What is Real?: The Real as a Concept in “One and Three Chairs”

THE IDEA: 'ONE AND THREE CHAIRS'

            Joseph Kosuth's repeated installation 'One and Three Chairs' (1965), as seen in the figure below, was consisted of a dictionary definition of the word 'chair', which was hang up on the gallery wall, and an actual chair below the definition, and the photograph of the same chair that was placed next to the actual chair. The idea of Kosuth's installation find its roots in Plato's Republic.   In Book 10, Plato takes his inquiry on the ideal city one step further and questions the role and distribution of artworks in Socrates's ideal city. Socrates criticizes art as being two removes from the real, that is to say the real chair is the chair that was produced by the divine and it exists in the ideal world and humans are not able to grasp the form of this ideal chair regarding their lack of knowledge, so the actual chair produced by the craftsman is a poor copy of the ideal chair. Socrates goes further by explaining that a painting of a chair is two removes from the reality because it imitates the chair produced by the craftsman, which was already one remove from the real chair.[1]  

     As a conceptual artist, Kosuth's preference in visually representing Plato's ideas on art is to state the importance of the idea that results in an artwork. Conceptual art, being the prominent art movement of 1960's and 70's, is highly self-referential. Most of the work produced in that period celebrate the idea being the key to the artwork as Sol LeWitt writes in 'Paragraphs on Conceptual Art' that: 

Three-dimensional art of any kind is a physical fact. The physicality is its most obvious and expressive content. Conceptual art is made to engage the mind of the viewer rather than his eye or emotions. The physicality of a three-dimensional object then becomes a contradiction to its non-emotive intent. Color, surface, texture and shape only emphasize the physical aspects of the work. Anything that calls attention to and interests the viewer in this physicality is a deterrent to our understanding of the idea and is used as an expressive device. The conceptual artist would want to ameliorate this emphasis on materiality as much as possible or to use it in a paradoxical way (to convert it into an idea). This kind of art, then, should be stated with the greatest economy of means. Any idea that is better stated in two dimensions should not be in three dimensions. Ideas may also be stated with numbers, photographs, or words or any way the artist chooses, the form being unimportant.[2]  

    While directly referring to Plato's emphasis on the ideas, on the other hand, Kosuth touches upon the issue of the borders of philosophy that come into collision with the borders of art. Just as Plato favors philosophy against art by using language as his only medium, Kosuth favors art against philosophy by using language with a completely different purpose that changes the expressive role of the medium. As Hagberg puts it: “Art picks up where language leaves off”[3]. As he further discusses the issue, he acknowledges:

It is a claim that stems directly from the thoroughgoing assimilation of art to language, or rather assimilation to a particular view of language. This view is the picture theory of meaning developed in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, and it is Langer’s adoption of this model of language as a model for art.[4]

           

Before proceeding with the issue of language, it is important to understand the opposite standpoint of Kosuth's to Plato's ideas on art. One can argue that the discussion on the distribution of artworks in Socrates's Kallipolis is Kosuth's second and subtle referential point. Socrates discusses that there is a rational and irrational part of the human soul. The rational part measures and calculates the human actions in search for the truth, whereas the irrational part, involving emotions, can make people ignore the search for the truth. According to Socrates, art has such a great influence and manipulative power, via aesthetics, on the irrational part of the soul that it is dangerous for people without the necessary knowledge on the real and deludes the public because art in itself is the imitation of the real. Philosophy is the way to grasp the truth so art should be censored by the philosopher kings of Kallipolis.[5]

            Kosuth's subtle reference to Socrates's criticism on art also includes his own criticism on formalist art. On the first level, Kosuth claims with 'One and Three Chairs' that art is replacing or has already replaced philosophy in order to fulfill “man's spiritual needs”[6] by representing Plato's ideas in an art context. Secondly, he criticizes the formalist understanding of art by rejecting the idea of 'mimesis'[7]. Similar to what Sol LeWitt claims about the unimportance of the form of the artwork, Kosuth argues in his article 'Art after Philosophy' that:

'Modern' art and the work before seemed connected by virtue of their morphology. Another way of putting it would be that art's 'language' remained the same, but it was saying new things. The event that made conceivable the realization that it was possible to 'speak another language' and still make sense in art was Marcel Duchamp's first unassisted Readymade. With the unassisted Readymade, art changed its focus from the form of the language to what was being said. Which means that it changed the nature of art from a question of morphology to a question of function.[8]

He bases his argument on the idea that art is not aimed to imitate the nature and the physical quality of the artwork means very little when compared to the idea that it evolves from and manages to convey his criticism on formalist art visually in 'One and Three Chairs' by using different ready-made objects such as a coat, a saw, or a clock instead of a chair when he repeated the same installation in different places. Additionally, as an opposition to what Socrates claims about the aesthetics of the artwork that delude the public on their search for the truth, he claims that art is not necessarily aesthetic. A decorative object has to be aesthetic because it serves a decorative purpose but art only exists to be art and serves no other purpose than understanding the nature of art:

It is necessary to separate aesthetics from art because art deals with opinions on perception of the world in general. In the past one of the two prongs art's function was its value as decoration. So any branch of philosophy which dealt with 'beauty' and thus, taste, was inevitably duty bound to discuss art as well. Out of this 'habit' grew the notion that there was a conceptual connection between art and aesthetics, which is not true.[9]

In this context, Kosuth's arguments are worth considering while questioning the relations of arts to philosophy, whether art can take place of philosophy in order to understand 'the real' through man's spiritual quest. With reference to Socrates’ meaning of irrational part, Hagberg quotes as:

Wittgenstein gave an account of the meaning of propositions in terms of their logical picturing, or formal similarity to objects in the external world, whereas Langer is offering an account of meaning in art in terms of formal similarity to the internal world, the world of inner feeling. This, then, is the precise sense in which art is allegedly takes up where language leaves off. Wittgenstein ended the Tractatus with the equally famous and even more cryptic remark that whereof we cannot speak, there must we pass over in silence. Langer, however, begins her account of the meaning of art at this point just beyond the reach of language. Whereof we cannot speak, there we must compose, paint, write, sculpt, and so forth.[10]

           

ART PICKS UP WHERE LANGUAGE LEAVES OFF

            Based on Kant's distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions, Kosuth argues that:

Works of art are analytical propositions. That is, if viewed within their context-- as art -- they provide no information what-so-ever about any matter of fact. A work of art is a tautology in that it is a presentation of the artist's intention, that is, he is saying that that particular work of art is art, which means is a definition of art. Thus, that it is art is true a priori (which is what Donald Judd means when he states that 'if someone calls it art, it's art')[11].

           

Regarding the use of language as a medium of artistic expression the irony in Kosuth’s work is undeniable. For him language preserves its relational dynamics with the contexts they come alive. This recognition is not foreign to Plato’s arguments on the idea of things. Yet his reference point is blurred on the contrary. For Kosuth, there accepted no hierarchy of values concerning the perception of things but a sense of differentiation among concepts which would eventually differentiate the word itself as well. For that matter language is a medium of artistic expression in Kosuth’s work. The utilization of language at this level is safe if one considers the threat that use of language poses in the quest of truth. More, this kind of stimulation may bring a retrospective perception along which would create an inverse effect for 'the society of spectacle'[12] to preserve itself. In such considerations that one would find Kosuth political as well in his search for the artistic expression of truth.

            Is language safe in the quest of truth? Or in Nietzsche’s words, “Is language the adequate expression of all realities?”[13] Is it possible for us to grasp the things in themselves? The ultimate is for sure beyond the grasp. Yet to see things in various conceptual edifices gives the individual the power to approach further to the ultimate[14], or let’s say to the “unsayable”. Within all these conceptual frames language is the ultimate accomplice. Kosuth’s choice of language as the medium of creation is not a choice at all. Kosuth is obliged to utilize the words to reveal their transformed values and relations to the same meaning in different time-space spectrums. To sharpen the meaning, Hagberg provides such a remark: “[…] despite their fundamental likeness, art and language do not collapse into each other to become identical. The line of demarcation between the two thus corresponds to the limit of the sayable.”[15]

In turn the artwork is able to stand by itself without creating another conceptual prison just by including more than one edifice within. Yet the artwork is another conceptual frame. It is by these means possible for the artwork to replace philosophy in the quest of truth. There one can see a meaningful expression without being deceived by the expression. To manage this Kosuth takes from Socrates’ definition of things in relation to arts and crafts. The notion can be shown as:

IDEA -------> CRAFT (EXPERIENCE) -------> ART (IDEALIZATION)

This scheme is showing the two removes from the real. The artwork in that respect is taken away from the reality and become irrational. Kosuth breaks free from this scheme by including more than one experience to the conceptual frame of the artwork. For that matter:

IDEA       -------> CHAIR EXPERIENCE 1 ------->       ARTWORK

(CHAIR) -------> CHAIR EXPERIENCE 2 -------> (ONE AND THREE            

                -------> CHAIR EXPERIENCE 3 ------->         CHAIRS)

While the language is protecting this deception of unity, the expression of different experiences that use the same deceptive medium separately turns out the meaning away when combined. In that respect the focus on experience is the distinct power of the conceptual art to replace philosophy in comparison to the poor experiential expression of the formalist art. Thus the art becomes the language of the unsayable given this identical definition from Tractatus:

One name stands for one thing, and another for another thing, and they are connected together. And so the whole, like a living picture, presents the atomic fact.[16]

In reference to the Society of Spectacle:

The issue is ‘representation’ – specifically, the representation of the object of study in a critical text. […] By most accounts, collage is the single most revolutionary formal innovation in artistic representation to occur in our century. Although the technique itself is ancient, collage was introduced into the “high arts” (as is well known) by Braque and Picasso as a solution to the problems raised by analytic cubism, a solution which finally provided an alternative to the “illusionism" of perspective which had dominated Western painting since the early Renaissance.[17]                              

In relation to the above quotation, it is written in the Society of Spectacle as:

In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.

