CALLICLES. The wise man, as the proverb says, is late for a fray, but not for a feast.
SOCRATES. And are we late for a feast?
CAL. I was referring to our friend Chaerephon, who is doubtless still loitering in the Agora. Come, let us pass the time until he arrives.
SOC. Very well. I can see much new art on the walls and in the alcoves of your home. Tell me, is it yours?
CAL. It is now, at least.
SOC. And what is the nature of your art?
CAL. Perhaps I should be asking you, Socrates. I would much rather learn what you make of it, as an outside observer without context.
SOC. Certainly. Would you agree, Callicles, that to determine the nature of your art, as an instance of the arts generally, we must first understand the overall nature of the arts?
CAL. Yes.
SOC. And would you agree that to understand the overall nature of the arts, we must be able to discern between good art and bad art?
CAL. I do not.
SOC. On what basis?
CAL. It strikes me that you have misordered the prerequisites here, Socrates. I would hold that it is necessary to understand the overall nature of the arts in order to discern between good and bad art. It cannot be, then, that you must be able to make that discernation in order to understand the overall nature of the arts, for then you would be unable to achieve either goal.
SOC. You are saying that the overall understanding must precede the ability to differentiate, rather than the reverse?
CAL. Yes.
SOC. And you make the assumption that one of these things must be known before the other?
CAL. Just so.
SOC. Tell me, Callicles. What knowledge is it that allows a man to differentiate between a good and bad soldier?
CAL. Other than proof of amoral subservience to a strong and superior ruler?
SOC. Terrifying. Yes, other than that.
CAL. Surely it is knowledge of the purpose of soldiers as a collective, such that we may assess whether the individual so fulfills that purpose.
SOC. And is there further knowledge required?
CAL. Yes, the behaviour of the soldier.
SOC. But this is separate to knowledge of the quality of the soldier?
CAL. I think so. The behaviour of the soldier refers to his actions and their effect, while his quality must result from an assessment of whether those effects correspond to the outcomes desired by his general.
SOC. Then are you not suggesting that the differentiation between a good and bad soldier involves merely the application of our knowledge of the nature of a soldier to a particular set of facts, those facts themselves not constituting a judgement?
CAL. Yes.
SOC. So understanding the nature of a soldier also grants the faculty of differentiation between a good and bad soldier, given only the additional requirement of having observed the soldier.
CAL. Very true.
SOC. Then is it not the same for art? Is it not the case that understanding the overall nature of the arts simultaneously grants the general faculty to differentiate between good art and bad art, albeit without the sight and sound of an individual artwork to make a specific ruling?
CAL. I see your point, Socrates, and agree. It seems that to understand art necessarily grants an ability to assess its quality, and these two faculties are actually one and the same.
SOC. So then we may approach the problem in reverse. If we are able to understand what constitutes good art, then we shall have also understood the nature of art.
CAL. Certainly.
SOC. Then what do you believe constitutes good art, Callicles?
CAL. I should say that there are at least two components to it. The first being technical execution, a mastery of the artistic modes and techniques of the day or an invention of new ones. And the second being the substance of the art and its capacity to convey things like an experience or sensation or emotion.
SOC. And you will agree that we may dispense with the first component?
CAL. Will I?
SOC. You will. Our author rather does not care to write about it at this juncture, having no technical artistic ability of his own and not the slightest confidence in having any worthwhile and relevant sentiment to use us as mouthpiece for.
CAL. Then we shall dispense of it. And the second component, that of substance?
SOC. Well, he feels the same, but with a touch less embarrassment. At least less embarrassment than if we were to end our dialogue here.
CAL. So proceed.
SOC. Recall that we are seeking out the quality of good art at this time, not merely of art overall. And you say, then, that good art conveys something like an experience or emotion? What shall we call this category of things?
CAL. Let me preempt a critique that I can see forming on your lips, Socrates. You are planning to ask me if a simple portrait of a smiling man is automatically good art by virtue of expressing happiness, are you not?
SOC. I am.
CAL. Then I tell you that it is not automatically good art, because it has not been ambitious enough. It is no great feat to express the most basic form of an emotion in a simplistic way, nor will any man derive much satisfaction from ruminating on the portrait.
SOC. Your claim is that good art expresses a complex thing that is of value to understand, then.
CAL. It is.
SOC. And of what nature is this complex thing? Shall we paint portrats of Pythagoras’ theorems, instead?
CAL. Perhaps, and that idea may be worth some separate consideration. But it is not what I meant before. I mean a complex thing that is within man’s ordinary experience rather than the realm of all possible knowledge, but which is nevertheless difficult for him to articulate. Pythagoras’ theorems, being developed knowledge that requires study, are more representative of Platonic form than of the base humanity that good art tries to consolidate and express.
