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From time to time there appears in the Objectivist literature, an
article or essay which stands head and shoulders above the usual; one
in which both the depth and originality of the concepts discussed,
and the clarity and precision of the presentation are outstanding.
Lee Sandstead's, "Style and Psycho-Epistemology in
Painting," which appeared in the August 1998 issue of The
Intellectual Activist 1 is an example of this high
calibre of writing. Although it is more than a year since Mr.
Sandstead's essay was published, praise is still timely; it would be
an injustice if this article did not receive from every Objectivist
the attention and acknowledgement properly owing to a great
achievement. I have not been so excited by the novelty and conviction
of an essay since Leonard Peikoff's "Fact and Value". 2
The importance of Mr. Sandstead's essay extends beyond the immediate
field of its subject matter - aesthetics - and presents a valuable
epistemological distinction applicable to the entire philosophical hierarchy.
The essay shows, using two very different paintings as examples, the
way in which the technical style of a visual artwork depends upon the
artist's psycho-epistemology (i.e., the way that the artist
characteristically perceives and grasps the world around him). In the
course of his explanation, Mr. Sandstead demonstrates some of the
principles necessary to evaluate the stylistic mastery (or lack
thereof) of the artwork, and the mental clarity (or lack thereof) of
the artist. In doing so, he provides an antidote to the rationalistic
errors to which many Objectivists unfortunately fall prey in judging
visual art.
The reader of this essay is immediately drawn into a tightly crafted
inductive structure. The essay begins with a vivid concretization
comparing the perceptual acuity of a botanist to that of a drunkard
in perceiving a leaf. When introduced, this example seems to be a
straightforward and simple comparison, but it recurs throughout the
essay as a succinct and illustrative integrating principle. For each
of the three broad aesthetic aspects of visual art Mr. Sandstead
discusses (clarity/focus, modeling/perspective and composition), he
discusses the relevant techniques in painting necessary to create a
realistic representation; contrasts how these techniques are applied
(or abused) in the two example paintings; then demonstrates the wider
principle of psycho-epistemology which follows. Each section is a
compactly developed inductive argument. To complete the thesis, he
unites the three elementary concepts into a higher level principle
showing how one of the paintings is objective art, belonging to the
perceptual world of the lucid botanist, while the other painting
amounts to sub-representational emotionalism, akin to the drunkard's
haze. Mr. Sandstead's writing is itself an instance of focused
epistemological clarity, belonging to the world of the botanist and
of the objective artist he praises in his essay. At the climactic
point where he unites the three sub-arguments and merges them with
the initial botanist/drunkard concretization, the result is a
deliciously clear resolution.
In addition to the structure of the essay, Mr. Sandstead's particular
choice of subject matter, and the aspects he chooses to emphasize,
are also of great value, given the pivotal role of art in helping us
keep our philosophical abstractions tied to reality. Based on my
amateur study of art and aesthetics over the past several years, and
on discussions with a wide variety of people, it has become apparent
to me that many Objectivists are completely unaware of the
fundamental importance of style in evaluating art. Without a grasp of
style, it is impossible to understand what makes a great work of art
great. Without an antidote to rationalism in art - in the form of a
solid explanation of style - we may miss out on many great artworks
by failing to identify their significance, and we risk losing the
artistic techniques discovered in the renaissance.
I have noticed that some Objectivists dogmatically accept and
regurgitate specific aesthetic value judgements and commentary from
the Objectivist literature, without understanding the basis of those
judgements. This type of person will, for example, quickly name
Vermeer as his favourite painter, or Rachmaninov as his favourite
composer, but will not be able to explain the meaning of the work,
why it is important, or what makes it profound. This person has
latched onto a specific artist or artwork mentioned by Ayn Rand in
the Romantic Manifesto, without doing any further
investigation into the particular aspects of the art form, in order
to understand the elements and techniques essential to it.
