This article was written in 1999 and was part of a paper I
was completing in Art Theory under the tutelage of Dr Denis Dutton. Having the
good fortune to be a student of Dr Dutton's was a highlight of my academic
studies and I am very proud to boast of an 'A' mark for this particular essay.
I have updated it slightly and it will be part of a larger collection of
academic articles I plan on publishing, concentrating on art, literature
and philosophical theory. Denis Laurence Dutton (9 February 1944 – 28 December
2010) was a philosopher of art, web entrepreneur and media activist. He was a
professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New
Zealand. He was also a co-founder and co-editor of the websites Arts & Letters Daily, ClimateDebateDaily.com
and cybereditions.com
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| Immanuel Kant |
KANT’S NOTION OF GENIUS IN ART
This
definition, of the kind of purpose a fine artwork has, evolves alongside the
notion of genius as Kant continues. He claims that such a purposiveness
“without a purpose”, generates (on a universal level) a development of the
intellect and our ability to communicate socially. Presumably, this
communication is to be about the very thing that has furthered the “culture of
our mental powers”(§ 44.4), i.e. fine art. He then seeks to justify this claim
by explaining what genius consists of and how a work of genius (fine art) is
determined (or indeterminable). The defining purposiveness of fine art and its
aesthetic characteristics is central as the locus for his treatment of genius
and a definition of both as natural in character, purpose, and effect.
Kant’s
notion of genius tends to provide a privileged view of the artist, or producer
of fine art, with ethereal and conjectural claims. For example: “the artist’s
skill can not be communicated but must be conferred directly on each person by
the hand of nature” (§ 47.1). This particular quality of natural endowment is
what distinguishes a genius from a scientist, who incidentally can not be a
genius unless he/she meets the criteria for genius, and is a fine artist. This
is near impossible, in relation to Kant’s ‘rules’ of genius, considering that
discoveries of science rely on pre-existing rules and empirical proof of
explanatory explanation. Any exception to the rule, I suspect, would be
considered an accident of fate or a scientific misadventure rather than the
work of a genius. However, it is clear that Kant’s does not favour these
scientists below the producers of fine art or works of genius. He in fact
claims that they are “far superior to those who merit the honor of being called
geniuses”(§ 47.1).
Kant’s
explication of genius does not definitively say how or why nature endows a
particular person with genius in order to produce fine art. This leads one to
inquire as to whether ‘nature’ favours those, whose habitus enables the pursuit
of ‘fine art’ and the expression of genius. Moreover, whether such bestowed
status is a phenomenon of Western society and breeding, as that is where the
majority of ‘fine art’ is produced. Of course there have been many non-western
artists from cultures lacking in fine art environments and education, which
have mysteriously produced works of genius commonly known as fine art without
any recourse to intent, rules of tradition, technique, qualifications etc.
Despite my obvious (politically correct) scepticism about this aspect of Kant’s
notion, it raises an important question about fine art, which is what ‘fine
art’ means for Kant.
Kant
defines fine art as being the ‘art of genius’, claiming that “nature, through
genius, prescribes the rule not to science but to art, and this also only
insofar as the art is to be fine art” (§ 46.4). He defines genius as an
innately natural enigma that characterises the creator of fine art and which is
also necessary for the creation of fine art that is original, exemplary, and
‘naturally’ endowed. It is primarily a talent that can not be taught by rules,
its main principle (or property) being ‘originality’; rather it applies and creates
the rules with its ‘exemplary’ products that others seek to imitate. The
creator of fine art is born a genius; a product of ‘nature’, devoid of reason
and empirical explanation for their involuntary bursts of inspired ideas (§
46.4).
Aesthetic
ideas, rather than the work itself, seem to define Kant’s notion of genius. The
ingenious idea and its effect on related objects and concepts, the manipulation
of imagination and the means to do so, and the originality of the idea, are all
aspects that take precedence over the aesthetic form of an artwork. Moreover, these characteristics reveal ‘genius’
and not the work itself (on its own). For Kant, fine art is the art of genius,
characterised by beauty, which has no purpose and is of universal character.
The produced work is reflective of that genius which is a necessary part of its
own production and ‘greatness’. Genius is an innately natural faculty that is a
‘rule’ unto itself, that imparts original talent and rules of art to the
art-world. It is, no less, than “the innate-mental predisposition (ingenium)
through which nature gives the rule to art” (§ 46. 1). This is paradoxical
considering that for fine artworks, genius is the creator, and is also that
without dependency or imitation of other ‘rules’. As Kant states, “genius must
be considered the very opposite of a spirit of imitation” (§ 47.1).
