Aesthetic Education Essay

Friedrich Schiller wrote Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man in 1793 for his friend the Danish Prince Friedrich Christian who had provided him with a stipend to help him through an illness. In 1795 the letters were published and the provide a worthwhile consideration of the nature of Aesthetics for us still today. The collection of twenty seven letters is not an easy read but it is worth persevereing to gain the insights of this great poet and playwright, friend of Goethe and inspiration for Beethoven and many artists, particularly in the Romantic era. The book touches upon a broad range of topics, some of which you do not normally associate with aesthetics. However the letters do consider the nature of Beauty and its relationship to art and man. For Schiller beauty seems to arise as a synthesis between opposing principles â€Å"whose highest ideal is to be sought in the most perfect possible union and equilibrium of reality and form†(Letter XVI, p 81). Schiller also discusses the nature of the ideal man and how the impulse for play interacts with man’s nature, especially his rational and sensuous aspects which form a juxtaposition within him. This juxtaposition is discussed at length with a synthesis described in terms that suggest a transcendance that culminates in our very humanity (Letters 18-20). Man and his nature is important to Schiller as his reason, but â€Å"The first appearance of reason in Man is not yet the beginning of his humanity. The latter is not decided until he is free,† (Letter XXIV, p 115). Through discussion of the work of art and the fine arts Schiller brings us closer to a conception of what art means to man and how important â€Å"Homo Ludens† is as a conception of man. Schiller admired classical Greece and its art and saw the role of history and freedom important in the discussion of the nature of art. Above all both as a poet and a thinker Schiller held the ideal of freedom to be sacrosanct. According to Schiller, freedom is attained when the sensual and rational in man are fully integrated but his aesthetic disposition is seen as coming from Nature. These letters provide a rich vein of ideas from which the thoughtful and attentive reader may find inspiration in consideration of the aesthetics and the nature of the work of art. Friedrich Schiller menulis Surat Pendidikan Estetika Manusia pada tahun 1793 untuk rakan Christian Friedrich Putera Denmark yang telah disediakan dengan wang saku untuk membantu beliau sakit. Pada tahun 1795 surat telah diterbitkan dan memberi pertimbangan berbaloi sifat Estetika untuk kita masih hari ini. Koleksi 27 surat tidak read mudah tetapi ia adalah bernilai persevereing untuk mendapatkan pandangan penyair dan pengarang drama hebat ini, rakan Goethe dan inspirasi untuk Beethoven dan ramai artis, terutamanya di era Romantik. Buku ini menyentuh kepada pelbagai topik, ada yang anda tidak lakukan biasanya bersekutu dengan estetika. Walau bagaimanapun, surat mempertimbangkan sifat Kecantikan dan hubungannya dengan seni dan manusia. Untuk kecantikan Schiller nampaknya timbul sebagai sintesis antara prinsip lawan â€Å"yang tertinggi sesuai perlu dicari dalam kesatuan mungkin yang paling sempurna dan keseimbangan realiti dan bentuk† (Surat XVI, p 81). Schiller juga membincangkan sifat manusia yang ideal dan bagaimana dorongan untuk permainan berinteraksi dengan alam semula jadi, manusia terutamanya aspek rasional dan sensasi yang membentuk saling bertindih dalam dirinya. Saling bertindih ini dibincangkan dengan panjang lebar dengan sintesis diterangkan dari segi yang mencadangkan transcendance yang memuncak dalam kemanusiaan kita (Huruf 18-20). Manusia dan alam adalah penting untuk Schiller sebagai alasan beliau, tetapi â€Å"Kemunculan pertama sebab dalam Man tidak lagi permulaan kemanusiaan. Terakhir ini tidak memutuskan sehingga dia adalah percuma,† (Surat XXIV, ms 115). Melalui perbincangan kerja seni dan seni halus Schiller membawa kita lebih dekat kepada konsep apa yang seni ertinya kepada manusia dan betapa pentingnya â€Å"Ludens Homo† adalah seperti konsep manusia. Schiller dikagumi klasik Greece dan seni dan melihat peranan sejarah dan kebebasan penting dalam perbincangan yang bersifat seni. Atas semua kedua-dua sebagai penyair dan pemikir Schiller diadakan ideal kebebasan untuk menjadi boleh dipertikaikan. Menurut Schiller, kebebasan dicapai apabila sensual dan rasional dalam manusia bersepadu sepenuhnya tetapi pelupusan estetik beliau dilihat sebagai datang dari Alam. Surat ini menyediakan darah yang kaya dengan idea-idea dari mana pembaca yang bernas dan penuh perhatian boleh mencari inspirasi dalam pertimbangan estetik dan sifat kerja seni. PENDAPAT NO 2: Although this type of reading can be challenging for the modern reader, I thoroughly enjoyed this thought-provoking book. If you enjoy philosophy and subscribe to a personal philosophy that an appreciation of beauty and learning through play are valuable, Schiller will appeal to you. Walaupun ini jenis membaca boleh mencabar bagi pembaca moden, saya telitimenikmati buku ini memprovokasi pemikiran. Jika kita menikmati falsafah dan melanggan kepada falsafah peribadi bahawa menghargai kecantikan dan pembelajaranmelalui permainan adalah berharga, Schiller akan merayu kepada kita. PENDAPAT NO 3:SUMMARY A generic summary of the