Ugo/methods/session3

• POST-INTERNET
• NEW AESTHETIC
• NEURAL AESTHETIC

SYNOPSIS/THESIS/ARGUMENTS

Time in the Plastic Arts Author(s): Etienne Souriau Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 7, No. 4, Special Issue On Aesthetics in France (Jun., 1949), pp. 294-307 Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/426722 Accessed: 07-11-2018 13:39 UTC

First draft from annotations.

Time in the Plastic Arts by Etienne Souriau, 1949 (14pages/6min per page/Writing 40min)

The categorization Art of Space and Art of Time is outdated. This dichotomy found its origine in Kant’s philosophie that place Time over Space. Time is attached to the internal, to thought and space to the external, to the body. For Etienne Souriau this conception misleads the understanding of plastic art works by taking the temporal dimension away.

The main difference between this two constructed group of arts lays in the way they use time. The temporal dimension is also necessary to understand plastic art work. In art of space, there is a “time of contemplation” that plays the same role than the succession of moments structuring a piece of music or theatre. In sculpture for example, the aesthetic complexity of the work is gained by the moving spectator. Moving around a sculpture or a monument, brings different perspectives that can be seen like a succession of experiences revealing a multitude of aspects of the work. This “succession of aspects” is for Souriau constitutive of the artistic quality.

All work of art creates a particular structure of time and space, in other word a universe. In a novel for instance, the time of story feels real during the reading but it is very different that the time it takes to read. To the psychological time of contemplation, one must add the “intrinsic time” of the work of art. This dual presence of time should be seen as dialectical: reciprocity between the time in the work and the time of performance for example.

It is possible to apply some aesthetic classification used in music to artwork that are not time-structured. The poetic time in painting can be seen as a dimensional extent capable of prolonging experience by blending pictured and previous moment.

One can also use the concept of rhythm, as to describe the patterns found in decorative art for example. But in that case the rhythm is more spatial than temporal. For Souriau all work of art imbed a rhythm, that he prefers to call “phrasing”. The phrasing can also be seen as a tempo. Work of plastic art possess a “plastic tempo”. This tempo is influenced by the form and when one is moving around a monument, the tempo can be difficult to grasp.

An aesthetic analysis of work of plastic art must take in consideration temporal and spatial factor. Universes created by work of plastic art always involve a dimension of time. Therefore, plastic art is a fundamental exercise to experiment and experience man’s relation with time. For Souriau, plastic arts are a more delicate and profound way to approach time. Time gains importance when experienced aesthetically. Arts with a temporal structure develop a more material and predetermined time experience, where plastic arts give the experience of time a certain immateriality or even a magical dimension. Plastic time is an essential time that creates a world that one can potentially live in.