The images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream in which the unity of that life can no longer be recovered. Fragmented views of reality regroup themselves into a new unity as a separate pseudo-world that can only be looked at. The specialization of images of the world evolves into a world of autonomised images where even the deceivers are deceived. The spectacle is a concrete inversion of life, an autonomous movement of the nonliving.[18]

Agreed on the shift from philosophical to artistic quest of truth, the creation of the society of spectacle seems to be the threat Socrates defines as the "irrational part" of human knowledge. The detachment of the image from its reality creates a footloose deceptive truth in itself which is ultimately false and pseudo as Debord and Knabb state.

                 Yet it makes sense to define Kosuth's work as a counter creation against the deceptive nature of the spectacle. Providing the meaning within its different uses, Kosuth re-attach the sign to its mental formation within a specific system of a language. The view of such an art form is counter-acting against the popular form of an image illusioned with a specific perspective. As Merleau-Ponty describes the art form of the period based on her ideas on subject and object: “[...] the multiperspectivalism implicit in installation art comes to be equated with an emancipatory liberal politics and an opposition to the 'psychological rigidity' of seeing things from one fixed point of view.”[19]

ART IS 'THE REAL'

               The use of language in art-making became subject to severe discussions with the manifests of the Art & Language group at the end of 60's.  Kosuth, already being introduced the linguistic forms into his art in the early 60's later merged his work with the Art & Language group in the early 70's. Charles Harrison explains the object of the group as “[...] to challenge the competences of the 'adequately sensitive, adequately informed, spectator' and to do so on the ground of an artistic practice which extended into the territory of language and literature.” He continues to explain the role of language as the power forms of the beholder's non-aesthetic existence as well as the forms of reference to the aesthetic which are the functions of the allegories serve and express these powers and interests even as they mask and misinterpret them. “The 'adequately sensitive, adequately informed, spectator' historicizes , interprets and judges in the aesthetic realm, and does so securely so long as he is allowed to be disinterested; so long, that is to say, the material (and other) grounds of that adequacy are not laid open to inquiry.”[20]

                 Kosuth uses language in his works in such a way that the language is induced to the primary condition to being language which is 'to define'. That is to say, the medium he uses is no longer the language used in the conventional sense but the condition that makes it a language. In this sense, 'One and Three Chairs' becomes a genuine artwork that uses the symbols of language to refer to the condition why language exists and the photographic images to refer to the condition of photography to reflect a certain frame of the real and the artwork as a whole to refer to the  condition of art only existing for art's sake. Art is 'the real' in 'One and Three Chairs'.

                On a broader perspective, breaking language free from its conventions and integrating it into art-making process also serves as a medium to form a new language for art that opens it up to inquiry. That's is to say, the ground that the aesthetic inquiry conveyed is enlarged to question the existence of the artwork and all that relates to that work, which covers the men's spiritual needs as the producer and the perceiver of the work. John Dewey approaches the aesthetic experience as such: “[...] all the elements of our being that are displayed in special emphasis and partial realizations in other experiences are merged in aesthetic experience. And they are so completely merged in the immediate wholeness of the experience that each is submerged – it does not present itself in consciousness as a distinct element.” and he argues that art challenges philosophy because while art is able to use all the tools of philosophy for the inquiry on being, philosophy falls short first in explaining the true experience.[21]  

                   In conclusion, the analysis above on the use of language and the art experience leads the way back to the primary focus of the analysis on 'One and Three Chairs' which is the question whether art has replaced philosophy or not, as Kosuth puts it:

The twentieth century brought in a time which could be called 'the end of philosophy and the beginning of art.' I do not mean that, of course, strictly speaking, but rather as the 'tendency' of the situation. Certainly linguistic philosophy can be considered the heir to empiricism, but it's a philosophy in one gear. And there is certainly an 'art condition' to art preceding Duchamp [...][22]

                  

The question imposed is still a big one to resolve but Adorno's words provide an intermediary explanation on the converging borders of philosophy and arts to what Dewey and Kosuth claim:

The truth content of artworks is not what they mean but rather what decides whether the work in itself is true or false, and only this truth of the work in-itself is commensurable to philosophical interpretation and coincides—with regard to the idea, in any case—with the idea of philosophical truth. For contemporary consciousness, fixated on tangible and unmediated, the establishment of this relation to art obviously poses the greatest difficulties, yet without this relation art's truth content remains inaccessible: Aesthetic experience is not genuine experience unless it becomes philosophy.—The condition for the possibility that philosophy and art converge is to be sought in the element of universality that art possesses through its specification as language suigeneris. This universality is collective just as philosophical universality, for which the transcendental subject was once the signum, points back to the collective subject.[23]  

                            

---

---

[1]   Plato, The Republic, (United Kingdom: Penguin Books Ltd., 2007), 421-439.

[2]   Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” Artforum 5 (June, 1967).

[3]  G. L. Hagberg, Art as Language: Wittgenstein, Meaning and Aesthetic Theory (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,  1998), 9.

[4]   Ibid.