argument in Friedrich Schiller’s Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man would be: in order for a person to become a moral and rational being she must pass through an aesthetic education in which she harmonizes with herself and thus becomes Free to exercise her rational will univocally. The passage often quoted as a summation of Schiller’s major theme in this work is: â€Å"It is through Beauty that we arrive at Freedom. † This passage, since I first encountered it, has been one of the few essential thoughts I carry with me through life. My superficial knowledge of Schiller, through only this famous quote and the above general argument, has had a disproportionate effect on me. When Conor Heaton, a friend from Chicago, recommended Schiller’s Letters to me, I was thrilled for the opportunity to read the entirety of the work and to test my own personalized version of the idea against Schiller’s initial conception. Schiller, a German Romantic dramatist, poet, and essayist, wrote his Letters during the height of France’s Reign of Terror. Like so many other Romantic thinkers across the globe, Schiller cried for joy at the French Revolution’s liberation of the human spirit. But, like artists and thinkers generations before and after him, Schiller suffered great disappointment in the aftermath of the revolution when power and fear destroyed the ideals of Justice and Freedom that had sparked the revolution. In some ways his argument stems from the idea that if the revolutionaries were perfectly educated in the ideas of aesthetics they would have been able to escape their own power struggles and thus have been able to create a Just and Free French State. Instead, the French Revolutionaries, whose only education on and exposure to government came from the monarch they so despised, exponentially replicated the atrocities of the very kind they dethroned. In doing so they turned the country into an irrational, immoral mess. It is a theme not isolated to 1790’s France, and though Schiller was influenced by the events of his time, he is also picking up an ambitious argument first articulated in the Western tradition two thousand years before his time. The idea of an aesthetic education as essential to a moral and rational life was originally Plato’s. In setting out to create the ideal civilization in his Republic, Plato’s characters conclude that banning books and particular artists (including Homer) will be necessary to ensure that young men are properly trained to appreciate Beauty. Plato’s characters felt that scenes from The Iliad about conniving and jealous gods were bad influences on young men, who may look to the gods as examples. And works that espoused ideas or styles that did not create the harmony in the soul essential to becoming a fully realized Moral man were not worthy of being taught. While laying the groundwork for regarding Beauty as essential to the human experience, Plato also put forward the first argument for censorship. (If one finds themselves scoffing at this idea or comparing Plato to Hitler, it may be wise to remember that a major component of America’s current education system assumes that those being educated cannot decipher the language and tone of Huckleberry Finn without intolerable harm, or read of Holden Caulfield’s rampant moral downfall and sexual escapades without falling into decadence, and that 12 year olds cannot be closer than 100 yards from a condom without instigating rampant uncontrolled sexual orgies. Plato’s excuse is that he didn’t have the benefit of thousands of years of education research proving his instincts incorrect.) Schiller never grounds his ideas by discussing or suggesting particular texts that may be suitable for an aesthetic education. His tendency to speak in shifting abstractions has cost him a more prominent position in the greater philosophical tradition. But if The Aesthetic Education of Man is read as it was written – as an artist trying to convince the world that Art and Beauty are essential to a Free and Moral civilization – then it is a wonderful and essential work whose philosophical consistency is far less important than its general spirit. Schiller’s argument itself is also only a small component of why this text is so engaging. He never stops reaching. His every sentence embodies the Romantic belief that truth, pure Truth, is at our fingertips, and with persistence It can be held in our palms. His style fluctuates between art and philosophy. Schiller has no fear of spreading his ideas, and his grandiose style represents perfectly the abundance of thought that was flowing out of Romantic Germany during his lifetime. He makes grand and provocative historical claims: â€Å"The Romans, we know, had first to exhaust their strength in civil wars . . . before we see Greek art triumphing over the rigidity of their character . . . And among the Arabs too the light of culture never dawned until the vigor of their warlike spirit had relaxed (58). † He states complex ideas in beautiful little statements: â€Å"We know that Man is neither exclusively matter nor exclusively spirit. Beauty, therefore, [is:] the consummation of this humanity (77). † And there is much more beyond this in Schiller’s Letters. He propounds a theory of Beauty and just how it can harmonize mankind and allow moral and rational men to flourish, and so on.