Sergey Lishaev “Aesthetics of space. Sergey Lishaev - aesthetics of space

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Today there are all conditions for conceptualizing the aesthetics of space and time. The aesthetics of “good forms” should be supplemented aesthetic analytics of space (and time).

This research project can be implemented within the framework of the phenomenology of aesthetic dispositions (the aesthetics of the Other), which allows us to explore life-in-the-flow-of-becoming and at the same time maintain continuity with the philosophical and aesthetic tradition. The program of this aesthetics is not negative (it is not constructed as a destruction of the aesthetics of beauty), but positive, constructive, aimed at describing and analyzing encounters with the Other, and not least - in its spatial and temporal location.

1.2. From body to space (conceptual marking of the phenomenal field of aesthetics of space)

Aesthetics of space: places and directions. In the course of studying the ways and stages of the formation of a new (compared to the traditional, perfection-oriented bodily form) sensitivity, we talked about sensitivity to possibility. When a possibility is perceived through the contemplation of one or another temporary mode of existence of a thing, it is experienced and on the side of things (as its possibility/impossibility of being different), and on the side of the contemplator (experience of the possibility/impossibility of his own existence). When it is perceived through one or another form of space, then this is the opportunity to be in some place for the contemplator (concerns his existence). Space is not perceived as something has the capabilities, since it itself there is an opportunity to be, to be present, to transcend. It is space as a possibility for the contemplator (for the one who finds himself in the world) that is “what” is experienced in the aesthetic experience of space. The focus, then, is on the existence of the contemplator. The peculiarity of the form of space perceived here is a special mode of our presence in the world, our location in it.

Analysis of the formation of sensitivity to space as a form of experiencing human existence (Dasein) led us (at the end of the first section) to the need to talk about sensitivity to places and directions. Therefore, in the conceptual domain of space aesthetics we can distinguish at least two areas: aesthetics of directions(the aesthetics of space as an extension) and aesthetics of the place.

Within the boundaries of the latter, we, in turn, will distinguish two modifications: the first includes the experience landscape, scenery, view (terrain), second – experience limited space (places), perceived from the position of a person located inside city (yard, square, street) or inside house (having different, for example, sacred, state, public, private purposes) spaces (rooms, containers).

The spatial configuration of a place (or terrain) and its aesthetic perception is one thing, and the aesthetic effect accompanying the perception of direction is another. What unites these two regions is the fact that the focus is on space, not things, possibility, not whatness. However, in the first case, space is the openness of view in one direction or another, and in the second, it is the internal space of the square (room) or the area (view) accessible to contemplation in front of us. We are dealing either with space as the possibility of movement in directions given by the human body and the conditions of its earthly existence, or with place as the possibility/impossibility of staying (interior, landscape).

Terrain (landscape) and premises are space-within-space(local space), this is a space that is like a “world in miniature”. This is space in its completeness, integrity: it is either the world visible to me (terrain, view, landscape), or the closed space surrounding me from different sides (“I” inside the room, interior). In the case of space-as-extension, our attention is not captured by space as a containing being. (not the view, not the area, not the interior), and this or that opportunity to change location.

It is easy to notice that there is something in common between the perception of terrain (landscape) and the perception of internal space (room, throne room, square, clearing): in both cases we are talking about the perception of space as a place in which someone or something is or may be. Both the interior and the terrain are territories of residence, containing spaces. They are experienced not through movement, but through the possibility of being. Terrain is a space given as an object of visual contemplation, representing a certain integrity. The area has a relief and contains something within itself; it is perceived by the contemplator as one of the places of possible stay. In the interior, the space in this case does not “spread out” in front of me, but surrounds me (this is an enveloping and limited space).

It is necessary to distinguish from the space of residence space-for-movement. In the aesthetics of directions, space is something that “spreads”, extends, it is a visible possibility of movement in a certain direction (defined by the shape of space). In its arrangements we receive a tangible (given in the perception itself) answer to the question: “Where? In the direction?" Moreover, the direction is not just realized and recorded by us, but is experienced as something special. The focus is on the direction in which the gaze (and therefore, potentially, the person) can move without encountering obstacles. In one case, the subject of experience will be the possibility of moving into the depths of space (distance), in another - the possibility of moving horizontally (space), in the third - the possibility of rising (height), in the fourth - falling (the phenomenon of the abyss, abyss).

Aesthetics of place (terrain and room). The aesthetics of a place is that area of theoretically uninterpreted aesthetic experience with which people have long been working in practice (in painting, in creating gardens and parks, in organizing interior space, etc.). This experience is captured, for example, in terms such as “interior” and “landscape” (the latter is used in two meanings: “natural view” and “a picture depicting a natural, rural or urban landscape”). In the arrangement of the aesthetics of a place, the containing space becomes the subject of crystallization of the aesthetic feeling. Speaking about the place , we answer the question “where?” We're talking about what does it hold? (us and things), and about Where there is someone whom (what) the place contains. We not only move, we are always somewhere (stay) and somehow feel ourselves in this “somewhere”.

Sometimes the feeling associated with a place is out of the ordinary, special, memorable, and cannot be fully explained. In this (and only in this!) case there is a basis to talk about his aesthetic experience. We should not forget that the simple awareness of what place I am in, what kind of terrain I see (my orientation-pragmatic “where”) is different from aesthetic experience. In the case of an aesthetic experience, I am not just aware of where exactly I am or could be, but I am involved in the experience of what it is like to be in a given place, I am fascinated, surprised, delighted by this place.

The question is, what makes a place special aesthetically? The preliminary answer sounds like this: in this type of aesthetic perception, its “how” is revealed to us (at the level of experience). This space, perceived as a containing given, as a place of stay 41
A detailed justification for this thesis can only be presented through an investigation of specific locations of the aesthetics of a place. Below in the text (chapter three) we will consider in detail one of the noticeable areas of interior aesthetics - comfort.

What does it feel like for me to be (be) in it? Do you want to stay there? If so, what motivates us to extend our stay? Space in the aesthetics of place is not a given possibility of movement, but a given of organized topoi (containing spaces) in a certain way.

But if we distinguish the aesthetics of a place from the aesthetics of spatial directions, then it would be logical to make a distinction within this aesthetics, separating perceptionplaces as a closed, internal space from perceptionterrain.

In the aesthetics of a place we recognize, experience or “how is it here?” (interior), or his (places) "how's it going?" (terrain, landscape). Attention of a person contemplating terrain, is aimed at the structure (relief, shape) of a limited area of the earth's surface as a given of visible space. The focus of attention of the one who perceives the terrain is not the direction of possible movement, but the visible set of folds of the earth’s surface, the vegetation covering it, and those structures that are “inscribed” into the landscape by man. The view he contemplates is perceived as something whole, containing, something in which something and someone is located, that is, it is perceived as place of possible residence of the contemplator.

The soul of the one who contemplates closed space (interior), captures the feeling that arises (if it arises) during his stay “inside”, in the atmosphere that reigns in the interior. The place here is the space that surrounds us and is closed from the “outside world.” When we perceive a landscape, we are outside the area being contemplated (in “another place”), so that a fragment of space (the landscape) is located in front of us, and we are looking at it from the outside. If the terrain is a special object of contemplation, then the interior is the place in which a person finds himself. This is a place with a special mood, with a special atmosphere.

It's obvious that The aesthetics of a place are closer to traditional aesthetics than the aesthetics of destinations. The perception of a place from the inside (perception of the internal space of a room, courtyard, square, street) or from the outside (the area as a place-viewed-from-the-side) is built according to the logic of complete integrity (both the landscape and the room are perceived as places with boundaries). A place as a whole, closed space is perceived (like a wonderful/beautiful thing) as a world in miniature, as a small likeness of the containing Whole. Terrain and interior are not bodies, but they are something with integrity.

