論台灣前衛藝術的美學——從康德觀點出發 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學哲學研究所 National Chengchi University. 論台灣前衛藝術的美學——從康德觀點出發 Taiwanese Avant-garde art from a Kantian point of view: A transition to the aesthetics of the sublime. a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of. Doctor of Philosophy. Advisers: Kuo-Hsien Chang (張國賢), Christian H. Wenzel (文哲) Author: Konstantin V. Azarov (艾坦丁, 101154506). June, 2019 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(2) Table of Contents English Abstract.................................................................................................................4 中英文摘要(Chinese Abstract).............................................................................................6. 1 Introduction.....................................................................................................................9 1.1 What is Avant-garde art?............................................................................................12 1.2 Kant's theory of the sublime.......................................................................................21 1.3 The sublime and Avant-garde art: A reading with Lyotard.........................................27 1.4 Literature overview....................................................................................................38 2 Transition's point of departure.......................................................................................42 2.1 Chinese aesthetics.......................................................................................................42 2.1.1 Aesthetics West and East.........................................................................................42 2.1.2 The origins of Chinese aesthetics............................................................................50 2.1.3 Chinese Aesthetics in the Analects..........................................................................61 2.1.3.1 Beauty (mei 美) in the Analects............................................................................63 2.1.3.2 Yue 樂 music/beauty in the Analects....................................................................68 2.1.3.3 Harmony (he 和)...................................................................................................70 2.2 Aesthetics in Kant and Confucius..............................................................................75 2.3 The role of Daoism and Buddhism in Taiwanese Avant-garde art.............................80 2.4 Local color in Taiwanese art.......................................................................................89 2.4.1 Problem of 'local color'............................................................................................89 2.4.2 Local color and Taiwan.........................................................................................103 2.4.3 Kantian approach to Taiwanese local color...........................................................110 3 The working model: The sublime aesthetics in the Taiwanese Avant-garde art..........117 3.1 Local reception of the sublime aesthetics.................................................................121 3.2 Sublime simplicity and Avant-garde art in Taiwan..................................................123 3.2.1 Taiwan's Austronesian connotations and the transition to the aesthetics of the 2 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(3) sublime...........................................................................................................................131 3.2.2 Folk culture and sublimity in Taiwan and in European Avant-garde art...............143 3.2.3 Bi discs and Taiwanese abstract painting..............................................................158 3.2.4 Shamanism and Taiwanese Avant-garde art..........................................................165 3.3 The sublime in pure abstract art of Taiwanese Avant-garde.....................................188 3.3.1 The pain, abstract art and the sublime...................................................................193 3.3.2 Kantian demands for fine art and abstract art........................................................198 3.3.3 The sublimity of Taiwanese abstract art from a cross-cultural perspective..........201 3.3.4 Nature as the sublime in Taiwanese skeuomorphic abstract art............................210 3.3.5 Taiwanese and Western icons of abstract art.........................................................214 4 The model does not seem to work anymore: The end of Avant-garde art in Taiwan. .221 4.1 The end of Avant-garde art ......................................................................................221 4.2 The New Beauty.......................................................................................................230 4.3 The adherent beauty in site-specific art....................................................................238 4.4 Towards a new Taiwanese art of the beautiful.........................................................244 5 Conclusion...................................................................................................................250 5.1 Towards the 3rd theory of Avant-garde art...............................................................250 5.2 Taiwanese aesthetics of the sublime.........................................................................255 Illustrations.....................................................................................................................262 Literature........................................................................................................................278. 3 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(4) English Abstract. Art studies used to believe that art is centered around the idea of the beautiful, but since the time of the Avant-garde this has changed. Lyotard's theory suggests an alternative: the sublime. It is a great advantage of Kantian aesthetics that it can suggest such an alternative center. How well this new center functions is a different question. It was tailored for Western art on the basis of Western thought, but contemporary art faces global challenges of non-western aesthetic values. This thesis uses a transition to the aesthetics of the sublime as a model for the Avantgarde art of Taiwan. In the introduction to the thesis an exposition of the elements of this model is given: what is Avant-garde art, what is Kant's theory of the sublime and how is Kant's theory applied to Avant-garde art according to Lyotard and others. The first chapter presents the background of the sublime aesthetics in Taiwan. A brief exposition of the Taiwanese art world before the 60s is given. The second chapter demonstrates the model and how it works on the material of Taiwanese Avant-garde of the 60s. The end of the aesthetics of the sublime is presented in the last chapter. How is the sublime aesthetics operating in Avant-garde art? One of the important moments of sublimity for Kant is the mind's ability to grasp the object conceptually while being overwhelmed by it regarding the limits of the senses. The object felt to be sublime is too big or too forceful. For Kant, this is why the pyramids of Egypt are so fascinating for human beings. This feeling is called the mathematically sublime. In the Black Square (1915) by Malevich this ability of the mind can find an ideal object for practice: the viewer is exposed to an endless space of blackness from one side of the frame to another. Traditionally, the painting is a window to a particular world. The Black Square is like a window to the universe of darkness. That is the reason why the Black Square can produce a sublime feeling in a sensitive viewer. For such a viewer the Black 4 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(5) Square looks like a tremendous abyss. In Taiwanese Avant-garde art Malevich's square finds an interesting equivalent in Li Yuan-Jia's (李元佳) point. Li Yuan-Jia was interested in this graphical element, which at the same time is a concept in mathematics. Both Malevich and Li Yuan-Jia used their signature forms of abstract art, a square and a point, to refer to the absolute. During its first exhibition, Malevich puts the Black Square in a sacred place of the traditional Russian house – in a red corner, where house icons are supposed to be. Li Yuan-Jia builds on Daoist symbolism to ground his own 'Cosmic Point', as critics call it. The stability of the Black Square, the way it is filled with color from border to border contrasts with the elusiveness of the point, for which, as geometry supposes, real size stands for no size at all. A point, to quote Euclide, “is that which has no part.” The contrast between the square and the point finds itself in parallel with the fundamental distinction of Western and Chinese styles of thinking: the world as something permanent or as endless change. The thesis illuminates the reasons which lead to the differences and the similarities of Li's point and Malevich's square.. 5 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(6) 中英文摘要(Chinese Abstract). 藝術學曾經相信藝術圍繞美的觀念。可是前衛藝術以後這個觀念很明顯已經有所改變了。利奧塔建議以「崇高」替代「美」。這樣的替代是康德美學偉大的好處，可是藝術怎麼圍繞「崇高」的觀念? 「崇高」是一個為了西方藝術設計的觀念，「崇高」的基礎是西方哲學。此外，現代的藝術世界面臨全球挑戰。在這篇論文裡，我把過渡到崇高的美學認為是台灣前衛藝術的模型，而台灣前衛藝術的時期是在六○年代。