Dualism leads to Complementarities

       

      From the age of Antiquity, both scientists and artists tried to understand the world they were living in. Before supporting the argument “Art upsets and science reassures”, the individual must start by defining these terms to clarify the statement. When an individual is upset, he or she is in a state of confusion and disorder. It is mainly an emotional state of disconcert, expressing an irrational and subjective condition. While a reassuring state is also an emotional manifestation which restores courage and confidence, triggered by the use of reason and objectivity. Art and Science are both areas of knowledge, where philosophers experience a dualism between reason and emotion.

       In General, Art deals with emotion and could be said to upset the viewer because of its abstract and subjective state. Art is the set of proceedings and works that contain a mark of an individual personality, a know-how, and a particular talent. A more simple definition of Art is “a work which provokes an emotion in the viewer’s mind”. For this reason, it becomes an irreplaceable work and its interpretation is unlimited. Artists feek that emotion is an indispensable aspect of their work. In visual arts, one of the most upsetting emotions for viewers is in abstract and naïve art.

“The restless out pouring and diversification of artistic activity in recent years has tended to diminish formal requirements in the arts… The dictum ‘form follows function’ now seems inadequate… Increasing reliance on unplanned, chance, or ‘aleotory’, elements approaches the point at which the artist abdicates. It is this consideration which makes for much of perplexity in experiencing some modern art.” (Man is the Measure, p. 263-264)

This quote shows how modern art is irrational and unintentional. Different movements in the 20^th century, like Dadaism, gesture, opt, cobra or even cubism are mostly considered to be upsetting because they are purely commercial and don’t have any particular talent. The most upsetting about art could be said to be its tendency to become commercial, making the artist and the viewer its true cultural and philosophical value. Pop art, was inspired from social consummations (stereotypes, stars and food), expressing them into a banal composition, minimizing the personal expression. Modern music such as trance, techno, punk, mega death or even rap might be upsetting. But we could say that it is relative to the viewer’s experience, education, expectations and aesthetical judgments. The word aesthetics originates from Greek aesthesis meaning sensation and sentiment. In an ordinary sense it is used as a synonym of beauty. Philosophically its goal is to found theories on sensibility towards beauty and particularly for beauty of works of art. These theories on aesthetics are to be used to avoid the upsetting state that causes so much disgust towards these works of art. Aesthetics and taste are so relative and influenced by countless factors such as sociological, psychological, cultural variables. These factors in their turn make Art become more irrational, subjective and in most cases upsetting. As said before, the diversity of individual emotional expectations in art cannot satisfy all human souls. In order to reassure the viewer, Art should become more concrete to delete disorder. Abstract and Emotional Art forgot the true notion, which is both talent and its personal identity. Through the application of scientific fundamentals in the domains of Art and Aesthetics, might be very helpful for the reassurance of the art viewer.