Text / Zhao Quanquan
Abstract: The consciousness of "beauty" plays an important role in the cause of the survival of culture and art. From the perspective of two important revival movements in the history of art, the Renaissance and the Arts and Crafts Movement, the humanists, as the cultural elite, created the basis of language and concepts for the formation and dissemination of the consciousness of beauty. On the other hand, one of the consequences of the industrial civilization that originated in the Arts and Crafts Movement in England in the mid-to-late 19th century, when the cultural elite represented by Morris called for a confrontation through handicrafts was the loss of the sense of beauty. Handicrafts, which connect traditional culture with people's daily lives, have been endowed with social, cultural, aesthetic and other aspects. It is still worth considering the role that the taste standards of "beauty" constructed by the cultural elite in history and the life experience of "beauty" based on the handicrafts of the people's daily life may play in today's cultural regeneration.
Keywords: Consciousness of Beauty, Renaissance, Arts and Crafts Movement, Crafts
The topic of the regeneration of art and culture has received a lot of attention today, perhaps precisely because this cause is facing challenges in many aspects such as goals, motivations, and approaches. Historically, this topic is most reminiscent of the Italian Renaissance movement. The language, literature, art, and techniques that originated from ancient Greece and Rome were never completely extinct, but from the 14th century onwards a group of Italians considered to have been destroyed and forgotten in the "Dark Middle Ages". They saw classical culture as the perfect norm of civilization and tried to restore it to its former glory in all areas. One of the most fascinating questions to be asked in this movement, known for its artistic achievements, is how did the Italians shape a new cultural landscape by nurturing a sense of "beauty" that was different from the "Middle Ages" from the dusty classical culture?
In a biography of a great man of the fifteenth century, written by a contemporary of the Renaissance, the author, Vespasiano da Bisticci, chronicles a Florentine man named Niccolo Niccolli. This man had an almost paranoid passion for classical languages and cultures, so much so that he openly declared that Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, known as the "Three Masters of Florentine Literature," lacked the literacy to use Latin: "Cicero's letters alone and Virgil's poems alone are much more highly regarded than the clumsy writings of these men combined." [1] What followed was the indignation and controversy of many scholars at the time. Petrarch was a pioneer in the restoration of classical language and literature, so it is particularly surprising that Nicoli was critical of him.
Born into a wealthy merchant family, Nicoli inherited most of his fortune to purchase and copy books on classical culture. His knowledge was appreciated by the lord of the city, Cosimo Medizi, who, in addition to directly financing his book collection, even provided him with an account that he could withdraw at will during his lifetime. As a result, Nicoli gained great prestige, and his home was "always crowded with scholars and magnates", and "anyone with the slightest knowledge would make it a matter of priority to visit Nicoli and his collection." 〔2〕
The candelabras included in the catalogue of exhibits at the Great Industrial Exposition in London in 1851 represent the tastes that were popular in the consumer market at the time
Other of Nikoli's well-known hobbies have also been recorded:
He was always dressed in that beautiful, long-reachable red robe...... He eats on antique plates, with porcelain and glasses made of crystal or other fine materials. Seeing him sitting at the table like this, it looks like a figure from the ancient world...... One might be surprised that he had so many (ancient) vessels...... In the whole of Florence, there is no better room to decorate than in this place where he has placed all kinds of beautiful things. 〔3〕
Nicoli's paranoia about "beauty" even goes so far:
His sense of hearing and vision is so acute that he can't stand to see or hear anything unpleasant...... He only wants to see things that are exquisite, harmonious, and wonderful. 〔4〕
It was precisely this paranoia that made him unable to resist issuing accusations against his predecessors, who were fellow humanists with him, in order to defend the purity of classical language.
Nicoli was the epitome of an important group of people in the Renaissance movement who came to be known as "humanists", who first referred to those who made language and writing their career. They have professional knowledge and a vision of the past and the present, the ambition to make contributions to cultural undertakings, and the eloquence and writing to convey ideas. One of their special contributions to the Renaissance movement was the aesthetic taste cultivated in the work of writing, which aimed to distinguish between the superior and the inferior in subtle and subtle ways, and to convey the meaning in precise and appropriate language—a legacy that is contained in classical rhetoric. [5] The term "taste" here refers not only to a value evaluation criterion for beauty and ugliness, and to the body of knowledge that supports this criterion, but also to the ability to evaluate according to this criterion. Of course, there is no civilization that lacks the consciousness of "taste for beauty", but after the decline of classical civilization, it was the Italian humanists who first realized that the standard of taste for beauty was chaotic in their time, so they had to return to the classical cultural roots of language and knowledge to reshape this standard.
The standards of taste born from classical texts were developed through humanists to collecting, artistic creation, and even lifestyle. The goal of humanists is not only to reproduce the original appearance of classical culture, but also to express and shape the taste of beauty with the authority of the cultural elite, so as to establish their own place in society and culture. This awareness not only provided a basis for appreciating classical culture, but also opened up the possibility of competition with the ancients: the former was best represented in the collection of antiquities by the magnates, and the latter was best represented in the works of artists, and both became the main content of the Renaissance movement.
Designed by Philip Webb and William Morris, the armchair produced by Morris & Company, circa 1883-1900
In the mid-19th century, the consciousness of "beauty" also triggered the concern of Englishman William Morris about the human society entering modern civilization. Morris is known for his scathing critique of modern industry and the entire industrial and commercial system associated with it, because they "produce only ugliness." He worries that beautiful things are disappearing, while the "vast majority of civilized and well-bred people" in modern society "have lost the ability to distinguish between beauty and ugliness", and even "never know or care about the difference between beauty and ugliness". [6] This sharp criticism is undoubtedly directed at the middle class. They were not upbringing enough to acquire the aesthetic taste and connoisseurship of the old-fashioned aristocracy, but they increasingly became the main force of production and consumption, which Morris believed to be the main reason why people's lives were constantly filled with things that were neither useful nor good.