在論文的序言裡，介紹了這個模型的三大重點：前衛藝術是什麼、康德崇高的理論是什麼、利奧塔跟別的研究者怎麼用崇高的理論來了解前衛藝術。論文第二章討論台灣前衛藝術的歷史背景。它簡短說明六○年代以前台灣的藝術世界是怎麼樣。論文第三章談到示範模型與模型在台灣怎麼運作。第四章討論怎麼崇高美學的模型不復存在了。崇高怎麼在前衛藝術裡運作？按照康德的說法，崇高的重要特色是理性的能力在感性不堪重負的時候仍然能認知客體。給 6 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(7) 我們崇高的感覺的客體是從我們的感性來認為其太大或者太有力。太大的客體給我們感覺叫「數學崇高」 (mathematische Erhabene)。根據康德的看法，這是為什麼埃及金字塔引起興趣的. 理由。馬列維奇的《黑方塊》(1915)是為了這個理性能力完善的實驗對象。因為畫是一扇窗可以讓觀者靜觀畫裡的世界，《黑方塊》的觀者靜觀黑暗的宇宙。這就是為什麼《黑方塊》會讓敏感的觀者引起崇高的感覺的理由。對敏感的觀者來說《黑方塊》是一個巨大的深淵。在台灣前衛藝術裡馬列維奇的方塊找到很有趣的對照：李元佳的點。馬列維奇與李元佳用他們的主題抽象主義形式，方塊與點，用來指出絕對。《黑方塊》第一次展覽的時候馬列維奇把《黑方塊》放在所謂的「紅角」（ «красный угол»）。「紅角」是俄國人在家中放置聖像的神聖地方。李元佳用道教象徵主義創立了他的點。因此，一些批評者叫它「宇宙點」。點的大小，按照幾何學，是任意性的。歐幾里德對點的定義：「是沒有部分的實體。」方塊的固定性與點的難以捉摸的差別，就好像東西方不同的思考模式。西方東方想法的不同，就是西方哲學研究的重點在於宇宙的永恆不變，而東方哲學著重變化無常的道。. 7 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(8) 我的論文的目的就是說明為什麼在李元佳的點與馬列維的方塊中間有這樣的相似與差異。. 8 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(9) 1 Introduction. Philosophy of art used to believe that art is centered around the idea of the beautiful, but since the time of the Avant-garde, it is obvious that this has changed. The theory by Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) suggests an alternative: ''it is in the aesthetic of the sublime that modern art (including literature) finds its impetus and the logic of avantgardes finds its axioms.''1 It is a great advantage of Kantian aesthetics that it can suggest such an alternative center. How well this new center functions is a different question. It was tailored for Western art on the basis of Western thought, but contemporary art faces global challenges of non-western aesthetic values. Among them the Chinese aesthetics seems to be one of the biggest alternative aesthetic worlds. Chinese aesthetics is the only continuous endemic aesthetic tradition beside the Western one. It is so developed in its terminology of art experiences that as Clement Greenberg (1909-1994) has acknowledged, Chinese has nuanced aesthetic distinctions where Europeans have none.2 Taiwan is a unique place where Avant-garde art meets Chinese aesthetics, hence it is ideal for a stress test of a Kantian approach to the Avantgarde art. In this thesis a transition to the aesthetics of the sublime is used as a model for the Avant-garde art of Taiwan. In the introduction an exposition of the elements of this model is given: what is Avant-garde art, what is Kant's theory of the sublime and how do they meet according to Lyotard and others. The first chapter ('2 Transition's point of. 1 Jean-Frangois Lyotard (1984), The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, (tr) Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. 77. 2 Clement Greenberg (1993), ‘The Art of China’, Review of The Principles of Chinese Painting by George Rowley in The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 3: Affirmations and Refusals, (ed) John O'Brian, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, p. 42.. 9 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(10) departure')3 presents the background of the sublime aesthetics in Taiwan. A brief exposition of how does the art world of the island look like before the 60s is given. The second chapter demonstrates the model and how it works on the material of Taiwanese Avant-garde of the 60s. The end of the aesthetics of the sublime is presented in the last chapter. How is the sublime aesthetics operating in Avant-garde art? One of the important moments of sublimity for Kant is the mind's ability to grasp the object conceptually while being overwhelmed by it regarding the limitations of the senses. The object judged to be sublime is too big or too forceful. For Kant this is why the pyramids of Egypt are so fascinating for human beings. This feeling is called mathematical sublime. In the Black Square (1915) by Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) this ability of the mind can find an ideal object for practice: the viewer is exposed to an endless space of blackness from one side of the frame to another. Traditionally, the painting is a window to a particular world. The Black Square is like a window to the universe of darkness. That is the reason why the Black Square can produce a sublime feeling in a sensitive viewer. For such a viewer the Black Square looks like a tremendous abyss. In Taiwanese Avant-garde art the Malevich's square finds an interesting equivalent in Li Yuan-Jia's ( 李元佳 , 1929-1994) idea of a point. Li Yuan-Jia was interested in this graphical element, which at the same time is an element in mathematics. He refers to this idea in his poetry, in the name of his Italian art group, Punto, and in his art. Both Malevich and Li Yuan-Jia used their signature forms of abstract art, a square and a point, to refer to the absolute. During its first exhibition, Malevich puts the Black Square in a sacred place of the traditional Russian house – a red corner, where house icons are supposed to be. Li Yuan-Jia builds on Daoist symbolism to ground his own 'Cosmic 3 All self-references are given according to the numeration of the sections of this thesis, starting with the introduction, or according to the numeration of chapters, the first chapter being after introduction (and thus the second chapter begins with section 2 and ends after sections 2.4.3). Every change of the first digit in the section's number signals the end of a chapter.. 10 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(11) Point', as critics call it. The stability of the Black Square, the way it is filled with black color from border to border contrasts with the elusiveness of the point, while the point stands for no size at all. The sublime feeling has such intensive relations with the worldview because of its religious connotations. Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) makes a comparison of two comparisons, how Kant speaks about the quantum of the absolutely large in comparison with which all the rest is small and comparing the comparable with the incomparable in the proof of the existence of God by St. Anselm (1093-1109). 4 Lyotard claims that the judgment of the sublime “presupposes both a capacity to conceive of the absolute and a sensibility of the 'presence' of the absolute.”5 Being a non-religious feeling to Kant, the sublime was analyzed by Lyotard through a religious aspect. Probably this has something to do with Lyotard's own religious views, his “appeal to the ‘dark God’ of the Jews”6 as opposed to the authoritarian God of Christianity associated in Lyotard's thought with so-called 'grand narratives'. Or maybe it has something to do with Lyotard's interest in polytheism and paganism. The 'theatre theology' 7 and the religiosity of a 'roman parody'8 are important and attractive to him. Because of this interest Lyotard's view on the sacred things was close to the world discovered by Mikhail Bakhtin (18951975). Nothing in Kant directly contradicts Lyotard in regard to the reading of the sublime as open to religious interpretation. Kant himself speaks about the sublimity of God (5: 261), and this is also true for the pre-Kantian tradition in the theory of the sublime, 4 Joshua Rayman (2012), Kant on Sublimity and Morality, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, p. 167. 5 Jean-François Lyotard (1994), Lessons on the Analytic of the sublime: Kant's Critique of judgment, sections 23-29, (tr) Elizabeth Rottenberg, Stanford: Stanford University Press, p. 73. 6 Lieven Boeve (2011), ‘Jean-Francois Lyotard on Differends and Unpresentable Otherness: Can God Escape the Clutches of the Christian Master Narrative?’ in Culture, Theory and Critique, 52 (2 – 3), p. 263. 7 Lyotard, Jean-François (1993), Libidinal Economy, (tr) Iain Hamilton Grant, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, p. 93. 8 Ibid., p. 104.. 11 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(12) where the sublime is often understood as a sign of the supersensible in a religious sense: the magnificent world as a creation proves the magnificent nature of the creator. 9 Avantgarde artists are interested in religion, be it theosophy for Kandinsky,10 Mondrian11 and much later for Beuys,12 or own religious experience, as it is the case for Malevich 13 and for Picasso.14 If all of them in their artworks, despite the religious differences, let the judgment of the sublime presuppose the absolute, this absolute can be taken as a relative conception different from civilization to civilization. The difference in the sources of influence leads to the development of the sublime aesthetics as a point (Li Yuan-jia) rather than as a square (Malevich). My thesis' task is to illuminate the reasons which lead to this difference.. 1.1 What is Avant-garde art? The term 'avant-garde art' is usually used in a narrow sense or in a broad sense. 'Avant-garde art' in a narrow sense is an umbrella term for the art movements of the first two decades of the 20th century. 'Avant-garde art' in a broader sense is art forms created in 20-21st century with a strong innovative element. Here it is usually used in the first, 9 Robert Doran (2015), The Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 164-165. 10 Boris Falikov (Борис Фаликов, 2016), ‘Astral color: Kandinsky and Theosophy (Астральный цвет: Кандинский и теософия)’ in Art Studies (Искусствознание), vol. 1-2, p. 68. 11 Pablo Bris-Marino (2014), ‘The influence of Theosophy on Mondrian’s neoplastic work’ in Arte, Individuo y Sociedad, vol. 26 (3), p. 490. 