The Aesthetic Function of Art

(The Role of Art in Shaping a Creative Personality and

the Ability to Form Value Judgements)

In antiquity, the aesthetic function of art was already fully appreciated. The Indian poet
Kalidasa (c. 5th cent.) singled out four principal goals of art: to arouse the admiration of the
gods; to create images borrowing the material from the world around the artist and the life of
man; to be a source of many sublime (висока) joys through aesthetic sensations (відчуття): the
comic, love, compassion, fear, horror, etc.; to be a source of everyone's pleasure, joy,
happiness, and all beauty. Quoting this excerpt (цитата), the contemporary Indian scholar V.
Bahadur noted that the chief purpose of art is to ennoble man's inner life and that in order to
inspire, purify and ennoble, art must be beautiful.
The aesthetic function of art is unique to it and can have no substitute. It develops the
aesthetic tastes, abilities and needs of man, thus providing him with a means of orientation in
the world; it also awakens his creative spirit and puts to use his creative potential. Perfecting
man's value judgements, art teaches him to see life in images. An aesthetically advanced
consciousness is able to appreciate the aesthetic significance of life's every manifestation.
Nature itself becomes an object possessing aesthetic value. The Universe turns into poetry,
pictures, works of art non finita. The artist's sense of the aesthetic importance of life helps him
to get his ideas across to the audience providing people with value judgements in their
perception – of the world.
At first sight, the aesthetic function of art does not seem very important. True, art improves
one's aesthetic taste. But why is that important? Does it mean that it can help one to decorate
one's flat or choose the nicest dress? This it can do, of course, but the aesthetic function of art is
a great deal broader. Its aim is to awaken the artist in man. By this, we do not mean that
everyone would take part in amateur theatricals but that man should act in accordance with the
inner measure of things, i.e. conform to the laws of the beautiful in his exploration of the world.
Making a purely utilitarian article (практична річ), for instance, a table or a chandelier, man is
concerned with both utility, convenience and beauty. The latter is not the monopoly of art; its
laws should guide man in whatever he is doing; therefore, everyone needs a sense of beauty. A
character in one of Alexander Korneichuk's plays, the surgeon Platon Krechet, is also a violin
player. This is not a detail introduced to "humanise" the character. A surgeon's hand must be
just as strong, dexterous (спритний), trained, sensitive and musical as a violinist's. "Musical"
fingers are a detail and an image which makes it possible to link the character of Platon to his
life job.
Discussing the significance of art for man's inner life and for the process of scientific
research, Albert Einstein said that works of art gave him delight. He derived from them more
intellectual enjoyment than from anything else. He insisted that Dostoyevsky meant much more
to him than any scientist.
The aesthetic function of art – to awaken a creator in man who likes and is able to make
things according to the laws of the beautiful will gain in importance with the advance of
society. The man of the future will have no direct economic or non-economic inducement
(стимул) to work but will be motivated solely by the need to create. And that is precisely what
art develops.