In The Act of Creation, Arthur Koestler weaves together a bunch of different ingredients around the idea of a "bisociative process"--the knowing that the art (which is imitative) is both not real and also real. He compares it to living in two universes at once. The power of living in two universes is that we, as primarily self-interested individuals, are able to sympathize with a character(s) and ultimately experience self-transcendence. The self-transcendence is the emotional portion of the aesthetic experience, which Koestler later equates to the "experience of beauty" (328). By combining that "emotional catharsis" to the intellectual one, called the "moment of truth" or "intellectual illumination", an artist and a viewer can create and participate in an aesthetic experience, which Koestler styles and "'earthing' of emotion, on the analogy of earthing (or 'grounding') an electrically charged body" (328).
I liked the particular division that Koestler works with: intellectual + emotional = aesthetic. For myself, I find that my highest aesthetic experiences are those in which both my senses and my thoughts are interacting and catalyzing each other. I also appreciated that he included the compounding of "calory value"; it reminded me of Goodman's assertion that good art tends to be rich in number, relation, and reflexivity of signs. But Koestler added that the "matrices" that produce the "emotive potential" in a work of art rely "partly on individual factors, partly on the collective attitudes of different cultures, but also on objective factors" (321). The acknowledgement that objective and subjective both influence the artist and viewer rounds out towards Goodman's question of "When is art?" (emphasis mine) in emphasizing the temporality and ultimate instability of Art as opposed to art, which, I believe like Tolstoy says, is an act of sensory communication.
Koestler skirts the issue of "taste and distaste" by pointing out, essentially a la Nixon, that “If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together". I admit I read an abreviated section of this book for class and so he may have delved deeper into the individual, cultural, and objective matrices at some other point in the book--but personal taste was just elided into "hey, good art uses pleasing and displeasing things to make unity". This hits my New Criticism button and makes me raise an eyebrow. While contrast is important, I would put taste and distaste into the section in which he discusses how "emotions are complex mixtures" (305).
Other things I appreciated: Koestler writes "Art, like religion, is a school of self-transcendence; it expands individual awareness into cosmic awareness, as science teaches us to reduce any particular puzzle to the great universal puzzle" (328). While, I may not agree with his word choice (side-riff below*), I agree that art is an expander of individual awareness and that it is like religion. In describing Christianity and Theatre, Asian American artist Joanna Wan-Ying Chan says, "When the curtain goes up on opening night, it has to be a common vision that we can own while in the meantime, each individual has made a contribution. I think that's the most Christian process" furthermore that both religion and theater hit on "the sacredness of each individual while forging a community in a common project" (qtd in Kim 109). This is important to me because I decided several years ago that theatre, art essentially, is for me an act of worship and of faith. More on that in my manifesto.
I didn't agree with everything from Koestler, but there are several tools that struck a chord with me and called up particular beliefs and assumptions of mine. Here are a couple quick quips/quotes:
"The two together--intellectual illumination and emotional catharsis--are the essence of the aesthetic experience." (328)
*"When it comes to putting aesthetical experiences into words, nothing short of a caesarian will help. The surgical tool that I proposed was 'bisociation'; and the operation consisted in disentangling the various bisociative, or bifocal, processes which combine in the experience" (383) "the 'earthing' of emotion . . . an electrically charged body, so that its tensions are drained by the immense current-absorbing capacity of 'mother earth'." (328) He hints around the feminine birth creation but can't quite bring himself to be so feminist. So I laugh.
"The imbalance of the part is redeemed by the balance of the whole, by the triangle which lends unity to diversity" (386)
"Neither the artist, nor the beholder of his [or her] work, can slice his mind into sections, separate sensation from perception, perception from meaning, sign from symbol" (391)
"the intrinsic value of illusion itself. It derives from the transfer of attention form the 'Now and Here' to the "Then and There'" (303)--the value of illusion is our ability to experience and sympathize with the "Other" essentially--what is not us becomes familiar and we sympathize, empathize with it. This is fabulously valuable.
I liked the particular division that Koestler works with: intellectual + emotional = aesthetic. For myself, I find that my highest aesthetic experiences are those in which both my senses and my thoughts are interacting and catalyzing each other. I also appreciated that he included the compounding of "calory value"; it reminded me of Goodman's assertion that good art tends to be rich in number, relation, and reflexivity of signs. But Koestler added that the "matrices" that produce the "emotive potential" in a work of art rely "partly on individual factors, partly on the collective attitudes of different cultures, but also on objective factors" (321). The acknowledgement that objective and subjective both influence the artist and viewer rounds out towards Goodman's question of "When is art?" (emphasis mine) in emphasizing the temporality and ultimate instability of Art as opposed to art, which, I believe like Tolstoy says, is an act of sensory communication.
Koestler skirts the issue of "taste and distaste" by pointing out, essentially a la Nixon, that “If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together". I admit I read an abreviated section of this book for class and so he may have delved deeper into the individual, cultural, and objective matrices at some other point in the book--but personal taste was just elided into "hey, good art uses pleasing and displeasing things to make unity". This hits my New Criticism button and makes me raise an eyebrow. While contrast is important, I would put taste and distaste into the section in which he discusses how "emotions are complex mixtures" (305).
Other things I appreciated: Koestler writes "Art, like religion, is a school of self-transcendence; it expands individual awareness into cosmic awareness, as science teaches us to reduce any particular puzzle to the great universal puzzle" (328). While, I may not agree with his word choice (side-riff below*), I agree that art is an expander of individual awareness and that it is like religion. In describing Christianity and Theatre, Asian American artist Joanna Wan-Ying Chan says, "When the curtain goes up on opening night, it has to be a common vision that we can own while in the meantime, each individual has made a contribution. I think that's the most Christian process" furthermore that both religion and theater hit on "the sacredness of each individual while forging a community in a common project" (qtd in Kim 109). This is important to me because I decided several years ago that theatre, art essentially, is for me an act of worship and of faith. More on that in my manifesto.
I didn't agree with everything from Koestler, but there are several tools that struck a chord with me and called up particular beliefs and assumptions of mine. Here are a couple quick quips/quotes:
"The two together--intellectual illumination and emotional catharsis--are the essence of the aesthetic experience." (328)
*"When it comes to putting aesthetical experiences into words, nothing short of a caesarian will help. The surgical tool that I proposed was 'bisociation'; and the operation consisted in disentangling the various bisociative, or bifocal, processes which combine in the experience" (383) "the 'earthing' of emotion . . . an electrically charged body, so that its tensions are drained by the immense current-absorbing capacity of 'mother earth'." (328) He hints around the feminine birth creation but can't quite bring himself to be so feminist. So I laugh.
"The imbalance of the part is redeemed by the balance of the whole, by the triangle which lends unity to diversity" (386)
"Neither the artist, nor the beholder of his [or her] work, can slice his mind into sections, separate sensation from perception, perception from meaning, sign from symbol" (391)
"the intrinsic value of illusion itself. It derives from the transfer of attention form the 'Now and Here' to the "Then and There'" (303)--the value of illusion is our ability to experience and sympathize with the "Other" essentially--what is not us becomes familiar and we sympathize, empathize with it. This is fabulously valuable.
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