[5]   (Plato 2007), 421-439.

[6]  Joseph Kosuth, “Art after Philosophy”, in Art in Theory 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (Oxford, 1992), 860.

[7]   Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation and Other Essays, (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1966), 4.

[8]   (Kosuth 1992), 855-56.

[9]   Ibid., 854.

[10] (Hagberg 1998), 11–12.

[11] (Kosuth 1992), 857.

[12] Guy Debord and Ken Knabb, Society of the Spectacle (London: Rebel Press, 2006).

[13] Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche et al., The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 139-143.

[14] (Nietzsche et al., 1999), 139-143.

[15] (Hagberg 1998), 16.

[16] Ibid., 9.

[17] Gregory L. Ulmer, “The Object of Post-Criticism”, in Postmodern Culture, ed. Hal Foster, (Pluto Press, 1983), 83–110. 

[18]  (Debord and Knabb 2006), 7.

[19]  Merleau-Ponty, 'The Child's Relations with Others', in Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception, (Evanston, 1964), 101-5.

[20]  Charles Harrison, Essays on Art & Language, (MIT Press, 2003), 54-55.

[21]  (Kosuth 1992), 853.

[22]  John Dewey, Art as Experience, (Perigee, 2005), 284-8.

[23]  Theodor W. Adorno et al., Aesthetic Theory, (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004), 172-3.

Entre Nous (Between Us)

Diane Kurys’in yazıp yönettiği 1983 yapımlı Entre Nous, 2. Dünya Savaşı’nın Alman istilası altındaki Fransa’sından 50’lerin özgürlükçü Fransa’sına uzanan dönemde Lena’nın (Isabelle Huppert) kendini bulma hikayesi olarak özetlenebilir. Diane Kurys’in otobiyografik oğeler içeren aynı adlı kitabindan uyarladığı bu filmde Nazi sürgününden kaçmak için asker olan Michel ile (Guy Marchand) evlenen Yahudi mülteci Lena savaş sonrasında Madeleine (Miou-Miou) ile tanışır. Madeleine istila sırasında çok aşık olduğu ilk kocasını kaybetmiş ve savaştan sonra hamile kaldiği aktör Costa (Jean Pierre Bacri) ile evlenmiştir.

Kadın bir yönetmenin kadın bakış açısıyla kaleme aldığı bu hikaye iki güçlü kadın oyuncunun performansı ve dönem Fransa’sının sanat atmosferiyle birleşince 80’li yıllar için bile cesur diye nitelendirebilecek bir film çıkmış ortaya. Madeleine ile tanıştıktan sonra kadınlığını ve bireyselliğini sorgulamaya başlayan Lena ile film; annelik, arkadaşlık, evlilik, yasak aşk, lezbiyen ilişki temalarını irdelerken, Lena’nın Yahudi olması dolasıyla mültecilik ve Nazi istilası konularını da tekrar gündeme getirerek politik ve militer bir altyapıyla bu soruları harmanlamış. Erkek gözünden kadının aile içindeki konumu bağlamında düşünüldüğünde kocası tarafından sürgünden kurtarılan ve evde değerli bir mücevhermiş gibi tutulan Lena’nın edilgen yaşantısından doğan tatminsizliğine cevabı başka bir kadında bulması filmi salt varoluşsal kaygılar üzerine yoğunlaşmaktan çıkarıp, izleyeni o zamana kadar fazla değinilmemiş olan lezbiyenlik ve cinsiyet konuları üzerinde durmaya çağırıyor. Bu edilgen konumundan çıkmak isteyen kadın yine erkek egemen toplumun kadına musaade ettiği pazarlık ve tehdit yoluyla isteklerini yaptırmaya çalışınca aile içi yıkım kaçınılmaz son oluyor.

İki başrol kadın oyuncunun da çok başarılı olduğu filmde Isabelle Huppert’ın doğallığı hayranlık uyandırıcı. Filmle ilgili yaptığı bir açıklamada dediği gibi “ Canlandırdığım karektere sempati duymaya çalışmak yerine onunla empati kurmaya, onu anlamaya çalışıyorum. Eğer sempati duyarsam karakteri idealize ederek romantik bir karakter ortaya çıkarırım ki bu yapmak istemediğim bir şey. Bu sebeple çok sempatik olmayan normal bir karakter yaratmaya çalıştım ve bunun bir cevap sunan değil de bir soru şeklinde yapılan bir film için uygun olduğunu düşünüyorum.“ Miou-Miou ise özgün oyunculuğuyla Cesar odüllerinde en iyi kadın oyuncu için aday gösterilmiş.

Entre Nous 1984’te en iyi yabancı film dalında Oscar’a aday gösterilmesinin dışında Diane Kurys’e san Sebastian’da Fipresci ödülünü ve National Academy of Cinema France’da Akademi ödülünü getirmiş. Biyografi filmleri türünde ele alındığında Entre Nous’nın lineer ilerleyen konusu izleyeni filme bağlama konusunda bir hayli başarılı. Anlatıcının Lena’nın kızı olması dolayısıyla yalın ve yansız bir aktarımı olan Entre Nous kurmaca filmlerin yarattığı heyecanı yaratmasa da objektif bir bakış açısından izleyene kendi algıları ve yargıları için bolca alan bırakmış.

it hurts, 2008

it hurts resembles a magician's cabinet with a black box behind black curtains. On top of the box there is a grinder slowly grinding the hanging head of an axe that is fixed to the structure of the cabinet from the top with chains.  This piece still hurts me.  