If a place is perceived and experienced as an independent, well-structured given-integrity (irrespective of the possibility of our being in it), then it is perceived and assessed in the horizon of aesthetic settings of the classical era (as the shape of a body). Unlike the phenomena of destination aesthetics, places may well be perceived, experienced and interpreted in terms of the beautiful, the wonderful, the ugly (a beautiful living room, a beautiful view, a beautiful landscape) 42
This allowed landscape and interior painting to become special genres of painting in the second half of the 16th – early 17th centuries. The aesthetic potential of these genres is dual. It allows the painting to be perceived both within the framework of the aesthetics of beauty and from the perspective of the aesthetics of place. The interior has (in terms of its experience as beautiful) fewer possibilities, since it does not “lie in front”, but embraces the contemplator from all sides, preventing him from perceiving and interpreting the givenness of a beautiful body in the logic, pushing him to describe his “how is it here?” not in terms of classical aesthetics, but in terms of the aesthetics of space.

But if the interior space of a house, a church, or a view of a mountain valley from the top of a surrounding hill is perceived not as directions of possible movement, not as a semblance of a body (not as a collection of things), but as a place-to-be - then we are dealing with the aesthetics of space.

Figure, background, place. Aesthetics of the place gets closer to the aesthetics of the body not only because a place can be perceived as a body (as a quasi-body, as a complete given). The fact is that place is associated in our minds with the idea of bodies and things. There is no thing without a place and there is no place without things that occupy it or can occupy it. When we perceive a thing, we are dealing with something in some place. However, when our attention is focused on a thing, the place is not perceived by us as an independent object of contemplation. When we perceive a thing (body), the place in which it is located turns out to be already not the place as an object of contemplation, and background our perception. As soon as we stop fixating our attention on a certain object (group of objects), the focus of attention is no longer a thing, but a place (be it the interior of a house, square, yard or locality).

Place, like the body, unlike the background, has boundaries. Place, as an independent object of perception, has its own structure. The body is different from the place, the contained is different from the containing. The place is special every time form , but not bodies, but spaces. This is a configuration of space, which in the act of perception does not disappear behind the figure (behind the body), remaining an object of contemplation 43
From a certain distance (for example, from near-Earth orbit), even the Earth appears as a body against the background of outer space. But when we are on the surface of the Earth, it is perceived as a containing space, like this or that terrain.

Whatever the configuration, it, unlike occupying his body remains that accommodates (can accommodate) bodies (things) 44
Even when some interior or some area turns out to be full (a place in which there is no free space), they do not cease to be perceived as containing spaces, inside which are located accommodating forms. The occupied space can be vacated, cleansed, after which it is again ready to receive the body.

In the “figure-ground” pair, the perception of the figure enters the field of consciousness "whatness" things, and the background is hers "Where"(her location). While in a room, we can stop our attention on a vase of flowers (“look, what beautiful flowers!”), or we can, moving around the room or glancing over it, perceive and evaluate it as a place (“what a cozy room!”) , feeling something about the room, and not about this or that thing.

When we perceive a body, the eyes seem to feel the object, making movements in the contour of its shape; in the same case, when we are talking about the perception of a place, they move across its entire area, providing material for its experience as a certain spatial reality (“what it is like”) , this place, what is it like to be in it?”). When we perceive the body, we fix our gaze on it, so that everything outside the body is “out of focus.” When perceiving a place, we do not fix our attention on things, we glide over them with our gaze, feeling the room or area with our eyes.

So, in the “figure-ground” pair, attention is occupied by or figure, or background. Moreover, when what was the background comes to the fore, it becomes view or interior A figure, when the distance to it increases and attention is not fixed on it, plunges into space , filled with many things, and turns into detail landscape or interior. This circumstance is clearly demonstrated by the history of European painting. The change of emphasis in aesthetic contemplation was fixed in the genre differentials of portrait and landscape, portrait and interior, still life and interior. In these genre pairs, the inversion of figure and ground is easy to read 45
For a long time, the focus of European fine art (from the Renaissance until about the middle of the 19th century) was the portrait and multi-figure composition on religious, mythological, historical and everyday subjects, while landscape and interior remained on the periphery of “high art”. However, if we move from the 16th century to the 20th, a curious trend will emerge: the closer to modern times, the more popular the landscape genre becomes. The interest of painters from portraits and multi-figure compositions shifts to landscapes in which people are present “on an equal footing” with cows, dogs and ducks, representing a detail in the picture of the area. Over time, the method of conveying nature that was used in working on landscapes (depicting space rather than figures) began to be used in depicting things and even faces. The boundaries of the figures began to blur, and they themselves fell apart into many components, and these components were included in the associative roll call with the elements of the background. As a result, the figures began to dissolve more and more noticeably in the atmosphere surrounding them, in the environment that embraced them, they began to move into it, and this environment, accordingly, ceased to be perceived as a background. Such paintings can be perceived as a portrait, a landscape, or a still life.

If we fix the difference between the aesthetics of a place and the aesthetics of a thing as beautiful/beautiful from the side of form, then all that has been said can be summarized as follows: in the aesthetics of the body, the harmony of the whole reveals itself in the form of one or another being; in the aesthetics of a place, the focus of attention is not the body, but the limited space perceived as a container (a place for beings). If within the framework of the aesthetics of beauty the form was an image of the world-as-a-body (as a whole), then in the aesthetics of place the form of a place appears as an image of the containing world (the world as a home), as that mega-place in which one can be and exist.

Aesthetics of directions. Unlike the perception of places, the perception of directions (dimensions) is not associated with the presence of a person or things in any space. Here, the sphere of the sensory given includes the possibility of something else in the image of space-for-movement (in the image of the world as a path-road) 46
The issue of possibility (freedom, openness, formation, processuality, time) is in the very center of attention of philosophers of the 20th–21st centuries; it, in particular, occupied such thinkers as Heidegger, Sartre, Berdyaev, Shestov, Deleuze, etc. It is also relevant for “synergetic anthropology” (S. Khoruzhy), which declared itself in post-perestroika Russia (S. Khoruzhy) and for the “philosophy of the possible” (M. Epstein). The aesthetics of possibility, developed within the framework of the “aesthetics of time” and “aesthetics of space,” can be seen as a response to epochal shifts in the history of Christian civilization.

But what, in fact, does it mean at the objective level to perceive the possibility/impossibility of something else, if we are talking about space, and not about the aesthetic reality of embodied modes of time? The answer is simple: perception of the possibility of movement , opportunities to change location.

In man, as an active being, spatial representations are formed in the course of objective activity. Different directions of space are the directions of our actual or hypothetical movement, this is the possibility/impossibility of movement. Our eye involuntarily measures and probes space, since we have the bodily experience of movement both horizontally (right/left) and vertically (up/down). (At its origin, space in its main directions is formed in the course of movement, in the process of tactile and visual probing of the surrounding world.) Space, distance, abyss and height are perceived as driving directions. In the experience of space, for example, the opportunity that opens up to us is the possibility of free movement in any direction horizontally, while in experience we perceive the possibility of movement horizontally into the depth of space. The main thing is not the view (although in the open space, of course, we can have a view of the beautiful landscape), but the possibility of other views, other landscapes, another existence 47
When we talk about the need to distinguish aesthetic dispositions associated with the perception of landscape from dispositions related to the aesthetics of directions, we cannot do without explanations. It is necessary to distinguish between the objective referent of an aesthetic disposition and the typological certainty of the aesthetic disposition itself. The referent may be the same, but the locations may be different. The same thing in one aesthetic situation can be perceived as old, in another - as shabby, in a third - as beautiful. The situation is similar with the external referent in the aesthetics of place and in the aesthetics of spatial dimensions: a landscape can be perceived as spacious (the object of aesthetic surprise is the breadth of open space), and it can also be experienced as a landscape that inspires a feeling of the sublime, beautiful, or, say, lost. With the same object of perception, in one case we will be dealing with the type of terrain, in another - with one or another form of space as the direction of possible movement of the body or gaze. Two landscape painters working side by side in the plein air can create paintings that are excellent in aesthetics. It is easy to assume, for example, that while one of them will focus on the distance, the other, perhaps, will convey on the canvas the feeling of loss that gripped him when looking at the broken silhouette of a frozen tree on a rocky ledge.

