The precise nature of any given Aesthetic cannot be neatly codified, strictly enforced, or comprehensively identified. An Aesthetic is akin to a living, breathing organism, with a fluid, often amorphous set of characteristics ebbing and flowing, sometimes colliding against (and occasionally melding with) an alternate Aesthetic. Its dynamism and universality are a part of what make it a valuable presence in the artistic process.

But despite the Aesthetic's slippery malleability, and refusal to be pinned down in any definitive way, the foundational tenets that underlie it can serve as a guiding and organizing principle in the conception and creation of a work of art, and in a spectator's viewing and interpretive strategies.

Why does the artist need a “guiding principle” when creating a work of art? Isn't trusting one's creative instincts enough? Shouldn't the artist simply be allowed to follow her own impulses toward the work's conclusion? And might not the application of a preconceived design scheme inhibit or suffocate the artist's own natural inclinations, or impede the flowering of a more original idea?

And why does an audience need to encounter a work of art through a systemized understanding of creative achievement? Wouldn't an awareness of the details of expectation potentially preempt what might have been a fresh and surprising encounter? Wouldn't it pose the risk of overlooking or dismissing innovative works because they fail to meet a staid set of standards that are not even relevant to this particular experience?

In contemplating these and related questions, it is important to remember that the unbridled freedom of thought, arenas for self-expression, and openness to creative processes with which Art has always been associated is invariably coupled with a demand for structure, organization, and design. And while there might not necessarily be a right or wrong way to imagine or assemble something in an artistic realm, a unifying principle inevitably emerges when we contemplate any great creative work.

Aesthetics, as a concept, often serves—either consciously or unconsciously—as that unifying principle.

Artistic traditions, both Ancient and Modern, while always running the risk of becoming formulaic and predictable, ultimately become institutionalized because, when appropriated and served effectively, they have exhibited the ability to stir our emotions and/ or provoke our intellects with a demonstrable consistency.

One of the most fundamental choices an artist makes when translating an image, a story, an idea, or an emotion into an art object involves the manner and style in which the subject is going to be rendered. When a painter, for example, gazes at a distance landscape that she intends to recreate on a canvass using pigments, brushes, and knives, what governs her thought process and technical execution? Is she attempting to ensure that when a viewer looks at her painting it resembles, as closely as humanly possible, the landscape that she herself observes with her naked eye? Will the painting's perspective, composition, color scheme, and detail be a “lifelike” recreation of what she actually sees, or will she embellish the painting by using colors and/ or details that are not actually present in the real-life location? Will she omit or stylize certain features of the geography so that looking at the painting will necessarily be a wildly different experience than looking at the original subject matter on which it is based? Or will she insist that her painting be a faithful, photographic facsimile of the reality as she sees and experiences it?

These questions strike at the heart of the artistic process, as they force the artist and her audience to contemplate both the intent of the artwork and the manner by which we guide our engagement with it, as well as how we assess its success or failure in achieving its goals.

Realism and Abstraction represent two distinct, often oppositional modes of artistic expression, each based upon a particular set of aesthetic assumptions and philosophical inclinations. While both Realism and Abstraction can be juxtaposed and/ or blended together in one given artwork, their idiosyncratic characteristics compel different responses from audiences.

REALISM

As an artistic movement, Realism first gained prominence in France in the nineteenth century. Painters like Gustave Courbet (1819– 1877) and Jean-François Millet (1814– 1875) eschewed both the staid Neo-Classicism that had dominated French culture for over two centuries and the over-the-top sensationalism and exaggerated exoticism that marked the still-revolutionary Romantic movement that aimed to displace it.

When human beings made the transition from nomadic, hunter-gatherer lifestyles to stationary, agrarian societies, an interest in permanent, decorative objects with which to adorn both homes and public spaces—as opposed to manageable, utilitarian tools designed for transport—increased exponentially. What were the intended functions of these newly conceived ornamental creations? To what degree, and in what manner, did their exhibition soothe their observers? Were they created and displayed merely to beautify their physical surroundings without provoking any serious thought? Were they meant to simply disguise an otherwise drab environment? Were they intended to create or replicate an ostensibly more appealing atmosphere? Or was it presumed that the objects (paintings, drawings, sculptures, etc.) contained a set of properties that would compel deeper contemplation? Spiritual reflection? Sociopolitical examination? Or, even, meditations on the very nature of the object under scrutiny?