Kant
does not elaborate in depth on his proposition that originality is the central
property of genius. He claims “genius is the exemplary originality of a
subject’s natural endowment in the free use of his cognitive powers” (§ 49.12).
Yet, he seems to take this as a given principle of genius without any further
need of explanation, as he does ‘natural endowment’. These ambivalent aspects
of his definitions provoke many questions and few answers, and it is probable
that this is the reason why there is a shortage of explanatory elucidation. [2]
Fine
art, for Kant, eventuates and is discernible as a product of genius, only where
“genius is a talent for producing something [more definitively: fine art] for
which no definite rule can be given” (§ 46.4).
Therefore, as no definite rule can be a basis, the genius
(artist/author) will not be able to explain how, why, and where the ideas that
created the fine work of art originated. He claims that the “artist’s skill
cannot be communicated but must be conferred directly on each person by the
hand of nature” (§ 47.1). He distinguishes between the work of a genius and the
work of a great mind in terms of determinative rules.
As
rules do not enable the creation of works of genius, this is the reason why
fine art works differ crucially from the work of a scientist, whose work is
based entirely on formula, principles, and theoretical concepts of law. He gives the example of Newton as a prime
candidate for a great thinker who is not a genius because he, as a scientist,
could “show how he took every one of the steps to get from the first elements
of geometry to his great and profound discoveries . . . in an intuitive[ly
clear] way, allowing others to follow”. Kant implies that no genius could
empirically explain and track the origin of their ideas, as they themselves do
not know. Therefore, no matter how important or groundbreaking the work of a
scientist (or any other great thinker); it can not be the work of a genius.
Kant sees this area of the genius’s mind as distinct from the scientist’s,
because genius is characterised by ‘spirit’. This ‘spirit’ is the ability to
present aesthetic ideas and a self-sustaining and “animating principle in the
mind”(§ 49.2), and the justification for Kant’s distinction between fine arts,
other art, and science.
Kant’s
notion of a rule without concept, as the basis for a work of fine art, is
problematic, as it is illogical in the standard sense of a rule, due to its
lack of concept or principle characteristic.
Kant suggests that the only way, in which genius can be understood as a
rule, is through experiencing works of genius. Yet, he also says, that “fine
art cannot itself devise the rule by which it is to bring about its product” (§
46.3). The works themselves become exemplary models, or rules, which a pupil
can then use for inspiration although not for imitation. Alternatively, the work of a genius may
inspire other geniuses to create their own original works of genius.
Kant’s
notion, that the artist cannot connect the rule of genius with aesthetic ideas
and expression (or spirit), is not conclusive. If a ‘genius’ can not discern
whence an idea originated from, then how could they possibly know that it was
an original idea or one of exemplary genius? The answer is simple: if you can
not identify the cause of an idea, it does not necessarily follow that the idea
is ‘natural,’ original, exemplary, or of genius. It can also not be proven, nor
does Kant even try to, that an idea of genius is not merely a memory of another
work of genius that acts as a rule?
In
other words, genius can not conclusively distinguish itself from other prior
influences and rules, which ultimately affects the main principle of originality
and the total subjectivity of the genius’s mind. Kant would refute this
possibility, as he states:
“Genius is the exemplary originality of a subject’s natural
endowment in the free use of his cognitive powers. Accordingly, the product of
a genius (as regards what is attributable to genius in it rather than to
possible learning or academic instruction) is an example not meant to be
imitated, but to be followed by another genius.
(For in mere imitation the element of genius in the work – which constitutes
its spirit – would be lost.) The other genius, who follows the example, is
aroused by it to a feeling of his own originality, which allows him to exercise
in art his freedom from the constraint of rules, and to do so in such a way
that art itself acquires a new rule by this, thus showing that the talent is
exemplary.” (§ 49.12)
As
decisive as this definition sounds, it is problematic. How can a work of fine
art (the product of genius), not be affected by the rule of those fine artworks
which it is meant to ‘follow’ on from, without a degree of imitation or
appropriation in the idea of its creation? Here we can see, that a work of
genius may ‘follow on’, and therefore may be traced at least to its origins by
the inspiration of a prior work. It is also logical, as Kant claims, that if
works of genius ‘follow on’ from each other, then “fine art is to that extent
imitation, for which nature, through a genius, gave the rule” (§ 49.12). Here
he actually gives us a rule that determines the procedure and the purpose of an
aesthetic idea, i.e. to represent (imitate) nature by a natural faculty and
procedure.
