Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas

1. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • Oscar Wilde on imitation in art • Biographical notes • 1856-1900 • Wilde at Oxford c.1893 • From the essay, “The Decay of Lying,” first published in Nineteenth Century XXV (January 1889); revised in 1891. Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 1

2. Oscar Wilde & Lord Alfred Douglas at Oxford, circa 1893 Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 2

3. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • A dialogue between Cyril & Vivian, the names of Wilde’s two sons, Cyril & Vyoyan • Three theses • 1. Life imitates art • He stands the mimetic theory on its head. • E.g., the pre-Raphaelite painters set the style for women’s dress Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 3

4. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • 2. Nature imitates art • E.g., We view nature according to the way the Impressionists have taught us to view it -- “those wonderful brown fogs that come creeping down our streets, blurring gas-lamps . . . “ (27-28). • Nature is our creation. Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 4

5. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • “Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that have influenced us” (28). • E.g., fog • Cf. Nelson Goodman -- art is a way of worldmaking Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 5

6. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • 3. Art creates the spirit of the age • Art does not reflect the spirit of the age; it creates it. • “[Art] develops purely along its own lines” (29). Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 6

7. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • Comments • Comment: one way of reading Wilde: he (writing before Gombrich) pushes Gombrich’s thesis to its limit • When he says that art creates nature, shouldn’t he say, art influences the way we take nature? Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 7

8. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • In his radical epistemology, all knowledge is construction, and the principal factor influencing this construction is art. • Assumes a substratum-superstructure epistemology. There is one stratum, the substructure, which is the driving force & everything else is a superstructure of this substructure. The substructure is art. For Marx it is economics, or more specifically the mode of labor. Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 8

9. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • What is Wilde’s justification for claiming that art is the substratum of everything else? Why the primacy of art? Why not say science, or religion, or politics, or economics is the substratum for our construction of the world? • What does Wilde’s position say about the mimetic theory? Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 9

10. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • What does Wilde’s position say about the mimetic theory, assuming something a bit less than his radical constructionism? • Suggests that any naïve mimeticism is untenable. When artists portray a corner of the world they do so according to their culture, personal experience, and other art. There is no simple seeing. Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 10

11. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • The Aesthetic Movement • Wilde’s position on the autonomy of art reflects an intellectual movement in 19th century France & England called Aestheticism or the Aesthetic Movement • Roots in France in the 1820s - Théophile Gautier, Baudelaire, and later Flaubert. Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 11

12. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • Earliest & most uncompromising version • Works of art should be judged only by internal standards • Any external purpose or function which art may serve should be counted as a defect Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 12

13. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • And art is the cause, the substratum, of all else (Walter Pater & Wilde’s version) • For Walter Pater, aesthetic values are primary and override all other value, even moral ones. • The aesthetic quest is the highest way of life a human can follow Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 13

14. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • Wilde - “People will give mup war when they consider it to be vulgar instead of wicked.” • Wilde - it is better to be beautiful than to be good. Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 14

15. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • More moderate version • Although art of an earlier time may have been utilitarian, these works may today be taken as pure aesthetic objects • A work of art should be valued & evaluated for its purely internal & aesthetic qualities & not for its relationship to anything external Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 15

16. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • What are some of these internal qualities? Elegance, grace, balance, harmony, expressiveness, depth, atmosphere. • Critique • Aestheticism’s position on the evaluation & appreciation of art is too restrictive • E.g., Appreciating a Gothic cathedral Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 16

17. Closing reflections on mimeticism: Gombrich, Wilde, & Lyas • What justification is there for making the aesthetic the basic causal factor and evaluative standard for everything else? Closing reflections on mimeticism - slide 17