12 Mark C. Taylor (2012), Refiguring the Spiritual: Beuys, Barney, Turrell, Goldsworthy, New York: Columbia University Press, p. 22. 13 Aleksandra Shatskikh (2003), ‘Kazimir Malevich – a writer and a thinker’ in Kazimir Malevich, The Black Square, (ed) Alexandra Shatskich, Saint-Petersburg: Azbuka klassica, p. 23. 14 Pablo Picasso (2003), ‘Discovery of African art’ in Primitivism and Twentieth-century Art: A Documentary History, (eds) Jack Flam and Miriam Deutch, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, p. 33.. 12 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(13) narrow sense with a capital 'A', it is 'Avant-garde art' as a name of a period and creative methods unique for that period. There are a lot of alternative terms for what is called here 'Avant-garde art'. For example, Jesus Pedro Lorente calls this set of art practices and theories ''avant-garde experimental phase''15 (cursive is as in the original). For Hal Foster it is ''historical avant-garde''16 and Miwon Kwon designates the period as ''traditional avant-garde''17. Mark Silverberg uses the term ''classic avant-garde''18. Grant H. Kester writes about ''authentic avant-garde art practice''19. What Charles Jencks means by ''Late Modernism''20 or Jason Gaiger means by ''canonical modernism''21 can be, with some modifications, presented as synonymous to what is meant by 'Avant-garde art' here. Moreover, just as the Renaissance's name, the name of 'Avant-garde art' is often used as a metaphor. Some writers speak about Persian or Chinese Renaissance, in a sense that something cultural is restoring. The same can be said of Avant-garde art, when it is trendy to break new grounds in art and aesthetics, art criticism will say something about 'avant-garde'. It is a fine metaphorical usage, but it is wrong to jump to the conclusion that such indirect usage removes Avant-garde art as a period from existence. Moreover, the position of Avant-garde art is less favorable in contemporary scholarship than that of the Renaissance. The problem is that Avant-garde art is much more international than the 15 Jesus Pedro Lorente (2011), The Museums of Contemporary Art: Notion and Development, Burlington: Ashgate, p. 231. 16 Hal Foster (1996), The Return of the Real: The Avant-garde at the End of the Century, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: The MIT Press, p. xii. 17 Miwon Kwon (2002), One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity, London and Cambridge: MIT Press, p. 97. 18 Mark Silverberg (2010), The New York School Poets and the Neo-Avant-Garde: Between Radical Art and Radical Chic, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Company, p. 201. 19 Grant H. Kester (2011), The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context, Durham and London: Duke University Press, p. 138. 20 Charles Jencks (1987), ‘Postmodern and Late Modern The Essential Definitions’ in Chicago Review, vol. 35 (4), p. 42. 21 Jason Gaiger (2009), ‘Dismantling the Frame: Site-Specific Art and Aesthetic Autonomy’ in The British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 49 (1), p. 46.. 13 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(14) Renaissance. Avant-garde art is also highly de-centralized. The second big problem is that despite its international nature, Avant-garde art in its integrity is not well presented in the English language. This fact has puzzled Poggioli, the author of the very first systematic theory of Avant-garde art. Probably, the reason is that the international language has received Avant-garde art gradually, and didn't have its own booming period of creativity linked to such a reception near the 20s. Instead, and chronologically after the Avant-garde art, New York and Los Angeles replace Paris as the global art capitals and begin a booming period of their own art life. Lyotard has seen it, in the 70s he believes that ''Paris was in decline; new centers were arising on both Atlantic [New York] and Pacific [Los Angeles] horizons.''22 The situation is even more complicated, since Avant-garde is highly decentralized. The center – Paris, is obvious, but has no total domination over the period. In fact, one of the biggest findings of the Avant-garde art, abstract painting, comes from the outside of Paris. The first theories of abstract art are formulated not by metropolitan artists: one such theory is by Kandinsky (Münich, 1911),23 another is by Larionov (Moscow, 1912),24 and the third one is by Malevich (Petrograd, 191525). The time frame of the Avant-garde art is debatable. The time frame of the Renaissance is debatable as well. There are even approaches which use so big a brush that the Renaissance disappears, like is the case of Albert Borgmann, for whom the 22 Sara Wilson (2010), The Visual World of French Theory: Figurations, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p. 158. 23 Vasily Kandinsky (1911), Über das Geistige in der Kunst, Münich: R. Piper & Co. Verlag. The text does engage in the theme of abstract art while acknowledging that the world is not ready for it yet and in the end presents the situation of art as a freedom between the two not excluded poles of the 'absolute abstraction' and 'new absolute realism', compare Vasily Kandinsky (1992), On the Spiritual in Art, Moscow: Archimedes, p. 55 and p. 96. At the same time, Kandinsky does speak about ''abstract art of the future''. 24 Mikhail Larionov (1913), ‘The Rayonists and Futurists: A Manifesto’ in A Donkey Tail and A Target, Moscow: Ts. A. Munster Publishing. 25 See Aleksandra Shatskikh (2003), ‘Commentaries and Notes’ in Kazimir Malevich, The Black Square, (ed) Alexandra Shatskich, Saint-Petersburg: Azbuka klassica, pp. 499-500.. 14 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(15) Medieval period ends with the discovery of America and Luther (1483-1546) and Modern time begins after a 'generation' with Francis Bacon (1561-1626), René Descartes (1596-1650), and John Locke (1632-1704).26 This approach does not mean that the Renaissance does not exist for Albert Borgmann. The Borgmannian global view only uses the brush too big to provide such a little detail. If Borgmann would speak especially about Italy or France in the 14th or of the 15th centuries, then 'Renaissance' will be an inevitable term to use. The same holds for Avant-garde art. A narrative about Malevich requires a reference to Avant-garde art period, but a narrative about contemporary art can avoid it. Do we need such thing as Avant-garde art as a period? Some conceptualizations of time frames are unuseful. Thus, Lucie Varge believes that 'Dark Ages' is not a scientific term, but rather a battle-cry [Schlagwort], ''a denunciation of the medieval conception of the world, of the medieval attitude toward life, and of the culture of the Middle Ages.'' 27 And often conceptualizations of time periods can be viewed as myths. But it is a good question, what the word 'myth' here means. Of course Renaissance in some sense is a myth. It is a theoretical construct a scholar should view as a convention, as a way of the organisation of tremendous amount of information related to the first half of the second millennia CE in Western Europe. To orient all this information not to the 'mythic' Renaissance but rather to the Big Bang would be a more positivist view. But it also will confuse the scholars and the readers. What people want from history, philosophy of history, and philosophy of art is help in some kind of understanding the culture at hand rather than more confusion. And therefore ''[i]f, however, the term [Renaissance] is used, without prejudice to the achievements of the Middle Ages, or those of the world beyond Europe, to refer to a particular cluster of changes in western culture, then it may be regarded as an organizing concept which still has its uses.''28 26 Albert Borgmann (1993), Crossing the Postmodern Divide, Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, pp. 21-22. 27 Quoted as in Theodore E. Mommsen (1942), ‘Petrarch's Conception of the 'Dark Ages'’ in Speculum, vol. 17 (2), p. 227. 28 Peter Burke (1987), The Renaissance, Houndmills and London: Macmillan Education, p. 5.. 15 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(16) Avant-garde art as a period is also a useful tool for the cognition of art. Moreover, Avant-garde re-defined the borders of what art is. As Clement Greenberg, 'one of the very best' art critics in history,29 has stated:. [i]f in some large enough part high art in the West is still quite alive and moving, as I think it is, there is one very important, maybe all-important reason. Western tradition and Western society have produced something historically unique: the avant-garde.30. There is a special field in the art studies, dedicated to answering the question 'what is Avant-garde art?' The main classical works in this field are two books, one is The Theory of the Avant-garde by Renato Poggioli (1907-1963), originally published in Italian in 1962 (English translation 1968) and Peter Bürger's (1936-2017) Theory of the Avant-Garde originally published in 1974 (in German) and translated in English into 1984. Poggioli and Bürger believe that Avant-garde art has appeared because of an awareness of the historical nature of art. Of course, the idea that art has a history, predates Avant-garde art. But, it did not influence artists on the same scale before Avantgarde art. In fact, Avant-garde art can be considered as a practical way answering the philosophical question 'what is art?' Lyotard in the Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime claims that Kant's third Critique gives us something more valuable than method – a manner. Manner is a way to proceed without determined concepts. But is art such a 'Lyotardian manner'? In this thesis art is taken as an idea which can be defined. Moreover, Avant-garde art is viewed not only as an example of art, but also as an 29 Thierry de Duve (2010), ‘A Public Debate with Clement Greenberg’ in Clement Greenberg Between the Lines, (ed) Thierry de Duve, (tr) Brian Holmes, Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, p. 121. 