Aesthetic function, norm and value as social facts (Excerpts)

Abstract

Mukařovský’s concern is the function, survival, and development of what he calls the “aesthetic function,” extending his investigation beyond art alone to consider the constantly changing social context in which aesthetic judgments are made. The aesthetic function, he argues, is not fixed, but is modified by situation and by changing subjective responses. For this reason, the division between the realms of the aesthetic and the non-aesthetic can never be firmly drawn (Jan Mukařovský, Estetická funkce, norma a hodnota jako sociální fakty, Prague: Borový, 1936). To support this proposition, Mukařovský cites the impact of gesture and body language, and the leveling impact of time on fashion. These considerations lead him to look at the relationship between aesthetic norms and social hierarchies. The final section of the extracts translated here pursues that most difficult and intangible quality: aesthetic value. It concludes with the proposal that aesthetic value is more likely to derive from an artifact’s incongruity and its polymorphous and polysemic qualities, rather than from a simple harmoniousness between the parts and the whole.