그로테스크 미학의 존재론적 기반과 의의

Abstract

When we confront grotesque objects, we are struck with unpleasant feelings, and then we generally find out their essential feature is integration of disparate things. Overwhelmed with the feelings and unintelligibility, we cannot represent them as anything. Consequently, they are outside our conceptual understanding: we always fail when we attempt to reduce them to something familar to our way of understanding. It is because our cognitive operation to represent them is nothing more than forcible operation to keep them within territories of our understanding. Therefore, there remain only two ways to manage to think the grotesque: one is to conceive them as ridiculous examples of sub-culture, and the other is to consider them as exceptions to history of human thoughts. However, it is obvious that we cannot explain why aesthetics of the grotesque have been maintained and developed throughout the whole passage of art history. Why has the grotesque continued despite of that kind of ceaseless aesthetic persecution? This is the primary question of this paper and I want to show what significance we can draw from aesthetics of the grotesque. In this paper, I attempt to establish the ontology on which aesthetic phenomenon called the grotesque can stand. In Gilles Deleuze's speculations on aesthetics, we can find out impersonal anonymity is playing key role in the thinker's articulation of aesthetic. I take this concept into my conceptualization of the grotesque because the concept is similar to dogmas of aesthetics of the grotesque. From his own theory about aesthetics, Deleuze constructed philosophy of difference, which provides the theoretical ground for his unique criticism on legacy of traditional Western metaphysics. With understanding about Deleuze's metaphysical discussion, I can contrive ontologically systematic analysis of the grotesque. Along the development of my discussion, aesthetics of the grotesque is established in the context of history of thought for the first time. To achieve this goal, I review historical evaluations of the grotesque, and then, explain the status occupied by the grotesque in system of human understanding. Through the passage of this kind of examination, I avoid rushing into clear definition of the grotesque, but I choose to analyze the sentiment of unpleasantness delivered to human receptivity at the sight of grotesque objects. In this way, I can fairly reveal aesthetic meanings of the grotesque because the effects of the grotesque can keep their possibilities.