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Piano Rock, Alternative Rock, Glam Rock.Esthetic Education is a band based in Kiev, Ukraine.It was formed in 2004 after Shurov and Khustochka left the successful Ukrainian band Okean Elzy.History
2 Discography
2.History
In December 2004, Esthetic Education played at the Bars en Trans Festival in the La Scene club in Paris.The also played at the Dublin Castle and the Spitz in London.During 2005 and a half of 2006, Esthetic Education played in front of more than 170,000 people.Esthetic Education has been invited on numerous TV and radio shows.Photos of Esthetic Education have appeared in Elle, Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, Ego, Max, Afisha (cover shot), Moloko (cover shot), Time Out, Shtushka, Pink, TV Week, and others.In 2007, they will make a big push in the Eastern European market and try to take their first steps in Europe and America.This page was last modified 09:31, 11 December 2007.All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.See Copyrights for details.Lev Vygotsky 1926
Chapter 13.Esthetic Education
Esthetics in the Service of Pedagogics
The nature, ultimate meaning, purpose, and methods of esthetic education are still unresolved questions in the realm of psychology as well as in pedagogical theory.From time immemorial and right up to the present day, extreme and opposing viewpoints have been adopted towards these questions, viewpoints which, with each passing decade, seem to find ever newer confirmation in a whole series of psychological investigations.Many writers are inclined to reject the thesis that esthetic experiences possesses any educational value whatsoever, and the system of pedagogics which is associated with these writers and which has grown up from the very same roots persists in maintaining this idea, granting only a narrow and restricted value to esthetic education.Between these two extreme points there is a whole series of moderate views on the role of esthetics in the life of the child.Where some discover a serious and profound meaning in esthetic experiences, it is nearly everywhere a matter not of esthetic education as an end in itself, but only as a tool for attaining pedagogical goals that are alien to esthetics.We must, above all, reject such an approach, the belief that experiences should possess some kind of direct relationship to moral experience, as if every work of art incorporates a kind of incentive to moral behavior.It is necessary to take account of the laws governing this refractive medium, for otherwise we run the risk of obtaining results along the lines described above.Meanwhile, Russian schools, without any regard whatsoever for the psychological fact that there is always a multitude of possible interpretations and moral conclusions, has forever sought to subsume all artistic experience under a particular moral dogma, and has always been content with imparting a single interpretation of this dogma without suspecting that, often, a literary text not only does not help us when we wish to gain an understanding of the text itself, but, on the contrary, suggests a moral conception which leads altogether in the opposite direction.Art and the Study of Reality
Another, no less harmful psychological confusion in esthetic education has been the imposition on esthetics of yet other goals and problems that are likewise foreign to it, though these are no longer moral in nature, but rather social and cognitive.Above all, when we study society on the basis of models drawn from literature, we are always learning about it in false and distorted forms, inasmuch as works of art never reflect reality in all its entirety or in all its genuine truth.Eugene Onegin and Chatskii runs the risk of possessing a wholly inaccurate view of this history.This view is based on the false conception that literature constitutes a kind of replica of reality, a kind of model photograph that resembles a group portrait.It is believed that a figure taken from literature is something like a group photograph, and that, say, the figure of Eugene Onegin absorbed and accommodated all the typical personalities of the Russian intelligentsia of the 1820s and may, therefore, serve as authentic material for the study of this epoch.Once again, the work of art is interpreted as a tool for arousing pleasurable reactions and is, practically speaking, placed in the same category as other analogous reactions and sensations that are utterly real.Thus, we see that traditional pedagogics is at a dead end when it comes to questions of esthetic education, striving to bound up with it entirely foreign goals that have nothing to do with it, and as a result, first, its proper value is overlooked, and, second, results are often attained that are at variance with what might have been expected.Passivity and Activity in Esthetic Experience
The opportunity for such psychological confusion is the result not simply of the ignorance of instructors, but of the far more glaring and far more profound error of psychological science itself as regards questions of esthetics.Psychologists would even explain that disinterestedness, unselfish admiration, the utter suppression of the will, and the absence of all personal relationship to the esthetic object amounted to necessary conditions for the realization of an esthetic reaction.The moment the viewer or reader assumes the role of active participant in the work of art he is apprehending, he is beyond the realm of esthetics irrevocably and once and for all.If while looking at apples that happen to be depicted in a painting, the thought of the activity associated with the intention of tasting real apples becomes overwhelmingly powerful in me, what is nevertheless clear is that the picture is now outside my field of apprehension.If the purpose of a painting were to consist solely in caressing our eyes, and that of music in supplying agreeable experiences to our ears, the apprehension of paintings and of musical compositions would not represent any difficulty, and, except for the blind and deaf, everyone would have a calling in regard to the appreciation of