Aesthetic Paradigms

Aesthetic paradigm is a unique set of philosophical notions or ways of thinking, including concepts, theories, research methods, assumptions, deductions and standards that constitute the theoretical framework of aesthetics.

Art as Imitation and Representation
Art as Expression
Art as Form
Art as Social Production
Art as Text

Art as Imitation and Representation

Concepts

Realistic representation has long been one of the most prominent and primitive tendencies of creative activity since antiquity.
Since nature and reality has provided the most extensive and general basis for communication, realistic representation is always regarded as mainstream art.
Before the advent of photography, realistic art had been the means of documenting human activities.
There is no such thing as absolute objectivity in artistic representation. Artistic creation always partakes of subjective elements, no matter how realistic it is.

Philosophical Background

Mimetic Theory: Imitation is the essence of art, while art imitates the natural world and social reality.
Demokritos: The primal source of art is the copying of animal behavior.
Plato: “Idea” is the spiritual content and the essence of all things; it belongs to primary substances. Objects in the natural and physical world are derived from the Idea; they are, hence, copies of the Idea, which belong to secondary substances. Art imitates physical objects; it is a copy of a copy, or so-called “a shadow of a shadow”.
Aristoteles: Mimesis (imitation) is not an accurate representation of the reality, nor is it mechanically a copy or forgery; instead, it is a subjective “creation” by the artists, who draw materials from the prototypes of the things, and undertake the process of perfection and refinement, resulting in the archetypes that reveal the spiritual content of the physical objects.

Artistic Techniques

Adhere to the principle of visual proportion, with various formal elements represented according to the actual relations among things, in order to maintain an integrated and consistent state.
Scientific studies like anatomy, chromatics and perspective are useful for artists to adopt an objective approach to examining things in the world.
Observe an object from a fixed angle in order to capture the state of the object in particular time and space.
Begin with careful observation, and then apply meticulous and sophisticated techniques.
Make good use of increasingly advanced technologies, for example, with the application of viewfinder, photography, computer, etc.

Apart from paintings, various artforms like weaving, architecture, dancing, singing are also regarded as “art as imitation and representation”.

Realistic artworks are usually works of imitation or representation.

The Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice, c. 1730

Canaletto (1697–1768)

Oil on canvas

49.6 x 73.6 cm

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

The Lady of Shalott, 1888

John William Waterhouse (1849 - 1917)

Oil on canvas

153 x 200 cm

Tate Britain, London

Flower and Bird, 1945

Xie Zhi-liu (1910-1997)

Ink and color on paper

Big Self-Portrait, 1967 – 1968

Chuck Close (1940-)

Acrylic on canvas

273 x 212 cm

Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

We Do, 1993

Tam Cheung-on

Stoneware, glazed ceramics

23 x 62.5 x 38 cm

Pregnant woman, 2002

Ron Mueck (1958 - )

Fibreglass, resin, silicone

H 252 cm

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

President Barack Obama, 2018

Kehinde Wiley (1977-)

Oil on canvas

213.7 × 147 × 3.2 cm

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

Lucid Dream II - 7: Porcelain sculpture in Progress, 2018

Johnson Tsang (1960 - )

Porcelain

It is a profound experience looking at Ophelia in Tate Britain, which powerfully engages viewers with its realistic representation.

Ophelia, 1851 - 1852

Sir John Everett Millais (1829 - 1896)

Oil on canvas

76.2 x 111.8 cm

Tate Britain, London

Photographic works that challenge the notion of “art as imitation and representation”.

Jamie, 2010

Alexa Meade (1986 - )

Photographie

40.6 x 50.8 cm

Photographic works that challenge the notion of “art as imitation and representation”.

Blueprint, 2010

Alexda Meade (1986 - )

Photographie

61 x 45.7 cm

Spectacle, 2010

Alexa Meade (1986 - )

Photographie

61 x 45.7 cm

Photographic works that challenge the notion of “art as imitation”. It gives an impression that a human character in a painting has entered the reality, creating a surrealistic sense.

Grapefruit, 2009

Alexa Meade (1986 - )

Photographie

22.9 x 30.5 cm

Bend, 2012

Alexa Meade (1986 - )

Photographie

28 x 35.5 cm

Timmy Tourist, 2009

Alexa Meade (1986 - )

Photographie

76.2 x 114.3 cm

Art as Expression

Concepts

Art is the expression of subjective imagination and feelings.
Art employs image or form to externalize people’s inner emotional state for the purpose of expression and communication.
Art is the expression of repressed human desires.
During art appreciation, viewers feel the emotions that artists want to communicate.

Philosophical Background

Croce: The essence of art is intuition. Intuition, with pleasure as its source, is identical to expression.
Collingwood: Art is the expression of emotion; it is also an activity that makes emotion individualized, lucid and intelligible.
Tolstoy: Art is an activity in which an artist communicates the feelings he or she experienced to an audience.
Freud: The essence of art is the sublimation of primitive urges and instincts.