Dynamism and the Movement in Renaissance

            The nature of human individuality has been deeply investigated since the Greek Antiquity. The notion of character discussed in the ancient texts can be accepted as static until Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics introduced the character with a potential to change in order to reach perfection through effort. If one looks at the texts before Aristotle in that sense, it is possible to talk about ‘character’ in Homer’s Iliad only to a limited extent because gods held responsible from all the human actions. Parties in the Trojan War gained power or backed off according to the interference of gods to the war. These interferences put humans in a passive condition simply by claiming that they ‘were strengthened’ or ‘left weak’ by gods. Later on, the introduction of the ‘self’ with The Republic formed a philosophical ground for further investigation on human nature. Plato explained ‘character’ as static so to say that it is a sum of traits the human individual is endowed with from birth. According to Plato, gods could only be held responsible for the good, it is the irrational part in human soul that is responsible for what is considered as not good. Additionally, he also claims that some humans are born with special characteristics to become philosophers and they should lead the way to the others in order to take them out of their ignorance. The importance of education is emphasized in Plato’s work but it is also implied that the souls who are not virtuous by their nature will not be able to handle the truth and will choose to remain in dark. The myth of Er in book 10 serves as a good example to see how Socrates defines souls with permanent characters that in afterlife they choose a coherent new life with their characteristics over and over again.

            The understanding of character as dynamic, which results as explained from a series of choices and experiences, is present in Dante’s Divine Comedy with a higher resemblance to Aristotle’s dynamic character, but exercises different theological implications as the departure from antiquity to medieval ages and even early Renaissance takes place. Although Dante shows his familiarity with the Greek philosophy and literature by including names like Homer, Plato, and Virgil to his journey, his interaction and knowledge on the philosophical texts of antiquity is still not very clear. Nevertheless, it would not be wrong to claim that Dante’s notion of character also shows similarities with Plato’s in the sense of the endowments from birth. Dante renames what Plato calls the irrational part of the soul as desires. It is the strong emphasis on ‘free will’ that makes Dante’s understanding of character dynamic.  Humans, naturally endowed with blinding desires, have also the intellect to control those desires in order to lead a virtuous life that is to say, in order not to sin. Based on Christian theology, Dante’s journey in his fictional afterlife serves as a detailed analysis on the nature of human desires and the success or failure of humans to overcome their possessions in this life according to their ability to use their intellect. Unlike the souls in the myth of Er that are destined to repetition even if they have the chance to choose, Dante’s souls in Divine Comedy vary from the static ones to the ones who are able to come to a realization and subject to change. The notion of free will is what makes character, as explained in the question, something attained and shaped, not something given.    

            Dante’s journey can be read as a metaphor to his self-realization that is to say the pilgrim Dante in Divine Comedy experiences a change in his character throughout the journey. After the loss of his pure earthly love Beatrice, he deviates from the peaceful state he was in and becomes possessed by the desire to know about his position in the cosmos. In such a state, blinded by his desire, he finds himself in a forest that is the start of the journey he was called to, by the same reason that made him lose his sight. In the divine context of the journey Beatrice, a pure soul from the heaven, sent Virgil to guide Dante through the circles of Inferno and the terraces of Purgatorio to lead him to the Divine Love. The loss of the earthly love he found strength in, caused him to rely too much on his intellect, but the transformation of that love to a courtly love guided his way to find answers that he could not reach only with his intellect but by using his intellect as a medium.

The concept and importance of reason is introduced right at the beginning of the poem when Dante and Virgil are in front of the Gate of Hell, Virgil says to Dante: “…where you will see the miserable people, those who have lost the good of the intellect.”[1] From that point, the journey in Inferno sets out examples of souls who were not able to use the good of their intellect because they were surrendered to their humanly desires or even worse, the souls being punished after the Gate of Dis that used their intellect viciously. The case with Ulysses in Canto XXVI serves as a good example of how Dante implies a balance for human character that should both be virtuous and able to control his desires with the powers of his intellect. Ulysses says while he is telling his story to Dante:

“Consider well the seed that gave you birth:

you were not made to live your lives as brutes,

but to be followers of worth and knowledge.”[2]

