Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Universals and Particulars


When discussing the definition of portraiture with my students, I always begin with this, “Good portraits convey likeness; great portraits convey personality.” Surprisingly, no one ever seems to argue with this statement. I mean, what is a portrait if not a likeness? Also in an attempt to glamorize the sitter, wont an artist make the characters easily excitable and colorful? Don’t these additions subtract from the reality of the individual? Isn't the only reliable identification of the sitter their likeness?

At the same time don’t actions speak louder than words, and don’t we know a person by their moods, their peculiarities of habit and so forth, and isn’t an individual's personality just as important as what they look like? I mean, how do we recognize a person? By their looks? A face in the crowd? Or by the memorable quirks of character that are so defining?

Interestingly the Greek word for mirror, katoptron, is at the heart of an analysis of the purpose of artistic activity in Plato’s Republic. Just as a mirror reflects the details of life as it appears to us, says Plato, so an artist imitates all things. In contrast to the artist is the artisan or craftsperson, like a cobbler or a carpenter who are also creative, but who, in Plato’s esteem, occupy an invaluable place in society. The artisan, unlike the artist, doesn’t simply reproduce mere representation, but creates something useful and valuable to society.

Unlike the artist, who creates an imitation of reality, the artisan holds a specific idea in view, like the pattern of a shoe. In this way, the artisan works from a universal ideal and creates a particular that is contained under it.

One might object that once the artisan has created an object, for example a shoe, the artisan has created something sensible, no longer ideal and that this is an inherent contradiction in Plato’s logic. However, I do not believe that Plato was as concerned about shoes as he was about a paradigm of thought. Plato calls possessing the highest form of thought “phronesis”. It is a knowledge both scientific and theoretical and works from universals to particulars.

Aristotle, of course will invert this relationships. Whereas Plato confines artists to narrowly reflecting particulars, Aristotle insists that the artist is not concerned with the factual, but with the possible. Aristotle defines the activity of art making as a process of composition, bringing together different particulars in order to form a cohesive plot. What is more, because the effort to link particulars to universals is forever potential, there is no universal way of teaching art or rules for implementing art.

I suspect, though I am not certain, that when one looks at a portrait in search of a series of personality traits that make up the individual, that portrait is going to vary from person to person, and that each person is going to bring their own understanding of particulars and thus the understanding of the portrait will be different for each person who looks at it.  This is the anathema to Plato’s understanding of aesthetics, because it relegates beauty to an open ended series of judgments that have nothing to do with the ideal.

At the same time, there are works of art that are often agreed upon as “masterpieces of art.” Which suggests that while these works may not be taken from universal blue prints, so to speak, there are, none the less inspirations, works of art that are familiar, historical references, and other likenesses that allow us to appreciate both likenesses and differences in a universal way.  A balance must be struck between genius and taste, between universal and particular, between the likeness of sitter, and their personality. And really this is what makes a great portrait, or any great work of art.

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