“The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche (translated by Shaun Whiteside)

In his first book, Nietzsche details the role of Greek tragedy in forming humanity’s conception of aesthetics. “Art derives its continuous development from the duality of the Apolline and Dionysiac…. To the two gods of art, Apollo and Dionysus, we owe our recognition that in the Greek world there is a tremendous opposition, as regards both origins and aims, between the Appolline art of the sculptor and the non-visual, Dionysiac art of music. These two very different tendencies walk side by side, usually in violent opposition to one another…. By a metaphysical miracle of the Hellenic ‘will’, the two seem to be coupled, and in this coupling they seem at last to beget the work of art that is as Dionysiac as it is Appoline— Attic tragedy.”

First, Nietzsche zooms out to convey how aesthetics relate to reality. “We can indeed assume for our own part that we are images and artistic projections for the true creator of that world, and that our highest dignity lies in the meaning of works of art—for it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified…. Only in so far as the genius is fused with the primal artist of the world in the act of artistic creation does he know anything of the eternal essence of art.”

Nietzsche describes, in minute detail, the composition and meaning of Attic tragedy, as it was first performed in Athens, “The ground walked upon by the Greek satyr chorus, the chorus of the original tragedy, is an ideal ground, a ground lifted high above the real paths of mortal men. For this chorus the Greeks built the floating scaffold of an invented natural state, and placed upon it natural beings invented especially for it. It was on this foundation that tragedy arose…. The satyr, the Dionysiac chorist, lives in a world granted existence under the religious sanction of myth and ritual….

The satyr, like the idyllic shepherd of our own more recent age, is the product of a longing for the primal and the natural; but how firmly and fearlessly did the Greeks hold onto this man of the woods…. Nature, still unaffected by knowledge, the bolts of culture still unforced—that is what the Greeks saw in their satyr…. He was the archetype of man, the expression of his highest and most intense emotions, an inspired reveler enraptured by the closeness of his god…. The chorus is a living wall against encroaching reality because it—the satyr chorus—depicts existence more truly, more authentically, more completely than the man of culture who sees himself as the sole reality…. The contrast between this authentic, natural truth and the lie of culture masquerading, as the sole reality is like the contrast between the eternal core of things, the thing in itself, and the entire world of phenomena…. The symbolism of the satyr chorus analogously expresses the primal relationship between the thing in itself and the world of appearances….

This interpretation perfectly explains the chorus in Greek tragedy, the symbol of the crowd in a Dionysiac state…. The tragic chorus of the Greeks is older, more primordial, indeed more important than the ‘action’ itself…. We now know that the stage, and the action, were fundamentally and originally conceived only as a vision, that the sole ‘reality’ is the chorus, which generates the vision from within itself…. In its vision this chorus beholds its Lord and master, Dionysus, and hence it is always a chorus of votaries…. In this function of complete devotion to the god, it is the supreme, Dionysiac expression of nature, and therefore, like nature, it speaks under the spell of wise and oracular sayings. Sharing his suffering, it is also wise, heralding the truth from the very heart of the world…. 

This is the Apolline dream state, in which the daylight world is veiled and a new world, more distinct, comprehensible and affecting than the other and yet more shadowy, is constantly reborn before our eyes…. The language, colour, mobility and dynamic of speech become completely separate spheres of expression in the Dionysiac lyric of the chorus and the Apolline dream world of the stage. Everything that comes to the surface in the Apolline part of Greek tragedy, the dialogue, looks simple, transparent and beautiful.”

Finally, Nietzsche concludes by revealing the role myth and tragedy played in shaping our culture at large, “Without myth all culture loses its healthy and natural creative power: only a horizon surrounded by myths can unify an entire cultural movement. Myth alone rescues all the powers of imagination and the Apolline dream from their aimless wanderings. The images of myth must be the daemonic guardians, omnipresent and unnoticed, which protect the growth of the young mind, and guide man’s interpretation of his life and struggles. The state itself has no unwritten laws more powerful than the mythical foundation that guarantees its connection with religion and its growth out of mythical representations.”

“The Dehumanization of Art and Other Essays” by Jose Ortega y Gasset (translated by Helene Weyl et al.)

Ortega y Gasset, never a wholehearted fan of modernity, nevertheless reluctantly concedes the value of modern art. As usual, he gives a characteristic patrician twist, perhaps not intended by the artists themselves, ““From a sociological point of view” the characteristic feature of the new art is, in my judgment, that it divides the public into the two classes of those who understand it, and those who do not…. Hence the indignation it arouses in the masses. When a man dislikes a work of art, but understands it, he feels superior to it; and there is no reason for indignation. But when his dislike is due to his failure to understand, he feels vaguely humiliated…. The art of the young compels the average citizen to realize that he is just this—the average citizen, a creature incapable of receiving the sacrament of art, blind and deaf to pure beauty…. The time must come in which society, from politics to art, reorganizes itself into two orders or ranks: the illustrious and the vulgar.”

The dehumanization of the subject and processes of art is, for Ortega y Gasset, modern art’s defining characteristic. “When we seek to ascertain the most general and most characteristic feature of modern artistic production we come upon the tendency to dehumanize art…. Far from going more or less clumsily toward reality, the artist is seen going against it. He is brazenly set on deforming reality, shattering its human aspect, dehumanizing it.” The other characteristic is for art not to take itself too seriously. “To insist on neat distinctions is a symptom of mental honesty. Life is one thing, art is another…. The first consequence of the retreat of art upon itself is a ban on all pathos. Art laden with “humanity” had become as weighty as life itself…. To look for fiction as fiction—which, we have said, modern art does—is a proposition that cannot be executed except with one’s tongue in one’s cheek. Art is appreciated precisely because it is recognized as a farce…. The new art ridicules art itself…. Art has no right to exist if, content to reproduce reality, it uselessly duplicates it. Its mission is to conjure up imaginary worlds. That can be done only if the artist repudiates reality and by this act places himself above it. Being an artist means ceasing to take seriously that very serious person we are when we are not an artist.”

Finally, Ortega y Gasset posits a purpose of modern art, “Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness…. All modern art begins to appear comprehensible and in a way great when it is interpreted as an attempt to instill a youthfulness into an ancient world.”

“The Plains” by Gerald Murnane

The most famous of Murnane’s novels, “The Plains” is a strange book. The novel’s narrator is a filmmaker, an outsider from Outer Australia, hired by one of the patrons of the Great Houses of the plains to live amongst them, to soak in their way of life, to study, and to create art. “The plainsmen were not always opposed to borrowings and importations, but in the matter of culture they had come to scorn the seeming barbarisms of their neighbours in the coastal cities and damp ranges.” The people of the plains have unique ways about them and a mythic quality. “They seemed to know what most men only guess at. Somewhere among the swaying grasses of their estates, or in the least-visited rooms of their rambling homesteads, they had learned the trues stories of their lives and known the men they might have been.” The story contains embedded within it a rivalry between two sects of plainsmen- the Horizonites and the Haresmen. “Almost any duality that occurred to a plainsman seemed easier to grasp if the two entities were associated with the two hues, blue-green and faded gold.” There is also much socializing, drinking, philosophizing, and debating. “In moods like this I suspect that every man may be traveling towards the heart of some remote private plain.” And most of all, there is a lot of looking at and contemplation about the greatness of the plains. “The plains are not what many plainsmen take them for. They are not, that is, a vast theatre that adds significance to the events enacted within it. Nor are they an immense field for explorers of every kind. They are simply a convenient source of metaphors for those who know that men invent their own meanings.”