What are the applied arts? At first glance, it might seem presumptuous to start a study with such a question, but perhaps I canbe excused for these opening lines if I admit right away that I haveno idea what this definition might cover. In my defence, over recentdecades I have participated in countless conferences and debates onthis question, but none of them has come to a reassuring conclusion.My PhD thesis dealt with this issue, and although I searched hundreds of pages for the answer, I could not find it. This is one of the‘jolly jokers’ of art debates: a very effective way of setting well-meaning philologists and artists against one another when the questions‘is design art?’ and ‘where does the borderline of applied arts lie?’,horribile dictu ‘what constitutes art?’, are raised.
Whichever system of traditional arguments you choose, youcan be sure of an angry response and passionate dissent from theother camp. “The applied arts represent an outdated concept, autonomous art dissolved into the visual arts long ago with the appearanceof studio movements, and the importance of materials became negligible, with the point now being the pure artistic message”, is a comment that might be heard from one side, with opposing views suchas: “Design has nothing to do with the applied arts, which representan aestheticising concept lost in a reverie of the past. Design is theart of the future, which will replace art itself, because it representsthe very idea of creative thought, a utopia becoming reality”. For thetwo ends of the debate on the applied arts, taking shape around theconcepts of art and design and their presumed exclusivity, there isone common denominator: both passionately challenge the legitimacy of the term ‘applied arts’. Perhaps not without reason, butwhere else could they do so? While the debates between the participants go to extremes, apparently the ‘common space’ where thesebattles are fought is called ‘the applied arts’.
Where does the concept itself come from? It was in an actualhouse and its garden – also common space - where the above discussion started. To be precise, in the garden of William Morris’ ivy-cladRed House, the term ‘applied arts’ was never once mentioned.’Art’,’the past’, and ’the future’ were, however. There was talk of cultivation and education, of the creative power of the hand, and of culture,but all in the context of Dante’s poetry and the rediscovery of theelemental, primordial creative power of man. Literature and the finearts, fantasy and reality, idealism and business: Morris & Co. couldwell be regarded as the first business-based art brand. Keeping theknowledge of the past alive, compensating for the effects of modernisation were mentioned, but so too was the idea of progress, ofdevelopment, of a fairer society. There was talk of nature, the relationship with natural materials, the protection of the environment,and of man in the face of the industrial development of an Englandchoking on coal smoke, thus there was talk of sustainability. Theydiscussed the importance of beauty, the importance of the decorativeelement, the need for artistic quality in the objects surrounding us,all of which can make us more civilized and consequently more free.The ‘common space’ is the place of debate, the welcoming intellectual medium of this sphere of thought, which has sometimes beenthe scene of passionate conflict, even of outbursts of jealousy andother human dramas. The space of the applied arts is not inherentlya prison for the definition of some autonomous artistic quality.
Just a few decades later, Arts and Crafts had grown into a globalart movement, and its impact transformed Art Nouveau into anindependent art style. In the English-speaking world, it was strippedof its original intellectual content and became a considerably commercial aesthetic movement. It became a symbol of the luxury andextravagance of the middle classes. How did it move so far awayfrom the critical thoughts of the movement’s spiritual father, JohnRuskin? The vibrant intellectual space of poets, writers, artists,fantastics and craftsmen was replaced by the rigid concepts of theapplied arts, and with it the associations that had little to do with thespirit of the Red House.
More than three hundred artists are participating in the 2ndSalon of Applied Arts and Design, spanning four generations of artists. These four generations also represent four different, sometimesconflicting perspectives: different approaches to time, to the eraand to views, some summing up a lifetime’s experience, and otherssinging the new songs of new times. How is it possible to find somesystem for this vast subject material when the conceptual frameworks and definitions, along which we have defined it are apparentlyinsufficient to provide an adequate description?
The new industrial revolution currently underway is creatinga situation very similar to the one experienced by William Morris and his colleagues during the first industrial revolution in the1860s. We see the world around us changing radically, often cruellyand unjustly trampling over people and the past, creating alienating, alarming structures, evoking dystopian fears, and at the twoextremes – again like in the modern age – we can see romantics longing for nature and utopians looking to a technology-driven world.If this debate has not been settled satisfactorily in over a hundredyears, it is unlikely to be settled now. That is why it might now beworth taking a step back and trying something different. So let usstep back from the modern age, so far that we can leave behind ourdefinitions, and perhaps even the whole history of art. Let’s go so farback to when the concept of ‘art’ in the modern sense did not evenexist, since the seven liberal arts actually represented the humanities. So off to the Academy of Athens!