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There also seems to me to be, amongst many Objectivists, a narrow
preoccupation with the subject matter of the visual arts (as
against the mastery of execution), and a tendency to try to evaluate
paintings on an almost literary basis, the way one would analyze a
novel. As an unfortunate result, many great works of art, having
bland or philosophically erroneous choices of subject, are ignored or
denounced by many Objectivists. These people would tend to miss the
value relevance of a still-life painting, or might insist that a
painting must depict the human figure to be considered a
concretization of metaphysical value-judgements (which is not
true). Potentially, the most serious outcome of this error is that
some stylistically mediocre artists and works of art receive great
praise from some Objectivists solely because the subject matter
presents a theme that is heroic or explicitly consistent with the
philosophy of Objectivism. If we as consumers of art are
obliviousness to the stylistic quality of the work, the accepted
standards for technical mastery in art will continue to deteriorate
as inferior artists receive undeservedly the same praise as great masters.
Mr. Sandstead's antidote to these errors is exquisite: the two
paintings he selects as examples in his essay intentionally do not
contain explicitly philosophical subject matter. This allows him to
focus the essay on the psycho-epistemological aspects of style alone.
His two example paintings clearly isolate the importance of style in
evaluating and appreciating an artwork. It is only within this type
of distilled discussion that he could conclude with such delightful
remarks as:
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"Thus, identifying the style of a work of art
enhances one's ability to enjoy the rational element of these
paintings&ldots; vastly increasing the number of artworks that one
can objectively value&ldots;" |
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and,
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"Indeed, it is only by understanding what the
artistic style of the Renaissance says about the nature of man's
consciousness that one can grasp why one can find, in a painting of a
simple table covered with ordinary food, the fuel and inspiration to
help sustain a rational view of existence." |
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These are the words of a man who appreciates the benevolent universe
around him, who understands how art can capture this type of
benevolence, and who can explain it concisely to the rest of us.
This essay would be a great achievement even if it stopped here, with
principles applicable only to the field of aesthetics and art. But
the value of the ideas in this essay do not stop here, they apply to
a much wider context.
In the central concretization of the botanist versus the drunkard,
Mr. Sandstead identifies and illustrates a subtle
psycho-epistemological principle: perception is influenced by the
perceiver's level of focus and by his previously acquired conceptual
knowledge. It is usually common knowledge to an Objectivist that the
way one's mind conceptually processes perceptual data is volitional
and is dependent upon one's level of focus. But the subtler point at
issue here is that the amount and clarity of information that one is
able to perceive is also controlled by volition, by one's level of
focus. Since we know that the process of perception is automatic, we
may overlook or neglect the important fact that one's conceptual
knowledge determines the amount of perceptual detail that one can
notice and retain. As far as I know, Mr. Sandstead's particularly
clear and explicit formulation of this principle is unique and novel
in the Objectivist literature.
I cannot praise this essay strongly enough. The principles it
explains represent a valuable and ultimately necessary application of
the highly abstract ideas in Ayn Rand's Romantic Manifesto to the
particular art form of painting. It gives us a set of practical tools
that we can easily grasp and learn to use, to enhance our own
enjoyment of art, and hence of life. It provides key distinctions
that will help us keep our theoretical aesthetic ideas tied to
reality - reality, in this case being the technique and mastery of
the medium that go into the making of a great painting. Mr.
Sandstead's essay represents what philosophical writing can and ought
to be. If you have not yet read "Style and Psycho-Epistemology
in Painting," you are in for a treat.
Notes:
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1. |
The Intellectual Activist, Vol.12,
No.8 (August, 1998) |
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2. |
The Intellectual Activist, Vol.V, No.1
(November, 1989) |
© Rob Stevens, 2000. All Rights Reserved.
The back issue containing this essay is available from
TIA Publications Inc., P.O. Box 262, Lincroft, New Jersey,
07738-0262, or on the TIA website at: www.intellectualactivist.com. |