these works of art to the same degree.Meanwhile, the elements of perception of sensations constitute only an essential primary impetus for the arousal of more complex activity and, in and of itself, lack all esthetic meaning whatsoever.This invisible and imperceptible element must be understood as simply consisting in placing emphasis in the esthetic process on the responding elements of the reaction to sense impressions emanating from without.From this point of view, we can say outright that the esthetic experience is constructed from an entirely exact model of an ordinary reaction that presupposes, of necessity, the presence of three components, i.We still cannot say precisely what it consists in, since psychological analysis has yet to have the final word on the composition of the esthetic experience, though we already know that it involves the most complex constructive activity imaginable, an activity in which the listener or viewer himself constructs and creates an esthetic object out of the external impressions which are presented to him, and all his subsequent reactions are now referred to this object.Come to think of it, a painting is not really just a rectangular piece of canvas to which a certain quantity of paint has been applied.Once this canvas and these paints are interpreted by a viewer as the portrayal of a person, or of an object, or of an event, this complex work of transformation of painted canvas into picture occurs wholly within the mind of the viewer.Next, a complex effort at recollection, of the formation of associations, is needed in order to apprehend what sort of person or what sort of landscape is depicted in the painting, and what might be the relationship between the different parts of the painting.Psychologists have long spoken of the fact that all that content and all those feelings we associate with a work of art involve nothing other than what we ourselves have introduced into it, that we seem to sense them in the esthetic image, and in fact, psychologists have referred to the very act of apprehension as empathy.The complex activity of empathy reduces, for all practical purposes.This activity also constitutes a fundamental esthetic activity, which, by its very nature, is nevertheless an activity of the organism in response to external sensations.Biological Value of Esthetic Activity
The biological value of esthetic activity is another troubling and debatable point.Only at the lowest stages of nascent esthetic activity is it possible to grasp the biological meaning of this activity.While a savage might replace martial songs by orders and battle plans, and while he might think that sobbing at a funeral is a means of directly reaching the soul of the departed, there is no way we can ascribe such unmediated and ordinary functions to modern art, and we have to seek its biological value somewhere else entirely.One usually points to the facilitative value of symmetry, to the beneficial respite afforded by the interruption in rhythm, as vivid examples of this law.However, even if it were valid, this law would, for all intents and purposes, have virtually nothing to do with questions of art, since we could find the very same economy of forces essentially wherever human creativity manifests itself; we find no lesser an economy of forces in mathematical formulas or in physical laws, in the classification of plants or in the study of the circulatory system, than in works of art, and if it were claimed that here it is a matter of an economy of esthetic influence, we would be at a loss in explaining how esthetic economy might be distinguished from the overall economy of all of creativity.In any case, it should be clear that poetic speech is a more difficult form of speech by comparison with prose, and that its unusual arrangement of words, its subdivision into verses, and its rhythmic character not only does not relieve our attention from any sort of effort, but, on the contrary, demands ceaseless exertion of attention towards elements which manifest themselves for the first time here and which are utterly lacking in ordinary speech.Sounds are perceived automatically and are automatically associated with a particular meaning.Recall that the law of poetic speech simply asserts that when sounds come to the surface in the luminous field of consciousness, the act of focusing our attention on them induces an emotional relation to them.Obviously, the biological meaning of esthetic activity does not in the least express the sort of parasitic relationship that would inevitably arise if all esthetic pleasure were to be purchased at the expense of an economizing on spiritual forces which had been achieved thanks to the labor of others.An understanding of the biological meaning of the esthetic act must be sought along the path followed by modern psychology, in an unraveling of the psychology of the creative work of the artist and in a convergence of our understanding of apprehension and of the process of creation.Before we ask ourselves why it is that we read, we must ask ourselves why it is that people write.The question of creative effort and its psychological sources again presents extraordinary difficulties, so that here we pass from one obstacle to the next.Earlier, we presented on explanation of the concept of sublimation from the standpoint of the study of the instincts and, in particular, discussed the thesis that the creative processes and the sublimation of sexual energy exist in the closest imaginable relationship.Here, too, creative effort arises the moment a certain quantity of energy that has not been put to use, that has not been consumed for immediate purposes , has not been apportioned, passes beyond the threshold of consciousness, whence it returns transformed into new forms of activity.The reader must be sympathetic to the poet, and, in our apprehension of any work of art, we seem to be recreating it all over again.Thus, we are entirely justified in defining processes of apprehension as consisting in the reproduction and recapitulation of creative processes.And if that is so, the conclusion is unavoidable that such processes represent the very same biological form of sublimation of certain types of spiritual energy as do creative processes themselves.In artistic creation, such sublimation is realized in extraordinarily vigorous and mighty forms, through esthetic apprehension, in forms that are facilitated and simplified, and prepared in advance by the aggregate of all those stimuli which impinge upon us.That esthetic education, interpreted as the creation of permanent skills for the sublimation of the subconscious possesses an extraordinarily important and autonomous value, is, therefore, entirely understandable.To educate someone in esthetics means creating in that person a permanent and properly functioning channel for the diversion and abstraction of the inner forces of the subconscious into useful skills.Psychological Description of Esthetic Reactions