Morris pinned his hopes for change in crafts rather than high art such as painting and sculpture. He hopes that artisans and crafts, who have been oppressed by industrialization, will be given renewed prominence, creating "beautiful environments and pleasant places to live" for the public, "keeping alive the vivid memory of the past", and thus "making us more like the spirits of all things...... become wiser and wiser" and become a force to save beauty and civilization. [7] These ideas became central to the Arts and Crafts Movement that followed.
There is no doubt that Morris's consciousness of "beauty" derives to a large extent from the idealized imagination of the past (the Middle Ages) and the future (utopian society), in which traditional culture is understood and expressed in a romantic and distorted way. Under the banner of "revival", he and his followers are more concerned with the bottom line of beauty and morality that modern life has lost under the pressure of industrial civilization. However, in the revival movement, which was full of romantic imagination and was destined to be unable to confront industrial civilization, craftsmanship was truly radiated with beauty enough to complement mainstream art, which was verified in the subsequent stages of modern design history. At the beginning of the 20th century, his ideas even spread to Japan, triggering another "folk art movement" aimed at reviving folk crafts.
In his book "Preserving the Craft", Yonematsu Shiono, a chronicle of Japan's soon-to-be-lost crafts
For Morris, the existence of beauty is not differentiated by its material form, because the criterion of art and beauty that really matters is whether it contributes to the realization of a healthy and happy life. It is this that makes craftsmanship more suitable than high art as a vehicle for conveying beauty to the masses. Handicraft is a profession born out of the needs of everyday life, and its beauty does not depend on purely formal elements, such as the beauty of decoration or the rarity of materials, nor on the ambition of artists to compete with their peers or ancients, but is contained in people's rich daily experience. While industrial civilization has led to the decline of handicrafts, it has also eliminated the lifestyles and experiences that accompany it. Therefore, the revival of handicrafts, even if it cannot undertake the task of cultural regeneration, provides a focus for the survival and continuation of culture by shifting the focus on "beauty" to the daily life of the public.
Neither of the two revival movements described in this article was carried out through the simple imitation of any object in a particular historical situation, in which the consciousness of beauty played a key role. The cultural elite of the Renaissance shaped a set of standards of taste derived from classical languages and moved towards art, and artists and patrons competed with each other on this standard to push artistic achievement to new heights. In the Arts and Crafts movement, it was the same cultural elite who initiated a critique of industrial civilization out of concern for beauty, and then built the origin of beauty on the daily life of the masses linked to cultural traditions through crafts. In this way, the consciousness of beauty provides the possibility of cultural regeneration from both the elite and the masses.
The documentary "In Search of Craft" attempts to understand the craftsmen who still create things for everyday life in a handicraft way
However, in a modern society with a highly developed mass media, it is questionable whether the cultural elite is capable of translating the consciousness of beauty based on the knowledge system of the academy into a consensus that can be conveyed to a world full of fashion hotspots where "everyone can be famous in 15 minutes". A deeper question is: The cultural elites of each era have different definitions and value judgments on the consciousness of cultural regeneration and beauty, and do they necessarily take the protection and inheritance of culture as their own responsibility? Do they regard the consciousness of beauty as an indispensable thing in the cultural cause? If they lack a consensus on the consciousness of beauty, is the cause of cultural regeneration still possible?
From the mass side, culture has always been a human phenomenon based on the daily lives of the masses. The value of traditional culture lies not only in the history of its load, but also in its ability to transcend the span of individual life and transform the life experience of countless witnesses, especially the aesthetic experience, into one or more possibilities of everyone's life at the moment. Handicrafts convey cultural concepts and the possibility of rich life experiences to users through everyday objects in the wordless way of creation, and nourish the awareness and judgment of beauty from them. However, the dilemma of the revival of traditional culture today is precisely this: the traditional way of life has long been unrecognizable in the process of modernization, and it cannot be restored, far more than the decline of classical culture in the Middle Ages. When countless crafts and daily utensils born from real daily life and needs are replaced by industrial products, the corresponding lifestyles and experiences also disappear. How can a modern person truly understand and experience traditional culture, and how can he feel the possibilities of life contained in it, and nourish the consciousness of beauty from it? This has always been a challenge that the cause of cultural regeneration needs to face. (This article is the result of the scientific research and innovation team building project of Nanjing University of the Arts)
Exegesis:
[1] "From the Revival of Words to the Innovation of Art: Nicolly and Brunelleschi", in Gombrich, edited by Li Benzheng and Fan Jingzhong, Renaissance: The Great Age of Western Art, China Academy of Art Press, 2000, p. 31.
〔2〕G. Holmes, The Florentine Enlightenment, New York: Pegasus, 1969, p. 93.
〔3〕V. D. Bisticci, The Vespasiano Memoirs. (Trans. W. George & E. Waters) Toronto Buffalo London: University of Toronto Press, 1963, p. 402.
〔4〕G. Holmes, The Florentine Enlightenment, New York: Pegasus, 1969, p. 90.
[5] Among them, the writings of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintlian had the greatest influence on later generations. For details, see John Edwin Sands, translated by Zhang Zhi, A History of Western Classical Scholarship (Volume 1), Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2020.
[6] Xi Chuanji, ed., Selected Readings of Classic Treatises on Design Art, Southeast University Press, 2005, pp. 137-143.
[7] Ibid.
Zhao Quanquan is a professor at the School of Design, Nanjing University of the Arts
(This article was originally published in Art Observation, Issue 3, 2024)