Space in its special directions (dimensions) appears here not as an image of an object (not as some “what”), but as a certain configuration of the field of possibilities the contemplator himself. This is not a limited mobility option. inside some kind of space (place and terrain as spaces of stay), but open possibilities for the movement of the gaze. When our eye does not encounter obstacles and our attention is captured by the experience of a direction as conditionally or unconditionally special, we are in one of the dispositions of the aesthetics of directions. In a situation of meeting with the measurement of height, the possibility/impossibility of vertical movement opens up before us (opens up for visual perception and, if we’re lucky, for aesthetic experience). But if we are given a vertical upward, it means that we are not given distance, space (width) and an abyss (as the possibility of falling down into the abyss). Each of the directions (dimensions) of space involved in the force field of an aesthetic event is the experience of the possibility of the Other, the Other, given in a special way in different forms of space as an extension. The task of aesthetic research is to find out the specifics of each of the dispositions of the aesthetics of the directions, to clarify their ontological constitution and emotional and sensory relief.

In the first chapter, we tried to comprehend those changes in the spiritual foundations of the European tradition, which, whether we like it or not, have already taken place and have changed the configuration of the aesthetic experience of modern man. The development of European society and culture in modern times has led, among many other consequences, to a shift in emphasis in the aesthetic sensitivity of the European. The closer we are to modern times, the more noticeable is the reorientation of aesthetic sensibility from the sensory detection of essence (the form of a thing) to opportunity , on the fact that Maybe , to heightened sensitivity to the conditions that determine existence (a shift from “what” to “how”). If classical aesthetics was the aesthetics of the perception of bodies and things (aesthetics of form) and corresponded to the understanding of the world as a completed whole, then in modern times a person is guided by the intuition of a becoming, incomplete, open world. The attention of the new man (modern man) is attracted not only by the forms of bodies, but also by the modes of space and time as conditions for the possibility/impossibility of movement (formation, renewal) of the subject and the place of his stay. In fact, the sensitivity of modern man has changed a long time ago, although this transformation was not thought out in philosophical aesthetics; sensitivity to space and the phenomena in which it reveals itself have not received philosophical understanding. One of the tasks of modern aesthetics is the analysis of aesthetic events, the focus of which is the perception of space and time, since they affect a person who is in search of himself (his essence, his goals).

We have sketched the general contours of the aesthetics of space as a special area of aesthetic experience and described the position occupied by the aesthetics of space on the map of aesthetic locations, delimiting it from adjacent areas, from aesthetics of object form and aesthetics of time. Within the aesthetics of space, two regions were identified: aesthetics of spatial directions And aesthetics of the place. In the latter we distinguished interior aesthetics And aesthetics of the area (landscape).

We conceptualize the aesthetics of place as an area of aesthetic experience in which attention is focused on space as a given, as a containing space, and the aesthetics of dimensions - as an aesthetic experience of the possibility/impossibility of movement to another space. If the possibility of movement or stay is not only perceived by us, but also completely captures attention as something special and its contemplation is accompanied by a special experience, we are dealing with one of the phenomena of the aesthetics of space. The distinctions made in the first chapter and the concepts introduced therein should be tested in the description and analysis of specific aesthetic dispositions, isolated through the conceptualization of the aesthetics of space from an indefinite set of special experiences.

Chapter 2
Aesthetics of directions

When starting to concretize the phenomena of space aesthetics, we will begin with a study of directions, and in the final, third chapter we will focus on the aesthetics of place. This sequence is due to the fact that it is sensitivity to directions, and not vice versa, created the conditions for the opening aesthetics of the place 48
Although the idea of space-as-extension was formed much later than the idea of place (just as the idea of linear time appeared much later than the idea of cyclical time), however, it was the valorization (B. Groys’s term) of space as extension (space-as- the possibility of something else) led to the discovery of place as an object of aesthetic attention, which received, in particular, expression in the emergence of the interior genre in painting.

Phenomena of aesthetics of directions 49
We choose the term “direction” because, unlike “dimension,” it maintains a semantic connection with movement, with one or another configuration of the possibility/impossibility of changing place. If we talk about the term "measurement", then it is good for distinguishing vertical directions from horizontal directions (vertical measurement space, for example, breaks down into the directions of height, height and abyss).

Will be discussed in the following order: first we focus on description and analysis space(and spacious 50
We will dwell on the phenomenon of spaciousness very briefly, and will postpone its detailed analysis for the future.

) And given(first part of the second chapter). Here we will explore arrangements whose aesthetic character is determined by the horizontal dimension of space. In the second part we will look at directions whose shape is determined by the vertical. Here our attention will be focused on the phenomena abysses, heights And height.

The aesthetics of the workplace lies in the rational combination of interior colors, the design of work furniture, the presence of artistic elements, interior landscaping, and lighting.

In the modern business world, it is customary to paint or wallpaper the walls of office premises in light neutral tones. The color design of office premises performs three functions: physiological, psychological and aesthetic.

The physiological function of color lies in its effect on the human nervous system. In the employee’s field of vision there should be colors that have a beneficial effect on the nervous system, as well as those that improve lighting due to the high coefficient of light reflection. Therefore, to paint the walls of office premises it is better to use light green, pastel, light green, light blue.

The psychological function of color lies in its effect on a person’s mental state: some colors (bright, rich) encourage, others (blue, green) calm, cold colors (blue, violet) cause a feeling of coolness even in warm rooms, warm colors (yellow, orange, yellow-green) contribute to a feeling of warmth in cool rooms.

The aesthetic function of color lies in its influence on the harmonious perception of the room, creating a beautiful color background favorable for work.

It is advisable to paint the walls in the premises taking into account the direction of the world to which the windows face, the climate, and the nature of the activity. So, when doing work that requires concentration, advantage is given to light colors that calm; if they are monotonous, bright and juicy are better. Light colors provide a feeling of cleanliness but require maintenance, while dark colors create an intimate atmosphere.

When choosing paint, you need to take into account the functional purpose of the premises. So, for corridors where there is insufficient lighting, a bright color, such as yellow, is better; for the reception area - calm, but not monotonous; for offices - dark.

Floors in office premises are increasingly being made of tiles - in any case, tiles predominate in corridors and halls. Parquet is for individual rooms, and in other cases - a standard floor covering with more or less pile or, what is less common, linoleum.

Decorations in office premises are possible, but their list is limited - these are prints, paintings, engravings, but the content of the above listed items of fine art should not be aggressive or provocative. Most often these are landscapes and still lifes that bring calm.

A license, diploma or other document can serve as decoration for the walls of the office premises and at the same time as an official “accessory” of the organization’s image, which indicates a high level of performance of official duties or the implementation of areas of activity.

Flowers can be a beautiful decoration for office spaces of all types. They not only decorate, but also create an informal atmosphere and soften psychological tension if the situation is close to conflict. Large leaf flowers have an advantage; small evergreen trees in flowerpots that stand on the floor also have a beautiful appearance.

It is also customary to use small sculptures as decoration - such objects are traditionally present in the offices of high-level managers.

In office premises for ordinary performers there is a need to have various information materials in an accessible form, so you can arrange them in such a way (beautiful frames) that they simultaneously serve as decoration.

It must be remembered that there should not be a lot of decorations in the office space; on the contrary, a small amount of them is intended to highlight the severity and formality of the environment.

In modern world practice, it is customary to equip the workspaces of organizations with standard furniture, which is produced in series, sets - for all tastes, at higher and lower cost. Private institutions sometimes use non-standard furniture for executive offices, but custom-made furniture to emphasize the official rank of the owner of the office.

6. Work culture.

Discipline and organization of labor behavior.