In this world, the debate between utopian idealists andnature-loving realists can be found in the Plato-Aristotle polemics.Aristotle was Plato’s student and collaborator for almost twentyyears at the Academy of Athens, which Plato founded around 380BC. Although Aristotle respected his teacher, his philosophy eventually diverged from Plato’s in several important respects. Aristotlealso explored areas of philosophy and science that Plato did not takeseriously. The traditional view is that Plato’s philosophy is abstractand utopian, whereas Aristotle’s is empirical, practical and widelyunderstandable.
Could it be that the whole discourse on ’the applied arts’ goesoff-track because of the wrong, useless ’definitions’? That we arelooking for meaning where there is none, while the solution lies atour feet? Instead of expanding the neo-Platonist concept of ‘fine arts’,why not examine this selection empirically from the outset? All themore so, because both applied arts and design are about objects thatare close to us, that we wear, that surround us, so they represent thetouchable, tangible and inspectable segments of art. A garment onthe rack is worth nothing, it comes to life when it is worn, and evenmore when it is set in motion. While the analysis and exploration ofthe qualities of ‘fine art’ is carried out from a certain distance, thevalue of a design product is revealed in the act of using it. Anyonecan ‘interpret’ what is in front of them, no special education or otherknowledge is required: usability, liking, and contact with the objectare the interpretation themselves. An object of applied art standingon a pedestal is taken out of its natural context and immediatelycomes into conflict with the medium of the museum, which is, bycontrast, the natural medium of the fine arts. So when, as now, the‘doors are kicked open’, there is a rare opportunity to explore a specialintellectual space, to look into every nook and cranny of ‘the appliedarts’, to see the opposing sides, the contrasts and the relationships.Let’s not impose applied arts on the museum context, but instead putthe spectator’s position in museums at the service of the applied arts,and talk about the ’speakable things’!
We have arrived at the self-derived, rigid definitions that consider themselves absolute, and explain a lot of things - except reality.The debates take off into infinity, like Zeno’s arrow, and while weare searching for the boundaries of the applied arts, autonomousart, studio art, craft and design, a new technological and industrialrevolution is taking place, where our social, artistic and aestheticproblems lead back to the heated intellectual debates of the RedHouse garden. The value of the technologies and ideas of the past,the traditions of cultivation methods, the artistic self-worth of pasttechnologies, our relationship to materials, the incorporation of artinto everyday life, and the counterbalancing of technological progress and its alienating effects are fundamental questions of individual and communal identity.
Aristotle had a penchant for using metaphors from the field of the applied arts anyway. In his Metaphysics, for example, in regard to Matter and its Mover he uses the metaphor of the potter at his wheel, as he gives inanimate matter its defining form. Concerning the truth of arguments, he writes: ”So it is, too, with inanimate things; for of these, too, some are really silver and others gold, while others are not and merely seem to be such to our sense; e.g. things made of litharge and tin seem to be of silver, while those made of yellow metal look golden. In the same way both reasoning and refutation are sometimes genuine, sometimes not, though inexperience may make them appear so: for inexperienced people obtain only, as it were, a distant view of these things.” (Aristotle: On Sophistical Refutations, Part 1, translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge)
It is no coincidence that in the Arab world, where Aristotle’sphilosophy took root earlier and more deeply, creative genres classified under the applied arts, such as textile art, ceramics and glassart, started to flourish much earlier. The concept of ‘design’ had beenpresent in the Arab world for centuries before the term was coined inthe West, as the Koranic denial of the representational arts led to thesearch for and the finding of a philosophical basis for artistic expression in the works of Aristotle, which was fundamentally differentfrom Christian Platonism. Aristotle’s works were translated intoArabic as early as the 7th century.
