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FREELAND: PARADIGMS & PURPOSES

1. Identify the virtual “tour stops” and eras that Freeland makes us visit in this chapter.

  HISTORICAL
ERA/PERIOD

1 Scruton starts by looking at ancient Greece, where the concept of Ancient Greece
beauty was associated with the expression of divine harmony and or-
der. He points out that Greek art was intended to convey a sense of
ideal form and proportion as well as an expression of individual cre-
ativity. According to Scruton, the Greek conception of beauty has had
a profound influence on Western culture and continues to shape how
we view art and architecture today.

2 In his discussion of Gothic architecture, which features soaring arches, Gothic architec-
elaborate stone carvings, and stained glass windows, Scruton high- ture
lights its significance and beauty. He contends that Gothic cathedrals
were created to evoke awe and wonder as well as a sense of transcen-
dence and spiritual edification.

3 Scruton talks about the significance of beauty in contemporary art. He Renaissance art
points out that Renaissance artists like Michelangelo and Leonardo da
Vinci believed that art had the ability to uplift the human spirit and
that they sought to capture the ideal beauty of the human form.

4 The elaborate beauty of Baroque art and architecture, with its opulent Baroque art and
structures and dramatic paintings, is then explored by Scruton. He con- architecture
tends that the Baroque style was intended to impress and dazzle the
viewer and to convey a sense of strength and majesty.

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 5 Scruton criticizes the modernist rejection of aesthetic excellence in de- 20th century
sign and art. He contends that the ugly nature of many modern struc- modernism
tures and public areas is a result of modernist rejection of conventional
forms and aesthetics. Scruton contends that our culture has suffered as
a result of this rejection of beauty, and that we must once again value it
highly.

Scruton makes the case that beauty is a necessary component of human life and that it has the
power to motivate, uplift, and transform us throughout the course of the video. He contends that
a world devoid of beauty would be a hopeless and desolate place, and that we must cultivate and
cherish beauty in all of its manifestations.

2. How did the philosophers Plato and Aristotle differ in their views of the Greek tragedy?

There is an evident contrast between the views of Plato and Aristotle. In the context of
Greek tragedy, Plato is on the side of the opposition. Meanwhile, Aristotle defended tragedy in
his poetics and strived to reconsider this genre as a whole. Plato’s criteria for poetry include both
cognitive and moral values. On the other hand, Aristotle’s criteria imply that poetic excellence
should be judged based on the standards of the different forms of poetry (Halliwell, 1984).

3. Identify 3 key principles for beautiful creations during the medieval period:

  MEDIEVAL HOW WAS THIS APPLIED TO THE BUILDING OF THE NOTRE

PRINCIPLES DAME?
OF BEAUTY

1 Symmetry In the building of Notre Dame, symmetry was shown which means that
the two halves are somehow identical. The cruciform floor plan is a pri-
mary way that symmetry is employed in the construction of Notre Dame.
Moreover, the cathedral is shaped like a cross, with transpets spanning
the board nave that runs east to west and forming the cross’s extremi-
ties. 

2 Symbolism Symbolism was used in the medieval architecture of Notre-Dame Cathe-

dral that is located in Paris. The cathedral was constructed over several
decades and it features the popular Gothic architectural style. The appli-
cation of sculptural decorative elements on the exterior of the structure
was one of the primary ways that symbolism was incorporated into the

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 construction of Notre-Dame. Complex saint sculptures and biblical
senses that convey religious ideas to the spectator decorate the façade of
the cathedral.

3  Clarity  Clarity is a crucial design idea that was used in the construction of Paris'
Notre Dame Cathedral. The cathedral's architecture was intended to be
unambiguous and simple to comprehend, with an emphasis on fostering
a sense of cohesion and uniformity across the structure. Using a unified
design language across the cathedral was one method for achieving such
clarity. To make sure that every part of the cathedral complemented the
design as a whole, the architects employed a system of balance and
asessment.

