Topic of the issue :ASPECTS OF THE AESTHETIC
Issue editor: Ivanka Stapova
CONTENTS & Abstracts & Keywords & The authors in the issue
Silviya Kristeva (Assoc. Prof. at South-West University Neofit Rilski )
The Power of Judgment in Kant and the Categories of Aesthetics. Aesthetic Judgment
Abstract: The article considers the new autonomy of the power of judgment in Kant's Critique of Judgment, in which the question is raised as to the a priori principle proper to the reflective power of judgment. However, the new area of the power of judgment assigns rights over the subjective side of human activity and thus it deduces and posits the character of aesthetic purposiveness in the work of the faculties of cognition. The article discusses the definition and structure of pure aesthetic judgment – its object, predicate, relation and universal validity. The transcendental deduction of aesthetic judgments is justified not in relation to the feeling of pleasure, but in its guiding role and connection with the categories and ideas in the ideal realm of the aesthetical.
Keywords : German Idealism; Kant; aesthetic purposiveness; the power of imagination; deduction of aesthetic judgment.
The Power of Judgment in Kant and the Categories of Aesthetics. Aesthetic Judgment
Abstract: The article considers the new autonomy of the power of judgment in Kant's Critique of Judgment, in which the question is raised as to the a priori principle proper to the reflective power of judgment. However, the new area of the power of judgment assigns rights over the subjective side of human activity and thus it deduces and posits the character of aesthetic purposiveness in the work of the faculties of cognition. The article discusses the definition and structure of pure aesthetic judgment – its object, predicate, relation and universal validity. The transcendental deduction of aesthetic judgments is justified not in relation to the feeling of pleasure, but in its guiding role and connection with the categories and ideas in the ideal realm of the aesthetical.
Keywords : German Idealism; Kant; aesthetic purposiveness; the power of imagination; deduction of aesthetic judgment.
Miglena Nikolchina ( Prof. DSc. at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski)
Here Comes the Human Who Is Not a Human: Philosophy of the Anthropological Customs Clearance
Abstract: The anthropological machine Giorgio Agamben discusses in The Open is not exactly inoperative: rather, it has switched gears from the metaphysical differentiation of man from animal to the uncanny reduplication of human and robot. Addressing this profound change, the present essay analyzes Svetoslav Minkov's short story “The Man Who Came from America” (1933) in the context of the romantic legacy, the avant-garde aesthetics of cubo-futurism and the interwar reverberations of Karel Иapek's R.U.R. The American robot who arrives in a box “as machines do” will cross the border transformed into a rival and master of his owner. The essay focuses on the hilarious episode with the clearance of the robot as epitomizing the “customs clearance philosophy” which ushers in the comic and horrifying Doppelganger effects of present-day anthropogenesis.
Keywords: human; robot; anthropological machine; avant-garde; R.U.R.
Nina Dimitrova (DSc, Professor at the IPS-BAS)
Metaphysics of Light: M. Bulgakov and N. Raynov (Literary-philosophical Images of Christ)
Abstract: The article offers a comparative study between Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita and Nikolai Raynov's novel Between the Desert and Life in terms of the metaphysics of light. The grounds of the comparison are sought in the general philosophical and religious attitude of Gnosticism. Raynov's philosophical stance on light is considered in terms of its opposition to the material, carnal, physical; while Bulgakov's perspective on light is discussed in its opposition to peace, the “place” he specially proposes. The article concludes that Light and Peace in Bulgakov's novel are not agonal.
Keywords: Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940); The Master and Margarita, Nikolai Raynov (1889–1954); Between the Desert and Life; light metaphysics; Gnosticism.
Ivanka Stapova – (DSc, Professor at the IPS-BAS)
Traces of the Devil's Steps (Nikolay Raynov as a Precursor of Bulgarian Diabolism)
Abstract: The article examines the particularities of Bulgarian diabolism and the role of Nikolay Raynov's works as its direct predecessor. A man of all-round education, the highly gifted Nikolay Raynov opened new directions in a new way and style of writing and expression; he entered into themes and images that are akin to the mysterious by their aestheticization of dark motifs and destructive symbols touching upon the mystical and the exotic. Although Raynov was not overly in favor of the works of the diabolical writers, a considerable portion of his works in fact expresses man's dualistic nature, the doubts and fears underlying the dominant themes of the exotic and mystical, which were poured into his categorical creative works.
Keywords : Nikolay Raynov; Bulgarian diabolism; aestheticization of the mysterious; diabolical images.