The most cursory glance at esthetic reactions is enough for us to see that their ultimate goal is not to reproduce any genuine reaction, but to transcend it and triumph over it.If the ultimate goal of a poem about melancholy was only to tell us about melancholy, this would be a rather sad state of affairs for art.It is for this reason that the meaning of esthetic activity has been understood since time immemorial as catharsis, i.It is not without reason that many psychologists have found it extremely tempting to search for features that might be common to art and illness, to declare that genius is akin to madness, and to view as abnormal both human creation and human folly.The father himself felt that this story was naive and silly; however, it produced an unexpected effect in his son, who, speaking in a thoughtful and low voice, which his father found quite unexpected, said that he would no longer smoke.Second, from such a vantage point, the moral effect of esthetics may be fortuitous and secondary, so that, at the least, it is an unwise and uncertain proposition to use this moral effect as the basis of the education of moral behavior.Chekhov was entirely correct in calling this a fancy that man has affected ever since the time of Adam, and in this regard it is entirely identical with that form of pedagogics which demands that children receive a stern moral upbringing based on truth.Psychologists who have studied the visual stimuli that emanate from paintings have all come to the same conclusion, that the principal role in our experience of a painting is played by the kinesthetic senses, i.And just as in ancient times, when the incantatory force of the rhythmic word and of poetic speech would banish the spirits and combat them, so too does modern poetry banish and resolve internal forces that possess inimical effects, because in both instances there is a kind of resolution of internal conflict.The tragic and the comic in art are the clearest exemplars of this psychological law, as anyone should be able to recall.If we contemplate tragedy not from the vantage point of these lofty feelings, but with a slight smile, then its tragic effect, of course, becomes incomprehensible to us.Then this was attributed naively to a biological antithesis, and philosophers attempted to reduce the enjoyment we experience from tragedy to the feelings of security and pleasure man experiences every time misfortune strikes someone else.In precisely the same way, the comic, or that which is, in and of itself, mean and repulsive, also leads, along a path that, at first glance, seems utterly incomprehensible, to great delight.There is not a single character in the story who is not repulsive, not a single event that is not trivial, not a single thought which is in any way luminous.Nevertheless, in this piling up of the trivial and the repulsive, a kind of special meaning thrusts itself through and becomes manifest, which Gogol is right to attribute to laughter, i.In a farce no one laughs; everyone, on the contrary, is anxious and in earnest, though all this material is arranged in such a way that it inevitably induces in the spectator hearty laughter, which can be ranked with the unfolding of lyric poetry and which Gogol correctly calls the only worthy character of his farce.German esthetics has long referred to this psychological aspect of art as the esthetic of the grotesque, and through these examples demonstrated with extraordinary persuasiveness the dialectical character of esthetic experience.It is necessary to experience with the hero the absolute consummation of destruction in order to rise above it, together with the chorus.Education of Creativity, Esthetic Reasoning, and Technical Skills
Carried over to education, this thesis naturally breaks down into three separate problems.Who Should Teach Whom to Write: Should we Teach the Children of Peasants or Should the Children of Peasants Teach Us?Goethe, from the lofty heights of his art, can attain.And if there were some banal moments in their compositions, this was always the fault of Tolstoy himself; whenever the children were left to their own devices, they did not utter a single affected word.Education corrupts, and does not reform people.But it is also necessary to recognize that such creativity is of an order all its own; it is, so to speak, transient creativity, giving rise to no objective values and needed more by the child himself than by those around him.Fed'ka and Semka grew up, but did not become great writers, even though at the age of 11 they were given to use language which, as Tolstoy, with all his prestige, was forced to admit, went far beyond that found in novels and was the equal of the most felicitous passages in Goethe.The very processes by which genius and talent are selected are still so dimly understood, so well hidden, and have been so little studied that pedagogics is entirely powerless to say precisely which steps might help preserve and foster future geniuses.Here we confront the extraordinarily involved question of the very possibility of esthetic education.There was a time when the concept of craftsman fully encompassed the concept of artist.It is true that, in childhood, immediate urges and creative impulses are more powerful and more vivid, but, as we showed