Plastik Sanatlarda Estetik Yaklaşımlar Ve Analitik Değerlendirmede Yapısalcılık

Abstract

Yapısalcılık 20. yüzyılın başlarında ilk olarak Dilbilimde ortaya çıkmış bir çözümleme yöntemidir. Ferdinand de Saussure bu yaklaşımla dilbilimde bir çığır açmıştır. Disiplinler arası da denilebilecek bu yöntemin özelliği belli bir bilim dalında ortaya çıkmış olmasına rağmen diğer bilim dallarına da uygulanabilir olmasıdır. Bu tezin amacı ise yapısalcı yöntemi plastik sanatlarda, mimarlıkta ve endüstri ürünlerinde uygulamaya koymaktır. Estetik bir değerlendirme söz konusu olduğu için öncelikle beli başlı estetik yaklaşımlar ele alınmış ve yapısalcı estetik üzerinde durulmuştur. İkinci bölümde ise dilbilim çerçevesinde bu yöntem açıklanmaya çalışılarak konu üzerinde çeşitli örnekler getirilmiştir. Bu bölümde ayrıca göstergebilim de irdelenmiştir. Son bölümde ise analitik çalışmalara temel olacak bilgilere yer verilerek örnekler üzerinde açıklık getirilmeye çalışılmıştır. Bu şekilde ortaya konan bu tez çalışması daha sonra yapılacak daha detaylı çalışmalar için bir temel olma özelliğindedir.