30 Clement Greenberg (1999), Homemade Esthetics: Observations on Art and Taste, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, p. 35.. 16 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(17) attempt to define art. Hence, Avant-garde art is a kind of a self-defining conception. When Duchamp presented to the public his first ready made, he was asking: 'is it art?' With fame and recognition, Duchamp received a positive answer to his question. 31 The questioning by Avant-garde art can be presented as follows:. 1. Is art with no similarities to the world as appearance, non-realistic art – art? 2. Is art of so-called 'primitives', tribal societies far away from Europe fine art? 3. Is art without figuration, when there is no reference to something outside the artwork, no representation, like radially abstract or non-objective painting, possible?. Poggioli and Bürger differ in their views on the Avant-garde art time frame. Thus, for Bürger Avant-garde art is something, which happened in the beginning of the 20th century. But for Poggioli Avant-garde is only a part of the bigger movement of Romanticism. What makes Bürger's book more preferable (although not in the ultimate way, because Poggioli's argument is definitely a valuable alternative) is the time of its publication. Poggioli writes before the turmoil of 1968, in the age of cultural and political transition in Europe. Bürger has seen 1968, the year of the 'failed revolution', as he himself called it.32 On the other hand, at the time of Poggioli's book the Englishspeaking global art market has not reached its current dominance. Pop art and Conceptual art are more in intuition, than in actual existence. Not surprisingly, Poggioli doesn't address the problem of collage, which plays a structural role in Bürger's theory, nor does he pay much attention to photography. Bürger on the contrary acknowledged 31 Thierry de Duve elaborated on this problem in very close terms, see Thierry de Duve (1996), Kant after Duchamp, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press, pp. 3-30. 32 Peter Bürger (1984), Theory of the Avant-Garde, (tr) Michael Shaw, Theory and History of Literature #4, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. 95.. 17 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(18) photography in full scope and incorporated the thought of Walter Benjamin (18921940). Moreover, Poggioli writes his book before many fundamental texts on contemporary art are published, like the work on aesthetics by Theodor Adorno (1903-1969). As Poggioli himself states, before his theory of Avant-garde art there is only an approach by José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955). This Spanish philosopher is for Poggioili the first who analyzes the phenomenon of Avant-garde art “in its totality.”33 Probably Poggioli exaggerates in this regard. At the time when Ortega y Gasset publishes his groundbreaking The Dehumanization of Art in 1925, there is already an account of Avant-garde art by Nikolai Berdyev (1874-1948).34 Poggioli's background in Russian literature could have helped him in knowing about it. But even together, Berdyev and Ortega y Gasset are not much of the secondary literature. For Bürger Kant's thought is relevant not only for Avant-garde art, but rather for art as a whole. The relations between Kant's aesthetics and avant-gardism is set by relations Bürger has seen between Avant-garde art and art as a socio-cultural phenomenon. To put it briefly, Bürger believes that already in Kant ''the subjective aspect of the detachment of art from the practical concerns of life is reflected''. 35 Thus, according to Bürger, an important condition for art to enter its maturity as a social institution is fulfilled. Bürger explicitly stated, that “not until the eighteenth century, with the rise of bourgeois society and the seizure of political power by a bourgeoisie that had gained economic strength, does a systematic aesthetics as a philosophical discipline and a new concept of. 33 Renato Poggioli (1981), The Theory of the Avant-Garde, (tr) Gerald Fitzgerald, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harward University Press, p. 5. 34 Berdyaev writes mainly on Picasso. However, the aim, despite being centered on one artist, is to understand the new age of art and Picasso as its harbinger. See Nikolai Berdyaev (1914), ‘Picasso’ in Sophia, vol. 3. 35 Peter Bürger (1984), Theory of the Avant-Garde, (tr) Michael Shaw, Theory and History of Literature #4, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. 41.. 18 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(19) autonomous art come into being.”36 For him the rise of bourgeois society is the actual birthdate of art in a modern sense of the word. Or, as Hal Foster puts it, according to Bürger ''by the end of the eighteenth century (...) the autonomy of art is proclaimed as an ideal, in Enlightenment aesthetics.''37 Of course, art in this understanding has a long prehistory, when it is not an autonomous institution, but only a subordinated part to other social functions, such as ritual of ancient civilization or court live of the Early Modern absolutist monarchies. Andrew Bowie discussing the Kantian turn in the history of the Western thought suggests ''five main interrelated dimensions in which previously established orders tend to disintegrate in modernity'',38 autonomy of art being one of them:. [a]rt, which had been seen mainly as either entertainment for those in power or as connected to religious observance, comes to be seen as 'autonomous', subject only to its own changing rules and to the freedom of the artist. At the same time, however, art itself also becomes a commodity which can be bought and sold like any other commodity.39. The question of the autonomy of art was discussed also by Theodor Adorno (19031969), Greenberg, and others. Recently the question of the autonomy of art has gotten a new momentum because of the idea that art now is losing its autonomy, as it was discussed by Gaiger and Kwon. 36 Peter Bürger (1984), Theory of the Avant-Garde, (tr) Michael Shaw, Theory and History of Literature #4, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 41-42. 37 Hal Foster (1996), The Return of the Real: The Avant-garde at the End of the Century, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: The MIT Press, p. 21. 38 Andrew Bowie (2003), Introduction to German Philosophy From Kant to Habermas, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, p. 3. 39 Ibid., p. 4.. 19 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(20) Bürger draws on Karl Marx's earlier works to create a conception of Avant-garde art as self-criticism of art as a social institution. At first, art emancipates itself from the ritual and then its quest for autonomy begins. It finds its conclusion in complete independence of art from all other social institutions. For Bürger it has happened at the end of the 19th century in aestheticism and different l'art pour l'art movements. 40 According to Bürger, Avant-garde is in a sense a 'meaning of art', by which is meant a kind of realization of an idea in social reality. This approach is a famous feature of Marxism and of all of Hegelianism in general. However, at an earlier stage, before self-criticism of art, Kant is no less important to Bürger than Hegel. Bürger has seen a special relation between autonomy and the modality of aesthetic judgment: the universality of 'bourgeois' aesthetic judgment can be contrasted with “the particularity of the judgment to which the bourgeois social critic subjects the feudal lifestyle (...)”.41 Thus, for Bürger, ''in Kant's Critique of Judgment (1790), the subjective aspect of the detachment of art from the practical concerns of life is reflected.''42 Therefore, the radical autonomy of art can be found in the third section of the Critique of the Power of Judgment:. [i]f someone asks me whether I find the palace that I see before me beautiful, I may well say that I don’t like that sort of thing, which is made merely to be gaped at, or, like the Iroquois sachem, that nothing in Paris pleased him better than the cook-shops; (...) All of this might be conceded to me and approved; but that is not what is at issue here. One only wants to know whether the mere representation of the object is accompanied with satisfaction in me, however 40 Peter Bürger (1984), Theory of the Avant-Garde, (tr) Michael Shaw, Theory and History of Literature #4, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 26-27. 41 Ibid., p. 43. 