예술가에게 미학은 쓸모없는 것인가? - 버넷 뉴먼이 바라본 미국미학의 경우를 중심으로 - = Is Aesthetics Useless for Artist? Barnett Newman's View of American Aesthetics

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

What aesthetics and aesthetician are like for the artist? There are many concerns on the dialogue between artist and aesthetician, although the opportunity is few. It is worth to notice Barnett Newman's reference against the role of the American Society of Aesthetics. Newman, one of the representative American painters in 20th century, mentioned that “the role of aesthetics for an artist is no more than that of ornithology for a bird”. This phrase has been called as a trite saying to blame aesthetics.
The purpose of this paper is to pay attention to Newman's lecture, which was occurred in the American Society of Aesthetics, as an index to measure the distance between art and aesthetics, and to investigate the relation between American art and contemporary aesthetics research in the middle of 20th century. Newman was an artist standing for abstract expressionism and at the same time has written a lot of art criticism or aesthetic writing, such as “The Sublime is Now”. He was expected as a man who was able to link together aesthetics with contemporary art. But he criticize the basic attitude of ‘the aesthetics as a science' which was formulated by American Society of Aesthetics, especially by Thomas Munro. The controversial point on the aesthetics as a science can be summarized as following. Firstly, the refusal of value judgement, secondly, the its immaturity as a science and the doubt on its objectivity, and thirdly, the overlooking the ontological difference between the work of art and the simple things.
Newman still rejected Susanne Langer's theory of art as symbol. Because artist does not create the sign or word which designate the real, but the reality itself. Artist does not interpret the nature or the real, but make it. While the phenomenological problems of the artistic experience in contemporary American art grows important, academic concerns of aesthetics proceed to analytic aesthetics. The wholehearted devotion to analytic aesthetics not only kept at a distance from the practical aesthetics, but also brought about the delay of phenomenological aesthetics in America.
The concept of aesthetic experience has been degenerated rapidly during the development of analytic aesthetics. One of the reason to make distance from the works of art in American aesthetics can be found out in the transference of aesthetic concern from the experience of work of art to semantic phase of it. The period of Newman's lecture was overlapped on the period of flowing to investigate aesthetic experience with phenomenological method and the period of emerging the semiology of art and the analytic aesthetics instead of aesthetics as a science as well.
Richard Shusterman's intention to argue the degeneration of aesthetic experience in American aesthetics is basically coincide with the critical verification on the analytic aesthetics. He tries to restore the vivid connection between our lives and the arts, which becomes vague in the process of American aesthetics. Conferring Dewey's aesthetics, Shusterman noticed on the phenomenon of popular art. He attempt to accomplish pragmatic aesthetics beyond the border between the ordinary life and art, and the opposition between the aesthetic and the practical.

국문 초록 (Abstract)

본 논문은 예술가에게 있어서 미학이 어떠한 존재로 비쳐지고 있는지를, 20세기 미국을 대표하는 화가의 한 사람인 버넷 뉴먼의 경우를 출발점으로 삼아 고찰해 보고자 한다. 미술과 미학간의 거리를 계측하는 하나의 지표로서, “화가에게 있어서 미학이란, 새에게 있어서 조류학이 갖는 의미에 지나지 않는다.”고 하는 뉴먼의 발언에 주목하고, 이로부터 20세기 중엽 미국의 예술가 및 예술작품과 동시대의 미학연구 간의 관계를 고찰하고자한다.
같은 사회, 같은 문화적 환경에 있으면서도 현대미술과 아카데믹한 미학 사이에 이러한 커다란 거리가 있었던 이유는 무엇일까? 미국미학회의 연구방향은 1960년대 이후 예술기호론과 분석미학이라고 하는 언어철학 계열의 예술철학이 지배적이었다. 하지만 그러한 상황 속에서 미니멀리즘과 퍼포먼스 아트 같은 현대미술과, 그리고 그 비평이 의거한 것은 오히려 현상학 쪽이었다.
1980년대 후반에 이르러 리처드 슈스터먼은 미국미학의 전개과정 속에서 미적경험의 쇠퇴를 논하였다. 그의 의도는, 분석미학에 대한 비판적 검증과 근본적으로 상통하고 있다. 그는 미국의 철학적 미학의 전개 속에서 희미해져가고 있는 사안, 특히 인간의 삶과 예술 사이의 생생한 관련을 회복시키려 한다.

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