Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Ivan Yefremov's aesthetics

Rate this topic


Ilya Startsev

Recommended Posts

Has anyone read Ivan Yefremov's Razor's Edge? I am reading it right now and finding that much of aesthetics expressed in the beginning of the first part resonates and in parts joins with Rand's objective aesthetics. Here is a quote to consider (my translation from the Russian original):

Quote

If you simplify the definition, which is actually much more complicated, like everything else in the world, then it must be said first of all that beauty exists as an objective reality, and is not created in the thoughts and feelings of a person. It's time to turn away from idealism, hidden and obvious, in art and its theory. It is time to translate the concepts of art into the common language of knowledge and use scientific definitions. Speaking in this common language, beauty is the highest degree of expediency (целесообразности), the degree of harmony and combination of contradictory elements in every structure, in every thing, in every organism. And the perception of beauty cannot be imagined other than it being instinctive. In other words, entrenched in the subconscious memory of a person thanks to billions of generations with their unconscious experience and thousands of generations with an experience that is realized. Therefore, each beautiful line, form, combination is a rational (целесообразное) decision, developed by nature for millions of years of natural selection or found by man in his search for beauty, that is, the most correct quality for this thing (the main character is arguing against the criticism of the aesthetic virtues of the statue of a naked woman in front of him that feels alive). Beauty is what's leveling chaos, that general pattern, a great middle in expedient universality, comprehensively attractive, like the statue. (Razor's Edge, Part One, Chapter 3).

Yefremov, being a professional scientist (paleontologist, geologist, and biologist), is also an artist of words who wrote science-fiction in beautiful and rich prose. He was inspired by Jules Verne and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, but he also shares many elements from other scientists and philosophers. In this paragraph, you can find an amalgamation of diverse elements merging toward the same goal, the meaning of beauty. Here you can see Darwin's biological evolution, Aristotle's golden mean, and Democritus's principle of expediency, but beneath it all, as I judge, hides the most basic and favorite principle of Aristotelian art: the Golden Ratio. I think this perspective on art is closer to Rand's objective one than, say, to Kant's subjective one. Here is another quote, in which Yefremov criticizes the art in the Soviet Union at the time of his writing (1963-1965):

Quote

Fragmentation and distortion of form, perspective and color transitions represent a natural tendency in the schizoid psyche to distort the surrounding reality. ("Five paintings" short story)

It's unfortunate that his little known works in which he expresses his aesthetical views are not translated into English yet. However, you may have heard of his most famous work: Andromeda Nebula (in my opinion a work comparable to the classics by Stanisław Lem, especially his The Magellanic Cloud). Although Yefremov chose utopian Communism over nuclear-weapon-proliferating Capitalism, his focus on human spirit, competency, and beauty is all so surprisingly similar to Rand's.

Edited by Ilya Startsev
corrected some verbs' forms
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...