The
main question generated by these ambivalent evocations of meaning, is what is
nature for Kant? If ‘nature’ can pass on the rule, through a naturally endowed
genius (who acts as a type of medium), to impart an exemplar to be followed by
“another genius” – why does not nature just ‘give the rule’ to all geniuses,
rather than by transference between like minds and their products? The question
of who was the first genius that generated such a response from other geniuses,
who were obviously just waiting around to be inspired by example, remains to be
answered. ‘God’ seems like the most probable conclusion, rather than ‘nature’,
for like the concept of God the notion of genius seems as mystical,
creationist, aesthetic, conceptual, and inconclusive.
If
we accept that genius consists of ideas that cannot be explained, then there is
good reason to think that maybe the term is itself redundant. If we cannot
explain how or why genius occurs in certain people, other than some kind of
phenomenological natural selection, then we are in no position to justify a
definition of it, for no matter how logical the rest of the characteristics of
genius may be, this ethereal aspect denigrates the whole notion’s validity as a
definition. Kant does not give any reason why not everyone else has such a
fundamental and evolutionary faculty either, which does nothing to justify his
position that only a select few are so ‘endowed’.
Kant
claims that fine artworks are essentially products of new and original ideas
i.e. the work of genius. However, an original idea is logically indefinable, in
that its uniqueness is hard to define, because it is supposedly like no other.
This is where the term genius applies to that which is not understandable, or
definable, because of its originality. Genius can not exist without the idea of
genius existing before it; it is the concept that determines the term not the
other way round. That is, we do not call someone a genius unless we have an
understanding of what a genius is; otherwise, we would call them something
else.
Kant’s
notion of genius helps us to understand more about the artist (subject) and the
processes of imaginative inspiration, than the artwork (object). However, like
‘art’ itself, we need to understand what ‘genius’ is, before we come to
recognise it as such. In this respect, it is an associative principle that
requires the empirical and material proof of its existence for us to perceive
it as genius, contrary to Kant’s view. In order to see the genius in an
artwork, we must be able to understand its significance as both an artwork and
as an example of genius.
For Kant genius, like art, is a manifestation
of a natural and creative disposition toward imaginative and intellectual
practice. Such a notion is far from an absolute justification of the artist, as
somehow any more special than the rest of us. Instead, genius seems like an
attempt to enlarge the profile of poetry as a fine art, as being somehow more
valid as an aesthetically motivated production of genius. Why poetry is any
more viable as fine art, let alone as the production of genius, than say prose,
seems strange because both are constrained by form and conceptual rules, language
being the main one. If it is because poetry was an oratorical mode, rather than
a literary one, this might make sense; but even then, it would clash with
Kant’s notion of music without words being a fine art.
In Kant’s discussion of genius and fine art,
he primarily concentrates on poetry, as the main aesthetic vehicle for the
‘faculty’ of the imagination. It is as much a notion of autonomous freedom as
it is about aesthetic creation; the work of genius i.e. fine art, could be seen
as a quintessential expression of the freedom of the unfettered mind of the
fine artist. Kant’s notion of genius also works paradoxically in confining fine
art to that produced only by genius, yet imbuing it with an evolutionary purposiveness
that ensures its perpetuation and its autonomy. The only other concept, that
has similar properties of such indeterminable origins, is the religious or
numinous concept of God. It is an attempt by Kant to see fine art as a
transcendent form of freedom, an exemplar of morality and the human ‘spirit’
linked to its creator, in that it serves as a model for successive progression.
Whilst
I have attempted to show that aspects of Kant’s notion of genius are
inconclusive, if not empirically improbable, it is not to say that such a
notion cannot be applied to aesthetic creation indefinable by any other means.
Kant’s notion of genius is still useful in defining products of the creative
faculty of the imagination, as fine art, and as a means of making some sense
out of the phenomenon of original works and their creators. A recent art
phenomena, which has used criteria similar to Kant’s to define peripheral
(outside the fine arts) artefacts and the process by which they are created as
art (and more specifically as fine art), is the genre of ‘Outsider Art’.
