Sažetak (engleski) | The focus of this research is the truth as a criterion of a work of art, interaction between
freedom and artistic creation, the examination of the true values of a work of art and the
comparison of religious and artistic phenomena. The purpose of this research is to verify the
thesis that truth is the criterion for considering works of art as artistic. The first thesis is that
the truth of a works of art can only be ground on the existence of an absolute criterion of truth.
In the second thesis it is claimed that truth as a criterion of works of art arises from creative
freedom and the possibility of creation based on conceptual „nothing“. The third thesis is that
the work of art appears as an infinite dynamics based on the relational dimension, whereby
the distinction between the inner (spiritual) and rational discourse of language will be
established by referring to observations of similar phenomena in art and religion.
The elementary assumption is that artistic creation arises from „nothing“ (in the sense
of an idea) which is the foundation of free creation as a possibility of infinite dynamics that
emerges in a work of art. The subject to be explored is the difference between inner (spiritual)
and rational discourse of language. This difference establishes a connection between art and
religion that can be observed and analyzed as parallel parts of spiritual life by comparing the
similarities and differences between phenomena such as Apollo-Dionysian (Nietzsche) and
supernatural phenomena in religion (Otto). The relationship between the mimesis of antique
and the mimesis of the postmodern will be considered as the possibilities of the spiritual and
rational dimensions of language.
Our starting point is that truth is based on the existence of an absolute criterion, and that
it is primarily creative (and not only revealing). Through discursive analysis of the review of
the notion of truth, we will establish a relational stand where God as absolute (indivisible)
becomes true only in relation to the relative standpoint. Thus, we concluded that even though
the subject cannot be excluded from cognition as the one through which cognition necessarily
takes place, cognition is not necessarily subjective, and that the notion of truth appears only
where a free and contingent creature stands in relation to absolute. We assumed that truth had
a dynamic moment as an event, and a static moment as cognition. These are two sides of the
same coin where ambiguity arises due to human emergence from the truth of being and
knowledge that has its roots in the interaction of free will and discursive thinking. However,
in order for the truth to be an occurrence, not an eternal repetition of the same, and for it to be
recognized as such, it must contain in itself novum as a consequence of the infinite and the
dynamic relationship of the Trinity that combines the relationship of truth and freedom. This
moment makes truth creative.
If truth is creative, then the conception of „things of themselves“ is moved to the
conception of „things for us“, and all the problems of the relationship between the subject and
the object are drawn into the area of the relationship of the relative (contingent) and absolute;
if God created the world for man, then „things“ that are „put“ into the world are not „things of
themselves“, but „things for us“, and we stand in a co-creative relationship with them. It
follows that the true essence of the „thing of itself“ does not exist a priori and that it only
gains its essence in a relation. Things are therefore not „stopped“ in corresponding
perceptions of truth as a relationship between the thing and mind, or cognition and the world,
etc.; they also evade with their creative moment the „integrity” of coherence models of
perception of truth, and they also avoid the Kantian division into noumenon and phenomenon.
The dynamics of the relationship between relative and absolute also excludes Platonism and
Neoplatonism because it preceded mimesis and anamnesis. They also exclude Aristotelianism
in the sense that factuality cannot be identified with truth in the full sense; factuality can be
considered as the relationship of relative (contingent) towards the relative (contingent), while
truth is established only by the existence of the relationship of the relative (contingent) and
absolute. Therefore, by recognizing the truth as creative, we do not say that the scientific
method through which Aristotle struck the foundations of factuality does not work, but that
factuality, dealing with the horizontal relation of subject and object, consciousness and the
thing, etc., does not necessarily speak to us about truth. This also guides modern science,
although the reasons for modern science's giving up on the equalization of factuality and truth
are not similar to the reasons we will present here.
Creation starts from the (conceptual) „nothing“ that is unthinkable and non-existent, and
as such is an absolute potency. Since the work of art starts from the (conceptual) „nothing“,
i.e. without conceptual prejudice, and abstraction appears both as a part of beginning a work
of art, and in its transcendence as an inexhaustible depth of the relationship between the
relative and absolute, transcendence cannot be related to eternal ideas, and transcendence of
the work occurs exclusively through the immanence of matter. It is therefore neither about
Platonism, nor is it about Aristotelianism in the ontological sense, because the work of art
(considering it starts from the conceptual „nothing“) does not contain the „promise“ of the
goal in of itself, and the relationship of potency and actuality of the work of art does not stand
only in the possibilities of matter, since it transcends matter. These may be subtle differences,
but they have inconceivable consequences in the conception of art as mimetic or creative. If a
work would only actualize the potentialities of a substance, it would be at the level of the
product, and this does not explain the artistic quality of the work. However, a work acquires
transcendent properties in matter through artistic processing, thus exceeding its material base.
It arises from the relationship between the relative and the absolute, therefore there is no right
and wrong in artistic creation, because everything that happens in the freedom of the
relationship between the contingent and the absolute being/Being as the embodiment of the
work – is true. And everything that emerges as an alleged work of art, but without this
relationship, is not true, but is a monological creation.
The truth as a criterion of works of art stems from the relationship between the relative
and absolute, i.e., the existence of absolute as the ultimate and indivisible, and which within
the creative process takes place as their joint action in freedom and co-creation, so this
ultimate and indivisible does not rest on the static nature of the fact/substance, but on the
dynamics of the Trinity in which we are involved. It follows that the work of art as a
relationship of the relative and absolute appears as spiritual and as infinite, process dynamics.