Artistic Techniques

The use of formal elements is liberated from the limitation to offering a faithful representation of the subject matter. Use of colours and shapes become more subjective, simplified or exaggerated.
Present vigorous human actions and outer manifestations of inner states.
Completely abandon and deviate from the appearances of an objective reality generated by logic and orderly experience.

Expressive works usually give strong presentations of certain scenes or themes.

The Rape of Proserpina, 1621-1622

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680)

Marble

H 225 cm

Borghese Gallery, Rome

The Destroyed City, 1951

Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967)

Bronze

H 650 cm

Rotterdam, Netherlands

Le Chat, 1951-1955

Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966)

Bronze with dark brown patina

L 81.5 cm

Light, 2019

Matteo Pugliese (1969-)

Paonazzo Marble

86 x 50 x 24cm

Expressive works usually give strong presentations of certain scenes or themes.

Self-Portrait with Physalis, 1912

Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

Oil on canvas

32.2 x 39.8 cm

Leopold Museum, Vienna

Mother with two children II, 1915

Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

Oil on canvas

149 x 160 cm

Leopold Museum, Vienna

Seated Woman with Bent Knee, 1917

Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

Crayon, gouache, watercolor on paper

46 x 30.5 cm

Narodni Gallery, Prague

Portrait of Paris von Gütersloh, 1918

Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

Oil on canvas

140.02 x 110.33 cm

Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Expressive works usually give strong presentations of certain scenes or themes.

No. 13, spring/summer 1999

Alexander McQueen (1969 - 2010)

White cotton muslin spray-painted black and yellow with underskirt of white

VOSS, spring/summer 2001

Alexander McQueen (1969 - 2010)

Red and black ostrich feathers and glass medical slides painted red

It’s Only a Game, spring/summer 2005

Alexander McQueen (1969 - 2010)

Lilac leather and horsehair

Widows of Culloden, autumn/winter 2006–7

Alexander McQueen (1969 - 2010)

Cream silk tulle and lace with resin antlers

Expressive works usually give strong presentations of certain scenes or themes.

General Manager's Chair In An Abandoned Building, 1996

Tetsuya Ishida (1973 - 2005)

Acrylic on board

145.6 x 103 cm

Recalled, 1998

Tetsuya Ishida (1973 - 2005)

Acrylic on board

145.6 x 206 cm

Decided by Myself, 1999

Tetsuya Ishida (1973 - 2005)

Oil on wood panel

103 x 147 cm

Greenhouse, 2003

Tetsuya Ishida (1973 - 2005)

Expressive works usually give strong presentations of certain scenes or themes.

Fishermen at Sea, 1796

J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851)

Oil on canvas

91.4 x 122.2 cm

Tate Britain, London

The Burning of the Houses of Parliament, 1835

J. M. W. Turner (1775 - 1851)

Oil on canvas

123 x 92.7 cm

Philadelphia Museum Of Art

Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth, 1842

J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851)

Oil on canvas

91 × 122 cm

Tate Britain, London

Peace - Burial at Sea, 1842

J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851)

Oil on canvas

87 × 86.7 cm

Tate Britain, London

Expressive works usually give strong presentations of certain scenes or themes.

Woman I, 1950 – 1952

Willem de Kooning (1904 - 1997)

Oil and metallic paint on canvas

192.7 x 147.3 cm

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Woman and Bicycle, 1952–1953

Willem de Kooning (1904 - 1997)

Oil, enamel, and charcoal on linen

194.3 × 124.8 cm

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Composition, 1955

Willem de Kooning (1904 - 1997)

Oil, enamel, and charcoal on canvas

201 x 175.6 cm

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Untitled I, 1979

Willem de Kooning (1904 - 1997)

Oil on canvas

204.4 x 178.4 cm

Art as Form

Concepts

Emphasize self-sufficiency of an artwork. Advocate art for art’s sake - nothing else matters.
Consider art as purely a visual presentation with an emphasis on its aesthetic function. The role of artists is to explore formal properties like colours, lines, shapes and composition instead of articulating art as literature, story-telling or narratives.
During art appreciation, viewers use their intuition to apprehend the formal properties of artworks.

Philosophical Background

Kant: Disinterested character of the aesthetic – with an emphasis on the object itself, and free from any circumstances that might interfere with the aesthetic experience, including morality, intellectuality, beliefs or personal interests.
Bell: The shared quality of all artworks is their possession of significant form, which is comprised of artists’ organizations of visual elements like colours, lines, spaces, etc.
Greenberg: Artwork is self-referential – it carries values intrinsic to the work itself, independent of social, political, economic or moral values extrinsic to art. With its emphasis on flatness of canvas, an artwork compels viewers’ attention to the picture plane.

