A Reflection on Aristotle's Eudaemonia and Kant's Sublime
Through a Critique On Géricault's The Raft of Medusa.
[Note: I have been having a fascinating aesthetic discussion with
about the Sublime, and various takes by artists, writers, and philosophers. Link to our discussion. I think this section from my book, Evolution Through Art, adds to the discussion.]Three decades after Kant's Critique of Judgment, Théodore Géricault painted this monstrous painting, 16' x 24', The Raft of the Medusa (1819). It is a superb example of the painful conflict between Aristotle's eudaemonia and Kant's anti-sublime—a great artwork of a no-win scenario.
It is based on the real-life event of the shipwrecked and unfortunately named frigate Medusa. The crew improvised a raft, became adrift, and were rescued, but tragically all but 15 of the 147 sailors died. The survivors had to resort to cannibalism. The subject is an impossible moral dilemma: would you rather have died or survived by eating human flesh?
Théodore Géricault, The Raft of the Medusa, 1818-1819, oil on canvas, Louvre Museum, Paris, France. Wikimedia.
On the technical side, the diagonal compositions of both the canvas and the arrangement of the human bodies in their upwards flow are spectacular. The poses, gestures, anatomy, and lighting are masterfully done, rivaling Rembrandt and Michelangelo. The themes of despair, apathy, gruesomeness, and a thread of hope run through the survivors' faces. Géricault also used a traditional painter's device of painting human flesh with bluish undertones but exaggerated it here to convey bodily decay.
On the subject side, Géricault gave full voice to the horrific concept of 19th-century sublime, championed by Burke and Kant. The shipwreck was caused by an accident that ended in human tragedy. If it had been an act of terrorism, there would be a good versus evil premise, but an accident of weather or human error creates a fatalistic view of life premise. A hopeless dilemma for the sailors, like a mother forced to choose which of her two children will live and the other die, their choice was to eat or be eaten. There is no scenario in which the survivor could go on to live a blameless, happy existence.
The painting shares and contradicts both aesthetic poles represented by Aristotle and Kant: the fatalistic subject is incompatible with Aristotle's eudaemonia ends (though a case can be made for tragedy), yet technically it is a great example of Aristotle's beauty of proportions, forms, knowledge, light, space, and reality. Turn it around, and the painting's subject embodies the negatives of Kant's sublime, but its technical excellence would disqualify it from consideration.
This painting, and similarly dark 19th-century romantic works, pose a fascinating question: why would the artist work with goal-directed technique towards a spectacularly successful painting, yet pick a psychological theme that shows forces beyond human agency, which drives humanity towards death and despair? It seems to me in the visual arts there are essentially four choices: absurd ends with absurd means (postmodernism); terrible ends with brilliant means (macabre romanticism); happy ends with incompetent means (kitsch); or eudaemonia, good ends with good means. If we consider what is the best way to evolve, we have to go with the latter combo. It pushes the boundaries of our human development across the entire human spectrum from heart and soul, to mind and philosophy, to senses and perception.
Newberry, Michael. Evolution Through Art: Art—Integrator of the Human Spirit (pp. 176-178). Kindle Edition.
Available on Amazon, paperback and Kindle.
Thank you , and what a fascinating discussion you provided in the link.
WOW this is fantastic and changes so much that is out there about contrast as being the only way to evolve, change and grow! I do see we may be challenged in extremes which include other forces defining how far you will go to manage the "means" or define the means to an end result! I have one question and it may be that only a "higher evolved being" could answer this: "What is a higher frequency in this situation? Dying under these circumstances and being the food for others, or eating those who have died and living knowing that, (which means reconciling that on some level so you can evolve).