From those lines it is understood that Ulysses is a virtuous character concerning the greatness of worth and knowledge, but he is so obsessed with reaching the knowledge by means of his intellect that he drives his ship to unknown waters where death finds him and his comrades. In a way it is possible to say that Ulysses’s story is a confrontation for Dante with his own desires. Grasping a greater knowledge is one of Dante’s desires that actually makes him place himself as the first character in such a journey. He also believes in the strength of poetry and he also confronts his that obsession in literature in Francesca’s story by claiming that a literary piece can be as blinding as such to commit unexpected sins. From that perspective, it is possible to see the change in Dante’s character as passive in the beginning to being dynamic. In Inferno, where the static souls condemned to misery for eternally are, Dante faints several times after what he sees. He is in a half sleepy mode all the time and he needs Virgil’s guidance, and protection. Inferno is the place Dante himself also considers the sins he possibly committed up until that time in his life, but he still does not know how to handle his desires. Only after Virgil disappears on the Earthly Paradise and Dante confesses his sin to Beatrice, he gets out that half sleepy state and becomes active. In other words, he is not anymore driven unconsciously to the souls who are suffering instead he turns his head to look at the light intentionally, meaning that his character went through a change that he is in control of his own actions from now on.       

The whole journey is fictionalized with a strong reliance on the Christian Theology,  that is to say Christian teaching defines human nature as a body that will expire at some point and the souls that found form in that bodies will be judged according to the life they led on earth to find a place in the infinite kingdom of God. The important ingredient in that teaching is the use of human intellect, in other words humans are free to choose whatever action to take on earth, but that intellect is only a medium to grasp the beauties of afterlife because a final understanding of the meaning of existence is a kind of knowledge that only God has. In that respect, human existence finds its completeness only by reaching the Divine Love as Dante puts it with Beatrice’s words:

“The greatest gift the magnanimity

of God, as He created, gave, the gift

most suited to His goodness, gift that He

most prizes, was the freedom of the will;

those beings that have intellect – all these

and none but these – received and do receive

this gift: thus you may draw, as consequence,

the high worth of a vow, when what is pledged

with your consent encounters God’s consent;

for when a pact is drawn between a man

and God, then through free will, a man gives up

what I have called his treasure, his free will…”[3]

The emphasis of Christianity is so strong in medieval ages that it reflects upon literature to a great extent as well. Although based on the Christian theology, it can be claimed that Divine Comedy differs from the other texts of the medieval age in the sense that the set-up of the poem is based on the individual actions, not on God.  God is only referred as the Divine Love in Inferno and Purgotorio and with a clearer reference in Paradiso, but the main emphasis of Dante’s journey is more on the consequences of human actions and the importance of free will rather than God’s existence and his rule. In that respect, the text with all its religious mysticism, and also with its modern focus on the individual can be seen as a passage from the late medieval period to Renaissance. It is with Renaissance that the strong influence of religion leaves its place to more humanistic approaches in every field of life as well as in literature. So, it is now appropriate to consider how this change affected the reflection of human character in literary texts by comparing the notion of character in a quattrocento text, The Prince, to Dante’s notion. 

            First of all, I should state that the notion of character in Machiavelli’s The Prince is not as clear as Dante’s notion to analyze, so to lessen the ambiguity that will occur from the complex structure of such a character, it is important to note that the analysis will focus on the characteristics of the prince. The characteristics that are attained to the public differs from the character of the prince, public is shown in Machiavelli’s text as the viewer of the image of the prince and they favor him or disapprove him according to the image he reflects on those people.  Since Machiavelli provides an in depth analysis of the characteristics of the prince I will follow his path.

            Machiavelli makes in The Prince a list of characteristics which the prince should have and should not have but the most important entry of the list is the ability of the prince to adopt to the situation he is in, which is prudence as a virtue. He claims in part XV that he offers a new set of values that are for practical use, referring to the ideal characteristics that were attained to the rulers of the republics and principalities before. After listing some of the vices and virtues in that part, such as being cruel, compassionate, religious, courageous, flexible, frivolous so on and so forth, he claims that it would be most laudable if a prince possessed all the good qualities. “But, because of conditions in the world, princess cannot have those qualities, or observe them completely. So a prince has of necessity to be so prudent that he knows how to escape the evil reputation attached to those vices which could lose him his state, and how to avoid those vices which are not so dangerous, if he possibly can; but if he cannot, he need not worry so much about the latter. And then, he must not flinch from being blamed for vices which are necessary for safeguarding his state. This is because, taking everything into account, he will find that some of the things that appear to be virtues will, if he practices them, ruin him, and some of the things that appear to be vices will bring him security and prosperity.” In short, what he claims in this passage is that a prince, although it would be better for him to have all the virtues, should not necessarily be virtuous at all times. What he should really look after is to appear virtuous even if he is not so. He forms his argument on the basis of reality being different from the ideal. In that sense, what he offers is a new set that considers the ‘real’ in terms of the ‘ideal’ rather than considering the ‘ideal’ in terms of the ‘real’. In other words, his approach to character is humanist that is to say he bases his argument on the historical examples and practical activity rather than theory. 