earlier, the nature of these urges and impulses are not at all the same as in adults.But this view originates in an overly narrow view of public schools that forever has in mind those lessons that used to be given in the schools before the revolution.In this sense, those schools which have made mastery of the techniques of each of the arts an educational requirement are proceeding entirely properly from the standpoint of pedagogy.Vocational training in art, however, harbors far more pedagogical risks than benefits.Russia over the last several decades, seemed to have had only an oppressive effect.Not only has the art of musicianship not gained or acquired anything of value from this program, but, as is generally recognized, even the simple musical education of the art of appreciation, apprehension, and experience of music never and nowhere stood so low as in that milieu where learning how to play music became a mandatory rule of good breeding.Hence, vocational training in the techniques of each of the various arts, if we understand it as a task of general education and edification, has to be introduced within certain limits and reduced to a minimum, and the main thing is to conform with the other two paths of esthetic education.Only that instruction in techniques is useful which goes beyond these techniques and teaches creative skills, whether those involved in creating or those involved in apprehending.These general goals wholly define the paths of esthetic education.European schools, are true exemplars of esthetic education.Art transforms reality not only in the constructions of fantasy, but also in a genuine recreation of things, objects, and situations.Beauty has to be converted from a rare and festive thing into a demand of everyday existence.The rule to follow here is not the embellishment of life, but the creative reworking of reality, a processing of things and the movements of things which will illuminate and elevate everyday experience to the level of the creative.Two psychological arguments have been advanced in defense of this view.It is for this reason that the child readily accepts the interpretation of reality given in fables, and, second, discovers in fables what adults discover in religion, science, and art, that is, the primary explanation and understanding of the world, the reduction of the discordant chaos of impressions into a unified and integral system.For a child, fables are philosophy, science, and art.There is another approach which claims that, in accordance with the biogenetic law, the child, in the course of his development, repeats in abbreviated and compressed form the principal stages and epochs that mankind has experienced in its development.This approach sees in fables a necessary evil, a psychological concession to childhood, in the expression of one psychologist, an esthetic pacifier.Both these views are profoundly mistaken at their very roots.As regards the first view, pedagogics has long rejected all kinds of mediation, inasmuch as the harm it introduces always outweighs any possible benefit.The point is that any benefit is always temporary, it exists until the child grows up and no longer has any need for such a mediative explanation of the world.If, in this period in his life, a child is forced to control and guide his behavior under the influence of false and deliberately misleading ideas and views, we can be quite certain that these views will create habits of behavior along these false directions.The harm which thereby ensues may manifest itself in humiliating forms of behavior that may last for many decades.Finally, the last argument that may be brought against the traditional view of fables is the utterly profound disrespect for reality, the excessive importance ascribed to the invisible, which such fables methodically instil.The child remains dull and foolish when he relates to the real world, he remains closed up within a stagnant and unhealthy atmosphere, for the most part in a kingdom of fabulous creatures.He has no interest in trees or in birds, and the manifold variety of experience seems to lack all substance.For a child, however, such speech is not in the least more understandable.When he then hears distorted speech coming from adults, he is totally lost and tries to approximate his own speech to this distorted speech.No one has yet to show that, in the course of his development, the child repeats the history of mankind, and not even science has ever had any grounds to speak of anything more than isolated correlations and more or less remote analogies between the behavior of a child and that of a savage.On the contrary, all those essential changes in the pattern of education that are a function of social circumstances and environment, more properly, as a function of the common fundament of life the child enters the moment he is born, are quite at variance with the biogenetic law, in every instance contrary to any direct translation of the law from biology into psychology.The child turns out to be entirely able to interpret phenomena realistically and truthfully, though, of course, he cannot immediately find an explanation for absolutely everything.There can be little doubt that most of our fables, which are based precisely on such unhealthy fantasy and lack all other values, must be abandoned and forgotten as soon as possible.What is more important is that the child know that it never existed in real life, that it is only a story, and that he get into the habit of responding to it as a fable, and that, consequently, the question of whether such an event could be possible in real life ceases to exist for him.That we do have feelings, this is always a real fact.Thus, fantasy justifies itself in this law of the realness of our feelings.The principal value of fables is formed in the extraordinarily conceptual features of childhood.The point is that the interaction between the individual and the world, which is what all of our behavior and all of our psyche ultimately reduces to, is, in children, at its most delicate and most underdeveloped stage, and, therefore, the demand for every imaginable form that might give