the medieval illuminators and the monks singing in church may have been unaware of what an Abelard or an Alcuin have had to say on the matter (or were they?) - while in other periods the artist's consciousness of the theorizing around their activity has been decisive for the course of their art - in this century more than ever. But still, for all periods alike, the best answer to the common question: "what comes first - theory or practice?" probably is: "Neither". They belong to different areas, and one cannot automatically expect theory to reflect the artist's ideas about his work, nor any common response to it.

The second part of the answer lies in a consideration of artistic practice and the terms used to denote it. Until the time of Baumgarten and Batteux, "art" and its different specialized terms ("music", "painting", "poetry"), were used to denote the activities of persons qualified in the arts - skills if you want - and not for some inherent quality of the product. The traditional concept was from the point of view of the producer, the new concept from the point of view of the observer. This is the background for Goethe's remarks in a famous letter, that it is "Eine unerheure Kluft" between the visual and the literary and musical arts. To him it was absurd to unite painting and poetry, simply because the production processes involved are entirely different. His objections do not automatically imply that he was unware of the common properties of the arts, only that he did not see why one should invest the term "art" with a new meaning.

We do not question the categories of the cook, the baker, the brewer, the candyman, or the lack of one single concept comprising all, although they all produce similar things - in fact so similar that they may very well be contained in the definition of art given in the introduction. But even though we lack a unified concept of "fine foods" parallell to the "fine arts", most people (I would think) are aware that they share a common ground. For some reason we don't need a unifying concept for these activities. (How about "culinary art"? Well, it would hardly include the candyman, and furthermore (as it seems) it borrows the modern concept of art to establish a certain relation between the product and the "observer" (or rather "devourer"), which may be alien to "cookery" proper.)

The third part of the answer lies in a consideration of the function of the different arts. This is in my opinion also the most important part. The main objection against any generalized theory of art is that it must necessarily focus only on whatever common traits one may isolate, and disregard any specific traits of the different arts at specific times. (See for instance Marx Wartowsky's criticism of the institutional theory of art, which according to him is not a general theory, although it purports to be so, but really a theory of 20th century art, of post-duchampsian art.) Although the arts, as different practices bringing forth products of differing character, may have similarities on a theoretical level, that level, as I have argued above, is only one part of a larger conceptual system, an important element of which is the sociological context of the different arts.

The activities belonging to the modern system of the arts are almost by definition non-productive in a very basic sense: they do not, directly or indirectly, produce food. Hence someone with no direct use for the product has to pay for the work, either a single patron - a Maecenas or a Philippe the Good - or a society rich enough, and willing, to pay for this kind of work, as in modern society. This means that institutionalized art production almost by necessity is a phenomenon belonging to the higher levels of society. (This does of course not mean that poor people cannot create or appreciate art or beauty. ) The evaluation of the different arts through the ages has varied according to the strength and the caracteristics of the "payers".

The greek with their well-known aristocratic contempt for manual labour, looked down upon painting and sculpture. Plutarch wrote in his life of Pericles that "it often happens that we take pleasure in a work, but despise its maker." The same attitude is reflected in the distinction between the "liberal" and the "vulgar" (in the middle ages to be called "mechanical") arts, where "liberal" means nothing but "free of physical effort". Poetry on the other hand, was free of such corporeal bonds and thus kept in higher esteem. It didn't even count among the arts, not for lack of status, but to the contrary because of its far higher status.

This does not mean, however, that "aesthetical" features of painting or sculpture were not appreciated on the same level as poetry, it only means that there were ideological motivations on other levels which had priority in a wider, contextualized understanding which even takes into account the institutions and ethical categories of the society at large. So when different classical authorities reach different conclusions regarding the status of sculptors, that has less to do with the arts themselves, than with which aspects of them and their practicioners are currently being emphasized: whether the filth of the production or the beauty the product.

After the downfall of the ancient institutions it took some time before Western Europe could afford art production on a larger scale again, and when it did it was only the church that had these means. At the same time the contempt for the physical aspect of art remained, and was even enforced by the aforementioned gnostic element in the theology of Augustine et al. Throughout the middle ages the theologians/theoreticians struggled with physical beauty. This may be one reason for the predominantly symbolical character of medieval painting.