            Although Machiavelli explains the prince’s character endowed with the virtue of prudence, the ambiguity of the character still remains because the analysis of the character is accessible only through the image of the prince. Machiavelli talks about the importance of imitation for the prince in part VI: “So a prudent man must always follow in the footsteps of great men and imitate those who have been outstanding.” Machiavelli suggests that the prince should imitate the great men if he fails to sustain the borders of his power. This imitation process can be questioned since it is not clear how that process works for the prince. My suggestion is that it works reciprocally. First, the prince starts to imitate the great men, than if he also has similar virtues but were unable to exercise them before, he becomes one of the great men. Without having the know-how it is not easy to imagine a prince becoming successful only by imitating. But Machiavelli relates this form and reality contrast only to appearance, because if a prince can make people believe that he is virtuous as the great men he imitates, then he will be seen as successful although he is not. So, the matter comes to create an illusion on the other eyes. If the ambiguity of the character of the prince could only be reduced to the virtue of prudence than one could easily agree with Machiavelli, but he also claims that nobody, even the closest person to the prince should not know his true character. That is why I leave the discussion on the notion of character for Machiavelli here and continue with the comparison of Dante’s notion of character to Machiavelli’s notion of character as a mixture of the image and the self relying on Machiavelli’s description in part XV.

            Both Dante’s and Machiavelli’s notions of character are dynamic because Dante’s reason also applies for Machiavelli. But the use of reason differs to a great extent in two texts. While Dante uses reason to reach an understanding of the transcendence, Machiavelli offers the use of intellect for the earthly life. Dante argues that intellect should be used to control the animal like desires of the person but Machiavelli suggests that the prince should be a fox and a lion at the same time. Dante is ready to hand back his intellect to the great creator in the end, but Machiavelli defines no greater authority for his prince and even encourages him to enlarge his power if he is already able to sustain what he rules. Those examples show that the characters in both texts are subject to change by using their intellect but the difference lies on the point where they turn to. In that respect, Dante’s notion of character is a part of a divine design based on Christian theology, whereas Machiavelli’s notion of character lacks that religious ingredient and it is totally down to earth. 

            At this point, I would like to introduce a short analysis of Michelangelo’s David that can be related to both Dante’s ‘character’ in the sense that David is a biblical character as stated in the Bible: “skillful in playing (the harp), a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence; and the LORD is with him.”[4], and also to Machiavelli’s ‘character’ because it still serves as one of the best forms in sculpture. As discussed above, imitation and form are the most striking qualities of the prince. In that sense, David, just like Machiavelli wants his prince to be, is considered to be the finest form of art because it mimics the divine creation. The artistic discipline that David is categorized in is built on the knowledge of the male human form. The sculpture is not in true proportions to human body, with the head and the hands larger than normal form. This is claimed to be as Michelangelo’s mannerism, and it suits to the discussion of the dynamic notion of character as stated in Aristotelian system regarding the character’s authenticity that the character must never be absolutely perfect. We can see the traces of this claim in Dante simply with his argument on defining the human character as a part of divine design that can never be complete without reaching the Divine Love. And, also Machiavelli severally states in his book that since this is the earthly world that the prince is operating, there is no such thing as ‘ideal’. As a last note, it is also important how Michelangelo gives character to David.  Unlike Verrochio’s and Donatello’s Davids, Michelangelo has depicted David before the battle over Goliath. He managed to give an expression to David’s face showing his state before the battle as tense, but tense in a mental sense. That is a really impressive aspect of the sculpture because it shows that emotions can also be attributed to the sculpture else than the detailed works on the shape of the body. 

            In conclusion, the notion of human character was one of the main issues of literature and other arts starting from the late medieval ages and throughout Renaissance. From a historical context, it is possible to claim with the above analysis that medieval ages formed a basis for the appearances of some ideas in Renaissance as in the case of the notion of free will that later affected the birth of humanism after the church loses its strength. From Dante to Machiavelli the great shift occurs in the notion of character with the loss of emphasis on religion that also can be felt in the texts of Machiavelli’s contemporaries. That kind of a change can also be noted in the art scene for example by the presentation of nude biblical figures, like David, with a great influence of the pagan Greek Antiquity. Also, regarding the notion of character, sculptures gained dynamism with contrapposto style of posing the human form, which Michelangelo also used for David. Contrapposto is a technique that enables a movement for the sculpture from the stone that it is attached to, metaphorically speaking, that is the idea present in the texts with humans being free to choose their actions and the work of art in analysis as well as the general source of Renaissance: the movement.  

---

[1] Divine Comedy, Inferno Canto III, lines 17-18.

[2] Inferno Canto XXVI, lines 118-120

[3] Divine Comedy, Paradiso Canto V, lines 19-29

[4] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1SAM%2016:14-23

The Decameron: De/Re-Construction of Literature

     The Decameron is said to be the start of a new new understanding of morality in literature in medieval times. This claim  can be regarded as true when the context of the stories in The Decameron is considered. The themes of passionate lovers and their intercourses, curious nuns, covetous clergymen are not mainly the topics that the writers or poets of the time had touched upon before. It is known that most of the stories that Boccaccio included in his book were already orally in circulation among the public. What Boccaccio did was to frame those stories with another story of the brigata and present them in The Decameron. The matter of bringing in a new form of morality may be ambiguous at first glance because it may mean a different understanding of vice and virtue, and since those stories are part of the public tradition, the themes of those stories are not the subject of this ‘new’ morality. Furthermore, one can interpret those themes as direct criticism to the oppression of the church, under which morality in its true sense is abused. What I understand from the new morality that Boccaccio brings in is his openness to carry those social matters on a literary level. Before Boccaccio, the literature of the period was heavily involved with philosophy or in praise of religion. As he himself claims in the prologue to day IV that he is writing about human life in its most naturalistic sense. What I will argue here by focusing on the incomplete story of Filippo Balducci is that Boccaccio is using this humble style in The Decameron as opposed to the high style of the period, with a specific aim of freeing the literature from its boundaries under the name of morality.

