Aesthetic Philosophy - Tumblr Posts
I think that's what makes it divine tho! That art is fundamentally human and communicative and something we can all do and cultivate. A form of experiential beauty, or divine qualia. Call me ratatouille, but I agree with the idea that "anyone can cook", or pick up power tools or a knife as you say, but I think that is exactly what makes it so divine and magical...
To some of us, experience and qualia *itself* is divine. That means that when I see my kid experiencing his autistic little artistic flow as he stacks blocks or lines up cars on the counter... I think he's tapping into divinity, into experience and beauty and creativity. Maybe even into idealized platonic forms for all my neoplatonists... When I see them so happy and jumping around when they've successfully brought their mental ideal into real life, it brings me such joy as a parent. It's beautiful. It's divine. Alfred North Whitehead in his influential process philosophy work, "Process and Reality" speaks of this in terms of Neoplatonic forms as a fundamentally divine aesthetic. He calls it "satisfaction" when the physical pole of reality reaches its highest point of satisfying a platonic divine ideal. For me I have moments like this when I drive down the highway and blast music as catharsis. Or when I kiss my hot lesbian girlfriend... Art is the same way I think. Throwing out the divinity of it just because people have mixed it with imperialistic tendencies and set unreasonable unhealthy societal ideals I think is to throw the baby out with the bathwater!
For another perspective on this, I highly recommend watching a favorite video essayist of mine, CJ the X, on this subject. I think their takes about the cultivation of delicacy (or skill, in your example), subjectivity and objectivity and art are seriously worth looking at.
Here's a link, because I think it's just such a good way of looking at things. I don't agree with everything they say (which is good I think - thinking for yourself is exactly what you're doing with your post and I love that and wanna engage with this discourse on aesthetics!) but I love their dialectics and worldview and I think it's just super cool!
Peace and love from ya Eldritch girl,
-Izzy
the talk about art as something divine and mystical runs completely counter to reality: anyone can do it if they wanted to. its not a super power, its a skill. like handling a knife or power tools. anyone can do it.