TASTE
The bodily sense of taste has historically occupied a low position within the hierarchy of the five human senses. Aristotle's classical hierarchy of the senses deems "sight" the highest of the senses, followed in order by hearing, smell, taste, and touch (Jutte 61). Philosophers have privileged the "distance" senses such as sight and hearing over the "bodily" sense of taste due to notions that distance from the object perceived yields objectivity (which in turn might lead to knowledge), and proximity to the object perceived yields subjectivity (which implies the risk of self-indulgence) (Korsmeyer 361). This sense hierarchy is not uncontested. Theorists have argued that this hierarchy is not a universal "given," but a social construct influenced by philosophy, human evolution, and technological progress (Jutte 61). Certainly, taste's place within the hierarchy of senses is prone to change as aspects of culture and forms of media change. (http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/taste.htm)
ABSTRACTION
Abstraction begins with action, with lines drawn and a cleavage made. It is commonly used as a quantity that can be possessed--we can speak of abstraction in painting, in poetry, in thought, in any number of media--yet fundamentally the term necessitates a move, and one with direction. The OED includes several variations on "abstraction," but all of them involve "withdrawing," "separation," or "removal." In a specifically philosophical sense, it is defined as "the act or process of separating in thought, of considering a thing independently of its associations." This sense of striping away the context applies to all instances of abstraction. We should then ask--what is being removed? If we take seriously the word's etymology, which is to "draw away" or "move away," then abstraction becomes a more oppositional term. It cannot be pinned down to a universal definition but must be thought of in terms of what it is working against. Therefore, it will not do to simply locate abstraction, to speak of abstraction in something, rather be must also consider its origin, in other words, abstraction from something. Any definition of abstraction will necessarily be a binary one for we must address what is being moved away from. Abstraction in painting and abstraction in thought will obviously be different because they work within different contexts; they are removals from different locations. Abstraction will always take a different shape according to the binary it opposes, however, regardless of media, the move will be away from a particular and toward a universal notion. [see specificity] That element of the particular which is common to all situations will be lifted out and examined in its reified form. Contained in all abstraction is the sense of removal, of paring away, of purification.
Clement Greenberg, art critic and champion of abstract painting, saw art's natural course to be a purification of medium and the elimination of the influence of other media. [see purity] In his essay "On Abstract Art" (1944), he declares, "Let painting confine itself to the disposition pure and simple of color and line, and not intrigue us by associations with things we can experience more authentically elsewhere" (Greenberg 203). In Greenberg's hierarchy, abstract art is the pinnacle of the medium because it has succeeded (according to Greenberg) in stripping away other media. Art that is representational too easily suggests narrative and thus panders to literature. Such mixing of media Greenberg dismisses as "kitsch," palatable for the masses but not the "pure and simple" form that he would like to see. The art that Greenberg prized was the Abstract Expressionist work being done in New York, especially that of Jackson Pollock. Looking to Pollock's work for an idea of abstraction, we first try to name what it moves away from. His paintings react against the figurative tradition. There are no recognizable images in his work after 1948, no replication of reality, no constructions from the imagination, but only paint. For Greenberg, Pollock's work is abstract precisely because it is so involved with its own materiality. Divorcing itself from the figure and implicit narrative, the paintings move away from literature. Pollock's work can then be seen as abstract in two senses, moving away from representation and moving away from other media, both based on slightly different understandings of abstraction's binary.
Clement Greenberg, art critic and champion of abstract painting, saw art's natural course to be a purification of medium and the elimination of the influence of other media. [see purity] In his essay "On Abstract Art" (1944), he declares, "Let painting confine itself to the disposition pure and simple of color and line, and not intrigue us by associations with things we can experience more authentically elsewhere" (Greenberg 203). In Greenberg's hierarchy, abstract art is the pinnacle of the medium because it has succeeded (according to Greenberg) in stripping away other media. Art that is representational too easily suggests narrative and thus panders to literature. Such mixing of media Greenberg dismisses as "kitsch," palatable for the masses but not the "pure and simple" form that he would like to see. The art that Greenberg prized was the Abstract Expressionist work being done in New York, especially that of Jackson Pollock. Looking to Pollock's work for an idea of abstraction, we first try to name what it moves away from. His paintings react against the figurative tradition. There are no recognizable images in his work after 1948, no replication of reality, no constructions from the imagination, but only paint. For Greenberg, Pollock's work is abstract precisely because it is so involved with its own materiality. Divorcing itself from the figure and implicit narrative, the paintings move away from literature. Pollock's work can then be seen as abstract in two senses, moving away from representation and moving away from other media, both based on slightly different understandings of abstraction's binary.
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