Discipline of labor behavior consists of unconditional compliance with internal labor regulations and timely completion of tasks and instructions. A civil servant must conscientiously fulfill his official duties, show initiative and creativity, and constantly improve the organization of his work.

According to the Constitution and laws of Ukraine, being late for work, premature termination of work, failure to appear for work without good reason - all this is absolutely incompatible with the status of a civil servant. No less important is performance discipline. Failure to complete an assignment on time at one work site may prevent the agency from preparing an important government assignment on time. The behavior of civil servants must meet the expectations of the public and ensure the trust of society and citizens in the public service, contribute to the realization of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen, as defined by the Constitution and laws of Ukraine. A civil servant must take care of the positive image and authority of government and the civil service as a whole, and value his name and status.

Responsibility of a civil servant.

The responsibility of a civil servant means that he is a “state” person, performs the task and functions of a government official. He must persistently and decisively carry out the most difficult tasks, stand up for the protection of state interests, do everything that depends on him to protect constitutional rights and freedoms in that area of state administration and local self-government that falls within his competence.

Violation of civil service rules is grounds for the application of disciplinary sanctions provided for by the relevant laws of Ukraine.

Aesthetics of space

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Title: Aesthetics of space

About the book “Aesthetics of Space” by Sergey Lishaev

The aesthetic givenness of space is considered in the conceptual horizon of the aesthetics of the Other (the phenomenology of aesthetic dispositions). The need to establish the aesthetics of space is associated with the formation of a new (non-classical) type of sensitivity that focuses attention on the experience of the possibility/impossibility of something else. A study is conducted of the historical foundations of the formation of a new sensitivity and shows how the aesthetics of space as an aesthetics of existence (possibility, becoming) complements the aesthetics of beautiful form (essentialist aesthetics). In the aesthetics of space, two areas of experience are distinguished, one of which is defined through the concept of place, and the other through the concept of direction. The second part of the book is devoted to the analysis of specific aesthetic phenomena, including space, distance, height, height, abyss, comfort, etc.

The book is of interest to philosophers, cultural scholars, literary critics, art critics, psychologists and anyone interested in modern aesthetics, philosophical anthropology, ontology and cultural theory.

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A series: Bodies of thought

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The given introductory fragment of the book Aesthetics of space (S. A. Lishaev, 2015) provided by our book partner - the company liters.

Givenness and possibility in aesthetic experience

1.1. Aesthetics of space: cultural, historical and existential dimensions

Aesthetic experience is diverse, and aesthetic experiences correlated with certain forms of space have been familiar to people for a long time. However, not everything that is in experience is fixed in language and becomes a given of social consciousness. In turn, not all metaphysically marked experience (including experience already articulated in language) falls into the field of view of the philosopher and becomes the subject of aesthetic analysis. Attaching special terms to experiences and their objects, comprehending these experiences in art, science and philosophy, assigning them a special value status (their “valorization”) depends on the morphology of the culture to which its bearers belong.

Each culture endows a person with specific linguistic optics, which corrects the perception of the world through the “work” of language that escapes the subject’s attention. Semantic filters prevent attention from fixating on experiences that are not relevant to the culture. The bearers of tradition recognize and recognize (in particular, recognize it as aesthetically valuable) only experience that is legitimized at the cultural and linguistic level. Most often, representatives of a particular culture recognize the experience that is fixed terminologically, and, accordingly, it is this experience that arouses the interest of both subjects of specialized reflective practices and people of art. So, some of our experiences and drives are equipped with a linguistic (cultural-semantic) “pass” that gives access to personal consciousness as such and such a feeling, drive, experience, while others remain in a limbo of languagelessness, eluding our attention. However, aesthetic phenomena that are hidden from consciousness, at some point (at the moment when favorable conditions are ripe for this) are able to come to light and, becoming the subject of attention and interest, receive public recognition, join the phenomena included in the aesthetic thesaurus of culture .

However, even named experiences do not immediately become objects of aesthetic reflection proper. In order for the invisible to become visible, for a new phenomenon to receive a name and then enter the subject field of aesthetic theory, shifts must occur “at depth” (in a person’s worldview, in the foundations of social life, in its very existence). Answering the question why such a powerful aesthetic attractor as space has not attracted philosophical attention for centuries, it is worth considering the influence of fundamental cultural attitudes on the aesthetic sensibility of Europeans in historical retrospect.

Aesthetics of space and new sensitivity (to posing the question). The past century has been rich in discoveries, crises and cataclysms. World wars and revolutions, the birth and death of empires, the emergence of a consumer society, the emergence of new media and the spread of network forms of communication have transformed the world. Perhaps the first in a series of shocks was the revolution in art. But the focus of our attention is not on the experimental aesthetics of the creators of new art, but on the the type of sensitivity that was formed in European culture by the beginning of the 20th century, and the cultural, historical and existential conditions that prepared it.

In order to find a new type of sensitivity, it is necessary to go beyond the boundaries of the philosophy of art and try to comprehend the changes in the worldview of Europeans over the few centuries that separate the birth of post-medieval art from its decisive destruction at the beginning of the 20th century.

One of the tasks of philosophical aesthetics is precisely to explore the direction in which the transformation of aesthetic sensibility is taking place, and to describe those of its forms that determine our sensitivity today. The fact is that not all aesthetic phenomena of our time can be contained with the help of the categorical devices of classical aesthetics. Modern culture and theoretical aesthetics need to develop such conceptual optics, which, on the one hand, would be able to expand the space of aesthetic reflection in accordance with the transformation of aesthetic experience, and on the other hand, maintain a connection with tradition, retaining (and rethinking) the experience from which classical aesthetics was set in motion.

The initial principles of aesthetics, which would be adequate to modern problems, were formulated by us within the framework of the “phenomenology of aesthetic dispositions,” which focuses research attention not so much on the beautiful and the ugly, but on the phenomena of space and time.

In the first section of the first chapter we will focus on conditions that make the aesthetic conceptualization of space possible and necessary. Their identification involves asking a number of general questions. Here are some of them.

What led classical aesthetics to a crisis and why did the principles of the old aesthetics lose their credibility? How can we characterize the new sensitivity, what is its specificity? How is the new sensitivity related to the perception of space?

Traditional society and aesthetics of beauty (a beautiful body as an image of the whole). And for the mythological archaic, and for antiquity, and for the Middle Ages, and for Europe of the New Age (up to the romantic revolution of the late 18th - early 19th centuries), the idea of the world as a complete whole is characteristic. The world is given, it is somehow arranged, structured, an unshakable order has been established in it (from time immemorial), and a person must follow this order, conform. And how could it be otherwise, if a person occupies a certain place in it, pre-allocated to him? A person, whose mental horizon is determined by the idea of the world as a complete whole, is focused on knowing not what is changeable, not becoming, not what is possible, but what is, and best of all is what is eternal. The idea of the structure of the universe was used as a tuning fork, with the help of which the life of an individual should be brought into line with the “music of the spheres.” By checking his life and the lives of his neighbors with the music of the Whole, a person had to correct the lies of his existence, which deviates from the straight path, according to the truth of its harmonious consonances.

People who looked at the world through the categorical optics of European (first ancient, then Christian) culture, in their aesthetic attitude towards it, proceeded from the concept of beauty (started from a beautiful, harmonious form). The dominance of the idea of beauty had serious reasons. For both archaic and traditional society, the world is a well-ordered and hierarchically built mega-body. The world here was comprehended according to the model set by the human body, and the bodies of humans and other beings were considered as components of the universe (bodies within the world). Since the world was thought of as a complete whole (mega-body), attention was focused on what corresponded to the idea of the world as a well-structured body. In such a semantic context, the privileged object of sensory perception was beautiful physicality, beautiful form.

The emphasis was on this , on order (cosmic, local, social order), which must be tirelessly maintained. The world of sensory things and bodies was associated with the divine, higher world (with the world of ideas, forms, essences). In the minds of ancient thinkers (Platonists, Peripatetics), the world, perceived with the help of the senses, is kept from falling into chaos by the perfection of semantic forms, hemming earthly bodies that constantly deviate from them to the sky of semantic certainty. Ideas and semantic forms give the universe majestic stability and ensure its continuously recreated orderliness.