Aristotle’s word ‘katégória’ was originally Greek for accusation: it meant the allegations made about a suspect by his accusers during the trial, which were used to describe the offence. The peripatetics, or ‘walking philosophers’, began to use the word in the sense of ‘κατηγορίαι του ờντος’, or ‘allegations of existence’. It is important to note that Aristotle’s categories are by no means rigid, in fact, just the opposite. They are so loose that even their authenticity has been questioned on numerous occasions by continental philosophers who were keen on definitions. His work Organon, which contains the categories, was long considered sketchy at best, and even a forgery. The criticism of Aristotle is one of the reasons why European art since the Renaissance has explicitly sought ‘academicism’, borrowing its conceptual framework from the philosophical vocabulary of Neoplatonism. The applied arts have become the area that the philosophers of Neoplatonist art theory, like initially their intellectual father, ‘did not take seriously’.
Aristotle did not provide a general interpretation, which is nocoincidence, since his categories – similarly to the original legal concept – primarily represent tools for free interpretation themselves.The category as a ‘definition’ is not mentioned in the text at all, onlythat these words belong to one of the ten kinds of names. Moreover,apart from the title, the word ‘katégória’ is nowhere to be found inthe text. Aristotle did not want any definitions.
The homunculus paradox arose when the first microscopesappeared and the true method of procreation was discovered. It wasthen that the idea that every gamete contains a tiny human, a homunculus, which grows in the womb to the size needed to be born. Suchregressus ad infinitum reasoning can then go on into infinity: we look atthe changing world around us and try to find the ‘essence’ of our definitions, the ‘idea’ or the ‘nature of art’, without ever getting to the end.We compare, measure, select, and then end up back at the startingline again and again. Our concepts circulate in a vicious circle, and soour debates remain fruitless, constantly returning to themselves tofind the next homunculus: themselves, as the essence of themselves.
According to the medieval Aristotelian Boethius, the verynotion of ’definition’ is itself one of the ’homunculi’, and thus leadsto the regressus ad infinitum paradox: if we classify everything intoa general category defined as „the most general thing” (in our case,such would be the overall notion of art or design), then this categoryand its contents should belong to an ’even more general’ categorythan the former. This would already contradict the meaning of theterm ’most general’ and would lead to a redefinition of ’even moregeneral’ as ’even more general than both of these’, and thus we wouldnever be able to complete the generalisation. So the ’most general’ –in our case, the concept of art itself – simply does not exist.
This, as we have seen, leads to a lot of debates at best. At worst,a total denial of art begins, with the proliferation of self-contained’creative sophisms’, according to which anything labelled so can beart. Forgeries are unleashed, and interpretations appear out of thinair, which substitute the now missing total truth by themselves:since there is – apparently – nothing ’general’, suddenly everythingbecomes particular. Aristotle recognised this when he actuallydenied the central notion of Platonism. Hence the need for a methodto prevent this proliferation. It was for this reason that Aristotledevoted most of his work to logic and ethics, while his Poetics becameone of the standard works of art theory. Aristotle and his disciples,who used logic to fight the intellectual overgrowth of Hellenism,chose walks and questioning as their method. Just like our exhibition– all it asks of its visitors is to take a walk with us, ask questions, andthen formulate their own interpretations, as correctly and validly aspossible. Aristotle’s categories, freely interpreted and adapted to thetheme of the exhibition, will guide us on our walk. The ’speakablethings’ all belong to categories, i.e. main aspects, according to whicheverything that is included in this ’common space’ can be classified.
Aristotle distinguishes ten categories, which are the following:substance (matter), possession, quality, quantity, relation, situation, place, time, action, and suffering (effect). The non-substantialcategories, that is, all but the first, were considered accidental andwere later called attributes. Attributes represent the essential, necessary, inseparable qualities of phenomena and objects, which alsoprovided the basis of medieval iconography. The objects on displayare primarily things that have different attributes, because they aremeant to serve different purposes. There are two paths to follow. Oneof these paths leads from the direction of an art that is based on thedirect shaping of matter towards immaterial qualities. The otherpath leads from strict functionality to autonomous objects of ‘fineart’, which serve to represent purely intellectual contents.
Aristotelian matter, or substance, is a concrete concept. It islike, for example, Socrates, or a table. In this exhibition, too, thereare but two concrete things: the person of the creators and the worksthey created. They are separated by their respective fields of work,by the ’matter’ of which they create, if you like, which representstheir primary substance. Of course, in the 21st century, this is farfrom evident, since as one of our walks reveals, we can go from concrete, ancient materials such as ceramics, glass, metal and textilesto virtual spaces and applications that no longer have any materialexistence in the classical sense, yet we can discover in them the‘substance’, the fundamental essence of their existence, and thereforenot even the most immaterial genre and creation in the exhibitionis devoid of it. Everything that we consider to be a ‘speakable thing’,from objects to designed virtual content, is ‘something’. All works ofthis broad spectrum are part of our experienced reality, elements wedistinguish through contemplation.
