Richard Whalen
2008-04-20 23:20:30
Aesthetic arrest; Ideas of art by James Joyce via Joseph Campbell. ( I am not a great fan of Campbell but he has a few good ideas.)
The feelings excited by improper art are kinetic, desire or loathing, Desire urges us to possess, to go to something; loathing urges us to abandon, to go from something. These are kinetic emotions. The arts which excite them, pornographic or didactic, are therefore improper arts. The esthetic emotion is therefore static. The mind is arrested and raised above desire and loathing.
