Relationship between literature and aesthetics

Aesthetics is usually considered to be the same as the philosophy of art, but that is not completely accurate. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (2013), “Aesthetics is the philosophical study of beauty and taste, closely related to the philosophy of art concerned with the nature of art and the concepts in terms of which individual works of art are interpreted and evaluated”. Philosophers of art consider both literature and photography to belong to aesthetics and believe that they both have their place in the realm of philosophy. So, let us first see what the nature of the relationship is between literature and aesthetics.

“Literature stands for written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013). In a broader sense, we use literature to refer to any written work, from creative writing to more technical or scientific works. Philosophers of art think that literature is related to aesthetics and that literature has its position in aesthetics. On the other hand, literary critics are reluctant to acknowledge the relevance of aesthetics in literature. There could be many reasons for showing this reluctance; one could be the narrow view of what belongs to and what counts as aesthetics. Philosophical aestheticians accept a place for literature within aesthetics, and curiously, they often share many of the reservations found among literary critics. Literature has a natural place in the philosophy of art, which is often mistaken to be identical to aesthetics. Only a few aestheticians doubt that literature should count as one of the arts. When the fine arts were initially characterised in the early 18th century, poetry was included along with painting, music, sculpture and dance. The idea of ars poetica goes back beyond Horace to the ancient Greeks (Lamarque, 2008). So, even in ancient times, literature in the shape of poetry was considered to have artistic value.

Literary works are not independent of criticism and discussion; they depend not only on an author but also on an understanding public. The public responds to the works as artefacts directed intentionally to an audience. Literary works can afford pleasure (this pleasure is usually referred to as aesthetic pleasure), and they cannot exist independently because they are constructed in the acts of reading and interpreting. Interpretation is fundamental to literature as an art. The intrinsic value of a work cannot be independent of all effects. Literary works cannot be valued for themselves because artworks only have value for human beings (Strayer, 2009). As Lamarque (2008) claims, aesthetic elements identified in literature are not merely well-crafted turns of phrases or expressive images but rather emergent qualities that become salient when appropriate attention is directed to the work. Understanding and interpretation are crucial for deciding whether something has aesthetic value or not. Critics continue to discuss and analyse literature and its problematic relationship with aesthetics.

Relationship between photography and aesthetics

“Photography is the art or practice of taking and processing photographs.” (Oxford dictionaries, 2013). Photography was at first used to capture and show reality and was not considered art. Early photographers did not worry about the question of whether photography was art or not; they were instead focused on finding new photosensitive materials and taking pictures (Friday, n.d.). Not long after the invention of photography, the question about whether photography is an art or not popped up.

This question has a long and complex history, and even though photography is now considered by most to be a valid art form, the debate is still very much alive. Throughout history, photography demonstrated its capacity to be a source of great art by creating works that captured the aesthetic interest of art lovers (Friday, n.d.). Photography is not just a mere reproduction of reality; it is much more. As we can see nowadays, the world would be lost if suddenly all the photographs disappeared. Photography was only considered to be an art when it finally gained acceptance in the museums in the 20th century. Until then, it was just a mechanical way of capturing reality.

The question is who can decide whether a photograph is an art or not, and according to what rules do they make such a decision? Deciding whether something is art has to be a matter of aesthetics. If we want to identify something as a work of art, we have to attribute value to it. Jonathan Friday claims that the question of whether photography is an art or not is poorly formulated. He gives us an example with painting. We may ask ourselves: is painting art? If we suppose that painting is something like the application of colour onto a surface, the answer to the question can be this: sometimes yes and sometimes no. So, the question we have to ask is not whether a painting is art or not, but what explains the value that some instances of painting possess. This value is aesthetic. If we understand what it is to aesthetically value an object as a picture, then the correct answer to whether photography is art or not is: sometimes yes and sometimes no.

Photography and literature

The investigation of photography usually consists of exploring written sources rather than relying on photographs themselves. The history of photography is written, so if we want to find out how and when it happened, we have to search for written sources that will explain the miracle that is photography. Everything that we want to know about photography is written, starting from its invention, the people involved in its discovery, description of the materials used, etc. Like all nineteenth-century inventions, photography was experienced as an event in writing before it was encountered visually, even though it is a visual medium.  Nicephore Niepce, known as the father of photography, experimented with the copying of written or printed documents before discovering photography. But he was not the only one who was experimenting. While Niepce experimented with lithography, Hercules Florence experimented with diplomas and Talbot with manuscripts. Niepce was also inspired by literature when he was doing his research, specifically by Tiphaigne de la Roche’s fantasy novel Giphantie (Brunet, 2009). In this novel, a narrator visits the hollow of the earth’s centre, where a group of spirits creates highly illusionistic paintings. Later, canvas is smeared with a mysterious material and placed before the scene, and after an hour, the picture becomes permanent. It seems like de la Roche predicted the creation of photography by predicting the use of light-sensitive chemicals, but what his story did not involve was a human operator and light-tight box (Marien, 2006). So, as seen, literature had a crucial role in inventing photography. It influenced researchers to experiment and introduced the world to the phenomenon of photography.

Literature and photography

The birth of photography is crucial when discussing the history of the visual arts, especially for painting. Still, on the other hand, there is much to suggest that it is an equally critical moment in literary history. Surprisingly, it is generally absent from the standard histories of literary modernism and postmodernism (Cunningham et al 2008). There is evidence that shows how photography was and still is present in literary practices. I will provide some of the famous examples where photography was used as a part of storytelling.

One of the best contemporary French novelists, Philippe Delerm, based his novel Les amoureux de l'Hôtel de Ville, 1993 (The lovers of the Hôtel de Ville) on Robert Doisneau’s photograph Le Basier de l’Hotel de Ville (1950). The main character, who is also the narrator of the novel, works in a bookshop and has an intimate connection with a photograph of Doisneau’s parents. From the very beginning of the book, the relationship between literature and photography is present. The first pages of the book reveal intriguing details of that photograph (Ringrose, n.d.).

