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Meta
Hey Lily, I don’t understand what is meant by “aesthetic realism” — does Panagia mean to evoke Eli Siegel’s weird theory of Aesthetic Realism? — or is Panagia attempting to describe a kind of realism that is somehow primarily aesthetic? — or maybe he’s trying to say that any attempt to gussy up reality is an act of artifice? — or…?
Realism is an artifice.
Of course.
The idea that you can say or depict what’s real is the ultimate fantasy. There’s a reason the tenets of conventional realism are so much more specific than those of any other genre: it’s a very delicate illusion they’ve got to maintain.
Let me take a swing at “aesthetic realism”: ‘an attempt formally to mimic the forms of some particular reality/-ies materially external to the art work’.
If that’s something like Panagia’s usage of the phrase, I think Lincoln is right: Panagia is saying that an artist – a mind – can’t use “realism” as a technical way of exiting the emancipations and limitations of artificiality.
If that’s what Panagia means, at least in outline, by the sentence, then it seems to me to be accurate, if – now – almost trite in its non-controversiality. (Are there ‘aesthetic realists’ – in any medium/a – who deny that “realism” is artificial??)
Lincoln and Mike.
Hey Chris, he said this in relation to a talk he gave called: Film Blanc: Luminosity and Perspicuity in the Films of Michael Mann. I don’t know if this helps clarify anything. I left his talk illuminated but without clarity.
yes!
Also, “artifice” is intrinsically a verb. I don’t care if it sometimes isn’t. The “-fice” part, in particular, feels verbish, which carries over into its nounhood, as in sacrifice. What is “fice,” anyway, etymologically? I guess I’m seeing it in tension with the -ism in “realism,” which is sinking into its nounhood, congealing into quiddity and hiding its verbiness. I like how this quote nudges us and asserts that its ism originates in a ficing.
whereas i don’t have an answer to the “-fice” question (i looked it up, but only half-heartedly), i can define artifice. or, rather, this is not my definition but a legit definition. by legit, i mean: real. (also, i really like yr discussion of artifice as verb v. noun. a lot to think about.)
artifice (v): To make or shape by artifice; to apply artifice to; to construct, contrive. Now chiefly of immaterial things.
Artifice (n): 1. The action of an artificer; the making of something by art or skill; craftsmanship, workmanship; 2. Human skill or workmanship as opposed to nature or a natural phenomenon; 3. Technical skill; artistry, ingenuity; 4. Manner or style of workmanship; characteristic artistry; 5a. The product of art or skill; a manufactured article or object; a device, a piece of work; 5b. A substance created by artificial means; a mixture, a compound
Oh, okay…if he’s talking about Film Blanc I assume he means the aestheticization of realism…had not thought of MM as a Film Blanc filmmaker, though, dude’s generally pretty dark….would be interesting to hear his argument for how MM uses Film Blanc tropes….anyway, yeah, I agree with him and with Lincoln below: realism is a mode of art slash should not be considered natural. It’s my understanding that one of the key components of Film Blanc is the way it insistently calls attention to its own artifice, so in that sense “aesthetic” realism is explicitly artificial, while “non-aesthetic” realism (not sure what that would mean exactly) is implicitly artificial. Interesting to think about.
Do you know many realists who would disagree with this statement? I don’t. Not sure I get the purpose of your post. Can you provide more context?
In the part of the paper that Davide didn’t read, he explores Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘queer connexions’, that is the how the repetitive act of pointing and saying the name of an object in effect binds (although not really) an object with a meaning. Davide then goes on to say that, in the is sense, it’s ‘artifice all the way down.’ These relationships are durable, to be sure, but they have to be fashioned, and then fashioned over and over again, in order to stick. It made me want to pick up that Wittgenstein that I bought in 2006 but never read.
“-fice” is formed from L. facio, facere, ‘to make; to do’ and, with the right Latin phrasing, can be translated by many similar-ish verbs (construct, produce, cause, bring about, obtain, incur, perform, represent, suppose, admit, take part, set). (“Fact” is formed from the passive participle of facere and means ‘something which has been done‘.)
So: “artifice” = ‘the action of a craftsman; something produced by a craftsman’. “sacrifice” = ‘an action committed with intense piety or devotion’.
The ‘phony, counterfeit, faked’ quality of “artificial” is there in some of its Latin cognates (‘words formed from the same root’): artifex means ‘a master builder/craftsman’, but it can also mean, given the right context, ‘magician’ or ‘cheater’.
(In my far-too-generalizing view, the Romans were very conscious, and proud, of their hard, clear rationalism, their genius for sturdy engineering, so – of course – they delighted in and were haunted by magic, gimmickry, and tricky dealing in general. “Artifice” is a good Latinate word in harboring both ‘great skill’ and ‘deceit’.)