Such distinctions, however, no longer have an independentexistence and can only attain a state of completeness in their individual reality. Aristotle sees the immaterial, i.e. spiritual, cause ofobjects in this. There are thus three hundred Socrates’ in the common space: the three hundred creators. There are three hundred’tables’ in the exhibition, that is, three hundred objects that expresscontent simultaneously, that have their own independent cause. Inthis way they become ’speakable things’. They are nameable, tangible, undeniable, and existing. They can therefore be seen, touched,and experienced. We can make contact with them.
Substance, or ’matter’ in the broad sense, has priority over theother categories, and because only substance can exist independently,other categories cannot. The other categories can only exist as part ofthe substance, as its relations. We only know a thing truly, when weknow what it is, that is, when we reveal its substance. Therefore allinvestigation is directed towards the substance.
In Aristotle’s work, in addition to the ten categories, we alsofind postpredicaments. These are: opposition (oppositio), priority(prioritas), simultaneity (simul), movement (motus), and possession(habitus). Although philosophers have argued that these are not theauthentic words of the author, merely explanatory notes of his disciples, the most important message of the exhibition is that individualthings never stand alone. There are no ’solitary objects’. There areno solitary artists either. While in the fine arts it is possible for theLouvre to devote an entire room to the Mona Lisa, this is hardly thecase with the applied arts. Common space is therefore always created in real life, too, because objects always form groups and exist inrelationships. The same applies to artists, they can only rarely createin isolation, alone, since most of the time the act of creating is itself acommunal activity. There is a table next to the chair, a lamp hangingabove the table, a glass on the table, furniture on a rug. And the artistusually works with contractors and clients. Everything forms an integral whole with everything else, is connected, and stands together.In everyday life, one does not even look at these objects separately,because interior design, the field that links the applied arts witharchitecture, represents the art of composing these objects. It createsaccents: highlights things, pushes other things into the background,and arranges relations.
The ’speakable things’ establish contact with each other,often facing each other, creating opposites (oppositio). The priority(prioritas) imposed by use or value creates shortages, and innovationis primarily concerned with filling them. Objects are also in competition: there is more than one answer to a question, and this createssimultaneity (simul), which is why things are in motion (motus). Asuse or need is transformed, the whole object may become useless orbe forced to adapt. This palpable relativity forces the world of designto be in a permanent standby status, since most objects – unlike infine art – are not created for eternity, and individual objects are alsoin fierce competition with each other, struggling to ‘win’, to gain theappreciation of the user.
The sense of possession (habitus), which is independent ofcategories, thus implies not only the command of the object itself,but of the whole process outlined above: whoever is in possession ofthe process can dictate the pace and the extent of innovation, andconsequently control social development. The applied arts representthe part of art that responds most sensitively and directly, for betteror worse, to social changes and movements. There are many reasonsfor this, the most important being that no one designs machines fora drawer, and the materials of glass, ceramics, gold and fine textilesare also unsuitable – simply because of the cost of their productionand the conditions under which they are processed – to be producedsolely in the timeless and immaterial world of fine art. They aresimply too expensive.
In the same way, technological innovation is also meant forthe general public and has direct financial consequences: its emergence is determined by material and economic dimensions. Thetarget group is ’everyone’ rather than ’the knowledgeable few’. Otherwise, the cost of the materials used is closely linked to the addedartistic and aesthetic value that demonstrates the uniqueness of thematerial, and underlines its value by making it unrepeatable. Possession is therefore part of the essence of any object of the applied arts.The creative artist also wants to possess the material, to control theprocess by which the material reacts to external natural impacts. Onthe other hand, the resulting qualities are not an end in themselves:the object is created to be possessed and, in most cases, also to beused. In this way, uniqueness and serial nature are also importantfactors, since a given object is either irreproducibly unique or theopposite: it is accessible to the widest possible public.
