Table Of Content

IMPERFECTIONIST AESTHETICS IN ART AND EVERYDAY LIFE This book presents interdisciplinary research on the aesthetics of perfection and imperfection. Broadening this growing field, it connects the aesthetics of imperfection with issues in areas including philosophy, music, literature, urban environment, architecture, art theory, and cultural studies. The contributors to this volume argue that imperfection has value in being open and inclusive. The aesthetics of imperfection is typified by organic, un- polished production and the avoidance of perfect finish, instead representing living and natural change, and opposing the consumerist concern with the flawless and pristine. The chapters are divided into seven thematic sections. After the first section, on imperfection across the arts and culture, the next three parts are on imperfection in the arts of music, visual and theatrical arts, and literature. The second half of this book then moves to categories in everyday life and branches this further into body, self, and the person, and urban environments. Together, the chapters promote a positive ethos of imperfection that furthers individual and social engagement and supports creativity over mere passivity. Imperfectionist Aesthetics in Art and Everyday Life will appeal to a broad range of scholars and advanced students working in philosophical aesthetics, literature, music, urban environment, architecture, art theory, and cultural studies. Peter Cheyne is Associate Professor in British Literature and Culture, Shi- mane University, Japan, and Visiting Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, University of Durham, UK. He is the author of Coleridge’s Contemplative Philos- ophy (2020). Additionally, he is the editor of Coleridge and Contemplation (2017) and co-editor, with Andy Hamilton and Max Paddison, of The Philosophy of Rhythm: Aesthetics, Music, Poetics (2020). Routledge Research in Aesthetics Art, Representation, and Make-Believe Essays on the Philosophy of Kendall L. Walton Edited by Sonia Sedivy Philosophy of Improvisation Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Theory and Practice Edited by Susanne Ravn, Simon Høffding, and James McGuirk The Aesthetics of Virtual Reality Grant Tavinor The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Consciousness and Phantasy Working with Husserl Paul Crowther Objects of Authority: A Postformalist Aesthetics Jakub Stejskal Gadamer’s Hermeneutical Aesthetics Art as a Performative, Dynamic, Communal Event Cynthia R. Nielsen The Philosophy of Fiction Imagination and Cognition Edited by Patrik Engisch and Julia Langkau Imperfectionist Aesthetics in Art and Everyday Life Edited by Peter Cheyne For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Research-in-Aesthetics/book-series/RRA IMPERFECTIONIST AESTHETICS IN ART AND EVERYDAY LIFE Edited by Peter Cheyne Cover image: ‘Wooden path, dandelion’, photo by Peter Cheyne (2022) First published 2023 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Peter Cheyne; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Peter Cheyne to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Cheyne, Peter, editor. Title: Imperfectionist aesthetics in art and everyday life / edited by Peter Cheyne. Description: New York : Routledge, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022036721 | ISBN 9781032164557 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032170091 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003251361 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Ideals (Aesthetics) | Perfection. | Imperfection. Classification: LCC BH301.I3 I465 2023 | DDC 001.9—dc23/ eng/20221107 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036721 ISBN: 978-1-032-16455-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-17009-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-25136-1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003251361 Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra CONTENTS Contributors ix Preface xv 1 Imperfectionist Aesthetics, Broadening the Field and Clarifying the Definition 1 Peter Cheyne PART I Imperfection Across the Arts and Culture 23 2 Imperfectionist Aesthetics and the Inclusionist Ethos 25 Peter Cheyne 3 Imperfection and the Unfinished Work 42 Andy Hamilton 4 Art Proper, Perfectionism, and the Sacred Arts 54 Gordon Graham PART II Music 67 5 Revisiting the Aesthetics of Imperfection after Thirty-Five Years 69 Ted Gioia vi Contents 6 Close Enough for Jazz: Imperfection and Jazz Improvisation 76 David Wild 7 A Social Aesthetics and Ethics of Imperfection: Insights from Karnatak Music, Jazz and Free Improvisation 87 Lara Pearson PART III Visual and Theatrical Arts 101 8 The Necessity of Imperfection: Philip Guston in the 1950s 103 Karen Lang 9 Thai Theatre and the Interplay of Perfection and Imperfection 116 Sirithorn Siriwan and Sarawanee Sukhumvada 10 Wabi-Sabi Aesthetic and Joseph Beuys’s Badewanne (1960) 131 Eda Keskin PART IV Literature 143 11 The Aesthetics of Weeds: A Case in Junzaburoˉ Nishiwaki 145 Kaz Oishi and Yasuo Kobayashi 12 The Poetics of Ruins: Matsuo Bashoˉ and Nathaniel Hawthorne, a Comparative Study 158 Gregory Dunne 13 The Aesthetics of Perfection and Imperfection in Iris Murdoch’s An Accidental Man 172 Fiona Tomkinson 14 The Triumph of Imperfection: Yeats’s ‘Among School Children’ 186 Joseph S. O’Leary Contents vii PART V Everyday Life 201 15 The Role of Imperfection in Consumer Aesthetics 203 Yuriko Saito 16 Imperfection and the Politics of Realism 218 Thomas Docherty 17 Everyday Encounters with Aesthetic Imperfection and Perfection 229 James Kirwan 18 Aesthetic Imperfection and Ethical Edification 241 Lucas Scripter 19 Collecting What? Collecting as an Everyday Aesthetic Act 255 Laura T. Di Summa PART VI Body, Self, and the Person 269 20 Bodies, Functions, and Imperfections 271 Sherri Irvin 21 Imperfection as a Vehicle for Fat Visibility in Popular Media 284 Cheryl Frazier 22 Imperfection and Beauty of Character 296 Glenn Parsons 23 Art, the Self, and the Value of Imperfection 310 Christopher Hamilton PART VII Urban Environments 325 24 Street Art, Graffiti, and Tags: The Value of Imperfection in Urban Aesthetics 327 Andrea Lorenzo Baldini viii Contents 25 The Aesthetics of Imperfection and Architectural Design for Memorial Sites: Four Documentation Centres on National Socialism in Germany 343 Rumiko Handa 26 Urban Experience as Aesthetic Compromise 363 Sanna Lehtinen 27 Grit and Urban (Im)perfection 375 Renee M. Conroy Index 389 CONTRIBUTORS Andrea Lorenzo Baldini is Professor of Philosophy at the School of Liberal Arts of Alliance University in Bangalore, India. He is interested in how creativity can influence our everyday lives and practices, in particular the nature, uses, and functions of public spaces. He is Delegate-at-Large of the Interna- tional Association of Aesthetics. Peter Cheyne is an Associate Professor at Shimane University and Visiting Fellow in Philosophy at Durham University. His books include Coleridge’s Con- templative Philosophy (Oxford, 2020) and, as co-editor with Andy Hamilton and Max Paddison, The Philosophy of Rhythm: Aesthetics, Music, Poetics (Oxford, 2020). He is currently leading an international project on dynamic philosophies of life and matter, 1650–1850. Renee M. Conroy is an independent researcher and Fulbright scholar. For- merly an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University Northwest, she remains active in the American Society for Aesthetics and publishes widely on issues in the philosophy of dance, the performing arts, and the aesthetics of environments. Thomas Docherty is Emeritus Professor of English and of Comparative Lit- erature at Warwick University. He is the author of some 20 books, including most recently The Politics of Realism (London, 2021), Political English (London, 2021), and The New Treason of the Intellectuals (Manchester, 2020).