Transcript NOTES ON DAVIES, chapter 3

PHILOSOPHY 105 (STOLZE)
Notes on Stephen Davies,
The Philosophy of Art,
chapter 6
Four Elements of Human Emotions
•
•
•
•
Physiological
Perceptual (intentional vs. material objects of perception)
Cognitive (beliefs and desires)
Behavioral
• Ex: fear
• Davies stresses the diverse nature of emotions and argues that none of
these elements is strictly necessary to all emotions.
Identifying the Emotions in Art:
Bijan of Florence, Comedy Rage Tragedy
FiveTheories about the Expression of Emotion
in Music (and Abstract Art)
•
•
•
•
•
Associative Theory = “through being regularly associated with emotionally charged words or
events, particular musical ideas become connected with emotion or moods…[and] these are
recalled later when the relevant passages, rhythms, or harmonies are employed in musically
abstract pieces” (p. 146).
Expression Theory = “if music is sad, this is because it stands in relation to the composer’s
sadness as an expression of it” (p. 147).
Emotivism or Arousal Theory = “what makes it true that the music is sad, say, is that it moves
the hearer to sadness…[or] the music is sad if it should arouse such feelings in a suitable
listener under appropriate conditions” (p. 148).
Hypothetical Persona Theory = “we make believe of the unfolding of the music that it is an
episode in the life of an imaginary person and on this basis judge what emotions that person
must undergo. To aid us, the waxing and waning of tensions in the fabric of the music
establish the pattern of the events that we imaginatively fill out” (p. 149).
Resemblance Theory = “the movement of music is experienced in the same way that bodily
bearings or comportments indicative of a person’s emotional states are. In other words,
music is experienced as dynamic, as are human action and behavior” (p. 151).
Notes on John Coltrane, “Alabama” (1964)
“John Coltrane, while not an outspoken activist, was a deeply spiritual man who believed his
music was a vehicle for the message of a higher power. Coltrane was drawn to the civil rights
movement after 1963. That was the year that Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream”
speech during the August 28th March on Washington, raising public awareness of the
movement for racial equality. It was also the year that white racists placed a bomb in a
Birmingham, Alabama church, and killed four young girls during a Sunday service.
“The following year, Coltrane played eight benefit concerts in support of Dr. King and the civil
rights movement. He wrote a number of songs dedicated to the cause, but his song
“Alabama,” which was released on Coltrane Live at Birdland (Impulse!,1964), was especially
gripping, both musically and politically. The notes and phrasing of Coltrane’s lines are based
on the words Martin Luther King spoke at the memorial service for the girls who died in the
Birmingham bombing. Mirroring King’s speech, which escalates in intensity as he shifts his
focus from the killing to the broader civil rights movement, Coltrane’s “Alabama” sheds its
plaintive and subdued mood for a crackling surge of energy, reflecting the strengthened
determination for justice.”
(Excerpted from Jacob Teichroew, “Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement: How Jazz Musicians
Spoke Out for Racial Equality,” available at
http://jazz.about.com/od/historyjazztimeline/a/JazzCivilRights_2.htm)
Three Questions about the Audience’s
Emotional Response to an Artwork
• If people don’t belief that fictional world are actual, then why do they
respond emotionally to them? (Are we irrational?)
• If some works like tragedies and horror movies evoke negative emotions,
then why do people still seek them out and return to them? (Are we
masochists?)
• Why do people respond emotionally to the expressiveness of abstract
music or painting if these art forms are not the intentional objet of their
response? (Why do people feel sad when listening to sad music if they are
not sad about the music?)
A Photograph from James Agee and Walker Evans, Now
Let Us Praise Famous Men (1941)
Jackson Pollock,
Autumn Rhythm: Number 30 (1950)
An Analysis of Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm
“To many, the large eloquent canvases of 1950 are Pollock's greatest achievements. ‘Autumn
Rhythm,” painted in October of that year, exemplifies the extraordinary balance between
accident and control that Pollock maintained over his technique. The words ‘poured’ and
‘dripped,’ commonly used to describe his unorthodox creative process, which involved
painting on unstretched canvas laid flat on the floor, hardly suggest the diversity of the
artist's movements (flicking, splattering, and dribbling) or the lyrical, often spiritual,
compositions they produced.
“In ‘Autumn Rhythm,” as in many of his paintings, Pollock first created a complex linear
skeleton using black paint. For this initial layer the paint was diluted, so that it soaked into
the length of unprimed canvas, thereby inextricably joining image and support. Over this
black framework Pollock wove an intricate web of white, brown, and turquoise lines, which
produce the contrary visual rhythms and sensations: light and dark, thick and thin, heavy and
buoyant, straight and curved, horizontal and vertical. Textural passages that contribute to the
painting's complexity — such as the pooled swirls where two colors meet and the wrinkled
skins formed by the build-up of paint — are barely visible in the initial confusion of
overlapping lines. Although Pollock's imagery is nonrepresentational, ‘Autumn Rhythm’ is
evocative of nature, not only in its title but also in its coloring, horizontal orientation, and
sense of ground and space.”
http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/modern_art/autumn_rhythm_number_3
0_jackson_pollock/objectview_enlarge.aspx?page=131&sort=0&sortdir=asc&keyword=&fp=1&dd1=21&d
d2=0&vw=1&collID=21&OID=210009206&vT=1&hi=0&ov=0