By FLÁVIO R. KOTHE*

Neither propaganda, nor concept, nor devotion: pure art is a leap into the void that is only completed when someone dares to fall in with it.

1.

Architecture and rhetoric are strategic genres to see whether art has a purpose or not, as the former needs to meet a plan of needs, a set of functions, so that they can be performed, while rhetoric seeks to convince listeners, it wants them to think like the speaker, its function is to convince.

Architectural theory was created by Vitruvius based on rhetorical principles. Brazilian architects have lost track of this. For most of them, the profession is not even an exercise in art, but rather planning spaces built for the use of their empty spaces: they are concerned with solving practical problems, such as obtaining cheaper tiles or cement.

Architecture, however, ends up being remembered for being artistic. It has practical functions – as a place of government, an educational building, a library – but they serve as a basis for the projection of aesthetics.

Orators do not seem concerned with practicing art, but with outdoing others in their conversation. Speaking beautifully serves to hide the desire to convince. The purpose is not to seek the truth, but to manipulate wills. Oratory is the truth of sacred art, of propaganda art, of legitimizing the monarchy and the aristocracy. Saying that something is “art” serves to hide these non-aesthetic functions.

In architecture, it is possible to distinguish works that stand out for their grandeur, their grace, and their unforgettable configuration. One may not be Christian to appreciate temples such as the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, ​​the Cathedral of Florence, the Orthodox Church in Moscow's Red Square, or the Cathedral of Brasília. These are works that go beyond the horizon of the Catholic or Russian Orthodox standard.

Oscar Niemeyer was a communist and an atheist: his most beautiful building, however, is the Cathedral (which was supposed to be an ecumenical temple, from the inside of which one has a view of infinite spaces, not covered by the vault of common temples).

Gaudí managed to create such a mystical atmosphere inside the Sagrada Família that it allows you to walk through what generations and generations have dreamed of as heaven. It doesn't matter that no one has ever been there, it doesn't matter whether it exists or not, what you have in the temple is something unique, irreplaceable, not only Catholic but also the author. A non-Catholic can even appreciate the artistic aspect better, because it is not reduced to belief.

An atheist architect, even with the help of technical knowledge, may experience the work as “sublime,” beyond the threshold. The building may even be misused by Opus Dei or by helping to maintain the monarchy in Spain and prevent Catalonia from becoming independent, but it still transcends such uses. It is beyond the author’s beliefs. What identifies it as art is something that goes beyond this utilitarian horizon, even if it is a “spiritual” type of utility.

2.

To appreciate a “sacred” work as art, it is best not to be a believer in the religion enshrined in it, because, otherwise, one will see in the work only a testimony and document of faith, not a work that presents something true with the primacy of beauty.

To appreciate a work that consecrates royalty or aristocracy more impartially, it is better not to be a monarchist or an aristocrat, because otherwise, political interests will override the neutrality necessary to allow the greatness of the work to be shown as art, not as a piece of propaganda.

Those who appreciate the works of their country because they are patriots put political value above artistic value: for them, aesthetic quality is of little relevance, as they promote the work out of patriotic expectations.

Opinion groups do not accept that people question what they do not even consider to be an expression of piety, honesty, or decorum, because they believe it to be “pure truth.” The work reinforces a feeling that is prior to and external to the work. The same goes for “engaged art” and “conceptual art”: one seeks to promote a certain conception of what it considers fair and correct, the other seeks to demonstrate a concept; both fall outside the scope of what should be the main thing in art: its aesthetic validation.

The perception of great art is something magical, a result that goes beyond what can be seen, a reinforcement of understanding combined with intuitions of sensitivity: it is something that constitutes a horizon beyond the everyday and that which fits into definitions.

It is as if something beyond the linearity of time and space were opening up, revealing truths of being beyond the shelf. There are, however, quite objective methods of comparing works to distinguish those that went further in what they proposed and those that fell short of the horizon reached by others.

This is what developed as comparative literature, but it can also be expanded to the scope of comparative art.[I]

Various schools of comparative studies – French, Slavic, Russian, American – have developed methodologies that allow comparisons between works that are profoundly similar or have developed differences that are symptomatic.

These are ways of better understanding the works, regardless of the authors' biography, so that we can know more objectively how far each one went and what path it failed to follow. This way, we can see, through comparison, what each one achieved. They all help us understand each other, and each one helps us understand the others.

This procedure, which is basically analytical, also becomes synthesizing, it is intellectual, but it is accompanied by intuitions, imaginative projections, and experiences of sensitivity. It mobilizes the whole person, in their knowledge, their experiences, and unconscious perceptions. It is not only ontic nor only ontological, but rather the conjunction of both in a meaningful unity. It is the intuition of the “Sein” in an entity. The entity is more than an entity, and being is not merely abstract.

Although this process is like scaffolding to climb on construction sites and see how they are constructed, it does not dispense with a dive into the internal, peculiar constitution of the most complex work, so that one can enter it and reach a broader horizon.

A great work is irreplaceable; there comes a time when it cannot be compared to any other, because it is distinct from all others: that is the peculiarity of what it has to say. It cannot be replaced by a set of analytical judgments or by the synthesis of a final message that clarifies everything.

* Flavio R. Kothe is a retired full professor of aesthetics at the University of Brasília (UnB). Author, among other books, of Allegory, aura and fetish (Cajuína Publisher). [https://amzn.to/4bw2sGc].

Nota

[I] Kothe, Flávio R. Comparative art, Brasília, University of Brasília Press, 896 pages, 2016. ABEU Award 2017.

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