Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, and Plato all had varying opinions on what is beautiful and what is not. Although many people may agree on certain works of art or certain celebrities being beautiful, that does not mean that there is objective beauty. In this paper I will show why beauty is subjective through Kant’s belief that you need to be disinterested to judge art and how the sublime is hauntingly beautiful, the Marxist view that the context of art matters, and the possible non-existence of the Platonic forms.
Kant believed that in order to judge a work of art then you must be disinterested in it to get an accurate conclusion (Linsenmeyer, 1). By disinterested Kant meant distancing yourself from the biases that you hold and remaining as objective and detached as possible (Linsenmeyer, 1). However, by remaining objective in the judgment Kant does not imply that beauty is objective. Kant believed the exact opposite, Kant believed that beauty is in the eye of the beholder; two people may remain disinterested in their judgment of a work of art, for example, and both reach opposite conclusions on the status of its beauty (Linsenmeyer, 2).
Kant wrote about his concept of the “sublime;” he wrote that the sublime is something that is essentially hauntingly beautiful (Unknown, 1). Something that is dangerous and awe-inspiring but captivating and stunning at the same time; for example meteors flying through the atmosphere, impending storm clouds, etc. It is in Kant’s sublime that the question of whether or not beauty is subjective or objective can be answered. The sublime is a limbo between beauty and horror and the word ‘uncanny’ would be a fitting adjective. Picture a hypothetical world in which Earth orbited Jupiter; the sheer scale of Jupiter is largely incomprehensible to the human imagination and there is virtually nothing to accurately compare its size to that would give someone an accurate image of it. Waking up, going outside, and seeing Jupiter would fall into Kant’s sublime. Something so incredibly titanic, looming over everything everyone on Earth has ever known, and showing how small and insignificant it all really is. It is difficult to imagine someone saying that Jupiter looks ugly and that there is not some form of beauty in the planet; however, someone certainly could find Jupiter hard to look at and unappealing because its size and power are horrifying. They would be right to do so! Jupiter could absorb the Earth in seconds and never notice a thing, all of human civilization would be wiped out instantly without so much as a cosmic blink, and that is a terrifying thought. Even if someone were to view Jupiter in a disinterested manner surely its power would be factored into its beauty, which some would find frightening. Kant’s sublime shows that there are always differing views on what is beautiful and what is not, humans will never agree fully on any one thing being beautiful and therefore beauty is subjective.
Furthermore, the question of whether or not beauty is objective becomes more clear when you view it through a Marxist lens. For Marxists, the real value of art and if it’s beautiful or not depends a great deal on its makeup and background (Clarke, 2). Material consideration is the main concern for a Marxist (Clarke, 2). For example, take the beautiful (in the author of this essay’s opinion) romantic era painting by Caspar David Freidrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, which sits in a beautiful but not overly ornamental golden frame. In this hypothetical, slave labor was used to gather the materials for the paint and an underpaid member of the proletariat constructed the frame. Regardless of the beauty or lack of beauty of the painting a Marxist would find the painting abhorrent due to the exploitation involved in its construction. The same Marxist would probably say that the painting serves as an ornament for the upper classes to appreciate something that members of the lower class helped to produce but could never benefit from. Furthermore, it would be very difficult to find someone who would say that various European cathedrals are unpleasant to look at.
However, there most likely was some exploitation of the working class involved in constructing some of the cathedrals which would be off-putting to many thereby breaking the spell that they may hold over some people. Furthermore, a Marxist may believe that something like a cathedral would be a complete misallocation of resources (Unknown, 3). There are thousands in Europe alone, sometimes multiple in the same city, and regardless of the religious importance (even though a Marxist surely would not be religious) a Marxist would say that the stones used in the cathedral could have been used to make housing for the homeless or a hospital perhaps. In this example, beauty is subjective because a Marxist would not be able to say the cathedral is beautiful knowing that the homeless could have benefitted from those same materials used in the construction of something they might view as overproduction. This would be an objective belief to a Marxist, however, not everyone is a Marxist so yet again we see that there are varying perspectives on beauty. Lastly, the question of whether or not beauty is objective or not may sound contradictory through the Marxist lens as there are objective beliefs in Marxism however, it is not. To elaborate, from the Marxist perspective the exploitation of the working class and slavery are objectively bad things. Therefore, art that used slave labor to be built would be objectively bad to a Marxist. However, a Kantian might say that the Marxist is not viewing the painting in a disinterested way and Plato might say that a piece of art is beautiful because it is probably the closest thing to the form or the original version in the land of the forms of said artwork. The question of beauty being subjective or not cannot be answered solely from a single lens and therefore while there are objectives in Marxism; beauty itself is not married to Marxist objectives.