With this model of worldview, bodies that are distinguished by definiteness of form and perfect proportions acquire special value. Their contemplation confirms (and directly, at the level of experience) the belief in the orderliness, cosmic nature of the world, in its suitability for human existence. Behind the fluidity of everyday life, such contemplation revealed stability and certainty, supporting the confidence that “fluid” things have an eternal basis, that the order of life is reliably ensured. Confidence in the orderliness of the universe helped to build a certain ethos and maintain (at least relative) order in minds and human relationships.

However, anyone who comes from the world as a cosmos must be convinced again and again that the world is cosmic, since order is constantly threatened by disorder and chaos. Contemplation of beauty confirmed that local order (in the home, in the community, in the state) is based on the cosmic order. The intrusion of disorder into life does not violate the overall harmony: disorder on the periphery of the universe can destroy someone’s prosperity, but it cannot shake the foundations of the universe.

The idea of a perfect, beautiful body did not remain unchanged. It has transformed from era to era. The perfect body of antiquity was the body of a god (goddess). Divine (perfect) bodies were the standard by which the bodies of godlike heroes, sages, warriors, and athletes were “measured” (evaluated).

In the Christian tradition, a perfect body is a spiritualized body, permeated with unearthly light. Perfect corporeality appears here as corporeality transformed (it was precisely this physicality that the images of Christ, the Mother of God, the apostles and saints on icons, frescoes, and on the pages of illuminated manuscripts referred to).

If we proceed from the universal reality, from the fact that Truth is the eternal foundation of the universe (in this case, it does not matter whether we call it the One, Mind, God, Substance, Spirit or the Absolute), then the principle of identity will receive priority over the principle of difference, the general - over the individual, essence over existence, repetition of the same over the unique, peace over becoming, classical metaphysics over ad hoc metaphysics. From the perspective of philosophical analytics of aesthetic experience, this means that before the onset of the romantic era (until the end of the 18th century), the center of aesthetic reflection could have been (and was) body : the human body, as well as the bodies of animals, plants and the “bodies of things”. These bodies appeared to the reflective mind as forms whose sensory image revealed them quanity . The body was the more attractive the better its external form expressed the prototype (idea, essence, prototype).

The beautiful body has been in the center of attention of peoples and spiritual elites for a very long time: from the mythological archaism to the early modern period inclusive. Only since the Enlightenment and the romantic revolution in culture, attention to the purity, to the perfection and completeness of the form of things began to weaken. The gaze of Europeans, starting from the Renaissance (and more and more), turned to space and time. Time turns out to be something that is lost, accumulated, planned, something that needs to be sought, preserved and rationally used. However, in this book we are interested not in time, but in space. Space in this era becomes a “problem” that must be solved, including aesthetically. The history of fine art allows us to literally see, how the attention of Europeans gradually shifted from bodily form to the form of space.

Since the Renaissance, artists have returned to the cultivation of the image earthly, untransformed body. The turn to sensual beauty found its most vivid expression in the fine arts. The image of a person included something that was not in ancient examples: horizon, perspective, chiaroscuro, three-quarter rotation. In other words, it included the variability of this worldly life, the mobility and exciting transition of its forms. The images of this and later eras are images of a body that is beautiful, beautiful or interesting (“bizarre”) in its shape, a body that is not impersonal, eidetic , individualized, psychologized, changeable.

The history of landscape as a genre of easel painting begins in the 16th century, but reaches its peak later. In parallel with the development of landscape painting, gardening art is also developing. The park planner works with the natural landscape and creates landscapes that can in a special way attune human hearts to the contemplation of different modes of space (lookouts, open spaces, perspectives, etc.) and time (garden ruin).

From the moment when His human nature came to the fore in the image of Christ, reflections of “heavenly beauty” began to be sought in the descendants of the old Adam, in their earthly appearance. Along with the rehabilitation of the mortal body, hopes also grew that a person’s earthly life could, if one tried, be improved, perfected, and - someday in the future - build a society where life would be happy and harmonious. The gaze, directed upward into the sky, slid along the earth's surface, rushing into the distance, into the future. The era of great geographical discoveries and the era of social utopias are one and the same – humanistic – era, which discovered the aesthetic value of space and time as two forms of movement towards the new.

For a long time, movement into the distance was hampered by the social and mental structures of traditional society. And although from the 15th–16th centuries in Europe start new forms of social, economic and political activity are taking shape, and the usual goals and values are slowly but steadily changing, the life of society as a whole (the life of the “silent majority”) is still determined by tradition. During these centuries (until about the middle of the 18th century), Europe continued dominate orientation to the given, not the given, to the past, not the future(the future here is not the world that will one day be built; it is either a reproduction of the great past (antiquity, early Christianity), or an eschatological future, “the end of the world”). And as long as the religious and socio-political foundations of old Europe formed the foundation of European culture, modern man imagined the world as a hierarchy of spiritual and physical forms.

As we see, philosophers of antiquity and the Middle Ages, as well as thinkers of the 18th–19th centuries (and to a large extent of the 20th century) in their reflections on “subtle” things (not derived either from the sphere of sacred experience, or from human sexuality, or from the fact that pleasant or useful) feelings started from the image of beautiful physicality, from its harmonious form. It was the body, the thing, the form that was the privileged subject of their research interest.

A shift in attention from fascination with the harmonious body to experiences not related to the aesthetics of beauty can be detected already in the 18th century (especially in its second half), simultaneously with the legitimation of disciplinary aesthetics.

Dismantling of ideas about the world as a complete whole and the crisis of the aesthetics of beauty . The crisis of the aesthetics of beauty in a profound way associated with the destruction of the image of a completed (closed to a new) world. The changes taking place in the consciousness of the cultural elite gradually accumulated, summed up and prepared the ground for a more radical turn in ideas about God, the world and man than that which the spiritual atmosphere of the 15th–16th centuries brought with it. From about the middle of the eighteenth century, the Christian world entered a phase of rapid and radical change in political, socio-economic and spiritual life. These changes were expressed in the rapid, by historical standards, destruction of the religious and metaphysical foundations of European culture. This process was accompanied by the destruction of the supporting pillars of the monarchical, organically class structure of society and the state. The most important result of changes in social and spiritual life was precisely the loss of the intuition of a holistic, complete world as the foundation of the traditional worldview.

Associated with the decline of ideas about the world and the state as an unchanging, hierarchically structured order is a shift in attention from the eternal to the temporary, to what “by its nature” allows the intrusion of a rationally acting person planning the future. From this point on, people begin to assume that they have the right to intervene in the usual course of life, if only this intervention is aimed at improving it. This attitude gradually changed a person’s attitude towards his life. He wasn't ready anymore reside life, accepting its content as a given (as one’s destiny, one’s share), and the further, the more inclined to do her, that is design , to translate your own idea about yourself into action, into reality. In a traditional society, such an attitude, of course, was also possible, but not as a general rule, but as an exception to it. (Only one opportunity to change place and life was open to everyone - this is the path of the ascetic, the monk).

In a traditional society, the future is determined in advance; it is thought of as a repetition of what happened. Future reproduces the given according to the rule of the former. This a known future. Such a future is quite organic for a society in which people do not seek truth(s), but recognize themselves as standing before the Truth. Everyone who believes must accept the existing order of things and follow proven paths, striving to get closer to God and gain (by the grace of God) salvation. The unexpected, the unprecedented, even if it can come, then one should not expect the unprecedented from God or from people. When something unusual, new happens, it is viewed either as a miracle, or as a deviation from what should be, as a sin, as a misdemeanor. If a person has traditions a future that does not reproduce the past, then it is determined by holiness, miracle or deviating criminal will...