Here Comes the Human Who Is Not a Human: Philosophy of the Anthropological Customs Clearance
Abstract: The anthropological machine Giorgio Agamben discusses in The Open is not exactly inoperative: rather, it has switched gears from the metaphysical differentiation of man from animal to the uncanny reduplication of human and robot. Addressing this profound change, the present essay analyzes Svetoslav Minkov's short story “The Man Who Came from America” (1933) in the context of the romantic legacy, the avant-garde aesthetics of cubo-futurism and the interwar reverberations of Karel Иapek's R.U.R. The American robot who arrives in a box “as machines do” will cross the border transformed into a rival and master of his owner. The essay focuses on the hilarious episode with the clearance of the robot as epitomizing the “customs clearance philosophy” which ushers in the comic and horrifying Doppelganger effects of present-day anthropogenesis.
Keywords: human; robot; anthropological machine; avant-garde; R.U.R.
Nina Dimitrova (DSc, Professor at the IPS-BAS)
Metaphysics of Light: M. Bulgakov and N. Raynov (Literary-philosophical Images of Christ)
Abstract: The article offers a comparative study between Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita and Nikolai Raynov's novel Between the Desert and Life in terms of the metaphysics of light. The grounds of the comparison are sought in the general philosophical and religious attitude of Gnosticism. Raynov's philosophical stance on light is considered in terms of its opposition to the material, carnal, physical; while Bulgakov's perspective on light is discussed in its opposition to peace, the “place” he specially proposes. The article concludes that Light and Peace in Bulgakov's novel are not agonal.
Keywords: Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940); The Master and Margarita, Nikolai Raynov (1889–1954); Between the Desert and Life; light metaphysics; Gnosticism.
Ivanka Stapova – (DSc, Professor at the IPS-BAS)
Traces of the Devil's Steps (Nikolay Raynov as a Precursor of Bulgarian Diabolism)
Abstract: The article examines the particularities of Bulgarian diabolism and the role of Nikolay Raynov's works as its direct predecessor. A man of all-round education, the highly gifted Nikolay Raynov opened new directions in a new way and style of writing and expression; he entered into themes and images that are akin to the mysterious by their aestheticization of dark motifs and destructive symbols touching upon the mystical and the exotic. Although Raynov was not overly in favor of the works of the diabolical writers, a considerable portion of his works in fact expresses man's dualistic nature, the doubts and fears underlying the dominant themes of the exotic and mystical, which were poured into his categorical creative works.
Keywords : Nikolay Raynov; Bulgarian diabolism; aestheticization of the mysterious; diabolical images.
Noлl Carroll (Distinguished Professor of Philosophy In the Graduate Center, City University of New York)
Art Appreciation
Abstract: In the current article the author offers an analysis of the concept of art appreciation and presents convincing arguments for the claim that we can understand an artwork without necessarily liking it. Giving up on the quest for a definition of art, Carroll formulates a specific appreciative heuristics, which enables us to develop an adequate approach to a particular work of art. Additionally, the text deals with theoretical problems like the role of authorial intention in art as well as the question concerning the reasons for adopting aesthetic realism in the philosophy of art.
Keywords: philosophy of art; David Hume; Arthur Danto; heuristics; aesthetic realism.
Art Appreciation
Abstract: In the current article the author offers an analysis of the concept of art appreciation and presents convincing arguments for the claim that we can understand an artwork without necessarily liking it. Giving up on the quest for a definition of art, Carroll formulates a specific appreciative heuristics, which enables us to develop an adequate approach to a particular work of art. Additionally, the text deals with theoretical problems like the role of authorial intention in art as well as the question concerning the reasons for adopting aesthetic realism in the philosophy of art.
Keywords: philosophy of art; David Hume; Arthur Danto; heuristics; aesthetic realism.