One escape route was found, however: the praise of God. This gave the arts a purpose, and most medieval art was "functional" and kept this property way into the renaissance. But even "functional art (e.g. the mass music of the renaissance) was appreciated for its aesthetical properties, even if the frame of understanding which had - or in our understanding has - priority, was its ability to fulfil its ecclesiastical function. If ecclesiastical function was all there was to it, there would be no need to commision new polyphonic masses, since the plainchant versions fulfilled the function perfectly, even better than the polyphonic elaborations. There would be no need either to search out the best composers or singers throughout Europe, kidnapping boys with a good voice (as happened to Orlando di Lasso), since liturgically speaking the celebrant's feeble chanting in his cloak would be enough.

In a society where the wealthy could buy someone to make them a statue or play them a tune, there is no need for them to a) learn the craft themselves, b) estimate the act of production of "works of art" as anything more valuable than, e.g., the outcome of the cook's work, or for that matter the farmers'. But that does not mean that they didn't appreciate and desire the products, maybe even for the same reasons and in the same ways as we listen to a Mozart-sonata or contemplate a picture by Braque. In this perspective it may perhaps more than a mere coincidence that the ancient concept of art disappears at the same time as feudalism. The primacy of painting in modern aesthetic theory may in turn be seen as a result, partly, of its un-functionality in the bourgeouis society.

Which way does the apple fall, mr Einstein (and what are you doing on the beach)?

My intention so far has been to show that the main shift that has taken place since antiquity has not been in the conception of art itself, but in the social and theoretical systems surrounding it, the hierarchy of priority between the different levels of understanding. Now the time has come to turn everything upside down and instead ask: Do we have a unified concept of art? Or rather: What do we mean when we say that we (roughly since the 18th century) have a unified concept of art? An underlying premise of most definitions of art since the 18th century, including Kant's Kritik der Urteilskraft, Tatarkiewicz's definition and the institutional theory of art, has been the search for general, a priori statements about art, to cover not only all the different arts at a particular time, but even arts and artworks from all ages: art in general. Opposed to this I would say that even the modern concept of art is a historical construct, made up of a mixture of theory, attitudes, ideology, practice and social institutions, and is hardly more unified than any concept of art preceding it, nor any freer from its historical context. In the following I will elaborate this double proposition.

What we have, is a group of practices which we regard as similar, but on what grounds? The grouping seems so obvious to us that it is difficult to get around it, but when scrutinized for common denominators, they are actually hard to find. I can hardly think of anything that a piece of music has in common with a novel, apart from the fact that both take some time to go through, nor with a painting, apart from the fact that both produce direct sensory stimuli, nor, actually, with dance, apart from the fact that they must both be performed by someone (that dance is usually accompanied by music is not a common trait). Goethe may have been right in a wider sense than just the practicioner's perspective. It is absurd to unite things as different as Mona Lisa and The Rite of Spring, The Cider House Rules and Kyrie Cunctipotens genitor.

This is recflected even in the history of art theory from the last three or four centuries: although it purports - or is considered by modern art historians - to be valid for all arts, the different theories always have their point of departure in one particular art or group of arts, and only with difficulty can they be extended to apply to all arts. This seems to be true for all more generalized discussions, involving comparisons between or groupings of the different arts, from the renaissance and onwards: one art is in the center, while the others are related to it, using as criteria the premises of the one art. This is evident in the discussions concerning the status of painting beginning in the late 15th century, which brings painting to the center of the discourse. In the 17th century poetry reigns supreme, much owing to the british empiricists and their discussions of the imagination. This position is mainly maintained throughout the age of romanticism, the period on which poetry has set its firmest mark. [cf. Gerald Abraham's discussion in A hundred Years of Music, where he defines musical romanticism as a movement dependent on the proximity to contemporary poets ("Composers were romantic because they were literary, not literary because they were romantic" (1974: 22)).] For a short period music had a similar position, when music was considered a language which could speak directly, without the detour through the concepts of ordinary language. Then, in the beginning of our century new developments in the visual arts brought them to the forefront again, a position which it has enjoyed ever since. It is hardly more than just a little exaggerated to say that aesthetics since 1960 has had as its main objective to define the ontological status of Duchamps' Fountain.

This is not to say that interesting cross-currents between the different arts have not occured. Ever since the first comparisons between the different arts were made, there has been a certain reciprocal fertilization between them. <!-- Deretter om "historical context: om Pontorno - bakgrunnen for sammensmeltingen av de ulike kunstene og konsekvensene av det. Videre om den moderne sammenhengen-->

whereas .

