Schopenhauer on aesthetics and the goal of art
Widely recognized as one of the world’s most pessimistic philosophers, Arthur Schopenhauer is mainly known for his views on suffering. Essentially, he believed that we live in the “worst of all possible worlds” because we have animal bodies with God-like minds.
Like animals, we’re driven to pursue endless, insatiable cravings. Yet, because we have the capacity for knowledge and memory, we’re acutely aware of everything we’ve done wrong (and of all the bad things in the world). And we’re bound to replay these wrongs over and over again.
But Schopenhauer wasn’t entirely doom and gloom. In fact, he believed that we could find solace and temporary relief in art—paintings, sculptures, poetry, music.
What, then, did Schopenhauer believe was so alleviating about art, and how can his ideas help us better understand and improve our own lives? The answer lies in Schopenhauer’s view of art’s purpose and the qualities of good art.
Art attempts to answer the question, “What is life?”
For Schopenhauer, the purpose of art is to make life bearable. Why? Because good art depicts the deeper, universal truths of reality. And Schopenhauer believes that anyone who thinks about the world inevitably tries to understand its nature—what it is, how it works, and why.
By depicting aspects of reality, art helps us better understand life and our own existence. Schopenhauer writes:
“Every work of art really endeavors to show us life and things as they are in reality; but these cannot be grasped directly by everyone through the mist of objective and subjective contingencies. Art takes away this mist.”
What this means is that art can portray aspects of reality that we’re otherwise unable to pick up on or understand. In this way, art helps us answer the question of “What is life?,” which isn’t a casual question for Schopenhauer.
Rather, he’s getting at the essence of life—the qualities of reality that are universal, permanent, and objective.
Art reveals fragments of truth
So, how does art help us answer the question of “What is life?” It grasps at a sliver of reality’s essence, and presents an example of one particular truth. As Schopenhauer writes:
“Every painting forever fixes the fleeting moment and tears it from time, it already fixes us not the individual thing, but the Idea, that which endures and is permanent in all change.”
Good art, then, holds universal truths. But it’s still up to the onlooker to grasp them. For Schopenhauer, the effect of viewing fine art is as follows:
Perception –> Imagination –> Reflection –> Comprehension
How we engage with art
We perceive art—we view a painting or hear a song—and it prompts our imaginations as we envision what the work reveals. Then, we reflect on the underlying idea and our imaginings as we connect them to reality. In this way, we can start to understand the true nature of things.
Reflection is the crucial stage because we have to arrive at the meaning or truth ourselves. If the artwork presented its meaning outright, we wouldn’t put the effort into deciphering it and thus true understanding would evade us.
As Schopenhauer notes:
“Everyone who reads the poem or contemplates the work of art must of course contribute from his own resources towards bringing that wisdom to light. Consequently, he grasps only so much of the work as his capacity and culture allow.”
The value of art isn’t in passively consuming it, but in prompting us to think, reflect, and recognize fragments of truth about existence that we might otherwise overlook.
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The qualities of successful art
For art to reveal a fundamental truth about life, it has to leave room for us to fill in the gaps.
“Even the author must always leave something over for the reader to think; for Voltaire has very rightly said, ‘The secret of being dull and tedious consists in our saying everything.’” — Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation
For example, Schopenhauer notes how sculpture shows us the form of an object without the color, painting gives the color but just the appearance of the form (since it’s 2-D), and poetry gives both with just words. Wax figures aren’t art because they leave nothing to the imagination.
Schopenhauer also notes how art should be “without aims and intentions,” and that the best art is disinterested—meaning it’s independent of our self-interest and achieves a level of objectivity.
The implacable quality of art (and life): Negative capability
There’s also an aspect of art that our intellect can’t fully grasp—only our intuition can. Schopenhauer writes:
“The very best in art is too spiritual to be given directly to the senses; it must be born in the beholder’s imagination, though it must be begotten by the work of art. It is due to this that the sketches of great masters are often more effective than their finished paintings.”
I think this is because the nature of life is inherently beyond comprehension. As humans, we will never completely understand what we are or why we’re here. The English poet John Keats called this negative capability, or “when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.”
In other words, both art and life contain an incomprehensible quality, so we should become comfortable living with incomplete knowledge.
Art lets us escape ourselves
For Schopenhauer, the highest value of art is that it lets us forget ourselves. As he writes, art “delivers us from ourselves.” By contemplating something outside of time, self-interest, and our daily woes, we set aside our condition of suffering, even if just for a moment.
In this state, we’re absorbed in the work instead of our own will and desires. Art provides temporary relief from endless suffering, not by solving suffering, but by suspending it.