Arthur
Danto compares the work of outsider artists, who he defines as “deeply outside
artists, in that the art world does not enter into any explanation of their
work . . . [e]ach was an art world unto himself”, to fine art and the Modernist
era. He frequently uses the term ‘genius’ to describe the quality, process,
originality, and characteristic qualities of the work of these people who
create art on a par with fine art, but without any prior training, rules, or
determinate concepts.[3]
Another
recent article discusses the same topic, except under the different title of
‘visionary art’. John Maizels traces the origins of marginal forms of art and
their subsequent inclusion and acquired status as viable works of art. He
discusses the art of the mentally ill and ‘Art Brut’, amongst other art
movements that appropriated and encouraged work of those who did not consider
their work as art, rather as a means of expression. Maizels defines ‘visionary
art’ as a concept that can:
“.
. . restore the impetus of the reasoning behind the original “Art Brut” and
“Outsider Art” concepts: work that is free from commercial pressures, that has
little or no contact with the art world, that originates from deep within the
creator, that is entirely personal, inventive, original; a pure and genuine
expression of each individual that owes nothing to teaching or tradition and
everything to an inventive mind, an idiosyncratic vision and an inner creative
compulsion.”[4]
As
can be seen, there is allusion to Kant’s notion of genius in these attempts to
understand art in terms of creativity, originality, and as works that seem to
have no allegiance to rules, standards, conventions of practice, or art
tradition. They also meet the criteria for genius in that they are ‘successive’
in their influence, on generating new genres of art, within the art world, and
the on other artists who recognise their own originality in their predecessors
examples.
Danto’s
relation of the Modernist’s example, whose credo was “make it new” (c/o Ezra
Pound), to outsider art, also echoes Kant’s primary principle of genius,
‘originality’. David Novitz also traces the origins of the twentieth-century
art world to a notion clearly resembling that of Kant’s:
“The
twentieth-century has taken shape around a narrative according to which genuine
artists enjoy a bountiful reservoir of talent – what some call “genius” that
demands its own development and fulfilment. On this view, artists have both the
right and, it seems, the sacred obligation to follow their genius wherever it
may lead. In the end, it is the originality of an individual’s vision which
allows him or her- the highest accolade of all: that of being an artistic
genius.”[5]
If
Kant’s notion of genius is still necessary for understanding art, which it
obviously is, then it is to understand that in art, which is unexplainable. As
I have shown, Kant’s deductive account of genius is both decisive, yet
problematic in parts. Perhaps, the greatest weakness of his notion of genius in
art, is the fact that the problematic aspects I have emphasised cannot be
either disproved, or empirically proven. Nevertheless, it gives us a term and a
set of characteristic qualities, which we can apply to artefacts and their
producers as evidence of the creative process, that would probably otherwise
remain a mystery.
NOTES:
[1] Kant, Immanuel, The Critique of Judgement,
trans. Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987). All textual
citations in parentheses refer to section and paragraph numbers.
[2] Some of the exasperating questions I found
myself asking of these particular notions of Kant’s, are as follows. If genius is innate in the subject, how is it that it is
only manifests as a sporadic occurrence and not an everyday event? If one is
naturally endowed, why is it that one may only create a single work of genius,
and at the same time be entirely hopeless at other naturally normal activities
like conversation or love-making? Is it
the ‘genius’, or the ‘talent’, that is fundamental? Can someone who is not a
genius discern that which constitutes a work of ‘genius’ and the character of a
genius? In other words can we all (universally) recognise a genius, or a work
of genius, if what is needed to create a work of genius is surely what is
needed to recognise it as such? Some of these questions are answerable, but
seem too obvious. Some are probably not worth asking, yet were provoked by the
particular notions, so are possibly relevant. As I have not read his other
major works, I can not say with any certainty that Kant does not provide the
answers to my questions. Hence my exclusion of these questions from the main
text and argument of my essay.
[3] Danto, Arthur, “Outsider Art”, in The Nation Digital Edition
(World Wide Web: The Nation Company, 1997), at http://www.thenation.com.
[4] Maizels, John, “An Introduction to Visionary
Art”, in Raw Vision: An International Journal
of Intuitive and Visionary Art, No. 27 (World Wide Web: Raw Vision, 1996?), at http://rawvision.com.
[5] Novitz, David, The Boundaries of Art (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1992), p. 201.
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