42 Ibid.. 20 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(21) indifferent I might be with regard to the existence of the object of this representation. (5: 205). 1.2 Kant's theory of the sublime. It is not an exaggeration to say that Avant-garde art theory is founded on Kantian aesthetics. The two classical works in this field, The Theory of the Avant-garde by Renato Poggioli and Peter Bürger's Theory of the Avant-Garde show a Kantian influence. The latter is built on Kantian, Hegelian and Marxist grounds, while the former is more influenced by Nietzsche. Interestingly, the structure of the book by Poggioli consists of 'four moments'. Pogiolli literally repeats the four-moments structure from the Analytic of the Beautiful from the third Critique. Even earlier, Greenberg in Modernist Painting views Kant as an origin of the whole of Modernism through an analogical usage of the Critical method.43 In the more recent literature, Lyotard has revived the interest in the Kantian approach to the Avant-garde art in Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime (1991). Moreover, Kant occupies an important position in modern comparative aesthetics, a young discipline aiming at explaining the aesthetic beauty across the borders. For example, such scholars as Heinz Kimmerle, Antoon Van den Braembussche, Nicole Note, 44 and Henk. 43 Paul Crowther (1985), ‘Greenberg's Kant and the Problem of Modernist Painting’ in The British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 25 (4), p. 317. 44 Antoon Van den Braembussche, Heinz Kimmerle, and Nicole Note (2009), ‘Intercultural Aesthetics: An Introduction’ in Intercultural Aesthetics A Worldview Perspective, (eds) Antoon Van den Braembussche, Heinz Kimmerle, and Nicole Note, New York: Springer. In particular, see the comparison of Indian conception of rasa and Kantian sensus communis in the introduction, pp. 2-3, however, they make a mistake by claiming that according to Kant ''all others should share our aesthetic judgments.'' (p. 2). For Kant it is only ''as if''.. 21 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(22) Oosterling45 use a Kantian sensus communis for their comparative studies. Since the interpretation of Kant's aesthetics by Derrida and Lyotard, the third Critique receives more and more attention. According to David Ingram, 46 because of Lyotard's interpretation, Kant's heritage occupies the central role in the debates related to postmodernism in general. Kant presents his theory of the sublime in §§ 23-29 of the Critique of the Power of Judgment. He begins it with the transition (Übergang) from the beautiful to the sublime. The two seem to be close to each other, but also different – the beautiful possesses a special quality of being purposive despite having no particular purpose, while the sublime is 'counter-purposive' or 'inappropriate' (zweckwidrig). It isn't necessary to read Kant to feel that something is sublime, for example Andy Warhol writes that:. [s]ome kind of beauty dwarfs you and makes you feel like an ant next to it. I was once in Mussolini Stadium with all the statues and they were so much bigger than life and I felt just like an ant. I was painting a beauty this afternoon and my paint caught a little bug. I tried to get the paint off the bug and I kept trying until I killed the bug on the beauty's lip. So there was this bug, that could have been a beauty, left on somebody's Up [sic]. That's the way I felt in Mussolini Stadium. Like a bug.47. The beautiful strengthens our cognitive powers, while the sublime paralyzes them. It isn't the ocean, which is sublime, but a feeling created by the ocean. The sublime is in 45 Sensus communis in Multi- and Intercultural perspective. On the Possibility of Common Judgements in Arts and Politics, (eds) Heinz Kimmerle and Henk Oosterling (2000), Würzburg: Königshausen and Neumann. 46 David Ingram (1992), ‘The Postmodern Kantianism of Arendt and Lyotard’ in Judging Lyotard, (ed) Andrew Benjamin, Warwick: Warwick Studies in Philosophy and Literature, pp. 119-120. 47 Andy Warhol (1975), The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again, New York and London: Harcourt, p. 63.. 22 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(23) the eye of the beholder but not completely subjective. ''[T]he sublime – or rather a judgment about it – has a twofold structure, which includes a negative and a positive aspect. The first aspect is unpleasant and contrapurposive (too big, too forceful) for the operation of the imagination, whereas the second aspect (the discovery of the sublime in us) is pleasant and purposive for reason and our moral vocation as a human being.''48 It is an important moment to stress, since ''[w]hile moral readings of Kantian sublimity figure prominently in post-Kantian Continental philosophy, none of these readings captures its systematic moral functions, and some of the most inﬂuential Continental interpretations of Kantian sublimity ignore or misconstrue its moral dimensions."49 Kant separates two kinds of the sublime, the mathematically and the dynamically sublime (5: 248).50 The difference is that the mathematically sublime is too big for our cognition, while the dynamically one is too powerful. But the mathematically sublime is not just simply too big, it is absolutely great in a non-comparative way. Or, as Kant puts it: “[t]hat is sublime which even to be able to think of demonstrates a faculty of the mind that surpasses every measure of the senses” (5: 251). The dynamically sublime is also not just powerful in a commonsensical way. For Kant power is a 'capacity' to subdue great obstacles. Dynamically sublime is nature considered in aesthetic judgment as a terrible power, that inflicts no fear, because it is observed from a safe distance (5: 261). By this, nature helps us to discover our higher principles. With these principles for Kant, we can be above any dangerous forces of the physical world. Kant also comments on theology, he tries to show how the virtuous man fears God without being afraid of him (5: 261-262). Kant discusses sublime phenomena of human psychology. He regards bravery as a 48 Christian H.Wenzel (2005), An Introduction to Kant's Aesthetics: Core Concepts and Problems, Malden, MA and Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, p. 107. 49 Joshua Rayman (2012), Kant on Sublimity and Morality, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 146-147. 50 Unless otherwise noted, the quotes are from Critique of the Power of Judgment, (tr) Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews (2000), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.. 23 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(24) sublime phenomenon (5: 263). Later he introduces his conception of 'enthusiasm,' defined as an idea of the good with an affect. Enthusiasm is another sublime 'state of the mind' (Gemütszustand). Kant excludes from enthusiasm passions as interested. Rage (Zorn) is sublime, but hatred (Haß) is a passion and is not sublime. So-called tender emotions are not sublime, while 'brave emotions' belong to sublimity (5: 273). Discussing the sublime, Kant does not speak much about the art of his time. It is hard to find other examples than St. Peter's cathedral in Rome and the Egyptian pyramids (5: 253). Instead, Kant discusses nature. However, this fact doesn't endanger the idea of the Avant-garde art as a transition to the aesthetics of the sublime, because Kant simply doesn't know the art of this type. Art at his age is centered around the aesthetics of the beautiful. Avant-garde art, to use Clive Bell's phrasing, shakes hands across the ages, and, in a sense, it is much closer to the pyramids than to the Renaissance and Renaissance-influenced art. Maybe, a transition to the aesthetics of the sublime is a return. If the art of scarification and tattoo which are used to make a human being look like a warrior (5: 231) is sublime, sublime rage of Avant-garde art (or what Poggioli calls the agonist moment of the Avant-garde)51 truly finds a connotation in the ancient time. There is a discussion whether such a thing as a 'sublime object' is possible. Thus, Eric Baker denies this possibility because for him ''the essence of sublimity lies in the necessary failure of any attempt at its positive objectification or representation.'' 52 Or, as Derrida puts it ''there cannot, it seems, be a parergon for the sublime'' 53. But Kant gives objects as examples of the sublime, the Pyramids for instance (5: 253). Baker himself 51 Renato Poggioli (1981), The Theory of the Avant-Garde, (tr) Gerald Fitzgerald, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harward University Press, p. 26. 52 Eric Baker (1998), ‘Fables of the Sublime Kant, Schiller, Kleist’ in MLN, vol. 113 (3), p. 524. 53 Jacques Derrida (1987), The Truth in Painting, (tr) Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, p. 127.. 24 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(25) names the two lofty objects central to Kant: starry sky above the subject and moral law inside the subject. For Backer the fact that Kant calls the starry sky and the moral law ''two things'' is a paradox. Because ''neither of which can be taken as objects in any unqualified sense.''54 However, Baker's criteria for being an object is not presented. Moreover, 'an object' does not by default equate with a 'physical object'. The object which evokes the sublime feeling in a viewer is different from the expression of the infinity it creates. On the other hand it is important not to 'overobjectify' the sublime. Thus, Joshua Rayman in his critique of Backer writes that ''Kant and Schiller both refer at times to an objective sublime, to degrees of sublimity and to the human experience of sublimity.'' 