Ivan Svilenov Stefanov: (graduate in Art Studies at the National Academy of Art. Currently he is an expert at the 13 Centuries of Bulgaria National Endowment Fund DF)
The World of Art in the 1960s and the (Un)completed Modernity
Abstract: This text explores the rethinking of the term postmodernism as an analytical tool applied to the art of the 1960s. That proved to be a decade which, in terms of the then current temporal constructs, could not be differentiated by art history or from an aesthetic point of view. It was the decade when the end of the grand narratives was announced and when reflections on the "World of Art" first began. These two positions radically divided the theoretical understanding of the epoch; because while aesthetics and philosophy developed the thesis of the meta-narrative development of culture and the end of the great modern project, art history and sociology, in the persons of Arthur Danto and George Dickie, theorized on the "World of Art" and the role of institutions, emphasizing a concluded phase and a logical continuation of this modern project. As Gombrich writes in his book Art and Illusion, there is nothing closer to the human mind than the traditional acceptance of pictorial codes and their continuation (Gombrich 1988: 120). Therefore, the two historical views upon which this text is based were already posited during the twentieth century. The analytical invention this study introduces is the simultaneous consideration of the two theoretical positions through the optic of the sociology of art; for, in Bulgarian art, the problem of the world of art and institutionalism are scarcely addressed, translated literature is almost non-existent, and the analytical view of art history through the ideas of Danto and Dickie is still at an experimental stage. That is why comparative art history finds invaluable application in this theoretical clash, projecting in parallel the narrative and normative factors in the European civilization of the recent past.
Keywords: postmodernism; world of art; Arthur Danto; 1960s; New Realism; Fluxus; Lyotard.
Nikolina Deleva – (Doctoral Student at the IPS-BAS)
Contemporary Art and Morality: Problems of Evaluation
Abstract: The article discusses different views on the application of ethical judgments to the evaluation of art. The interaction between ethical and artistic values is discussed. Different issues lying outside the sphere of art are studied for their impact on its evaluation. Examples of artistically and ethically contradictory practices and works of contemporary art are given, and the public response to them is presented. Attention is paid to the interference of politics, ideology and business in art – the influence of social networks, the requirements of political correctness and the "new ethics".
Keywords : ethics; contemporary art; evaluation; political correctness; new ethics; boundaries and norms; autonomism; moralism.
Valentin Angelov (Prof. at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”)
The civiliziting mission of art
Abstract:There are many artists, as well as theoreticians too, who regard art not only as knowledge, but as possibility for change our material environment, but also our social relations. The last assertion is an utopia, but it has many followers.
Keywords: civiliziting mission; humanization of the world; changing the social relations.
The World of Art in the 1960s and the (Un)completed Modernity
Abstract: This text explores the rethinking of the term postmodernism as an analytical tool applied to the art of the 1960s. That proved to be a decade which, in terms of the then current temporal constructs, could not be differentiated by art history or from an aesthetic point of view. It was the decade when the end of the grand narratives was announced and when reflections on the "World of Art" first began. These two positions radically divided the theoretical understanding of the epoch; because while aesthetics and philosophy developed the thesis of the meta-narrative development of culture and the end of the great modern project, art history and sociology, in the persons of Arthur Danto and George Dickie, theorized on the "World of Art" and the role of institutions, emphasizing a concluded phase and a logical continuation of this modern project. As Gombrich writes in his book Art and Illusion, there is nothing closer to the human mind than the traditional acceptance of pictorial codes and their continuation (Gombrich 1988: 120). Therefore, the two historical views upon which this text is based were already posited during the twentieth century. The analytical invention this study introduces is the simultaneous consideration of the two theoretical positions through the optic of the sociology of art; for, in Bulgarian art, the problem of the world of art and institutionalism are scarcely addressed, translated literature is almost non-existent, and the analytical view of art history through the ideas of Danto and Dickie is still at an experimental stage. That is why comparative art history finds invaluable application in this theoretical clash, projecting in parallel the narrative and normative factors in the European civilization of the recent past.
Keywords: postmodernism; world of art; Arthur Danto; 1960s; New Realism; Fluxus; Lyotard.
Nikolina Deleva – (Doctoral Student at the IPS-BAS)
Contemporary Art and Morality: Problems of Evaluation
Abstract: The article discusses different views on the application of ethical judgments to the evaluation of art. The interaction between ethical and artistic values is discussed. Different issues lying outside the sphere of art are studied for their impact on its evaluation. Examples of artistically and ethically contradictory practices and works of contemporary art are given, and the public response to them is presented. Attention is paid to the interference of politics, ideology and business in art – the influence of social networks, the requirements of political correctness and the "new ethics".
Keywords : ethics; contemporary art; evaluation; political correctness; new ethics; boundaries and norms; autonomism; moralism.
Valentin Angelov (Prof. at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”)
The civiliziting mission of art
Abstract:There are many artists, as well as theoreticians too, who regard art not only as knowledge, but as possibility for change our material environment, but also our social relations. The last assertion is an utopia, but it has many followers.