Thus, artistic inspiration is the simultaneity of creation and recognition of truth.
Transcending of the work appears in the simultaneity of matter-form-content. By
excluding any of these three elements, or by superimposing one element on the other, the
transcendence of the work becomes impossible. We will establish that at this point the
correlation of matter-form-content with the transcendence of the work can only be clarified by
analogy with theology. However, in artistic phenomena, there is a certain inversion in relation
to religious phenomena in the aspects of spirit-matter. God is embodied as spiritual truth in
Christ, while in art, matter, inversely, in the embodiment of the work ascends into spiritual
reality as its transcendence, i.e., artistic truth. Conceptual art separates form and content in
such a way that form follows content by transforming art into narrative and discursive, rather
than contemplative practice, and thus the transcending of the work as its truth disappears.
Truth, as underlying and creative in the postmodern, is withdrawn from the work in order to
give way to a constructed reality that is virtual in its essential characteristics, even when it is
not connected to the digital medium. The virtuality of a non-digital constructed reality is
based on the human ability of imagination, which in this case is separated from the
relationship with the absolute as a kind of phantasm. Conceptual art is virtual because it has
lost its relationship to the absolute and has fallen into a monologue, where the subject matter
is about the dominant power of the discursive over the contemplative in artistic processes. As
a criterion of distinguishing the truth in art from truth in science, we will highlight the
difference between discursive speech and contemplation.
The abstract form principle in the creative act refers to the free jump from the
(conceptual) „nothing“ into something, where there can be no graduation between
„nothing“ and something. By understanding the abstract creative principle as a predefined
mechanism by which abstract characters, sounds, movements, etc., which would
hypothetically exist a priori in some imaginary and unexplained store of abstract ideas/forms,
and then be implemented into the work (which, by definition, would be Platonism) – misses
the essence of the abstract creative principle in an attempt to establish a graduation between
„nothing“ and something. Neither the mimesis of eternal ideas, nor the actualization of
potentiality as growth and purposefulness encompasses a leap from the (conceptual)
„nothing“ to something. „Nothing“ is defined as non-existent and unthinkable, and as such is
an absolute potency, which makes the work of art elude both the transcendence of eternal
ideas, but also the mere realization of potentiality (which would make the work of art only a
product). Man therefore does not create ex nihilo, but creates from the conceptual
„nothing“ without conceptual prejudice, i.e., in freedom, although „nothing“ is not the
foundation of freedom, but freedom is always the freedom of being. Abstractness therefore
appears in the creative act as a leap from „nothing“ into something, but also later in the
finished work, namely in the depths of the contingent-absolute relationship. The abstract
formative principle is the way in which a work is composed, and not from some
imaginary/existing abstract forms that are just being applied to the composition. The abstract
„units“ at the disposal of creativity are not a priori existing forms (although they can also be
that, if the freedom so desires, or if existing forms are to be handled), but arise directly in the
process itself as a jump from „nothing“ into something. The controversy between the abstract
formative principle and the mimetic principle is best evident in the artistic treatment of the
relationship between content and form. While the mimetic principle separates content from
form in order to prioritize content as the rationalization of the whole of a work, what in
modernism seemed like prioritizing form over content was actually pointing out the
importance of the simultaneity of matter-form-content. In the creative act, as with the
completion of a work as the depth of its underlying essence, the abstract formative principle
takes place in freedom and not in the idea as a conceptual platform.
In the traditional sense, art has been researched by numerous authors and we have
included their achievements in this research; Adorno Theodor, Aristotel, Berdjajev Nikolaj,
Bubner Rüdiger, Bürger Peter, Damnjanović Milan, Danto Arthur, Derrida Jacques, Eco
Umberto, Gadamer Hans-Georg, Guardini Romano, Hamburger Käte, Hartmann Paul Nicolai,
Heidegger Martin, Kupareo Rajmund, Maljevič Kazimir, Nietzsche Friedrich, Ortega y
Gasset Jose, Platon, Sedlmayr Hans, Worringer Wilhelm, Zurovac Mirko. We have also
included contemporary findings, i.e. the authors: Bacharach Sondra, Bourriaud Nicolas,
Bučan Jagor, Caroll Noël, Cascardy Anthony J., Dodlek Ivan, Dorter Kenneth, Friedlander Eli,
Galef David, Galović Milan, Groys Boris, Johnson Galen, Kuspit Donald, Labus Mladen,
Lamarque Peter, Levinson Jerrold, Marshall Ernest, Mihăilescu Călin-Andrei, Paić Žarko,
Rapaport Herman, Rukavina Katarina, Shaw Daniel Joseph, Stróz̓ewski Władysław, Sunajko
Goran, Surette Leon, Šuvaković Miško, Zistakis Alexander H.
We have confirmed all three theses and also found that the ultimate truth of a work of
art as its transcendence through matter-form-content is accompanied by criteria for defining
truthfulness, which are the novum as the liveliness of the living and the fruit of the
relationship of relative and absolute, coincidence-spontaneity-improvement as a (serious)
„game“ between the contingent and absolute, and the freedom of (co)creation. |