55 Rayman's ''objective sublime'' is not something possible in my reading of Kant, although in other places Rayman mentions ''Kant’s view that sublimity is a subjective phenomenon''56. To shorten the argument, ''[t]he object that occasions the sublime'' 57 will be called here 'a sublime object'. But such an object is sublime only in this narrow special sense of an acronym. For Kant, the sublime demands culture. Otherwise, people will not understand it. To show this, Kant presents a Savoyard peasant's opinion from Voyages dans les Alpes by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740-1799). This peasant has no hesitation in calling all interested in the mountains fools (5: 266). Demand of culture gives rise to a problem, because the sublime judgment should be universal, that is, for everyone. Kant tries to avoid the conflict: the sublime needs culture, but it isn't generated by culture. Instead, the sublime is based on natural, healthy understanding and a predisposition for the moral (Ibid.). This link with morality is crucial. Although the sublime, in contrast to the 54 Eric Baker (1998), ‘Fables of the Sublime Kant, Schiller, Kleist’ in MLN, vol. 113 (3), p. 525. 55 Joshua Rayman (2012), Kant on Sublimity and Morality, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, p. 147. 56 Ibid., p. 180. 57 Jean-François Lyotard (1994), Lessons on the Analytic of the sublime: Kant's Critique of judgment, sections 23-29, (tr) Elizabeth Rottenberg, Stanford: Stanford University Press, p. 237.. 25 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(26) beautiful, pleases through resistance to the interest of the senses, they both are meaningful for our 'beauty duty', to use Allison's expression, to the ethical development of the human being. The beautiful prepares us to love and the sublime to esteem (5: 268). At the same time the sublime and beauty push us in opposite directions:. [t]hus, subjective (aesthetic) as well as objective (teleological) purposiveness reveal to us that we are part of nature. The sublime, by contrast, pushes us out of (outer, physical) nature and instead forces us to look into ourselves and our inner nature.58. In The Analytic of Sublime Kant also shows how the aesthetic helps us to be less selfish through our sacrifices (Aufopferungen) of interests (5: 272). At the highest theoretical level of Kant's theory of the sublime it has something to do with the negative presentation (negative Darstellung). Kant believes negative presentation to be the only way the moral law can be presented without the danger of 'visionary rapture' (Schwärmerei) (5: 276). Maybe because of this, Kant speaks about the style of nature in the sublime, it's simplicity. But a simplicity of Robinsonades, novels inspired by Daniel Defoe and his Robinson Crusoe (1719), is not accepted (5: 277). In the understanding of Avant-garde art as a transition to the aesthetics of the sublime this simplicity can be viewed as an example to be imitated by the avant-gardists. Avant-garde artists often come close to the poetics of a Robinsonade in imitation of the 'noble savage', like in Dadaist actions or Cubist artwork with African or Austronesian inspiration. Avant-garde art theory based on the sublime has a problem with balancing these two elements: (1) did Avant-garde art succeed in imitating the simplicity of the style of nature in the sublime? Or (2) should they be viewed as 'Robinsonades' and kitsch? These questions 58 Christian Helmut Wenzel (2005), An Introduction to Kant's Aesthetics: Core Concepts and Problems, Malden, MA and Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, p. 111.. 26 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(27) are presented in the second chapter. At the end of The Analytic of Sublime, Kant argues with his predecessor in the theory of the sublime, Edmund Burke (1729-1797) (5: 278), and tries to show that Burke's analysis of the sublime needs an a priori principle. Otherwise for Kant judgments of taste cannot have the modality of necessity and its aesthetics will be completely subjective (5: 279).. 1.3 The sublime and Avant-garde art: A reading with Lyotard. According to my reading, the transition from the aesthetics of the beautiful to the aesthetics of the sublime does not mean that beautiful artworks are impossible or that there are no sublime artworks before the transition. It is like a transition from agrarian to industrial economy: such a transition does not deny the presence of any industries before itself or of agriculture afterwards. The transition to the aesthetics of the sublime is a complex process. The sublime and the beautiful must coexist. Or, as Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) puts it, ''[t]he sublime must be joined to the beautiful to complete the aesthetic education.''59 The transition is about the dominant mode, the way people judge art, what they want from art and which artwork receives most attention. In other words, 'the sublime aesthetics' of some artwork, artist or period only means that the determining principle is from the judgment of the sublime rather than the judgment of the beautiful. Lyotard has greatly popularized a Kantian approach to Avant-garde art. As Joshua Rayman puts it, ''Lyotard has wielded considerable inﬂuence on recent Continental philosophy of sublimity, for his work on sublimity is by far the most cited in the past. 59 Friedrich Schiller (1902), ‘On the sublime’ in Friedrich Schiller, Aesthetical and philosophical essays, vol. 1, (tr) Nathan Haskell Dole, Boston, Massachusetts: Francis A. Niccolls Company, p. 137.. 27 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(28) thirty years."60 Lyotard's work not only brings fresh air into scholarship on Kant, it also manages to remain true to Kant himself. Or, as Christian Wenzel puts it, “Lyotard is too much an original thinker himself to restrict his Lessons to a close reading and allows himself to do creative and speculative philosophizing, which fortunately never loses sight of the text”.61 David Ingram believes,62 because of Lyotard's interpretation, Kant's heritage conquered the central position in the debates between supporters of postmodernism (Lyotard) and defenders of Modernism (Habermas). There is a subtle terminological distinction, between 'postmodernist art' as this term is used here and what Lyotard called 'postmodernist art'. As Ashley Woodward puts it:. Lyotard's postmodern art must be distinguished from the stylistic trends often called postmodern in the art world (such as the anti-modern return to representational realism or the simulationism of Peter Halley, Sherrie Levine, Jeff Koons and others). Lyotard's concept of postmodernism in the arts relates more to what is usually called modernism in the arts.63. As Lyotard himself put it, “[a] work can become modern only if it is first postmodern.”64 Lyotard subjected to severe criticism works which traditionally were 60 Joshua Rayman (2012), Kant on Sublimity and Morality, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, p. 163. 61 Christian Helmut Wenzel (2005), An Introduction to Kant's Aesthetics: Core Concepts and Problems, Malden, MA and Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 112-113. 62 David Ingram (1992), ‘The Postmodern Kantianism of Arendt and Lyotard’ in Judging Lyotard, (ed) Andrew Benjamin Warwick: Warwick Studies in Philosophy and Literature, pp. 119-120. 63 Ashley Woodward, ‘Jean-François Lyotard (1924—1998)’ in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: A Peer Reviewed Academic Resource, (ed) James Fieser, Bradley Dowden and others, http://www.iep.utm.edu/lyotard (accessed on the 7th of September, 2017) 64 Jean-Frangois Lyotard (1984), The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, (tr) Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. 79.. 28 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(29) understood as postmodernist art. For example he rejected the art by Malcolm Morley, George Baselitz and Anselm Kiefer:. they’ve lost all sense of what’s fundamentally at stake in painting. There’s a vague return to a concern with the enjoyment experienced by the viewer, they’ve abandoned the task of the artist as it might have been perceived by a Cézanne, a Duchamp, or by any number of others, such as Klee, for instance.65. Paradoxically, modernism and postmodernist artists switch sides in this judgment by Lyotard. Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) and Paul Klee (1879-1940) did not live long enough to face the contemporary meaning of the word 'postmodernism'. Of course, they are fundamentally important, Cézanne could be the first artist to whom his own vision was crucial the same way Avant-garde art in general demands it. But for Lyotard they are more postmodern than artists who live half a century later and shape what today is called postmodern art. This problem is too complicated, to discuss it here in the full scope. But the paradox should be acknowledged to avoid possible misunderstandings. My thesis focuses on Avant-garde art. Sometimes it has to touch things postmodernist, and in these cases the word is used in a sense that is standard for philosophy of art and art studies. It is a standard conception of postmodernist art, not the one by Lyotard. Lyotard defends 'postmodernist art' while he argues for postmodernism in his own sense of the word. As David Ingram puts it, the focal point in Lyotard's project is the status of the judgment.66 On the one hand, it can be perceived as universal. Then the 65 Quoted from Paul Crowther (1992), ‘Les immatériaux and the postmodern sublime ’ in Judging Lyotard, (ed) Andrew Benjamin, Warwick: Warwick Studies in Philosophy and Literature, p. 195. 66 David Ingram (1992), ‘The Postmodern Kantianism of Arendt and Lyotard’ in Judging Lyotard, (ed) Andrew Benjamin Warwick: Warwick Studies in Philosophy and Literature, pp. 119-120.. 29 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(30) Kantian connection between common sense and aesthetic judgment receives more attention. For Ingram this is the view of Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas. On the other hand, it can be viewed as, above all, a subjective act and thus always relative. Ingram believed this is the position of Lyotard. Lyotard formulates a particular terminology in which the sublime occupies an important place. The ground of this system is Lyotard's doubt in the power of representation. There are things that are above this power, and to Lyotard such a thing is the incommensurability of language games of different 'genres'. The genres here are such things as morality, art or science. 67 The instance of the incommensurability of language games is called a paralogy, which, as Simon Malpas puts it, ''breaks the rules of established ways of discussing and representing the world in scientific enquiry, and opens up new horizons for thought.''68 An event is another thing that is above the representation according to Lyotard. 69 ''The event [according to Lyotard] might be something as simple as a painting or a poem, or as complex and world changing as Auschwitz or the French Revolution.'' 70 A phrase, another notion important to Lyotardian philosophy, is also an event, and as such it can cause a sublime feeling.71 There is an ''important distinction drawn between two ways in which phrases works: the distinction between a presentation and a situation.''72 Both notions, that of the event and that of paralogy, by proceeding behind the representation meet the sublime in Lyotard's work on Kant and Newman. ''According to Lyotard, Neman's painting succeeds in presenting something that demands a reaction without having to present any particular thing (…). This success can be explained 67 James Williams (1998), Lyotard: Towards a Postmodern Philosophy, Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 54. 68 Simon Malpas (2002), Jean-Francois Lyotard, London and New York: Routledge, p. 33. 69 James Williams (1998), Lyotard: Towards a Postmodern Philosophy, Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 22. 70 Simon Malpas (2002), Jean-Francois Lyotard, London and New York: Routledge, p. 101. 71 James Williams (1998), Lyotard: Towards a Postmodern Philosophy, Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 35-36. 72 Ibid., p. 74.. 30 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(31) through the feeling of the sublime.''73 Another important Lyotardian notion with the necessary connection to the sublime is Avant-garde art, which, according to Lyotard ''disturbs established knowledge and laws''74. Avant-garde art is so intimately linked with the Kantian sublime in Lyotard's view that he goes so far as to claim that ''Avant-gardism is thus present in germ in the Kantian aesthetics of the sublime."75 It is possible with Lyotard to find three types of Avant-garde art. The first two are related to the sublime. The first belongs to the pure sublime, while the second involves the sublime and the free play. The third seems to be a special case. The pure sublime type is represented by minimalist abstract art. It is an art of singular geometrical forms, basic pure colors with sharp borders between them. Lyotard believes it to be an attempt to justify the absolute through art, and therefore it is related to the sublime. Geometrically named works by Malevich, such as the Black Square (1915) or the Black Circle (1915), are good examples of such art. Lyotard himself says that Malevich's movement, Suprematism, is an example of pure sublimity. 76 Malevich created Suprematism in an attempt to produce the final, absolute form of art (hence Suprematism, from Latin 'supremus'), in particular in his Black Square. In The Postmodern Condition Lyotard made a distinction in the Avant-garde art, between art related to melancholia and art related to novatio:. on the side of melancholia, the German Expressionists, and on the side of novatio, Braque and Picasso, on the former Malevitch and on the latter Lissitsky, 73 Simon Malpas (2002), Jean-Francois Lyotard, London and New York: Routledge, p. 85. 74 James Williams (1998), Lyotard: Towards a Postmodern Philosophy, Oxford: Polity Press, p. 6. 75 Jean-Francois Lyotard (1992), The Inhuman: Reflections on Time, (tr) Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby, Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 98. 76 Jean-François Lyotard (1994), Lessons on the Analytic of the sublime: Kant's Critique of judgment, sections 23-29, (tr) Elizabeth Rottenberg, Stanford: Stanford University Press, p. 157.. 31 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(32) on the one Chirico and on the other Duchamp. The nuance which distinguishes these two modes may be infinitesimal; they often coexist in the same piece, are almost indistinguishable; and yet they testify to a difference (un differend) on which the fate of thought depends and will depend for a long time, between regret and assay.77. Later Lyotard derives all of the Avant-garde art movements directly from the sublime feeling:. [t]his simplicity [of the sublime as aesthetic style] announces neither the end of art nor the beginning of ethics. As style, it belongs to the aesthetic. It is the sign made by the absolute in the forms of nature and in human mores, in Sittlichkeit. The absolute sign in all simplicity. In art, the formulation of the absolute under this sign gives rise to various "schools," suprematism, abstraction, minimalism, etc., in which the absolute can signal itself simply in presentation. Morality, on the other hand, considered in itself, has no style at all.78. The second group is constituted of surrealism and non-minimalist (or musical) abstract painting. This art is full of details, of nuanced colors with smooth transitions between them. For Lyotard, it is an artistic experience which stresses free play, just as did baroque and mannerism79. Free play gives birth to the numerous details and endless fractal successions in the compositions of that art. Kandinsky's musically named 77 Jean-Frangois Lyotard (1984), The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, (tr) Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. 80. 78 Jean-François Lyotard (1994), Lessons on the Analytic of the sublime: Kant's Critique of judgment, sections 23-29, Stanford: Stanford University Press, p. 157. 79 Ibid., pp. 74-75.. 32 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(33) abstractions, Fugue (1914) or numerous 'Improvisations' of early 1910s are good examples of this. Already at this level Lyotard's approach faces a challenge: what is the balance between free play and the sublime in the free play type? The conception of free play itself does not endanger the idea of the transition to the aesthetics of the sublime, because the sublime is perfectly compatible with it. Free play happens in the situation, when it is possible for the ability of the judgment to choose any conception of understanding, in the case of the beautiful or of reason in the case of the sublime. There are also Cubism, Constructivism, Cubo-futurism and other movements. Their art is not rich enough to belong to the 'Free play type.' Cubism and Constructivism are also not strict and implicit enough to belong to the type of the pure sublime. They seem to be undetermined in Lyotard's typology. Let us call it a 'constructive type' of the Avantgarde art. But what does the constructive type have to do with the transition to the sublime? Cubism has no less a place of Avant-garde art than abstraction. If the theory of the transition to the aesthetics of the sublime works well with abstraction it seems to encounter some difficulties with cubism and the constructive type in general. In fact the sublime is still an aim for cubists for Lyotard's reading of Kant and from the viewpoint of the Kantian aesthetics. Lyotard believes that the end of realism in art is related to the sense of lack of reality that human beings feel in the capitalist societies. Capitalism discredits the traditional European view on reality, with a reliable world and a forgiving God. Lyotard thinks that one of the responses is a Nietzschean form of 'perspectivism', a nihilism.80 The other is “a much earlier modulation of Nietzschean perspectivism in the Kantian theme of the sublime.”81 A notion of shock seems to be one of the crucial features of both Avant-garde art and the aesthetics of the sublime. Kandinsky's first experience of non-realistic painting is 80 Jean-Frangois Lyotard (1984), The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, (tr) Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. 