SOC. An example, then, if you please.
CAL. I would consider an expression of bittersweetness to be more appropriate for good art. If an artist proves capable of capturing the dual pride in seeing one’s son or daughter grown and capable and the lament of their childhood days now expiring all within a single facial expression, then I would consider that art a skilled articulation of man’s experience.
SOC. Is understanding of Pythagoras’ theorems not within his own experience?
CAL. It is.
SOC. Then on what grounds is an artist’s expression of bittersweetness found within your own experience superior to an artist’s expression of Pythagoras’ mathematical joy found within his?
CAL. It must be that bittersweetness is the more commonly experienced thing and its expression will be of value to more people.
SOC. I see.
CAL. You disapprove.
SOC. I am afraid that the truth may seem discourteous; and I hesitate to answer, lest we resolve my disagreement by examining your other contention: that of the value of articulating that which is difficult to express. Do I understand correctly that you would tie that difficulty to the value of the thing?
CAL. You do.
SOC. Then it must be that the goodness of art is relative to all other art already produced. For if an artist wished to articulate a certain emotion, let us say bittersweetness, and it had already been represented accurately by a dozen other talented artists, this next artist would find the project rather easier, having prior work to draw on.
CAL. What do you mean? Do you think that if a first artist overcomes the difficulty of articulating something, the second artist will not face the same challenge?
SOC. How could they, if they are aware of the first artist’s work? Assuming that the bittersweetness is also within their own experience, they will be able to judge whether the first artist captured that bittersweetness well or not. If so, then the second artist need only copy the first artist’s work. If, instead, the first artist has not done well, then the second artist may immediately rule out their approach with no further investigation. Is not either path easier than if they had not had earlier work to draw on?
CAL. It is. Alright, then what of it? Good art, or at least the best art, must be that art which is highly differentiated from other art of its time. I have no quarrel with this.
SOC. You shall.
CAL. How so? Is this another meta-control thing?
SOC. You have established, Callicles, a tension at the heart of your classification. You desire that good art should express something that is valuable to many and within their lived experience, but also that it should not have been articulated by another artist yet. Would it not be the case that if any artist realised that a valuable human experience had not been articulated by others, they would immediately set about producing such a work?
CAL. They would, but I see no contradiction as of yet. They would set about producing good art.
SOC. But then the good art would have been made - and further art expressing that same experience would necessarily not be as good, because the articulation of it is now easier.
CAL. You are suggesting that the artist would run out of subject matter, should art representing all human experiences have already been produced.
SOC. Or, at least, that the artist would be unable to produce art that is good on the grounds of the expression of that experience. They would still, perhaps, be able to produce art that is good on the grounds of better technical execution and more profound beauty.
CAL. Has our author changed his mind on that subject?
SOC. Almost, but no.
CAL. And what of beauty, by the way? Is it possible for art to express the same experience as other art and with equal technical skill, and yet be a more beautiful artwork that provides greater value?
SOC. I do not see how, for I count the provision of beauty through the technical means available as a component of technical execution.
CAL. Then to be gorgeous is to have been executed well?
SOC. Is he dead? That will put quite the damper on our feast.
CAL. What?
SOC. Oh, I see. Yes, an artwork’s physical beauty is an expression of skill, rather than a matter of the value or rarity of that which it expresses. An artwork can be beautiful and yet entirely unstimulating; if I understand your framework correctly, good art must be both beautiful and satisfactorily expressive of certain human experiences, not just one or the other.
CAL. We are agreed. Then let us remain on the topic of art that is good primarily on the merits of expressing something valuable about the human experience that is difficult to articulate, and we shall take its beauty for granted.
SOC. Quite. What do you make of our dilemma?
CAL. Do you not make an assumption that the human experience is finite, and ungrowing, and contained within tight enough boundaries that artists - being also of finite number - could conceivably exhaust the human experience?
SOC. I do not.
CAL. Please elaborate.
SOC. You have mistaken a principled argument for a practical one. I would happily concede that mankind as we know it might never exhaust its stock of human experiences to represent in art. I do not truly mean to extrapolate from our thought experiments of two artists to a future of many, so let me approach this from another angle. Say that an artist plans to express bittersweetness, and prepares his materials and approach in detail. Are we agreed that, provided he lives in a society in which bittersweetness has not been satisfactorily expressed for the masses, this would constitute a plan towards good art?
CAL. I agree.