    First of all, it will be appropriate to analyze in what context Boccaccio tells the story of Filippo Balducci. He claims in the prologue to day IV that there have been accusations against him on the basis of being too fond of women and he was given the advice to remain with the Muses in Parnasus. According to the advice he received, it can be said that the accusations are mainly on the morality of his work, because he is advised to remain with divine creatures rather than women. His so called accusers also said that he should better be employed in earning himself a good meal than in going hungry for the sake of producing nonsense of this sort. It is not certain whether Boccaccio was really exposed to such criticism even before he completed the writing of The Decameron, or was he very well aware of the potential criticism he will receive and wanted to prevent them by including his defense in the book beforehand. I assume the latter is more coherent with what I believe Boccaccio is trying to achieve with The Decameron. One by one he opposes the accusations that he himself created in order to prove that kind of discourse against his work is pretentious. He does this without any sign of vulgarity and in such a confident way that the reader comes to realize what he claims to be the accusations against his work is actually his criticism on the literary tradition of his period. 

     At this point I would like to clarify the discussion on morality and style. What I argue here a s Boccaccio's literary aim is not liberation from the existing moral values, but from the high style of literature that separates it from the natural life. It is not hard to follow the traces of this argument with his strategic allusions in the prologue to day IV and especially in the story of the young Balducci’s education. After Filippo and his son move to Mount Asinaio, they live in complete isolation from the society and Filippo educates his son only on the eternal life and God, as Boccaccio puts it:

"At all times, he took very great care not to let him see any worldly things, or even to mention their existence, lest they should distract him from his devotions. On the contrary, he was forever telling him about the glory of the life eternal, of God, and of the Saints, and all he taught him was to pray devoutly. He kept this up for a number of years, never permitting the boy to leave the cave or to see any living thing except for his father.”

    It is important to notice Boccaccio’s interpretation of this educational process is based not on "what to do's", but "what not to do’s". Filippo takes great care ‘not to let him see any worldly things’, ‘not to leave the cave’. In the passage above, all the worldly things are expressed with negative expressions, whereas Boccaccio uses positive expressions like ‘forever’ and ‘all he thought him was…’ while talking about the eternal life. In this sense, the education of the young boy and the criticism on his work show similarities on discourse.  Boccaccio was advised to ‘not to produce that sort of nonsense’, but rather ‘remain’ with the Muses. 

     Although Boccaccio claims that he tells this story to show how it is impossible even for the young Balducci, who was raised in complete isolation, to resist the natural attraction he feels towards women, his story points out his allusive criticism on a certain style of education and the use of literature. The failure of Filippo in his son’s education when he takes him to Florence can be interpreted as the failure of the strategies of negation. In the story, the peak of this negation is when Filippo names women as “goslings” while he is striving to prevent the collapse of his educational technique at the moment of his son’s encounter with women. Boccaccio here, by being witty, shows how those negation strategies prove to be ridiculous when they are threatened by the forces of the nature which can also be reflected on the natural consequences of the plague and the wind of change it created in the society against the church. The morale of this story is what Boccaccio claims it to be that Nature shapes human beings in such a way, as they cannot but yield to the power of love. But it is equally true that he also proves a subtler, and in no way less important, methodological point: that a teaching based only on removal and repression is sooner or later destined to fail. Therefore, he aims to provide a diversity of stories on human emotions rather than excluding from his work what is socially repressed.

    It requires some certain attention for the modern reader to appreciate Boccaccio’s work because the modern reader's perception on literature is not limited to the constraints of Boccaccio’s time. Therefore, it will not be wrong to claim that his work is revolutionary in the sense of his efforts to break the chains of literature from religion and philosophy. What is more important in that context is that he is devoted to his case. We can understand his devotion from his interruptions to his work as the author of the book in the prologue, epilogue and the prologue to day IV. In the prologue, he first describes the conditions that led to the out coming of his work. He gives his reasoning to be able to use a humble style to write stories, which are only for pleasure and not for higher artistic aims. He explains the general atmosphere of the era, how some people started to lose faith in church with regard to their experiences through the painful era of the plague. Then he moves on to defend his work against the general writing traditions of the period and the criticism caused by those norms in parallel with the story of the young boy’s education. In the end again, by using an allusive approach he claims only to serve ladies in order to give them pleasure, but the overall achievement of The Decameron in literature is pleasing for the continued existence of literature.