The future of pre-Christian society (antiquity) is aimed at reproducing the past-present. Christianity opens this cyclical time. The creation of the world, the fall of man, the apocalypse and the Last Judgment straightened the ring of time and gave it direction. Eternity now is not the world in its ideal (smart) center, eternity is God. The arrow of time is launched upward into the Sky.

At the end of the 18th century, time, open towards eternity, was reoriented in the horizontal dimension and served to comprehend and structure private and public life. Time is now not connected with God the Creator, Redeemer and Savior, although it does not curl up, as in the old days, in golden rings around the unchanging Center (around the Good, the One or the Prime Mover Mind). Faith in the Creator broke the spell cast on consciousness by the alternation of seasons, and secularization public and private life opened the future no longer in the image of the Last Judgment and the Kingdom of Heaven, but in the form of possibility which a person can realize in accordance with what he himself considers reasonable, fair and useful for ourselves, for others, for humanity as a whole.

The loss of the prospect of spiritual ascent and the acquisition of eternal life in the rays of the Lord’s Love, which transcends time, was accompanied by a re-emphasis of attention, focused on the upward movement of man and humanity (“development”, “progress”, the coming “kingdom of freedom and reason”), on their self-affirmation in time. By delegating the fullness and integrity of presence to the “beautiful far away,” a person gave meaning to his short-term existence; his inner gaze was directed towards the magical ball of future perfection in the circle of this world. A person looking to the future leaves the disorder/imperfection of everyday life and fits his actions (and his life as a set of actions in time) into the virtual horizon of the sought-after integrity. Even though the world is still far from perfect, it is developing, changing, amenable to the purposeful influence of rational will, therefore, there, in the future, life will be better, it is even possible that it will be beautiful, perfect. Life finds integrity and completeness in utopia. Dream and revolution are what youth bestows on a person, but not maturity or old age. In the era of mature modern times, an individual is expected to be prepared actively transform natural and social reality, change oneself and the world in accordance with the humanistic project (understood one way or another).

Since the Enlightenment and especially since the era of romanticism, the idea of an upward movement towards the future has dominated in Europe. The future takes precedence over the past, and the new takes over the old not just by trend(the earthly future of humanity is better than its present), but also in fact(everyday life is built on the basis of what will happen). However, even at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Whole was for the European what he lacked, what attracted him to it. In Hegel’s philosophy, the world as a Whole turns out to be the immanent Goal of logical and historical development, and the subjective and objective spirit in it ultimately achieve the desired completeness and specificity, which gives historians of philosophy grounds to classify this thinker as a philosopher of the classical type. But it was precisely the completeness of world development that was perceived by Hegel’s contemporaries as a “false note,” since it was dissonant with the open-to-future consciousness of his young contemporaries. Soon after the death of the thinker, his system was discarded, and the dialectical method, understood as the logic of negation, self-movement and development, found application in philosophy, social theory, history, and humanitarian knowledge in general.

Thus, from about the beginning of the 19th century, the attention of Europeans was already captured by not only the given, but also the possibility; he is now interested not only in things, bodies, but also in space and time as freedom of movement, as a condition for the self-realization of individuality and historical construction. It is important to be someone, to occupy a worthy position in society, but even more important is the opportunity to change place. Opportunity begins to be valued more than a given, seeing in it a source of renewal and improvement of the world and man.

From eternal to temporary (aesthetic experience of time and space). The collapse of traditional culture was accompanied by the secularization of consciousness, the crisis of classical philosophy, instrumentalization and specialization of thinking, etc.

What were the consequences of shifting attention from completed forms to constant renewal of life? for aesthetic consciousness and philosophical aesthetics? After all, it is quite obvious that these changes could not but affect the aesthetic sensibility of man.

Already at the level of visual perception focusing consciousness on the possibility of something else involves transferring attention from bodies and things to the possibility/impossibility of movement, to a change of location (aesthetics of space), to the experience of the possibility/impossibility of being different, of existing differently (aesthetics of time).

The attention of a person who does not yet know (does not know in advance) “who he is” and “what he is”, and who little by little loses confidence that he knows how the world works, shifts from things and places to 1) temporary characteristics of existence and 2) space as the possibility of movement, movement. In a “society of possibilities” and “prospects,” sensitivity to the forms of space and time naturally increases. Aesthetic perception of space is the experience of the reality of the Other not through a special form of the body, but through a special form of space.

What was the change in the aesthetic priorities of a person in the late modern era? Firstly, in the shift of attention from the beautiful form (symbolizing the completeness and orderliness of the world) to what denies it (the aesthetics of the ugly, ugly, terrible, terrible). Secondly, in the growth of sensitivity to aesthetic phenomena in which What comes to the fore is not the quaternity of things, but the experience of various modes of possibility/impossibility.

New sensibility and revolution in art . The possibility of something else as a special aesthetic experience. The fall away from the beautiful given is most easily traced through the material of fine art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. First, bodies and things dissolve (reveal) in intense light and color (impressionistic atmosphere), then they are anatomized (cubist studies of form), after which they lose their figuration, so that the viewer of the canvas finds himself in the realm of lines, dots, geometric shapes and color spots (abstract art ). In the end, the logic of the consistent denial of “mimetic aesthetics” and the pictorial tradition should have led artists to refuse from the creation of the work as an object-for-contemplation. This was demonstrated by Duchamp, whose revolutionary gesture was consolidated in the experiments of pop art supporters, in conceptualism and actionism.

The denial of figurativeness is the logical result of the evolution of a culture that has lost faith in the relation of existing things to an unconditional Beginning (to the absolute). If existence is not attached to the unconditional (be it the Platonic One-Good or the Creator, the Creator of the world), then mimesis loses its ontological foundation and the subject's attention shifts from imitation of the given to the invention/depiction of possible worlds.

Processes similar to those that are clearly visible in the history of European painting can be observed in other forms of art. In literature, for example, the focus of attention is increasingly not on what was or could be in the past (in the past of personal memory or in the historical past), not on what is, not on what could be in the future, based on conditions that exist now, but what one can imagine (possible, imaginary worlds). It is on the airy foundation of possibility that the magical worlds of fantasy (from Tolkien and Lewis to many of their successors) or science fiction are built. By placing their heroes in a deliberately non-existent (and never existed) imaginary world, the authors fill it with gods, people, magicians, heroes, peoples, animals, plants, landscapes, languages, etc.

The foundation of the “religion of progress” (which took the truncated form of the religion of technical progress after two world wars) is an unshakable (and naive) belief in the saving power of the novelty of the new. In a culture based on the sacralization of novelty , on its transformation into an object of quasi-religious cult, the desacralization of the authoritative, exemplary, classical is nothing more than the flip side of “new love” (or “kainerastia”, in the words of A.I. Sosland). But if the new comes to the fore, then the past is no longer perceived as something worth reproducing (the best that the cultural and political elite of the last two centuries can offer the past is respect and understanding). The past is no longer sacred, it is historical. The past can be used as a resource for renewal: by throwing differences, prohibitions, traditions, norms and moral principles inherited from the past into the furnace of change, you can get energy released from the combustion of differences for accelerated movement into an unknown (but, as many would like to think, happy) future.

Analytical decomposition and discrediting of the unconditional values of classical culture in art manifested itself earlier and most clearly in painting. The avant-garde of the early 20th century was enthusiastically engaged in the analytical unraveling (debunking) of traditional aesthetic institutions, symbolically crossing out what was previously considered as forever established, completed, eternal. Worship of the novelty of the new inevitably led to a demarche against established norms. After all, the speed of change and renewal of life forms directly depended on the ability to abandon inherited religious, moral, artistic and other principles. The more freedom from the heritage of past centuries, the higher the rate of renewal. In order for the pace of movement “forward” not to decrease, but to increase, it is necessary to “raise the anchors” of unconditional values, to free humanity from prejudices and superstitions. (It should be noted that Mikhail Bakunin’s motto – “the passion for destruction is at the same time a creative passion” – was taken up with truly revolutionary enthusiasm among avant-garde artists).