emotion a degree of discipline is felt in especially marked fashion.Otherwise, the vast bulk of impressions reaching the child in quantities far beyond his ability to respond would overwhelm him and make him confused.The most interesting of all the recent studies on the nature of the emotions reaches exactly the same conclusions as the law we have just discussed.While there are some feelings which thrive in bright colors and warm tones, there are others, on the contrary, which go better with cold tones and dim colors, and it is right here that the mental expression of the emotions manifests itself.The feeling of melancholy compels me not only to carry my body in a certain way, but to also select impressions in a certain way, and it finds its expression in sad memories, in sad fantasies, and in sad dreams.Hence the emotional value of imagination becomes understandable.It should be recalled in this connection that art does not just provide an outlet and expression for a particular emotion, it always resolves this emotion and liberates the psyche from its sombre influence.Thus does the psychological effect of the fable converge with the psychological effect of games.In games, the child is
always creatively transforming reality.Its psychological nature is wholly defined by the dual expression of the emotions, which is manifested in movements and in the discipline of games.Esthetic Education and Natural Talent
There is the belief that there are two entirely different systems of esthetic education, one for the gifted and talented, and the other for ordinary, average students.As regards voice training, the view that every person is supplied with an ideal voice from birth, a voice that comprises potentialities that exceed many times over the highest achievements of vocal art, is increasingly taking root.In its normal organization, the human throat is the greatest musical instrument in the world, and if in spite of this, we always speak with terrible voices, the only reason for this is the fact that, because of shouting, improper breathing, and developmental conditions and dress, we appear to have spoiled the voice we are initially endowed with.The ordinary conception of natural talent seems to have been turned upside down, and the problem cannot be posed as it used to be; one has to ask, not why is it that some people are more gifted than others, but, rather, why others are less gi t d, since the high level of talent a human being is initially endowed with is, to all appearances, the fundamental datum in absolutely all domains of the psyche, and, consequently, those cases where these gifts have been lost or are in less abundance have to be explained.Thus, talent also becomes a goal of education, whereas in the old psychology it was present only as a premise and as a datum of education.In no other realm of psychology does this thought encounter such striking confirmation as in the field of art.The psychological difference between the composer and audience of a musical composition, between Beethoven and each of us, was brilliantly defined by Tolstoy, when he pointed out the need for us to react to every impression, and emphasized the realness of art, an idea that is of the greatest importance for esthetic education.This is why music only stimulates, but does not terminate.Thus, if there is a military march being played, the soldiers will march to the music, and the music will affect them; if there is dance music being played, I'll go dancing, and the music will affect me; and if mass is being sung, I'll receive communion, and the music will also affect me; but this is only stimulation, and there is nothing I have to do in response to this stimulation.This is why music is so frightful, why it sometimes has so frightful an effect.To play the music and to do what this music calls for, that is the point.There is an allegory concealed here.The wife must always eat after the husband.The wife must obey the husband in everything.The fact is that, like every powerful experience, esthetic experience creates a very tangible environment for subsequent actions and, of course, never transpires without leaving some trace that manifests itself in our behavior later on.Many writers have been quite right to compare works of poetry with batteries or devices for the storage of energy that is to be consumed subsequently.Come to think of it, we need only recall the existence of such forms of art as dance music to see that there is a certain motor impulse i in absolutely every esthetic sensation.Sometimes it is realized right then and there, in rudimentary form, whether in the movements of a dance or in the beating of time, and this belongs to the lower forms of art.Schiller's importance in the intellectual history of Germany is by no means
confined to his poetry and dramas.By your permission I lay before you, in a series of letters, the results of my
researches upon beauty and art.Like the chemist, the philosopher finds synthesis only by analysis, or the
spontaneous work of nature only through the torture of art.But I might perhaps make a better use of the opening you afford me if I were to direct
your mind to a loftier theme than that of art.It is unsatisfactory to live out of your own age and to work for other times.But the voice of our age seems by no means favorable to art, at all events to that kind
of art to which my inquiry is directed.The course of events has given a direction to the
genius of the time that threatens to remove it continually further from the ideal of art.Utility is the great idol of the time, to which all powers do homage and all subjects are
subservient.In this great balance of utility, the spiritual service of art has no weight,
and, deprived of all encouragement, it vanishes from the noisy Vanity Fair of our time.It would almost seem to betray a culpable indifference to the welfare of
society if we did not share this general interest.It must accordingly be of deepest
moment to every man to think for himself.When man is raised from his slumber in the senses, he feels that he is a man, he
surveys his surroundings, and finds that he is in a state.It is in this wise that a people in a state of manhood is justified in