MF: I went to a talk last night. It was good but dense. I came away with little nuggets of lovely juxtapositions. This was one of them. I know quite a few ‘realists’ and I don’t think they would agree with the statement. They would not say realism is artifice. They would say realism is real, or, at the very minimum, aiming towards imitating the real. They may or may not talk about artifice at all, and probably not in relation to realism. But that’s just the ‘realist’ writers I know…
read it. i like wittgenstein, though not as much as mimi. (not the mimi who comments here. another mimi.)
Lily,
With all due respect, I find it hard to believe that you know quite a few realists who believe that realism isn’t artifice, that when they sit down to write a story, they’re not writing a story. All fiction is artifice, and I’ve yet to meet a serious fiction writer who believes that what he or she writes isn’t fiction, regardless of his or her aesthetic.
I often find attitudes toward “realism” on this board quite reductionist and think people now use the term as shorthand to describe dull and boring work, and a bunch of other things that might have something to do with realism, and might not. It’s sort of like how people use “MFA” or “workshop story” to the point where no one even knows what the terms mean anymore. People also tend to strip the word from its historical and social context. “Realism” now means Carver or Amy Hempel, or Bobbie Anne Mason or the aftermath of a Gordon Lish editing session, when historically, it means: Rebecca Harding Davis, Twain, James, Chestnutt, Eliot, and a host of writers with diverse styles and aesthetics.
http://trentu.academia.edu/DavidePanagia/Papers/309278/Film_Blanc_Luminosity_and_Perspecuity_in_the_Films_of_Michael_Mann
Thanks, dg. I was hoping you’d swoop in with something like this.
I’ve been thinking superfice should be a word for a while.
I’m wondering how orifice ties in but not sure I want to go there.
What _isn’t_ artifice?
True, true.
Tim, “superfice” is a word – an obsolete form of the word “superficies”. (“Superficies” is one of those odd words whose singular and plural forms look the same: a superficies; many superficies.)
“Superficies” means ‘what’s done or made so as to be “over”; that is, surface’: super, ‘over’ + facere.
“Orofice” shouldn’t intimidate! – os, ‘mouth’ + facere; so, “orifice”, ‘what’s made or acts as a “mouth”; that is, opening’.
[Let me warn you about etymologizing: it’s easy to become too adventurous, and to stray willy-nilly and produce, unconsciously to the producer, explications that import conclusions into hypotheses, so as convincingly ‘to prove’ by means of assuming the truth of what one want to demonstrate.
So: if I want to demonstrate etymologically that Jesus performed miracles, I analyze his name: ‘gee’-ses. See? – in amazement at this figure’s abilities, people spontaneously would say, “Gee!”, in wonder at being in the presence of the miraculous. QED. That’s called a ‘false etymology’, and is surprisingly – or not – common among the fancifully intellectual.
Another big problem, of course, is simple error. I saw on Jeopardy! recently “synopsis” called a ‘word made from “Latin” parts’. It’s not; syn- is a Greek adverb/preposition/prefix, and if the word was ‘borrowed into’ Latin (my dictionary doesn’t have it), it was borrowed whole, not in parts.)
True, true.
Tim, “superfice” is a word – an obsolete form of the word “superficies”. (“Superficies” is one of those odd words whose singular and plural forms look the same: a superficies; many superficies.)
“Superficies” means ‘what’s done or made so as to be “over”; that is, surface’: super, ‘over’ + facere.
“Orofice” shouldn’t intimidate! – os, ‘mouth’ + facere; so, “orifice”, ‘what’s made or acts as a “mouth”; that is, opening’.
[Let me warn you about etymologizing: it’s easy to become too adventurous, and to stray willy-nilly and produce, unconsciously to the producer, explications that import conclusions into hypotheses, so as convincingly ‘to prove’ by means of assuming the truth of what one want to demonstrate.
So: if I want to demonstrate etymologically that Jesus performed miracles, I analyze his name: ‘gee’-ses. See? – in amazement at this figure’s abilities, people spontaneously would say, “Gee!”, in wonder at being in the presence of the miraculous. QED. That’s called a ‘false etymology’, and is surprisingly – or not – common among the fancifully intellectual.
Another big problem, of course, is simple error. I saw on Jeopardy! recently “synopsis” called a ‘word made from “Latin” parts’. It’s not; syn- is a Greek adverb/preposition/prefix, and if the word was ‘borrowed into’ Latin (my dictionary doesn’t have it), it was borrowed whole, not in parts.)