Artistic Objectivity: From Ruskin’s ‘Pathetic Fallacy’ to Creative Receptivity

British Journal of Aesthetics 61 (4):505-526 (2021)
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Abstract

While the idea of art as self-expression can sound old-fashioned, it remains widespread—especially if the relevant ‘selves’ can be social collectives, not just individual artists. But self-expression can collapse into individualistic or anthropocentric self-involvement. And compelling successor ideals for artists are not obvious. In this light, I develop a counter-ideal of creative receptivity to basic features of the external world, or artistic objectivity. Objective artists are not trying to express themselves or reach collective self-knowledge. However, they are also not disinterested or emotionless. They can be unmoved by personal feelings and human concerns, but they are still receptive—just attuned to the more elemental forces that creatively inspire them. I elaborate this ideal in dialogue with John Ruskin’s influential critique of the pathetic fallacy. By contextualizing Ruskin’s view vis-à-vis Romantic and Modernist poetics, post-Kantian aesthetics, modern environmental art, and contemporary theories of expressiveness, I show how it indirectly motivates my account.

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Author's Profile

Eli I. Lichtenstein
University of Edinburgh

References found in this work

The View From Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - New York: Oxford University Press.
An essay concerning human understanding.John Locke - 1689 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Pauline Phemister.
Art as Experience.John Dewey - 2005 - Penguin Books.
Critique of the power of judgment.Immanuel Kant - 2000 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Paul Guyer.
The View from Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - Behaviorism 15 (1):73-82.

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