exchanging a condition of thraldom for one of moral freedom.This prop is not found in the natural character of man, who, being selfish and violent,
directs his energies rather to the destruction than to the preservation of society.It may be urged that every individual man carries, within himself, at least in his
adaptation and destination, a purely ideal man.No doubt the reason demands unity, and nature variety, and
both legislations take man in hand.In this case the aim or end meets in the material, and it is only because the whole serves
the parts that the parts adapt themselves to the end.Does the present age, do passing events, present this character?The moral possibility is wanting,
and the generous occasion finds an unsusceptible rule.Man paints himself in his actions, and what is the form depicted in the drama of the
present time?Ought he to be blamed because he lost sight
of the dignity of human nature, so long as he was concerned in preserving his existence?Can we blame him that he proceeded to separate by the force of gravity, to fasten by the
force of cohesion, at a time when there could be no thought of building or raising up?The remark applies with truth to
the world of morals.We only maintain our caprice against her holy rights.Poetry had not yet become the adversary of wit, nor had speculation abused
itself by passing into quibbling.In cases of necessity both poetry and wit could exchange
parts, because they both honoured truth only in their special way.Why could the individual Greek be qualified as the type of his time?This subversion, commenced by art and learning in the inner man, was carried out to
fullness and finished by the spirit of innovation in government.We know that the sensibility of the mind depends, as to degree, on the
liveliness, and for extent on the richness of the imagination.The point at which we see humanity arrived
among the Greeks was undoubtedly a maximum; it could neither stop there nor rise higher.It could not stop there, for the sum of notions acquired forced infallibly the
intelligence to break with feeling and intuition, and to lead to clearness of knowledge.There was no other way to develop the manifold aptitudes of man than to bring them in
opposition with one another.By an exclusive spirit in the case of his faculties, the individual is fatally led to
error; but the species is led to truth.And in what relation should we be placed with past and future ages if
the perfecting of human nature made such a sacrifice indispensable?But can it be true that man has to neglect himself for any end whatever?In the physical creation, nature shows us the road that we have to follow in the moral
creation.Europe it may be degraded in the person of the thinker.In another place, reduced to despair by a
pedantic tutelage, it will be driven into the savage license of the state of nature.Must philosophy therefore retire from this field, disappointed in its hopes?Iliad' from descending into the dismal field of battle, to fight them in person.Whence, in fact, proceeds this general sway of prejudices, this might of the
understanding in the midst of the light disseminated by philosophy and experience?Whence then is it that we remain still barbarians?The greater part of men are much too exhausted and enervated by
their struggle with want to be able to engage in a new and severe contest with error.No doubt, nothing is more common than to see science and art bend
before the spirit of the age, and creative taste receive its law from critical taste.No doubt the artist is the child of his time, but unhappy for him if he is its disciple
or even its favourite.Its matter may be dishonoured as well as ennobled by
fancy, but the ever chaste form escapes from the caprices of imagination.But how will the artist avoid the corruption of his time which encloses him on all
hands?But let the artist endeavour to give
birth to the ideal by the union of the possible and of the necessary.Direct the world on which you act towards that which is good, and
the measured and peaceful course of time will bring about the results.The structure of error and of all that is arbitrary must fall,
and it has already fallen, as soon as you are sure that it is tottering.But it is
important that it should not only totter in the external but also in the internal man.The gravity of your principles will keep them off from you, but in play they
will still endure them.Their taste is purer than their heart, and it is by their taste
you must lay hold of this suspicious fugitive.In vain will you combat their maxims, in
vain will you condemn their actions; but you can try your moulding hand on their leisure.Drive away caprice, frivolity, and coarseness, from their pleasures, and you will banish
them imperceptibly from their acts, and length from their feelings.It is the beautiful that must bring it back from this twofold
departure.It cannot be disputed that man bears within himself, in his personality,
a predisposition for divinity.In other terms, he must manifest all that is internal,
and give form to all that is external.Ego, or what is permanent.By matter I only understand in this place the change
or reality that fills time.Consequently the instinct requires that there should be
change, and that time should contain something.This simply filled state of time is named
sensation, and it is only in this state that physical existence manifests itself.As all that is in time is successive, it follows by that fact alone that something is:
all the remainder is excluded.When one note on an instrument is touched, among all those
that it virtually offers, this note alone is real.When man is actually modified, the
infinite possibility of all his modifications is limited to this single mode of existence.Thus, then, the exclusive action of sensuous impulsion has for its necessary consequence
the narrowest limitation.It therefore decides for always what it decides now, and orders now
what it orders for ever.Hence it embraces the whole series of times, or what comes to the
same thing, it suppresses time and change.One of these ends is
