Rene Magrittes Ceci nest Pas Une Pipe and Les Deux Mysteres :: Art Painting Artist Essays

Rene Magrittes Ceci nest Pas Une Pipe and Les Deux MysteresThe aesthetic value of Rene Magrittes paintings is driven by a relationship manufactured by the artist. By specifically targeting an audience who can recognize that a set of established artistic interpretations are being challenged in his paintings, Magritte generates a dialectic argument that attempts to deconstruct Platos mimetic interpretation of art. As a result, the painting of a negated representation contained within a calico representation of that same object necessarily appeals to a subjective and not objective desire to comprehend Magrittes intent. In other words, because we (the audience) sleep with that you (the artist) know that your breaking the rules, a specific interest rather than a disinterested idea of beauty influences the aesthetic ideal of Magrittes work.The we know that you know creation in Magrittes paintings Ceci nest Pas Une Pipe and Les Deux Mysteres effectively illustrates the nebulous connotat ions of beauty and the difficulty of determining an objects aesthetic value. Because of the complexity of ideas created by the different perspectives inherent in all creative endeavors, critics and philosophers, such as Joseph Addison and Immanuel Kant, have attempted to define the parameters of aesthetic judgment. Consequently, Addison and Kant each developed an argument that identified the parameters of aesthetic judgment and highlighted the palpate of taste necessary for the recognition of beauty. As a result, in the interpretation of Magrittes paintings, both Addison and Kant would conclude-- from different reasons drawn from their respective arguments--that Magrittes work fails to fulfill a level of achievement consistent with the beautiful.At the top of Addisons triarchy of aesthetic judgment or taste is the idea that authentic wit (an Addison synonym for beauty) is grounded in the resemblance of ideas that gives delight and surprise to an individual (Addison, 264). Working primarily as a source of literary criticism, Addisons argument about the judgment of taste appears in his Spectator essays that are nonetheless dedicated to the defense of all higher forms of artistic endeavors and to the supremacy of polite society as the guardians of truthful wit (Lecture). For Addison, the ability to recognize true wit represented a necessary prerequisite for an individuals acceptance into polite society. Further more, Addisons argument implied that the judgment of beauty, although based on an ideal of objectivity, is in part an empirical knowledge gained from the rules and arts of criticism that provided the accuracy and correctness for contemporary true wit to exist (Addison, 261).