Artistic Techniques

Expressionless and non-elucidatory art, with attention drawn away from the realm of human feelings. Usually employ the purest colours and the basic shapes and structures.
Gradually reduce natural appearances of the things to their underlying basic structures, while dropping all irrelevant parts or excessive details, in order to offer a general sense of beauty.
Deviate from figurative art while gravitating toward pure abstraction.

Colour

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, c. 1507

Raphael (1483 - 1520)

Oil on poplar

72.2 x 55.7 cm

National Gallery, London

Mata Mua (In Olden Times), 1892

Paul Gauguin (1848 - 1903)

Oil on canvas

91 x 69 cm

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid

Green Stripe, 1905

Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954)

Oil on canvas

40.5 x 32.5 cm

National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen

Blue Water Lilies, c. 1916 - 1919

Claude Monet (1840-1926)

Oil on canvas

200 x 200 cm

Musée d'Orsay, Paris

White Cabinet and White Table, 1965

Marcel Broodthaers (1924-1976)

Painted furniture with eggshells

Cabinet 86 x 82 x 62 cm

Table 104 x 100 x 40 cm

Museum of Modern Art, New York

Untitled (Red on Red), 1969

Mark Rothko (1903 - 1970)

Oil on paper mounted on canvas

98.4 x 63.5 cm

A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains, Northern Song dynasty (960-1127)

Wang Xi-meng (c. 1096 - 1119)

Ink and color on silk

51.5 x 191.5 cm

Palace Museum, Beijing, China

Inked Lotus

Wu Chang-shuo (1844 – 1927)

Ink and color on paper

Point, line, plane

Red Blue Chair, 1918–1923

Gerrit Rietveld (1888-1964)

Painted wood

86.7 x 66 x 83.8 cm, seat h. 33 cm

Museum of Modern Art, New York

The Smile of the Flamboyant Wings, 1953

Joan Miro (1893 - 1983)

Oil on canvas

35 x 46 cm

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid

Two swallows, 1981

Wu Guan-zhong (1919 - 2010)

Ink and color on paper

69 × 137 cm

Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong

In Silence, 2008

Chihqru Shiota (1972-)

Burnt piano, burnt chair, black wool

Installation

Bienne, Switzerland

Peasants' houses, Eragny, 1887

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903)

Oil on canvas

83 x 96.6 cm

Art Gallery of New South Wales

Pumpkin, 2010

Yayoi Kusama (1929-)

Fiberglass reinforced plastic and urethane paint

92.5 (H) x 112.8 x 117.5 cm

Private collection

Strawman, 2002

Jiang Zhi (1971-)

Installation, inkjet print, sound, chromogenic digital print wallpaper, art books, metallic glitter, feathers, and revolving illuminated pillar

Dimensions variable

M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong

[redwhiteblue]∞, 2001

Stanley Wong (1960-)

Poster, red-white-blue nylon canvas

Dimensions variable

M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong

Texture

Still Life with a Gilt Cup, 1635

Willem Claesz. Heda (1594 - 1680)

Oil on panel

H 88cm x W 113cm

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Monkeys, 1786

Mori Sosen (1747-1821)

Ink and color on silk

114 x 53 cm

The Irving Collection

Veiled Lady, c. 1860

Raffaelo Monti (1818–1881)

Marble

D 54.61 cm

Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Waldo Suitcase, 1975

Marilyn Levine (1935- 2005)

Stoneware and fragment of paper label

17.5 x 65.4 x 45 cm

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Ghost Clock, 1985

Wendell Castle (1932 - 2018)

Bleached Honduras mahogany

219.0 x 62.2 x 38.1 cm

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington

Rabbit, 1986

Jeff Koons (1955-)

Stainless steel

104.14 x 48.26 x 30.48 cm

The Broad, Los Angeles

Distant Thoughts No.19, 1990

Wucius Wong (1936-)

Ink and colour on paper

156.6 × 109.8 cm

M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong

A.D. 2000 - To Oxidize 2000 Years (Cola can), 2000

Zheng Guogu (1970-)

Steel

12.5 × 6.5 × 6.5 cm

M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong

Space, proportion

Parthenon, 447-438 B.C.