attained by the cultivation of the sensuous, the other by that of the reason.But man can invert this relation, and thus fail in attaining his destination in two
ways.Ego, and hence in both
cases he will be neither the one nor the other, consequently he will be nothing.Thus the two impulsions subdue
the mind: the former to the laws of nature, the latter to the laws of reason.When we welcome with effusion some one who deserves our contempt,
we feel painfully that nature is constrained.When we have a hostile feeling against a
person who commands our esteem, we feel painfully the constraint of reason.Be pleased to follow me a few steps further, and a large horizon will open up
to you and a delightful prospect will reward you for the labour of the way.Beauty is neither extended to the whole field of all living things nor merely enclosed
in this field.For this to be the case, it is necessary that
his form should be life, and that his life should be a form.Experience can answer us if there
is a beauty, and we shall know it as soon as she has taught us if a humanity can exist.But neither reason nor experience can tell us how beauty can be, and how a humanity is
possible.We know that man is neither exclusively matter nor exclusively spirit.But life becomes more indifferent when dignity is
mixed up with it, and duty on longer coerces when inclination attracts.But perhaps the objection has for some time occurred to you, Is not the beautiful
degraded by this, that it is made a mere play?Olympia, with the Roman people gloating over
the agony of a gladiator.It was advanced that soft beauty is for an unstrung mind, and the energetic beauty for
the tightly strung mind.But I apply the term unstrung to a man when he is rather under
the pressure of feelings than under the pressure of conceptions.The former service she does to the man of nature, the second
to the man of art.To be able to arrive at a conception how beauty can become a means to remove this
twofold relaxation, we must explore its source in the human mind.The former is immediately
certain through experience, the other through the reason.But this requires two very different operations, which must necessarily support each
other in this inquiry.Beauty it is said, weds two conditions with one another which are
opposite to each other, and can never be one.Secondly, it is usual to say, beauty unites those two opposed conditions, and therefore
removes the opposition.But because both conditions remain eternally opposed to one
another, they cannot be united in any other way than by being suppressed.The explanation of this proposition leads us most readily to
our end.But this assumes that the freedom of the intellectual faculties can be balked, which
appears contradictory to the conception of an autonomous power.Here we must remember that we have before us, not the infinite mind, but the finite.The finite mind is that which only becomes active through the passive, only arrives at the
absolute through limitation, and only acts and fashions in as far as it receives matter.How can two such opposite tendencies exist
together in the same being?This is a problem that can no doubt embarrass the
metaphysician, but not the transcendental philosopher.The latter is quite involuntary, and directly it is produced in us, we are
necessarily passive.Man cannot pass immediately from sensuousness to thought.And now I can
clear up this proposition.It is situated in the former
position when it feels, in the second when it thinks.But by this, something infinite is attained.That which flatters our senses in immediate sensation opens our weak and volatile
spirit to every impression, but makes us in the same degree less apt for exertion.In a word, there is no other way to make a reasonable being out of a sensuous man than by
making him first aesthetic.Could not truth and
duty, one or the other, in themselves and by themselves, find access to the sensuous man?And that he can effect without thwarting in the least degree his physical aim.Of this, there can be no question.What is man before beauty liberates him from free pleasure, and the serenity of form
tames down the savageness of life?Every phaenomenon stands out
before him, separate and cut off, as he finds himself in the series of beings.True, his is the powerful breast and the mighty hand of the Titans.Hid it from his shy, sinister look.Every desire is with
him a rage, And his rage prowls around limitless.It is only an idea, but an idea with which experience
agrees most closely in special features.Facts verify this supposition.But even if the reason does not go astray in its object, or err in the question,
sensuousness will continue to falsify the answer for a long time.He has placed himself in relation
with, not a holy being, but a powerful.God, is a fear that abases him, and not a veneration that elevates
him in his own esteem.Nature ought not to rule him exclusively; nor reason conditionally.The two legislations
ought to be completely independent and yet mutually complementary.That which first connects man with the surrounding universe is the power of reflective
contemplation.What phaenomenon accompanies the initiation of the savage into humanity?In truth, we are
passive to an object; in sight and hearing the object is a form we create.While still a
savage, man only enjoys through touch merely aided by sight and sound.Thus the faculty of the art of imitation is
given with the faculty of form in general.It is only by being frank or disclaiming all reality, and by being independent or doing
without reality, that the appearance is aesthetical.In this case, the ideal will be seen to govern real life, honour triumphing over
fortune, thought over enjoyment, the dream of immortality over a transitory existence.The second lacks reality, and
wishes to replace it by appearance.And even the exceptions they admit in favour of the
beautiful have for their object less the independent appearance than the needy appearance.Accordingly, the taste of the age
need not much fear these criticisms, if it can clear itself before better judges.Do not fear for reality and truth.Thus reality would not have much to fear from appearance, as we