The first chapter of this thesis gives the estetic ideologies beginning form Platon through medieval ages to the contemporary esthetic mec- ning. The meaning of the esthetic is changing form ages to ages. Frstly these changes are tried to be pot correctly by dividing this period into fo ur ages. The first one is the Classical ideology of the esthetic. Platon is the first philosopher who tried to find an answer to the question, what is beauty? Because of this chapter begins with the metephisical approach to the beauty. This goes on with Aristo, Platinos, Agustinus, Thomas and de Crousaz. Idealist philosophy reached at tts higher point with German idealizm by Hegel and ended with the materialism of Karl Marx. Idealist philosophers such as Emmanuel Kant, Fredrich Schiller and George Wil- helm Friedrich Hegel constituted Germen idealism. Specially for Fried- rich Hegel, it has been said that Platonius philosophy gained its impor tance with Hegel's approach to the philosophy. Thus German idealism is the second age of the esthetic evolution, Karl Marx and his materialism is the third age. For Karl Marx esthetic object gains its importance coith the assosication of human activities and efforts. Ninetinth Centurg psiko- logism gave a way to Empirical Esthetic. Three main empirical appoac- hes are seen in this period; informational esthetic, formal esthetic ande sembolic esthetic. All these esthetics try to find out the cognition process VI of the viewer. în the beginning of the twentith Century, the revolutionary findings of Ferdinand de Saussure, started many changes within too many fields. The revolution that firstly started n linguistics is the structu ralist approach to the language. This structuralism is the subject of this theses and the contemporary approach to the esthetic. The second chapter is dealing with the linguistics. After giving the historical stages of linguistics, in the second chapter, the way how struc turalism is put in linguistic is shown. Ferdinand de Saussere Insisted on a new scientific field; Semiology. Thus this field gains importance by being a seperate field. Semiology, structurlism and communication are some of the methods that are called transcendent. Because they firstly appear in one field but can be applied to the others. Communication is the most important one. The second chapter is also shawing the commu- nicational aspects of language, art, architecture and industrial pro ducts. Saussure notes particularly that language changes only through or dinary unconscious usage and not through the interventions of grammarians or logicians, an observation which seems to bear out the axiom : use defines meaning. He further separates speech from langua ge: language is speech without sound, all the habits of speech as they can be recorded and studied. Thus the singifier is to the signified as peech is to language. Alsa, within the opositional categories set up by Levi- Strauus, signifier and speech are natural elements while signified and language are cultural elements. The most dynamic aspect of signs is tehe ambiguity of their fixed/ unfixed and static/temporal nature. Not only do signs suggest opposition, but it is an essential part of their existence. This "inner duality" implies that while language evolves in time, or through time, speech for every user is a fixed convention, a set of communacation rules existing outside time. Thus Saussure denotes static linguistics, or the study of speech through any given time slice, as synchronic linguistics, and evolutionary linguistics as diachronic, the terms adopted by Levi-STrauss to specify cultures withp mythic structures and those with a sense of their own his- VII tory. Saussure makes a working distinction between synchrony and di- achrony by comparing speech to chess play. The chessmen and their po sitions on the board correspond to the juxtaposition of linguistic terms. In speech, like chess, the relative meanning of signs shifts from moment to moment, while the rules of language or chess are fixed. Each move on the board, or segment of speech, only affects the single component invo lved; but simultaneously the entire context of conversation shifts, with each move. The distinction that Saussure makes between diachrony and synchrony is that of calculus to simple algebra; diachrony is an infinite succession of synchronic events. The illustration of speech as a chess ga me should be held in mind, for it will reappear as a metaphor used exten sively by Marcel Duchamp. Because it play a role in Barthes's Semiology, one last principle of Saussurian analysis should be stated; this is the role of mativated and un motivated terms. Motivation implies that a syntagmatic unit may be analyzed culturall, or that a systematic unit may be grouped with associ ated units aps part of a cultural series. Motivated terms account for the illusion that art is timely and logically directed, while, in fact, motivated terms are only half of any work of art. It follows that art that tends to ward motivated terms relies on meanings already learned; while art that tends toward unmotivated terms is more "lexicological," that is, expres sive by means of signifiers that gain meaning afterward through esthetic ideologies. Within Semiology the connotatiue and denotative meaning of the subject is analyised. These meanings are learned. Specially denotati ve meaning is in common the same but connotative meaning is chan ging. In art this aspect of meaning is important. Saussure sees the langu age as the systems of signs. For Saussure concepts and images both give the signs. More Generally signs are seperated into two: Signifiers and signifieds. This system is also valid for art. In this chapter the example from Umberto Eco is showing semiologic analyss of architecture. VIII The third chapter is dealing with the stauctural analyses of art. Le- vi-Strauss has used structural analyses in antropology for understanding myths and Roland Barthes has done the same in literature. Barthes is probably the first critic to uunderstand that organized social relationships are in themselves complete language forms. Where Saussure postulated that a science of Semiology includes language among the conventional modes of social communication, Barthes insists that language must re main as the focus of analysis of any social code; thus all iconic messages have their social equivalents in verbal form. Barthes proposes that in terpretive lanfuage, stemming from the signifying system itself, provides a wealth of clues to the hidden social meangngs and values behind all such forms of communication. Thus Semiology is a segment of linguis tics, oa form of secondary linguistics, since it accepts terms, phrases, and concepts on resolution levels too coarse for Structural linguistics. Barthes makes cemtain semiological distinctions betweenn the sig nified and the signifier,. The signified is a concept or mental representa tion of the "thing." Signifiers are inseparable counterparts of signifieds in forming signs; sounds, objekcts, images, colors, gesturis, and other purely sensory phenomena are lexical elements which signify. Signifiers are separated within a semiological system according to tehe peart they perform at a given level. Barthes makes the observation that teh tendency within all semiolo gical systems is "to naturalize the unmotivated and to intellectualize the motivated (that is to say, to culturalize it)" (1964, p. 54). Saussure consi dered all linguistic signs to be unmotivated because of their essential ar bitrary nature; and within the realm of lanfuage there is no reason to take exception to this rule. The problem of motivated signs is, however, highly relevant to art. All mimetic conventions are motivated since there are isomorphic characteristics between representational lines, colors, and shapes and therir models in the real world. "To naturalize the ummotiva- ted" means to depend more and more upon the Geştalt relations found within pictorial elements - Detaching them from their content, if any. IX The significance of the other term, "to intellectualize the motivated," may be less obvious at first glance. These analyses are shown and tried to be applied to the art. Barthes used image / concept and Form / content terms instead of signifier / signified. Levi-Strauss used Natural / Cultural terms. Barthes makes certain semiological distinctions between the sig nified and the signifier. The signified is a concept or mental represantati- on of the tihing. Signifiers are inseparable counterparts of signifieds in forming signs; sounds, objects, images, colors, gestures, and other purely sensory phenomena are lexical elements which signify. One of the most useful concepts in Semiology is that of staggared systems. Analysis of modernist art would be impossible without it. Staggared systems operate on two or more levels. All first level signs are what Barthes refers to as the "Real System," or that set of activities of the work of art. A second level is composed of the first level reduced to the object and it semiolo gical meaning. These siystems are tried to be explained in more detail in chapter three. The aim of this thesis is to show that the analyses applied to the myths by Levi-Strauss can also be applied to the art. Thus the logic be hind these attempts are tried to be explained in many fields. This thesis is dealing with bringing a method to the art, architecture, and industrial products while taking an esthetic responce to it.