Marble

13.72 x 69.5 x 30.9 m

Athens, Greece

The Allegory of Painting, c. 1666 – 1668

Johannes Vermeer (1632 - 1675)

Oil on canvas

120 × 100 cm

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), c. 1830 - 1832

Katsushika Hokusai (1760 - 1849)

Woodblock print; ink and color on paper

25.7 x 37.9 cm

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Spoonbridge and Cherry, 1988

Claes Oldenburg (1929 - ) & Coosje van Bruggen (1942 - 2009)

Stainless steel and aluminium, paint

H 8.9 x L 15.6 x W 4.1 m

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden Minneapolis, Minnesota

Table with Two Legs on the Wall, 1997

Ai Weiwei (1957-)

Wood

121.3 × 88 × 107.5 cm

M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong

Walt Disney Concert Hall, 1999-2003

Frank Gehry (1929 - )

Los Angeles, California

Singing and Dancing, Southern Song dynasty

Ma Yuan (active late 12th to early 13th c.)

ink and colors on silk

192.5 x 111 cm

Palace Museum, Beijing

Belvedere, 1958

M. C. Escher (1898-1972)

Lithograph

46.2 × 29.5 cm

Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague

Art as Social Production

Concepts

Artistic creation is influenced by the social circumstances in which an artist produces his or her own works, including indirect factors like cultural structures, traditions and conventions, moral beliefs, value judgment and modes of production, as well as direct factors like patronage systems, political censorship, technological levels, consumption and circulation of artworks, and so on.
Artists employ the unique and affective art forms to present their own insights and criticism of the society.
Art, as part of our culture, documents the local ways of life, moral beliefs, customs, interpersonal relationship as well as concepts and aesthetic preferences of different times, and hence is a reflection of the contemporary society and culture.
Art is figurative and functions as a means of acculturation; it serves as political, educational and propaganda instruments.

Philosophical Background

Marx: Materialism – art is an instrument of social change, a reflection of social classes, and a complex amalgam of politics, society, ideology and beauty.
Adorno: Institutional theory of art – art is the product of an invisible institution constituted by artistic circles of museum and gallery curators, dealers, critics and collectors.
de Beauvoir: Feminism – expose the oppression of women in the male-dominant society, and criticize the implicit gender inequalities in art.

Artistic Techniques

Adopt an objective, calm and realistic approach to generating faithful representations of social situations.
Criticize the contemporaries and current affairs in a sarcastic, critical or exaggerated manner.

Lots of history books use illustrations of artworks on the cover, underlining the relationship between history and art.

Art is usually employed as social, political and cultural representation.

Female head, c. 1300 - 1400 A.D.

Copper

Life size

Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.

Death of Marat, 1793

Jacques-Louis David (1748 - 1794)

Oil on canvas

165 × 128 cm

Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

Put down your whip, 1939

Xu Bei-hong (1895 - 1953)

Oil on canvas

144 × 90 cm

《粉末都市—-消失中的香港》內頁，2008

Stella So

The shapes and colors of tea bowls are closely connected with their functions and customs of the society at the time.

Tea bowl (from above), wheel-thrown stoneware with natural leaf resist decoration and brown glaze, Song dynasty

Grinding Tea, Song Dynasty

Liu Song-nian (c. 1131 – 1218)

Ink and color on silk

44.2 x 61.9cm

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Tea Fighting, Ming Dynasty

Tong Yin (c. 1131 – 1218)

Ink and color on silk

56.4 x 61.8 cm

National Palace Museum, Taipei

Do the socially constructed images of Jesus look like the real image of Jesus?

Salvator Mundi, c. 1500

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Oil on walnut panel

45.4 × 65.6 cm

Louvre Abu Dhabi

Head of Christ, c. 1525–1530

Correggio (c. 1489 - 1534)

Oil on panel

28.6 × 23.5 cm

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Christ's Appearance to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection, 1835

Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov (1806 - 1858)

Oil on canvas

242 x 321 cm

State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg

Reconstruction of Jesus’s face by British anatomical artist Richard Neave, 2015

Art as Text

Concepts

Text is a signifying system, a system of signs.
Art is constituted by signs; or, art itself is signs through which it communicates meanings.
As far as artworks are concerned, their meanings are generated by difference among signs in a signifying system, instead of elicited by the pictorial representation.
Attention is drawn more to interpretation of art than to exploration of the essence of art or explanation of art.

Philosophical Background

de Saussure: Semiology – linguistically, text is made up of signifier, signified and signification. The relation between signifier and signified is arbitrary; their relation is determined by the hidden rules and conventions.
Barthes: The artist’s intentions do not matter anymore, while the audience has their own interpretations. An artwork is not a closed system; instead, it is a space for the audience to voluntarily manipulate and produce “endlessly proliferating meanings which have no stable point of origin, nor of closure.”
Levi-Strauss: Structuralism – the world is made up of interrelations of things. The things themselves cannot reflect the essentials, the formal relationships among their elements as constituted and perceived by people. This theory aims to reveal how art, in the context of cultural traditions, is apprehended and constituting the “deep structures”, instead of pursuing the meanings conveyed by the appearances of artworks themselves.

Artistic Techniques

Emphasize the signification of art.
A modern artwork is considered as a statement or an object of discourse, instead of a mere representation, an expression or a formal structure.

When we interpret the following artworks, what will be our considerations? Aesthetics? Or, design? If we get to know the contextual background of these artworks, in what ways will we understand the artworks differently?