understand it; but, on the other hand, appearance would have more to fear from reality.That which he possesses, that which he produces, ought not merely to bear any more the
traces of servitude, nor to mark out the end, simply and scrupulously, by the form.The free pleasure comes to take a place among his wants, and
the useless soon becomes the best part of his joys.Trojan army rushes on to the field of battle with thrilling cries, the
Greek army approaches in silence and with a noble and measured step.The aesthetic state alone can make it real,
because it carries out the will of all through the nature of the individual.Beauty alone can we enjoy both as
individuals and as a race, that is, as representing a race.It extends up to the seat of reason's supremacy, suppressing all
that is material.It extends down to where sensuous impulse rules with blind compulsion,
and form is undeveloped.Duty and stern necessity must change their forbidding tone, only excused by resistance,
and do homage to nature by a nobler trust in her.Strength must let the Graces bind it, and the arbitrary lion must yield to the
reins of love.If thus restricted in
the material, man has, as elsewhere appears, to find compensation in the ideal world.Does such a state of beauty in appearance exist, and where?Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational
purposes and personal use.International organization headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland offering training and diplomas through 160 schools in 33 countries.Canadian campuses offering programs in massage therapy, esthetics and spa management in North York and Ontario.Educating students to enter a professional career in the beauty industry.Aesthetic Salon and School located in Vienna, Virginia.Lauderdale, Florida, courses offered nationwide.Training and products for estheticians.Located in Barcelona, Spain.International training courses located in Cape Town, South Africa covering all aspects of beauty therapy.Offers state recognized basic and master esthetic courses, as well as make up courses.Minimum class sizes maintained.Focuses on empowering students to become a professional estheticians through experienced educators.Located in Edmonton, AB.London school offering classes to beginners and advanced students alike.Offers training for the CIBTAC diploma and the CIDESCO international diploma.Offers licensing programs for becoming an esthetician, esthetics teacher, or massage therapist as well as continuing education classes.Providing esthetics education and training at both the student and instructor levels while providing day spa services to the public.New York State approved programs in esthetics, nail specialty and waxing.Located in Fishkill, NY.Offers medical esthetics for national and international students.School located in Newport Beach, California offers workshops in cosmetic lasers, dermal fillers, medical microdermabrasion and chemical peels, tatto removal and botox.Complementary therapy courses to CIDESCO and ITEC international standards as well as general beauty therapy courses.Locations in the New York counties of Suffolk and Nassau.Offering full time, part time, and correspondence courses, with details of programmes, accreditation and financial assistance.New South Wales, Australia.Esthetic and electrolysis schools with locations in Quebec, Canada, Montreal, Canada and Santa Ana, California.Skin care facilities in Washington, DC and San Francisco, CA providing esthetics training and esthetician licensing preparation.Teaching esthetics and beauty subjects in Stotfold, UK leading to the International Therapy Examination Council certificate or diploma.Accredited by Australian governing body.Due to expanded clinical responsibilities in plastic surgeons' and dermatologists' practices expert esthetic clinicians with broad educational backgrounds and the appropriate credentials are urgently needed and are in great demand.The critical deficiency in supply of properly trained medical estheticians for health care services is widely recognized as a serious problem by practicing physicians.Physicians commonly complain of the limited competence of inadequately trained personnel.Lack of adequate training can easily result in inconsistencies in patient's treatments and confusion on the part of the unprepared medical esthetics practitioner.Limited education results in limited career opportunities for you.As a graduate of our institute, ongoing career counseling will also be available to you to ensure your future career success.An admissions counselor will contact you to personally discuss your particular educational and career objectives.Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player.Thank you for sharing your concerns.Thank you for flagging this video.Per our Community Guidelines, hate speech is specifically defined in reference to "protected groups."There may be significant legal penalties for false notices.In order to process a privacy complaint we need more information from you.Thank you for sharing this video!Not something good in Ukraine!Love is so simple if you give it all you can...Would you like to comment?This is Esthetic Education's first clip.This is Esthetic Education's first clip.The code changes based on your selection.Get the latest Flash player.This video has been added to your favorites.The video has been added to your playlist.This video will appear on your blog shortly.Thank you for sharing your concerns.Thank you for sharing your concerns.Please refer to our Help Center for more information and the form to submit.Thank you for sharing this video!Change the value of a comment by clicking on a thumb.It's a mix of America's Fray and Russia's Plazma.Odnagdi letela s nimi v samoljete..Would you like to comment?Esthetic Education is an amazing band based in ...Esthetic Education is an amazing band based in Ukraine.They are creating a unique body of work in the Post Soviet musical world.This is the video clip of their hit single "Machine".The code changes based on your selection.Esthetic Education
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