Another excellent example of the relationship between literature and photography is the novel Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald. This novel has a double narrative, no chapters or paragraphs, and contains 87 images of photographs, diagrams and drawings. The authors of these images are unknown. Austerlitz is a story about Jacques Austerlitz who was sent on a “kindertransport” (children's transport)  from Czechoslovakia in 1939. Austerlitz grew up thinking that he was Dafydd Elias until his headmaster told him that his real name is actually Jacques Austerlitz. Later, he tries to construct his identity through historical understanding and by meeting those who knew him as a child (Ringrose, n.d.).

This book can be seen as a testimony for those who lost their family and home in World War 2. Austerlitz is about memory and forgetting. Sebald himself said, “The moral backbone of literature is about the whole question of memory, and I have always collected stray photography; there’s a great deal of memory in them”. Some of the photographs in the novel do not necessarily have any memory associated with them; instead, they are manipulated by the text. The written text provides meaning for images in the book (Ringrose, n.d.).

Another famous example is Andre Breton’s novel Nadja. In the 1920s, French photographer Jean-André Boiffard took photographs of Paris, which Breton decided to use to illustrate his book. Nadja consists of 44 photographs which form an integral part of the work. Ian Walker claims that by using Boiffard’s photographs in his book, Breton contradicted his assertion that Nadja is a true story. These photographs function as documents, but what they document is changed by their presence in the text (MacFarlane, 2003, p. 5). There are different pictures of people, objects and places that the author visits in Nadja’s presence.

Philippe Ortel claimed that photography determined an invisible revolution in literature by creating a new framework that, whether explicitly acknowledged or not, invades the code, topics and functions of fiction. As he notes, photography was everywhere and nowhere in the 19th century, meaning that whether or not writers explicitly registered opinions about it, their works were still affected by its ubiquity (Brunet, 2009, p. 31).

Idea of reality

We live in a visual world; we look, observe and in the end, capture and store images that surround us, images that are simultaneously real and unreal. Photographs surround us; they are omnipresent, and are found in the media, on the internet, in books – the list is endless. How does the visual era affect reading? Every day people read less and less. It’s like they are too lazy to read. For instance, when reading an article on the internet or in the newspaper, people skim through it and view the photographs near the text; then, maybe if they find the photograph interesting, they will read the article. It seems like the image is sufficient for us to believe that something happened. It’s like we trust photographs more than we trust something that is written. But does that imply that we trust photographers more than writers? The danger lies in manipulation. Just like people can be manipulated with words, the same can be done with photography. Not everything we see is true, just like how not everything we read is true. I am not talking here about art and manipulation for the sake of art. I am talking about manipulation that can ruin people’s life. In her book On Photography, Susan Sontag (2007) claims that only narration can give us an accurate understanding of the world. One could agree with her, because photography is influenced by the photographer’s wish to capture something, and in some way, they limit our understanding of the world. Despite that, we cannot be sure that everything that is written is true.

Translation from one language to another is very similar to the act of taking pictures. Just like a photograph will never be the exact image that the photographer saw with his bare eyes, a linguistic translation never exactly captures what the writer wanted to say in his own language. Every new translation is a further step away from the original text, considering that language changes every day. That translator has to adjust the language to its present usage to be understood. This process is similar to the process of fading colour in photography (Mitrovich, 2007, as cited in Sontag, 2007).

Imagination

Both literature and photography can be products of imagination. Writers use their imagination when creating new worlds and identities, and they drag us into different worlds where we can allow ourselves to be someone else. Photographers manipulate light, lenses and materials (now programs) to create a different reality, something that is simultaneously real and unreal. It exists in reality but in the form of a photograph. Photographs hide stories and stories hide photographs. Similar to how we read literature, we read photography. When reading, we create our images of the story, and when looking at photographs, we create our own stories.

The similarity between poetry and photography is that they can take the simplest and least meaningful subjects and make them into something beautiful. Both photographs and poems can also be manipulated. For example, we can have a photograph of a woman smiling as if she was happy and a poem describing this woman in the photograph as comfortable and beautiful. But that woman doesn’t have to be happy at all; she could be hiding her sorrow and misery, pretending that everything in her life is perfect. Both poems and photographs can be crafted in a way to hide the truth (Travnells, 2012).

As I see it, there are two sides in both photography and literature: one can be seen by everyone, and the second one belongs only to me. A photograph of my father is very special to me; it touches me, it means something to me and it belongs to me. However, others just see a man with a moustache, a person who is irrelevant to them.  

Conclusion

The relationship between literature and photography is very complex. They both have a lot in common. Their histories are marked by significant events, they are considered to belong to aesthetics by both philosophers of art and literary critics, and they can both be manipulated.

Photography was first experienced as a text and not as a picture, even though it is a visual medium. The birth of photography is a crucial moment in literary history because it caused an invisible revolution in literature, which created a new framework. Perception is vital for both literature and photography; this perception helps us to get into a more profound meaning and provides “pleasure”. If a work of art doesn’t provide “pleasure”, it doesn’t have any value, especially not aesthetic value. Literature and photography possess intrinsic value only in relation to the public. Their value depends not only on the author but also on people’s understanding of it. This relationship can be seen in famous literary works such as Breton’s Nadja, Sebald’s Austerlitz and many more. A world without photography and written words would be a lost world. While this paper has provided a brief history of literature and photography, there is still much to uncover Literary critics and philosophers of art are still investigating and analysing this complex and interesting relationship.

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This paper was originally written in 2013.

References‍

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