Plato believed that there is objective beauty in the world which goes hand in hand with the Form of the Good (Jenkins, 3). His belief stems from his philosophy of the forms; meaning that the closer something is to the form of that something than it is objectively more beautiful than something that is not as close to the form. For example, an orange that is misshapen and deformed would most likely not be as close to the form of an orange as a perfectly symmetrical orange, full of color, that tastes good; therefore, the second orange is objectively more beautiful than the first orange because it is closer to the form of an orange. The only way to truly know the form of anything is to die and assuming you were a good person you would end up in the land of the forms and could see for yourself. Therefore, in Plato’s world he can and will always be right because nobody will ever know until they die and by that point they can no longer debate Plato about it.
Plato’s understanding of beauty makes sense at face value; it is easy and logical to see how a statue that has decayed and broken down over time would not be as beautiful as a newly carved David. Until you factor in that everybody has different beliefs on what they consider beautiful. Perhaps, a Marxist would love the broken statue as it shows the crumbling power of the bourgeois’s iron grasp on the art world and that the proletariat is rising up against it. On the other hand a Marxist might say that the David is the perfect example of the overindulgence of the ruling class and perpetuates oppression of the working class. A Kantian might say that as long as both of the hands are broken off in the same place then there is a form of symmetry still which could represent something completely different and still be beautiful. For example, the missing hands could represent the cruelty of slavery in the Belgian Congo as removing hands was a common punishment there (Briefel, 129) and it is a good thing that bad deeds are being exposed. Additionally, since the forms cannot be proven until you die, then why does it matter if they exist in the first place? Should people live their lives appreciating a terrible piece of artwork that they find hideous because it might be closer to the form of that artwork in the Platonic sense? Something which they will never know in their time on Earth? Although many may say the David is closer to the form of artwork than Warhol’s Brillo Boxes some people might like the boxes more. Shouldn’t people appreciate what they find attractive? It seems much more logical to appreciate what people enjoy without being influenced by a magical ethereal world of forms that may or may not exist.
In conclusion, beauty is subjective because people have different opinions. No one can be objectively correct on what is or is not beautiful; the very nature of an aesthetic experience is entirely an internal affair. Therefore, no external opinion can say that something is not beautiful if someone finds that thing beautiful. This is demonstrated through Kant’s sublime, Marxist views on art, and Plato’s mythical forms. The sublime shows the subjectivity of beauty as not everyone can find something that is uncanny or terrifying beautiful. The Marxist perspective shows the subjectivity of beauty because the background of something that many consider beautiful may not be so beautiful. Lastly, Plato’s forms state there is objective beauty however, the existence of the forms may not be objective and therefore they should have no bearing on what is beautiful or not because no one will know the truth until they are dead. Although some may never find any beauty in a Jackson Pollock painting and view his work as the antithesis to beauty and art; there are many people who do not feel that way and both are equally correct in their beliefs as beauty is subjective.
Reflection
I enjoyed this assignment and I felt like I was really able to do some deep reflection on my personal views on beauty and art. I deeply enjoy aesthetics and it is currently my favorite topic of study so writing this essay was very enjoyable. I have now been able to understand my personal beliefs much better and am able to articulate how I feel in an intelligible way. I got to understand Kantian and Marxist beliefs on art much better through this essay and I found that very valuable as those topics are interesting to me even though I am very much opposed to Marxism.
Bibliography
Briefel, Aviva. “Crimes of the hand: manual violence and the Congo.” The Racial Hand in Victorian Imagination, Cambridge, 2015, 129-150. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/racial-hand-in-the-victorian-imagination/crimes-of-the-hand-manual-violence-and-the-congo/8A611C9B9D98427BBFB697FC83781551
Clarke, Richard. “What Do Marxists Have to Say About Art?” Culture Matters, 14 October, 2017.
Jenkins, Ryan. “Plato’s Form of the Good.” Thousand Word Philosophy, 13 February, 2018, 1-4.
Linsenmeyer, Mark. “Topic for #105: Kant on the Beautiful.” The Partially Examined Life, 7 November, 2014, 1-5. https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2014/11/07/topic-105-kant-beauty/
Unknown. “Historical Materialism.” Unknown, Unknown, 1-4.
Unknown. “Aesthetics – Kant.” Unknown, Unknown. 1.