One is the set of institutions surrounding the arts. They belong to the same budget accounts, the schools are listed under the same heading and they have specific buildings to which one goes to experience them. This is the point of the "institutional theory of art", which in its most rudimentary form (which is probably more reduced that any of its creators would like) holds that the "artworld" decides what is art, where the artworld is made up of all the groups, persons, institutions that have anything to say about art: the institutional aspect, in a wide sense, is all there is to it. But already this is problematic. As regards institutions in a wide sense, the danger of circularity inherent in this theory has been pointed out by several critics: the artworld defines itself. As regards institutions in a narrow sense music, dance, painting and sculpture are taught in similar schools and have their temples. But architecture is hardly considered in the same way, and I doubt that people in general, maybe not even most architects themselves, would consider it an art. Literature is not taught anywhere, nor is it "observed" in any "temple". What comes closest are the libraries, but they occupy a different place in society altogether, not as "temples" but rather as service institutions.

On another level one could say, rather vaguely, that the arts are regarded as similar. But how? It is tempting to say that the one thing all artists have in common is that "ordinary people" think they are mad, pursuing sense- and useless experiments on the fringes of reality or beyond. Again writers, at least some writers, differ from other artist, as a new class of "prophets" speaking for

Whatever distinguishing features one chooses to emphasise along this line, they all seem to depend upon characteristics of our modern society: the un-functionality of art, the impact of World War Two and Holocaust, the capitalist demand for productivity and the reaction against this demand, the high level of education, the amount of leisure, a feeling of alienation and the loosening of traditional ties between people in urban life, etc. All these elements, and several more, have changed not only the means of art productions but even the objectives and the content of art in a way that sets a modern work of art apart from its ancient, medieval or renaissance counterpart in a dramatic manner.

What the arts do seem to have in common is the way in which they are used. Somehow a work of art could be described as a structure made up of elements that are considered apt for reflection or contemplation, and in a way that stimulates this. That seems to be what we do with art: we enter a different state (of mind or place) to expose ourselves to something that we allow to influence us, emotionally or intellectually.

This could be taken for a new definition of art, but it isn't, for several reasons. First,

Second, stated this way the artefact is actually inessential to the experience - it is basically the same we do when we go for a walk in the mountains or contemplate the flow of cars on the highway. This reflects Kant's distinction between the aesthetic and the beautiful (?). This implies, too, that the institutions themselves are highly contextual and can be described as sociological phenomena fulfilling functions that have nothing to do with "art": as places to go to to get a relief from the pressure of everyday life, as a place to meet friends, as status symbols etc.

Third - and this marks a return to the question of authenticity: the description above probably holds true also for how people in earlier ages have reacted to art. The reasons for this assumption are at the same time a summary of the article: a unified concept of art is not equivalent to an understanding of art, and hence no prerequisite for such an understanding. The elements pertaining to the understanding of art seem to have been present throughout the history of the concept of art itself, although independently, on a different level. To this we can add even the semi-tautological: "Since we actually can appreciate ancient works of art, we apparently share the means of understanding." Or: "Given the non-definitory description above, works of art being structures to be invested with "meaning" by the receiver, any conceptual differences don't matter, since 'anything goes'."

I would like to conclude with a discussion on the difference between the last two of these propositions. The last of these represents an extreme relativist position, the concesquence of which is that . , while the first implies a set of common denominators, which

gradual shift in the concept of art, from denoting the practice, skill involved in the production of an artefact, via the idea that art is a quality of the object, to the metaphysical idea of art as something that transcends the object. The first is the original notion, the second may be followed from Alberti, with the merging of the concepts of art and beauty, and the third, also from Alberti, with the idea of the disegno, as the plan behind the work of art. This idea can be clearly seen in the early baroque., that art is a mental object. (Tat. p. 340 ca)

Actually . That we do so - and very obviously so - is the result of the convergence of a certain combination of criteria for judgement -what we can sum up in the concept of "art" - and a certain art-sociological situation

and even the discussion which aims to disentangle the history of the concept itself must be based upon one set of sub-concepts if not to end up in a conceptual anarchy.

That does not necessarily mean, however, that all they have to say about "art" must be dismissed just because they fail to fulfil our expectations to a theory of art, nor that our concept of art is completely anachronistic when applied to ancient "art".

This invites to a question of authenticity: if all "works of art" prior ot 1750 are produced under a different concept of art, how can we understand or appreciate these works at all, our concept of art being so different from theirs?