It must be admitted that in the first half of the 20th century there was still something to destroy, something to build on. The moral, aesthetic and everyday principles of the old world retained a noticeable influence in this era. This is evidenced by the stormy reaction of the public to experimental art. At the beginning of the 20th century, a revolution in art was still a revolution. The public's reaction to the shocking gestures of the artists highlighted the names of the violators of the foundations and brought them first notoriety, and then the glory of the creators of new art, “classics of the avant-garde.” But in the second half of the last century, the experiment lost its novelty and turned into everyday art practice, becoming something commonplace and routine.

The supporting structures of fine art, based on the classical tradition, were dismantled over several decades. The debunking of the values of the past quickly became commonplace and ceased to offend the respectable public. The sensitivity threshold has decreased. It has become difficult, almost impossible, to touch the heart of an apathetic audience that has lost its definite aesthetic expectations (“Does it matter? Tara-ra-ra-bumbia, I’m sitting on the pedestal”).

In aesthetic dispositions focused on the beautiful body, we are dealing with an event in which the world is either affirmed as a beautiful given, or, as in the experience of the ugly, the integrity, beauty and meaningfulness of the world is called into question. If a thing is beautiful, it testifies (at the level of experience) to the presence of harmony and meaning in the world. If nonsense comes to the fore, and the question about the ultimate meaning is perceived as naive or even indecent (“wild”), this means that the focus is on becoming, not the given, the possibility, not reality.

It is obvious that behind the new art there is a new worldview, a new way of reproducing the human. It is based on a heightened experience of the falsehood of a further (but already mechanical, formal) continuation of the old art. At some point, the creation of works oriented towards the classical tradition begins to be perceived as an activity devoid of content, as an empty imitation. In a world posed by possibility, there is a need to describe space as a special object of perception.

New sensitivity and aesthetic theory. The socio-cultural and existential changes of recent decades have had a very noticeable impact on art, on literary and artistic criticism, on art criticism and literary criticism, but on aesthetics they had little effect. The conceptual horizon of philosophical aesthetics, if we talk about its basic categories, is still determined by the opposition beautiful/ugly.

Here, however, it should be noted that the space of aesthetic experience expanded back in the eighteenth century, when (in addition to the beautiful) the category of the sublime appeared in philosophy.

Today, from a distance of more than two hundred years, we can confidently say that the analysis of the sublime was the result and expression of the crisis of classical philosophy and aesthetics. Burke and Kant separated the aesthetics of the sublime from the aesthetics of the beautiful as a new, “other” aesthetics. The sublime has become a kind of testing ground for non-classical approaches to the analysis of aesthetic experience. The description of the subject referents of the sublime and the analysis of sublime feelings contributed to the inclusion of new objects of perception, unusual for classical aesthetics, in the sphere of aesthetic reflection. In particular, these included the fact that great in size, in extent, in tangible (manifest) power and strength.

However, space interested Burke and Kant (and after them Schiller, Schelling, etc.) not in itself (not as a special area of aesthetic perception), but in a series of phenomena, capable of awakening a sublime feeling in a person (being objective reasons for such a feeling), and did not become a subject of independent interest. Space in the works of these thinkers is just one of multiple referents of sublime experience and aesthetic judgment.

Despite the fact that in the 19th and 20th centuries artists actively experimented with space (and not just with the figure), we did not see much progress in its philosophical and aesthetic analysis during this period. The 20th century provided many meaningful studies of how to work with space in painting, architecture and literature, but the modes of space on the other side of artistic practice remained conceptually undeveloped.

The closest the problematic of space aesthetics comes to the thematic fields cultivated by philosophers of the existential-phenomenological tradition and poststructuralists. However, neither phenomenologists nor representatives of existentialism showed interest in it. They were only interested in space in works of art. This, of course, cannot but surprise, because space is like phenomenon of perception (but not as a special aesthetic experience) has been studied by many prominent phenomenologists.

The poststructuralists were no exception. Considering the aesthetic effectiveness of space, they do not go beyond the boundaries of the philosophy of art. Exploring the art practice of the 20th century, they turn to the concepts of the sublime, terrible and disgusting (analyst of the sublime in the works of J. Lyotard, disgusting and terrible in Y. Kristeva), but not to the aesthetics of space.

The category of “sublime”, which occupied the second most important place in aesthetic theory in the period of transition to new sensitivity (in the second half of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries), carried within itself such opportunities for expanding the field of aesthetic reflection that went beyond the boundaries outlined by classical philosophy . This allowed J. Lyotard to use the sublime to characterize the artistic avant-gardes of the 20th century. This line of thinking is completely justified, although it seems to us not radical enough. We believe that the concept of the sublime alone is not enough to analyze the new sensitivity.

Neither the aesthetics of the ugly nor the aesthetics of the sublime allows us to identify the positive content of the new aesthetic sensitivity. We have - in general terms - already defined this content. It remains to concretize it on the material of aesthetic experience.

From the body to the place. Conceptual elaboration of a new sensitivity (experience of possibility, becoming, existence) can develop By- least - two directions. One of them is aesthetics of time, other – aesthetics of space. Below we will talk about the aesthetics of space. This aesthetics falls into two phenomenal areas: the aesthetics of place and the aesthetics of directions (dimensions) of space.

The focus of the first is on the enclosed space as real place or possible stay(cozy, solemn, sacred, etc. place). The focus is on the second one - directions of possible movement(space, distance, height, abyss).

In classical cultures, the world was perceived as a megabody, as a place for many small bodies. At the same time, it was the bodies and forms that aroused interest, but the place and terrain did not fall into the field of aesthetically oriented attention and reflection. In order for a place to become an independent object of perception, it was necessary to go beyond the usual archaic, ancient and medieval worldview of the world as a mega-body. Social, cultural and spiritual transformations in the Renaissance and Modern times, which made it possible to open space and perceive it as a field of possible movements, opened up the containing space (place) for aesthetic perception and appreciation. The world began to be perceived not as a body, but as a field of possibilities. Changes (and more and more) began to be perceived as leading “to the better.” The ability to change the existing “order of things” acquires fundamental importance in this situation. The new culture emphasized the possibility (and right) of a person to change his location or... to remain in place. The area and the place have become something that deserves attention in itself.

In a traditional society, the place occupied by a person (place of residence associated with his place in society) (pre)determined his life from birth to death (“where he was born, he was useful there”). In modern times the situation has changed. A modern person comprehends himself and his existence not through the place he occupies (“according to tradition”), not through compliance/inconsistency with it, but through personal desires and goals, through the extent to which it is possible to realize them “in practice.” The world for a modern man is set of project opportunities, one of which he must choose. Man came to the fore as a free agent, focused on finding your place in life. If society does not provide the seeker with a suitable place, then he, ideally, should make an effort and create it for himself (for himself), expanding the range of life opportunities and making it easier for other people to find his place. A cultural hero of the New Age is one who creates (or opens) new places, new opportunities. The creators of new projects, new life paths are heroized and become widely known, “going down in history.” The perspective is determined by the goal, and hard work and overcoming obstacles are thought of as necessary conditions for achieving it.

The shift of attention from imitation to formation in the horizon of an unknown future initially (until approximately the middle of the 20th century) assumed achievement after some time the ultimate goal, the implementation of which was associated with a person’s finding himself.

Life-building, carried out at one's own peril and risk, was a dangerous journey to the foggy shores of the “dream” (to the desired idea of oneself and one’s place). The wanderer relates to his “native places” in a new way, from a certain (spatially and temporally determined) distance (the effect of defamiliarization). The search for a place revealed the area as an object of contemplation, as something special, attractive, captivating.

Spending his life within the walls of his house and merging with the landscape, a person (of course) in this case retained opportunity an aesthetic encounter with space, but its likelihood was low. Entering the historical stage “man of the path” separated him from his native area and thereby made its aesthetic perception more likely. Breaking away from his native places, a man opens up to the landscape and discovers it for himself. A new landscape for a traveler is an object of contemplation, admiration and poetic description; In this case, both the old things he left at home and the things he encountered on the way become new.