The world of design is also permeated by movement in the Aristotelian sense. New objects are created from entirely new materials as new user needs and situations arise. Other objects and groups of objects disappear for good, becoming museum objects at best, but mostly wear out, becoming junk. Some objects change in size: ECGs have shrunk from the size of a cupboard to the size of a phone app in less than 50 years, 3D printing has developed from producing microscopic objects to ’building’ entire houses. Some objects undergo transformation, for example printed books that were mass-produced items even a few decades ago, are in the process of gradually turning into luxury items. Or if we just look at cars, the metamorphosis of the first steam cars to the self-driving electric vehicles of our time illustrates this transformation best.
Also the design process itself can be compared to Aristotle’sanalytical method. Basic intentions are outlined in the ’brief’, whichis followed by a detailed analysis. Then the designer is to performsome research: he looks for analogies and inspirations to isolatehis own premise and to define the specific tasks that the designedobject or project must fulfil. He then outlines possible solutions,creates concepts, in many cases more than one, which are then – inmost cases – presented to the primary consumer, i.e. the client, thusimmediately leaving the role of the lone creator behind, and almostimmediately linking the final outcome to feedback. Only then comesthe actual development of the given product, followed by models,i.e. prototypes and experiments. It then reaches the final solution,followed only at the very end by the actual implementation. As wecan see, this process is very different from the creation of a work offine art. This applies both to autonomous and design objects, sinceeven in the autonomous genres of applied arts, the ‘substance’, that isthe material, remains decisive, and, having its own laws, requires thehumble and competent ‘operating’ knowledge of the creator. In thefield of the applied arts the chance of sophism – bluffing or twistingthe meaning of art – is much lower, because the validity of ‘speakable things’ is directly proven by the success or failure of the plannedprocess, i.e. whether it works or not. This ‘operation’ ranges fromthe most specific mechanical movement to the realisation of theplanned aesthetic goals, confirming the success of the object at once,but also immediately showing its failure.
Speakable things in a common space. When an elderly artistsums up his life’s work, it is not a statement to be argued with, butto be understood. When an aspiring artist defines the goal he or sheis heading for, that is also a statement they need help and supportin. Both the designer and the autonomous artist follow the path theyhave taken and try to ’speak their things’, that is to create their ownobjects so that they fulfil themselves as precisely as possible. Speakable things are actually not in conflict with each other in the sameway as definitions, which strive for a kind of absoluteness in order toplace their own solutions above the other. If we strive for absoluteness, we will only find more and more homunculi, and our debateswill also be endless. But if we seek to understand and unlock eachother’s secrets, objectives and thoughts, we can be part of a colourfuland exciting journey. In our common space that could as well keep itscurrent name: applied arts.
Epilogue
”That our programme, then, has been adequately completed is clear. But we must not omit to notice what has happened in regard to this inquiry. For in the case of all discoveries the results of previous labours that have been handed down from others have been advanced bit by bit by those who have taken them on, whereas the original discoveries generally make advance that is small at first though much more useful than the development which later springs out of them. Of this inquiry, on the other hand, it was not the case that part of the work had been thoroughly done before, while part had not. Nothing existed at all. For the training given by the paid professors of contentious arguments was like the treatment of the matter by Gorgias. For they used to hand out speeches to be learned by heart, some rhetorical, others in the form of question and answer, each side supposing that their arguments on either side generally fall among them. And therefore the teaching they gave their pupils was ready but rough. For they used to suppose that they trained people by imparting to them not the art but its products, as though any one professing that he would impart a form of knowledge to obviate any pain in the feet, were then not to teach a man the art of shoe-making or the sources whence he can acquire anything of the kind, but were to present him with several kinds of shoes of all sorts: for he has helped him to meet his need, but has not imparted an art to him. Moreover, on the subject of Rhetoric there exists much that has been said long ago, whereas on the subject of reasoning we had nothing else of an earlier date to speak of at all, but were kept at work for a long time in experimental researches. If, then, it seems to you after inspection that, such being the situation as it existed at the start, our investigation is in a satisfactory condition compared with the other inquiries that have been developed by tradition, there must remain for all of you, or for our students, the task of extending us your pardon for the shortcomings of the inquiry, and for the discoveries thereof your warm thanks.” (Aristotle: On Sophistical Refutations, closing chapter,translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge)
András Szilágyi B., Curator of the exhibition