SOC. Say, then, that the artist becomes aware of a dozen other artists who have attempted to represent bittersweetness. They have done so poorly, and our artist does not change his plans, nor is the value of bittersweetness’ expression diluted for the public in any way. Do you claim that our artist is still producing good art?
CAL. I do. His plans have not changed, nor has his artwork’s differentiation from the status quo; if bittersweetness had not been expressed well before these other poorly-made artworks, and it still has not been expressed well even after their production, then our artist’s contribution will be exactly as important in either case.
SOC. And yet our artist is now aware of multiple other approaches to this expression that have not worked. He is, remember, only in the planning stage, and so he could have changed his approach had he found anything of value of them - thus, finding none, he has still gained valuable information that allows him to make creative decisions with a touch more confidence. Do you agree?
CAL. Yes, I suppose. Knowing of approaches that have not worked at all towards your aim is still of value.
SOC. Then his expression of bittersweetness has become easier to articulate than before. By our logic, his art must now be worse art than before, simply by virtue of many others producing poor art that accomplished nothing. Is that a fair conclusion?
CAL. It is not a fair conclusion, and yet I see no way around it.
SOC: By the same reasoning, I confess, a premise I insisted upon earlier also cannot be true. It cannot be that these dozen artists representing bittersweetness poorly avoids any dilution of the value of a true expression of bittersweetness for the public. If the masses are now more highly aware of what bittersweetness is not, as a result of these failed approaches that you concede have some intellectual value, then the masses will be ever slightly less impressed by finally viewing an artwork which correctly expresses it. For they have already, through process of elimination, been drawn closer to the truth of what bittersweetness must look like in artistic representation.
CAL. This, too, seems unfair. How can it be that great art may be made worse through the process of poor artists thrusting a deluge of bad art upon the public? Such a travesty should only elevate good art, not deny it.
SOC. We may take this further still. We have assumed that the artist has experienced bittersweetness himself; but would it not be a harder emotion to express should he have never experienced it?
CAL. It would.
SOC. And we are not counting the artist among the population of people who we wish to draw value from the work in order for it to be good?
CAL. Surely not, otherwise art would be necessarily good by virtue of pleasing its own artist. That may be a useful contribution to that artist’s life, but it would make comparison of art’s virtue meaningless, for one artist loving his own work narcissistically and in overabundance would make it better art than art which is appreciated but not worshipped by its artist, all else held equal. That does not seem like the sort of superiority complex we ought to value in our artists.
SOC. That is a sound observation.
CAL. Only in our political leaders.
SOC. You are truly frightening, Callicles. Please, let us restrict our conversation to that of art. If the hardest experience to articulate truly is that which the artist has not experienced themselves, would not art become worse by virtue of the artist having experienced that which they represent?
CAL. Indeed, and yet that seems nonsensical. We must not hold it as a mark against an artist that they have experienced the emotion or sense they represent; many would even hold this as a positive, or an imbuement of additional meaning into the art.
SOC. So we must throw this difficulty-of-articulation consideration out entirely.
CAL. It seems we must.
SOC. We are left with simply the criterion of expressing something that is valuable to the masses, then?
CAL. Just so, but I do not see how that criterion can sustain itself without a partner. Are we to claim that good art is merely that which plays to the fashions of the time and to the lowest common denominator of human experience, so that it may be not just experienced but appreciated by many people? Do you claim that the best art is that which expresses the basest emotions, or those most appealing to vice, and which are easiest for the clamouring crowds to rally around?
SOC. By this train of thought, it seems we must think so. Yet I find all these conclusions wholly unsatisfying.
CAL. So do I.
SOC. Then what is good art, if not what we have considered?
CAL. I know not, Socrates. Say, was not our author reading Art as Experience by John Dewey earlier in the year?
SOC. He was.
CAL. Did he finish it, to your knowledge?
SOC. He did not.
CAL. Then has he any other contributions to make on the subject of aesthetics? Or any motivation for our dialogue today that may now drive us forward?
SOC. I think he wanted to make a bad pun, a very underwhelming phonetic catachresis if I may say so - apparently, I may - and to merely rule out a few arguments he idly considered then rejected.
CAL. That’s it?
SOC. I am afraid so. He is merely loitering in the marketplace of ideas at our expense, to wit, much like our friend Chaerephon.
CAL. Was that the pun?
SOC. No.
CAL. Gods… I should say, Socrates, that I am quite a fan of puns myself; but, perhaps, we ought to consider the audience, for before you came, I had already given a long exhibition, and if we proceed our discussion may run on to an even greater length. And therefore I think that we should consider whether we may not be detaining some part of our company when they are wanting to do something else.
SOC. This doesn’t sound at all like you, Callicles.
CAL. I suppose not. Shall we dine?