Not only new “cities and villages” come into the traveler’s field of vision, but also places that are familiar to him (family home, village, city, landscape). When we distance ourselves from the familiar, we get the opportunity to perceive the long-familiar as special.

The history of the landscape genre in modern times shows that not only unusual (historical, romantic, exotic) landscapes become the subject of aesthetic admiration, but also views that are well known to the artist and his customer. The same can be said about the interior genre, which century after century shifted from solemn or luxurious interiors to lyrical interiors of living rooms, offices and children's rooms (aesthetics of comfort). The valorization of the intimate interior occurs in those centuries (XVII-XVIII centuries), during which landscape was established as an independent pictorial genre. It was then that the sensitivity of Europeans to the aesthetics of closed spaces intended for private life was formed.

Man of the path and the aesthetics of spatial directions (socio-cultural and existential context).

“Man of the Way” is open to the influence of landscape and interior as special forms of space (open to terrain and place). But not only for them. Gains access to his soul space as a stretch, as one or another mode of possibility of taking (another) place. The point, of course, is not only that modern man began to move around the world more and faster. The figure of a wanderer - be it a pilgrim, a merchant, a knight - was common in the Middle Ages. But for medieval culture, space did not become a subject of artistic and theoretical interest. Within this culture, the events of a person’s earthly life received significance and became the focus of attention to the extent that they could be symbolically correlated with the horizon of the Divine. The aesthetic experience of distance, space, heights or abyss attracts the attention of a person for whom earthly life becomes significant and valuable in itself. The search for one’s “place in life” little by little becomes the main existential interest of a modern person. Even the salvation of the soul becomes dependent on this-worldly human activity and on its social and economic success (paradoxes of Protestant ethics, the idea of a divine calling and profession).

If until the moment when the search for a “place in life” captured the attention of the European, various forms of space, although perceived by man, did not become the subject of interested attention, then after this turn to earthly success, various directions of space(distance, space, height, abyss) began to attract his attention. People of this era experience the influence of new worldviews, at the same time they themselves become active conductors of the modern worldview and world-sense. Not the least place among them was occupied by professional artists, who embodied on canvas what others (sensitive) only saw and experienced.

Such a genre of new European painting as landscape provided the opportunity for artistic representation directions of movement (look and/or body). Although the emphasis in the landscape genre is on the ground , so that a person contemplating a landscape-in-a-picture perceives (if the landscape provides such an opportunity) direction of space (distance, width or, say, height) there are no obstacles. The history of landscape as a genre of fine art reveals many attempts to convey to the viewer the aesthetic potential of spatial directions (and not just terrain) and awaken a special experience in his soul. Landscape painting fostered sensitivity to different directions of space. However, neither the landscape nor the interior were considered in terms of spatial aesthetics due to the lack of suitable conceptual and theoretical tools.

Those phenomena in art that Today we qualify as the first glimpses of a new sensitivity, at the moment of their emergence and subsequent development they were considered and assessed in the usual terms of the beautiful and the beautiful, the majestic and harmonious, the ugly or the picturesque. Images of space-as-possibility-of-movement were present in the landscapes latently, not articulated, not comprehended. The use of familiar terms in assessing landscape painting completely satisfied its contemplators, since they dealt with the painting as a thing. A painting as a thing (that is, as a canvas covered with multi-colored paints, as a stretcher and frame) can always be assessed in the categorical horizon of the beautiful/ugly. As for the perception of what is depicted (and this is where the new sensitivity in painting reveals itself), the lack of a conceptual language for the aesthetics of space did not allow focusing attention on the representation of its directions.

In order for space to become the subject of aesthetic reflection, its forms must be perceived as aesthetically significant and valuable. If this happened, then it is not difficult to detect them in works of fine art. A decisive turn from form to space occurred relatively recently, in the last decades of the 20th century, when the final goal (and therefore the holistic form) was discredited and ceased to distract attention from experiencing the forms of space as modes of the possibility of movement. For a long time, the painting as a thing “concealed” from the recipient the new sensitivity implicitly present in it, just as the idea of the final goal of the movement left the movement itself in the shadows. But the closer we get to our century, the more often we encounter the idea of human life how about becoming without a goal , as about a limitless search of possibilities (“you have to try everything in this life!”). The center of gravity in such a view of life lies not in the completion of the movement, not in its goal, and in the very formation , in what happens (is experienced) “along the way,” in the very transition from one thing to another.

The transition from modernity to postmodernity is marked by the displacement of the idea of “man-sets-goals-and-achieves-what-is-desired” by the idea of “man-in-endless-movement” (the old model still works, but it is actively being replaced by the new one). A person has appeared on the historical stage who seeks to elude any definitions, any identifications (including self-identification as obliging me to become what I want to become), considering any obligatory certainty as a subtle form of slavery, enslavement, suppression. His idea of success is not associated with any specific area of activity, and his profession is not perceived as a vocation. A postmodern person receives satisfaction from the very process of becoming different, from changing positions, roles and places, from those experiences that arise during the transition from the familiar to the unusual, special, and different.

His sensitivity to processuality, formation, metamorphosis and displacement is heightened; It is not things and even not the aura of a place, but the perception and experience of directions of possible movement. Space in its directions (space as a form of possibility) is one of the most relevant subjects of philosophical and aesthetic reflection today.

In the classical era, perfection was thought of as the harmony of the whole and was experienced in the contemplation of the perfection of a beautiful form. Nowadays, people are increasingly gaining a feeling of completeness not through contemplation of a perfect body(some closed structure, composition...), and through the experience of phenomena of space and time sanctified by the presence of the unconditionally special, Other.

Classical aesthetics originated from perception of bodies and things occupied a certain position in the world place(although at the same time it was not the aesthetics of the place and did not focus on landscape places and interior places). Modern man relies on opportunity, on what is, he looks at the world around him through what could it be. Our sensitivity is focused not only on bodies and things, but also on the possibility(or impossibility) of stay(in some place) or movement(in one direction or another). When such a possibility becomes an object of perception and is experienced as something special, we find ourselves in the force field of one of the dispositions of the aesthetics of space.

Today there are all conditions for conceptualizing the aesthetics of space and time. The aesthetics of “good forms” should be supplemented aesthetic analytics of space (and time).

1.2. From body to space (conceptual marking of the phenomenal field of aesthetics of space)

The question is, what makes a place special aesthetically? The preliminary answer sounds like this: in this type of aesthetic perception, its “how” is revealed to us (at the level of experience). This space is perceived as a containing reality, as a place of residence. What does it feel like for me to be (be) in it? Do you want to stay there? If so, what motivates us to extend our stay? Space in the aesthetics of place is not a given possibility of movement, but a given of organized topoi (containing spaces) in a certain way.

Place, like the body, unlike the background, has boundaries. Place, as an independent object of perception, has its own structure. The body is different from the place, the contained is different from the containing. The place is special every time form , but not bodies, but spaces. This is a configuration of space, which in the act of perception does not disappear behind the figure (behind the body), remaining an object of contemplation. Whatever the configuration, it, unlike occupying his body remains that accommodates (can accommodate) bodies (things).

Aesthetics of directions. Unlike the perception of places, the perception of directions (dimensions) is not associated with the presence of a person or things in any space. Here the possibility of something else in the image of space-for-movement (in the image of the world as a path-road) enters the sphere of the sensory given. But what, in fact, does it mean at the objective level to perceive the possibility/impossibility of something else, if we are talking about space, and not about the aesthetic reality of embodied modes of time? The answer is simple: perception of the possibility of movement , opportunities to change location.

Sergey Lishaev “Aesthetics of space. Sergey Lishaev - aesthetics of space

1.2. From body to space (conceptual marking of the phenomenal field of aesthetics of space)

Chapter 2 Aesthetics of directions

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Chapter 2
Aesthetics of directions