A Research On Roman Ingarden’s Art Theory

Roman Ingarden(1893-1970)is one of the famous phenomenological aestheticians in the 20th century.His art theory is mainly an art ontology that based on phenomenology.He came to a unique conclusion that art works are purely intentional objects with a schematic hierarchical layers.Re-discovering and reviewing Ingaden’s art ontology has great inspiration for us:it can not only provide a new way of thinking on what works of art are since the 20th century,but also provide more abundant ideological resources for the deep-rooted disciplines of domestic art theory.The main content of the first chapter of this paper is a general discussion of Ingaden’s art ontology.In order to solve the famous controversy of"Idealism-Realism" in the history of philosophy,he devoted himself to the study of the ontology of art,and examined the existence and essential structure of literary,music,painting,architecture works of art successively.On this basis,he pointed out that works of art are unique purely intentional objects which are different from real objects and ideal objects,and they also have a schematic,multi-stratas and qualitative structure.In this way,inspired by phenomenological methods,Ingarden provided a set of phenomenological solutions for general theory in art.Ingarden attributed the problem of "Idealism-Realism" to ontological research.Ontological research is also attributed to the existential ontology and the mode of existential.The way something exists is the way something is given in our intuition,and the way something appears in our intuition.Ingaden’s two most fundamental questions are what appears in our intuition and how to appear in our intuition.For works of art2what Ingarden wants to study is how the works of art appear in our intuition.Through the analysis of various factors in the mode of existence,Ingarden finally summed up four types of mode of existence.The way in which art works exist is purely intentional.This means that:(1)art works have no root in themselves,need to be created by other,that is,need our intention projection;(2)not reality,but an intentional existence,their actual existence is not explicitly stated.For pictures,Ingarden pointed out that the way of existence of pictures can not be separated from the quasi-perceptual understanding of our subject,but also from the real painting of the object.When a quasi-perceptual attitude coincides with a painting,the picture will appear in our intuition.In our intuitive,pictures have different types and stratas.There are only one strata in abstract painting,two stratas in pure painting,three stratas in portrait painting and still life painting,and four stratas in pictures with literary or historical themes.Among them,the reconstructed view and the presented object level can be said to be the two sources of the greatest value of the aesthetics of pictures.These two aspects also condense the most creative talents of human beings.The reconstruction of appearance can not be separated from certain material conditions and painting means.The reconstructed view and the presented object themselves can also become the carrier of aesthetic value quality,which guarantees the objectivity of aesthetic value from the object.When examining music works,Ingarden first pointed out that music works are a qualitative structure enclosed in itself,which is fundamentally different from the real sounds.The existence of music requires the projection of our subject’s intention,the scores as the channel of our intention,without any other conditions such as playing a kind of real sound.In this way of existence,the music works that appear to us are a kind of super-individuality in the quasi-temporal structure.In our intuition,music works appear as a single-strata structure which combines acoustic moments and non-acoustic moments.This structure contains not only various tonal forms,but also some properties.Together,they form the nature gestalt of musical works,which not only keeps the works composed of different segments as a whole,but also makes its different performances in history recognized as the same work.When examining architectural works,Ingarden followed a similar train of thought,pointing out that the existence of architectural works requires not only our aesthetic acceptance attitude,but also specific real buildings.Architectural works in this way of existence include two essential stratas of diversity and space shape.The solution of the equation formed by geometry,practical function and individuality is the key to maintain the integrity of architectural works of art.Ingaden took the solution of philosophical problems as the starting point,but finally came to a precise and profound art ontology.In phenomenological movement,art theory and contemporary art theory disciplines,his theory has positive significance.In the history of phenomenological movement,his artistic ontology manifests itself as a unique compromise between phenomenology and ontology,which prevents his phenomenological artistic ontology from deviating from one pole of subjective consciousness activity and one pole of object content;in the history of artistic history,his theory avoids the mistake of separating subject from object caused by previous subjective aesthetics and objective aesthetics.By mistake,we have found a self-evident and neutral field of art works,which has laid a solid foundation for art theory.For the current construction of art theory disciplines,Ingaden’s art ontology not only puts forward general art theory,but also has different theoretical forms in various kinds of art,which can also provide us with a lot of useful reference.