Keywords: civiliziting mission; humanization of the world; changing the social relations.
Vyara Popova – (Assist. Prof., PhD at the IPS-BAS)
The Influence of Flemish (Oil) Painting on the Venetian School. Successors and Followers
Abstract: The text considers oil technique as a specific Flemish manner of painting. The author traces how oil technique was transported in 1450 to Italy, where, at the time, the typical painting technique in use was tempera. Oil and tempera are defined as the respective characteristic features of the Northern and Southern Renaissance. And while Flemish oil painting is emblematic of color, the Italian tempera technique corresponds to form.
Keywords : oil technique; tempera; maniera ponentina; maniera moderna; neuroaesthetics; neuroarthistory; Florentine line vs. Venetian color.
Galya Yotova (Bachelor of Philosophy, Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, freelance photographer)
Painting and Passion. Features of Interpretation in the Works of the Italian 17th-Century Painter Artemisia Gentileschi
Abstract: The text presents and updates the life and work of the 17th-century artist Artemisia Gentileschi. Her biography and her paintings intersect with aesthetic theories and historical times, which, within their limits, have determined the interpretation and explication of eternal themes transformed in a stunning artistic manner in her paintings. A dramatic biographical episode in her life and the subsequent humiliating trial of Artemisia Gentileschi, a victim, inspired the feminist movement of the 1970s. This text attempts to expand the reception of female autonomy in the times of Artemisia Gentileschi, but also to assert the creative independence of the woman artist through the centuries.
Keywords: woman artist; painting; border; Renaissance; Baroque; freedom; autonomy; feminism; diversity; identity.
The Influence of Flemish (Oil) Painting on the Venetian School. Successors and Followers
Abstract: The text considers oil technique as a specific Flemish manner of painting. The author traces how oil technique was transported in 1450 to Italy, where, at the time, the typical painting technique in use was tempera. Oil and tempera are defined as the respective characteristic features of the Northern and Southern Renaissance. And while Flemish oil painting is emblematic of color, the Italian tempera technique corresponds to form.
Keywords : oil technique; tempera; maniera ponentina; maniera moderna; neuroaesthetics; neuroarthistory; Florentine line vs. Venetian color.
Galya Yotova (Bachelor of Philosophy, Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, freelance photographer)
Painting and Passion. Features of Interpretation in the Works of the Italian 17th-Century Painter Artemisia Gentileschi
Abstract: The text presents and updates the life and work of the 17th-century artist Artemisia Gentileschi. Her biography and her paintings intersect with aesthetic theories and historical times, which, within their limits, have determined the interpretation and explication of eternal themes transformed in a stunning artistic manner in her paintings. A dramatic biographical episode in her life and the subsequent humiliating trial of Artemisia Gentileschi, a victim, inspired the feminist movement of the 1970s. This text attempts to expand the reception of female autonomy in the times of Artemisia Gentileschi, but also to assert the creative independence of the woman artist through the centuries.
Keywords: woman artist; painting; border; Renaissance; Baroque; freedom; autonomy; feminism; diversity; identity.
Plamen Antov ( DSc, Professor at the Institute for Literature, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
I Love Them, That's Why I Kill Them, Then I Describe Them Lovingly. Hunting and the Dialectics of Killing: The Emiliyan Stanev Case
Abstract: This article, a focal part of a large-scale comparative study on the animalistic works of Emiliyan Stanev and Heidegger's late philosoph, unfolds a three-phase dialectical plot derived from a confession of the Bulgarian writer-animalist that serves as the title of this article. Stanev's moral dilemma is projected into a broad cultural-historical-philosophical context through psychoanalytic theory (Freud–Jung), in which art, which has replaced religion, is assigned a therapeutic role.
Keywords: Emiliyan Stanev; Heidegger; hunting/killing; child/savage; West–East; Freud.
I Love Them, That's Why I Kill Them, Then I Describe Them Lovingly. Hunting and the Dialectics of Killing: The Emiliyan Stanev Case
Abstract: This article, a focal part of a large-scale comparative study on the animalistic works of Emiliyan Stanev and Heidegger's late philosoph, unfolds a three-phase dialectical plot derived from a confession of the Bulgarian writer-animalist that serves as the title of this article. Stanev's moral dilemma is projected into a broad cultural-historical-philosophical context through psychoanalytic theory (Freud–Jung), in which art, which has replaced religion, is assigned a therapeutic role.