Both the nature and purpose of Art have been seriously contemplated for millennia, and theoretical musings on its aesthetic presumptions and responsibilities have been hotly debated, though no definitive consensus on its genus has ever emerged among either critics or general audiences. But central to any artwork's very existence is its ability to engage a spectator, to secure attention, to invite engagement of one sort or another. Without this first and primary property, its value is entirely negated.

But once that interest is established, what happens next?

For many, the interest translates into distraction, relief, and heightened experience. Distraction implies that the concentration that we normally devote to more practical concerns is diverted toward the object and held for a particular duration. Relief implies that the distraction is a welcome one, providing a certain brand of comfort that was, presumably, absent in the course of our navigating real-world phenomena. Heightened experience presumes that the encounter will generate excitement in the spectator, either through character/ situational identification, vicarious thrill, or voyeuristic engagement. This type of experience is what most conventional, commercial feature films aspire to, as it doesn't require any effort from its audience aside from its willingness to passively participate. It is akin to a rollercoaster ride at your favorite amusement park—once you've committed to the ride and entered the car, you just sit there; the mechanism does all the work for you. Your thrill is provided without your having to expend any effort.

One of the many questions that is useful to ask when creating a work of art or assessing its value is, What is its purpose?

Whether one is in the process of constructing a narrative, telling a story for public consumption, or evaluating its effectiveness, one must be acutely aware of its implicit aims, rhetorical goals, artistic conceits, diversionary objectives, and/ or intellectual pretensions.

Once one is clear about the story's intended function, one is better equipped to select the aesthetic strategies best suited to escort the narrative to full fruition and/ or assess the ultimate value of the final product.

Myth and Parable represent two distinct modes of storytelling, each with their own fundamental objectives and inherent stratagems. And while their differences may sometimes be subtle, they carry profound implications for the story's design and final impact on audiences.

MYTH

In the modern idiom, we often use the word Myth to describe something that is false or suspect: “That is a myth!”—the implication being that the story being told is, at best, misleading or misunderstood, or, at worst, untrue, a lie.

Myth is also often defined as a story accepted by an ancient people that purports to explain certain natural, spiritual, religious, or moral/ ethical phenomena but which is fundamentally untrue.

But for the purposes of this examination, we will define Myth as a story told that is designed to illustrate the general, timeless, and universal truths of the human condition—truths about ourselves, our human interactions, our place in the universe, and the myriad variables that influence our moral foundations and ethical choices. A Myth explores the things about our world that are fixed, stable, unchanging. The things that ultimately define us as sentient, feeling, and curious beings.

A lie is a story that is designed to deceive.

A Myth is a story that is designed to illuminate.

PARABLE

A Parable, on the other hand, is a story told to make a rhetorical point, or pose a rhetorical question. In other words, it contains a conspicuously didactic component that is designed to lead the audience to a particular point of view, or alternate perspective, that might inform moral or ethical choices with a specific end in mind.

Disparate modes of artistic expression are often described in purely oppositional terms—and the aesthetic assumptions that underlie them are too often misunderstood to be mutually exclusive. In reality, different idioms often have characteristics in common and can sometimes be combined and overlapped in interesting and effective ways. Occasionally, however, a movement emerges that positions itself in direct opposition to a preexisting tradition, which makes its compatibility with its precursor an ostensible impossibility.

One might argue that this is the case with Classicism and Romanticism. While there are aspects of both that have become fundamental to the modern artistic lexicon, we should remind ourselves that in their purest forms they are fundamentally adversarial.

CLASSICISM

The term “Classical” is too often used generically when referring to something that is timeless and elegant, reflective of high-end tastes and elitist tendencies. The notion that any art object deemed Classical belongs in a rarified realm has become commonplace, the assumption being that it exhibits a deference toward time-honored but vaguely defined principles regarding both form and content.

But Classical is an aesthetic designation that references a particular time and place, namely, Ancient Greco-Roman culture from approximately 500 BCE to 475 CE The beginning and end dates of that epochal classification refer to the great flowering of Athenian culture in the fifth century BCE and the collapse of the western half of the Roman Empire toward the end of the fifth century CE, respectively.

While Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome were two distinct civilizations, they generally shared enough core characteristics—cultural, theological, political, and aesthetic—that scholars have traditionally grouped them both under the umbrella heading Classical Greco-Roman, or simply Classical, as an organizing device.

Classical culture's understanding of Art and Beauty mirrored, to a great degree, what it believed to be the foundational principles of any great civilization and its attendant communities. In order to understand the defining characteristics of Classical Art, we must first examine Classical culture's relationship to civilization as a concept. To the Classical mind, civilization represented a contract that human beings enter with one another to ensure the imposition of a clearly defined order and to avoid the brutality and vagaries of an uncivilized existence.

Neumann Comes to the Office of Strategic Services

Franz L. Neumann commenced full- time work with the US government on February 22, 1943, thereby dedicating himself fully to the official war effort against Nazi Germany. Although he had already divided his time between the Institute for Social Research and the US Board of Economic Warfare through the summer and fall of 1942, his outright termination by Max Horkheimer and Frederick Pollock at the end of 1942 led him into more direct and permanent employment with the US government. While it would be tempting to see this move from scholarly research to the official war effort as a moment in which Neumann voluntarily recommitted himself to a more activist role as a political intellectual, his choice of public employment presents a more complex picture. Although Neumann had always been one of the most explicitly political intellectuals in the nominally nonaligned Institute, he went to extraordinary lengths to preserve his research- centered job at the Institute, notwithstanding the political discretion it required. He only made his move to Washington after his position with Max Horkheimer had become no longer negotiable and thus impossible. Therefore, the decision to enter fulltime government service, where his political effectiveness could well be subject to more formal limitations, was made in important part because more desirable options had been foreclosed. In a sense, the leaders of the Institute made the decision for him.

Confronted with no other attractive professional opportunities, he followed up on overtures to join the Office for Strategic Services (hereafter referred to as OSS) made by Walter Dorn and Eugene Anderson, academic historians he'd come to know during his Institute years and who had been drawn earlier into government service. This would allow him to continue with the people who had joined him during his last years working on the Institute's failed grant proposals on Nazi Germany.

Neumann had made himself the natural candidate for an OSS leadership role, because he had then separately begun a book project under contract with Oxford University Press entitled “National Socialism and European Reconstruction.” By the end of 1940, Neumann's role with the Institute's Germany project had also led to his collaboration and friendship with Eugene Anderson, who would later become Neumann's supervisor at OSS.

In Russia in the Shadows, Wells writes in connection with his 1920 visit: “At a gathering of literary people in Petersburg [sic], Mr. Amphiteatroff, the well-known writer, addressed a long and bitter speech to me. He suffered from the usual delusion that I was blind and stupid and being hoodwinked. He was for taking off the respectable-looking coats of all the company present in order that I might see for myself the rags and tatters and pitiful expedients beneath. It was a painful and, so far as I was concerned, an unnecessary speech, but I quote it here to emphasize this effect of general destitution” (RS, 31). Alexander Amfiteatrov (1862– 1938) was indeed a popular writer, literary critic and journalist. He held strong nationalist views, which made him a dissident in the tsarist regime as well. In 1916, he was exiled to Western Siberia for his published attacks on the government but returned after the 1917 February Revolution. Soon after Wells's visit, he emigrated abroad, first to Prague and then to Italy, from where he contributed to many European émigré newspapers and journals. These memoirs appeared in September of 1922 in Novaia russkaia zhizn’ (New Russian Life), a Russian émigré daily published in Germany.

H. G. Wells in Petrograd

I have not yet seen Wells's book about his visit to the Soviet Russia, and therefore I have no right to express any opinion about it. Bolshevik officialdom publications have cited triumphant passages, from which it follows that Wells supposedly depicted “the Socialist Fatherland” using the most superlative terms to present it as some inevitable future paradise. But quotations by Bolsheviks are an unreliable source: V. Bystriansky and company, adjusting to their needs, would manage to turn not just Wells's writing but “Pater Noster” itself to their advantage and would brazenly assert that “Give us today our daily bread” is an instruction to Europe to feed the RSFSR government and its Red Army exclusively through the Soviet official agencies, and that “And forgive us our debts” means “don't you ever hope to have those Russian debts paid off.”