77. 81 Ibid... 33 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(34) painful and Lyotard speaks of how the sublime ''please[s] only by causing pain''82. But Avant-garde art is shocking not only for artists and philosophers. Thus, the famous art critic Douglas Crimp writes about the shock the public experiences in the meeting with the Avant-garde art.83 The collectors of Avant-garde art express the same idea. Sergey Shchukin (1854-1936), who, for example, has bought Picasso's Absinthe Drinker (1901)84, writes to his daughter: ''if you have experienced a psychological shock by observing a painting - buy the painting.''85 Moreover, the shocking dimension can be the main element for the Lyotard aesthetics. Or, as Philip Shaw puts it, Lyotard's postmodernity tries ''to maintain the shock of the sublime, so as to prevent the ascendancy of the rational over the real.''86 Lyotard tries to use psychology to give a firm ground of the connection between the shocking and the sublime. For this, Lyotard interprets the Freudian conception of afterwardness (Nachträglichkeit): ''reenactment of an original shock in later feelings of fear and anguish (in the case of a phobia, for example), is analogous to the role played by the feeling of the sublime in communicating an event beyond understanding.''87 In another place Lyotard uses the Walter Benjamin's notion of shocking aesthetics, but with the opposite attitude. Basically, Lyotard changes the sign of 'minus' to that of 'plus':. [t]he finality of capitalism is not a technical, social, or political creation built 82 Jean-Frangois Lyotard (1984), The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, (tr) Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. 80. 83 Douglas Crimp (2000), ‘Redefining Site Specificity’ in Richard Serra, (eds) Hal Foster and Gordon Hughes, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press, p. 147. 84 See the web page of Absinthe Drinker at the website of the State Hermitage Museum https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-collection/01.+Paintings/28498/?lng=ru (accessed on the 3th of November, 2018) 85 Quoted as in Natalia G. Dumova (1992), Moscow Patrons of Art, Moscow: Molodaya Gvardija, p. 32. 86 Philip Shaw (2005), The Sublime, London and New York: Routledge, p. 116. 87 James Williams (1998), Lyotard: Towards a Postmodern Philosophy, Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 54.. 34 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(35) according to rule, its aesthetic is not that of the beautiful but of the sublime, its poetics is that of the genius: capitalist creation does not bend to the rules, it invents them. Everything Benjamin describes as 'loss of aura,' aesthetic of 'shock,' destruction of taste and experience is the effect of this will that cares little or nothing for rules.88. According to Philip Shaw, for Lyotard ''the ultimate mode of expression will be pure abstraction''.89 This is indeed the role designated by Lyotard to Malevich in the appendix of Postmodern Condition:. [a]s painting, it will of course 'present' something though negatively; it will therefore avoid figuration or representation. It will be "white" like one of Malevitch's squares (...).90. Moreover, the high regard of abstract painting is present in Lyotard's thought very early. Thus, James Williams shows how persistent is Lyotard's interest in the limits of representation and how ''it has always been a concern of Lyotard's that there may be things that cannot be represented, that is, brought back to us through language and art.'' 91 Maybe the first time Lyotard refers to this theme is in an essay ‘Born in 1925’ (1948)92:. 88 Jean-Francois Lyotard (1993), ‘A Svelte Appendix to the Postmodern Question’ in Jean-Francois Lyotard, Political Writings, (tr) Bill Readings and Kevin Paul Geiman, London: University College London Press, p. 26. 89 Philip Shaw (2005), The Sublime, London and New York: Routledge, p. 116. 90 Jean-Frangois Lyotard (1984), The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, (tr) Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. 80. 91 James Williams (1998), Lyotard: Towards a Postmodern Philosophy, Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 21. 92 Williams calls it Lyotard's 'earliest writing', see James Williams (1998), Lyotard: Towards a Postmodern Philosophy, Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 21.. 35 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(36) art abandons figure, representation drowns the represented, and Raphael bores us. The object undergoes the same process of breakdown as had the field of concrete actions and undertakings. Surrealist expression has made us used to works whose very meaning is given over to chance as the summit of human freedom. L’amour fou is so optimistic.93. In Williams' translation, the object in ‘Born in 1925’ undergoes 'liberation' not a 'breakdown'.94 In both versions, this liberation-breakdown parallels Malevich ideal of abstract art as a revolutionary liberation of color,95 object and human being.96 At the same time, the approach to abstract art as a limitation of representation is germane to the theory of the sublime of Kantian type. There are few moments where my reading differs from that by Lyotard. The biggest methodological difference is a very low attention paid by Lyotard to the relations of the sublime with ethics. Maybe to follow Joshua Rayman and say that to Lyotard Kantian sublimity is ''anti-moral or evil"97 is too far, but Lyotard definitely writes very little about morality and usually does not include this principle connection into the criteria of the sublime. Thus, Rayman is absolutely correct when he claims ''that sublimity has virtually always been constructed in moral terms, from Longinus to Addison, Kant and Schiller.''98 93 Jean-Francois Lyotard (1993), ‘Born in 1925’ in Jean-Francois Lyotard, Political Writings, (tr) Bill Readings and Kevin Paul Geiman, London: University College London Press, p. 86. 94 James Williams (1998), Lyotard: Towards a Postmodern Philosophy, Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 21. 95 Kazimir Malevich (1995), ‘The turning point’ in Kazimir Malevich, Collected Works in 5 Volumes, vol. 1, Articles, manifestos, theoretical essays and other works, 1913-1929, (eds) A.S. Shatskich and A.D. Sarabyanov, Moscow: Hylaea, pp. 104-105. 96 Kazimir Malevich (2003), ‘The declaration of the rights of the artist’ in Kazimir Malevich, The Black Square (ed) Alexandra Shatskich, Saint-Petersburg: Azbuka klassica, p. 64. 97 Joshua Rayman (2012), Kant on Sublimity and Morality, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, p. 172. 98 Ibid., p. 173.. 36 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.

(37) To Lyotard one of important criteria for the sublimity of an artwork can be the fact that the artwork ''devotes its 'little technical expertise' (son 'petit technique'), as Diderot used to say, to present the fact that the unpresentable exists.''99 For me it is not enough, at least in some possible interpretation of this quotation. The sublime as Kant presents it is a particular qualia. The existence of the unpresentable can be given symbolically and thus belongs to the world of aesthetic ideas rather than that of the sublime. In the Postmodern Fables Lyotard writes how the subject ceases to exist in sublime experience: ''[Sublime art] [a]spires to exemption from syntheses, forms, becomings, intentions and retentions [i.e. memory], from repetition, in a word.'' 100 In my reading this is only a metaphor, at least in case of subjectivity understood in a strict sense (like the legal notion of living or dead subject). But the understanding of metaphor shouldn't be too broad either. Or, in other words, the disrupture of a subject cannot be so little as for example when one is disrupted by an insignificant phone call while he or she is writing. A writing subject A really ceased to exist and than returns to existence as subject A', different in some moments of its physical existence but not in its quality (its 'writingness'). What matters much more is the change of some inner quality. An art-appreciating subject before the experience of Avant-garde art and after it should be deeply different. ''The sublime (…) pushes us out of (outer, physical) nature and instead forces us to look into ourselves and our inner nature.''101 Kant writes about the sublime that there is ''a subjective movement of the imagination, by which it does violence [Gewalt] to the inner sense [inneren Sinne]'' (5: 259). So the sublime is something transformative and violent (gewalttätig) already to Kant. 99 Jean-Frangois Lyotard (1984), The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, (tr) Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. 78. 100Quoted as in Temenuga Trifonova (2007), The image in French philosophy, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, p. 160. 101 Christian Helmut Wenzel (2005), An Introduction to Kant's Aesthetics: Core Concepts and Problems, Malden, MA and Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, p. 111.. 37 DOI:10.6814/NCCU201900191.