4. How can a garden be a symbol of power for the French king Louis XIV? Also: why is the
god Apollo featured so prominently in his garden?

 Louis King XIV’s garden exhibits his wealth. The garden itself was enormously expen-
sive; landscaping and other decorative elements were installed and maintained. Further-
more, the garden was meant to convey that the monarch has perfect control over nature
through the architectural layout of the garden, which included geometric patterns and
well maintained hedges and trees. Thus, the garden serves as a visual representation of
Louis XIV’s supremacy and authority. Apollo was one of the most significant gods in
Greek mythology. He is frequently linked into arts and music. The French King was a
huge fan of Apollo and his characteristics. In this case, French king Louis XIV ordered a
large number of statues and pieces of art to decorate the gardens of his castle in Versailles
with Apollo. The Apollo Fountain, which depicts a figure of the deity riding his chariot
through the sky, is one of the gardens' most well-known sculptures.

5. In Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment, his great work in aesthetics, he emphasized

beauty as the idea of “purposiveness without a purpose.” What does it even mean? How
is this linked to the idea of “free play of the imagination?” 

 Immanuel Kant claimed that the sense of beauty entails a sensation of pleasure that is
separate from the pleasure connected with the fulfillment of our wants in his Critique of

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 Judgment. A key aspect in Kant's philosophy of beauty is what he calls "purposiveness
without a purpose." He maintained that even while we are unable to pinpoint the object's
exact function, when we experience something as beautiful, we consider it to have a par-
ticular type of order or balance that indicates a purpose. Kant used the phrase "purposive-
ness without a purpose" to describe this. A key component of Kant's view of beauty is the
idea of "free play of the imagination." According to Kant, when we find something to be
beautiful, our creative mind is playing about with the thing in a way that is unrestricted
by any preconceived ideas or goals, allowing us to explore and enjoy it.

6. Was Friedrich Nietzsche a fanboy of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal? Why or why not? (And
what’s the link to the later rise of Nazism?)

 In the beginning, Friedrich Nietzche was a huge fan of Richard Wagner’s music. More-
over, Nietzsche had further conflicting opinions regarding Wagner's final opera, "Parsi-
fal." He originally admired the opera but later criticized it because he saw it to be a re-
treat into Christian morality and a betrayal of the pagan virtues he had defended. Wagner,
on the other hand, has a more obvious connection to Nazism. An outspoken Aryan
supremacy advocate, Wagner was anti-Semitic and published widely about his views.

7. The 20th century was a time of what Walter Benjamin called “art in the time of mechani-
cal reproduction.” And all this time, art was all about mimesis or copying figures in na-
ture, right? So did the artworld (Dickie ™) think Andy Warhol’s Brillo Box qualified as
art?
 
 Mechanical reproduction altered how people viewed art in the 20th century. The cardboard-like
Brillo Box by Andy Warhol challenged preconceived notions of what art was. Because of its
concepts, some people considered it to be art, while others did not because it was a consumer
good.

The idea of "art in the time of mechanical reproduction" popularized by Walter Benjamin em-
phasized the significant influence that contemporary technology has had on how we produce, in-
terpret, and comprehend art. In the past, art was frequently viewed as a form of mimesis in which
creators attempted to mimic the natural world in their creations. However, the development of
mechanical reproduction allowed artists to produce numerous copies of their creations, challeng-
ing ideas of authenticity and originality. Warhol's Brillo Box received a variety of responses
from the art world. Some considered it to be a significant contribution to modern art, while oth-
ers dismissed it as merely a consumer good. The Brillo Box, according to prominent art philoso-
pher Arthur Danto, is a work of art because of its conceptual content rather than its outward ap-
pearance. In other words, it was the ideas and concepts it communicated rather than the box itself
that made it art.

References:

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Halliwell, S. (1984). Plato and Aristotle on the denial of tragedy. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philo-
logical Society (Second Series), 30, 49-71. doi:10.1017/S0068673500004612