Keywords: Emiliyan Stanev; Heidegger; hunting/killing; child/savage; West–East; Freud.
Tatyana Batuleva (DSc, Professor at the IPS-BAS)
On Childhood and Old Age. Discrepancies and Intersections
Abstract: In this essay, an attempt is made to correlate different views on childhood and old age, both theoretically and by refracting them through a series of personal experiences. The figure of an internal image is presented as resulting from the organizing role of the chain of memories: it is an intersectional figure beyond time and space that integrates childhood and old age.
Keywords: childhood; old age; internal image; memories.
On Childhood and Old Age. Discrepancies and Intersections
Abstract: In this essay, an attempt is made to correlate different views on childhood and old age, both theoretically and by refracting them through a series of personal experiences. The figure of an internal image is presented as resulting from the organizing role of the chain of memories: it is an intersectional figure beyond time and space that integrates childhood and old age.
Keywords: childhood; old age; internal image; memories.
Erina Krysteva (PhD, Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski)
Beauty in Strength/The Strength of Beauty: Aesthetics and Semiotics of Indices in the Poster “The Balance Point”
Abstract: The article attempts to analyze the poster “The Balance Point” in terms of certain aesthetic categories and semiotic signs. The focus of interest is the way in which the image represents aspects of the concept of the modern woman. The philosophical idea on which the poster is based is discussed in terms of aesthetic categories. Beauty is a main topic, discussed as part of a model that operates by striking a balance whose opposite is strength. This combination derives from the circumstances of contemporary times. The mixed sign systems used in the poster are indicated. They help the viewer understand the visual idea and also communicate with the public through the messages and suggestions they convey.
Keywords: aesthetics; semiotics; sign systems; index & indices; art; poster; beauty; strength.
Beauty in Strength/The Strength of Beauty: Aesthetics and Semiotics of Indices in the Poster “The Balance Point”
Abstract: The article attempts to analyze the poster “The Balance Point” in terms of certain aesthetic categories and semiotic signs. The focus of interest is the way in which the image represents aspects of the concept of the modern woman. The philosophical idea on which the poster is based is discussed in terms of aesthetic categories. Beauty is a main topic, discussed as part of a model that operates by striking a balance whose opposite is strength. This combination derives from the circumstances of contemporary times. The mixed sign systems used in the poster are indicated. They help the viewer understand the visual idea and also communicate with the public through the messages and suggestions they convey.
Keywords: aesthetics; semiotics; sign systems; index & indices; art; poster; beauty; strength.
Nonka Bogomilova (DSc, Professor at the IPS-BAS)
Famous Works of Schelling Translated by Gencho Donchev
Tatyana Batuleva (DSc, Professor at the IPS-BAS)
A Journey upon a Cloud (Review of Vyara Popova's book Cloud Archive)
Abstract: The text is a review of Vyara Popova's book Cloud Archive, а voluminous and meaningful work that offers a penetrating analysis of the metamorphoses of the cloud as an ambivalent meeting place between East and West, light and darkness, science and art, reason and feelings, the transitory and the imperishable, the impenetrable and the attainable.
Keywords: cloud; sky; air; infinity; East-West; poetry-philosophy-painting.
Iva Kuyumdzhieva (Assist. Prof., PhD at the IPS-BAS)
Methods of Archiving Clouds (Review of Vyara Popova's book Cloud Archive)
Sylvia Borisova, PhD (Assoc. Prof. at the IPS-BAS)
Aisthetikos: Sixth Conference on Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art in Memory of Prof. Isaac Passy
Famous Works of Schelling Translated by Gencho Donchev
Tatyana Batuleva (DSc, Professor at the IPS-BAS)
A Journey upon a Cloud (Review of Vyara Popova's book Cloud Archive)
Abstract: The text is a review of Vyara Popova's book Cloud Archive, а voluminous and meaningful work that offers a penetrating analysis of the metamorphoses of the cloud as an ambivalent meeting place between East and West, light and darkness, science and art, reason and feelings, the transitory and the imperishable, the impenetrable and the attainable.
Keywords: cloud; sky; air; infinity; East-West; poetry-philosophy-painting.
Iva Kuyumdzhieva (Assist. Prof., PhD at the IPS-BAS)
Methods of Archiving Clouds (Review of Vyara Popova's book Cloud Archive)
Sylvia Borisova, PhD (Assoc. Prof. at the IPS-BAS)
Aisthetikos: Sixth Conference on Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art in Memory of Prof. Isaac Passy