Of Unity and Passion: The Aesthetics of Concert Criticism in Early Nineteenth-Century Vienna

Mary Sue Morrow
19th-Century Music, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Spring, 1990), pp. 193-206

Masumoto, Naofumi.  “Interpretations of the Filmed Body: An Analysis of the Japanese Version of Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia.”  Critical Reflections on Olympic Ideology.  Centre for Olympic Studies, 1994.  146-158.  31 Mar. 2008 <http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/ISOR/ISOR1994t.pdf>.

 

            This article analyzes the Japanese version of Olympia and explores its relationship to contemporary Olympic events.  While it touches on a wide variety of questions such as the film’s political implications, its focus is on the aestheticization of the human body, particularly of the strong and victorious.  It suggests that Olympia was not so much a document of the 1936 Olympics as it was a unified body of art.  While the article acknowledges the historical context of the film and its influence, it affirms Riefenstahl’s commitment to producing an artistically free and independent picture.  For example, it notes that Riefenstahl beautified the bodies of not just Aryan athletes, but also blacks and Asians, against the wishes of Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels.  Additionally, it argues that Riefenstahl’s use of retakes and overdubs serves to discredit the film as a historical documentary but instead supports it as an artistically united statement.  It connects the film to today’s Olympics by contrasting its emphasis on beauty with mass commercialization yet also notes the film represents universal and unchanging Olympic ideals.

            The article raises several points in the question of the extent that Olympia is propagandistic.  Aside from noting the film’s beautification of the human body irrespective of race, the article suggests the film was not propaganda in and of itself, but rather a record of a propagandistic event.  On the other hand, the article also spends some time on the introductory sequence in which an Olympic torch is carried from Greece to Berlin, suggesting the Germans as the true descendents of the culturally advanced Greeks.  Additionally, it argues that the film’s depiction of Hitler as a typical sports spectator humanized him and was inherently positive.

Rings, Guido.  “Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia: A Documentary Film as Instrument of Propaganda?”  Storia della Storiografia 36 (1999): 105-119.

 

            This article examines the question of Olympia as a propaganda film and largely concludes that it is indeed propaganda.  Much of its argument is derived by drawing parallels between the aesthetics of Olympia and the ideals espoused by National Socialism.  The author argues that in its depiction of the athletes the film glorifies the strong, healthy, and young and celebrates physical perfection, creating a cult of the idealized body that Nazism champions.  The sacrifice of the individual for the better of the community, epitomized in the marathon sequence as the runners visibly suffer for their nations’ glory, is also a key part of Nazi ideology conveyed in the film.  The author notes a militarist tone that celebrates discipline and unity over individuality throughout the film, especially during the parade and calisthenics sequences.  The article concludes by pointing out that although the film may not have explicitly been intended as propaganda, the fact that there existed propagandistic overtones meant German audiences, who were accustomed to such ideas being conveyed in their media, would make the political connections suggested by the film.

Other points relevant to this debate that the author mentions include, as other scholars have noted, that the shots of Hitler depict him as an average, relatable person, and he suggests that these shots are intercut with segments in which Germany is winning, thereby linking Hitler with the success of the nation.  While other scholars have praised Olympia for its seemingly fair treatment of the black athletes, Rings takes issue with the fact that they only appear on the podium as winners once, despite winning numerous times.  Overall the article takes a less forgiving stance towards the film, and its assessment of the political connotations of Olympia’s aesthetics is quite useful.  However, the author sometimes quotes German sources without providing an English translation, which can make a full comprehension difficult.

"On the Representation of Character in Music": Christian Gottfried Körner's Aesthetics of Instrumental Music, by Robert Riggs
The Musical Quarterly © 1997

Shadows, Reflexions, Mirror-Images and Virtual "Objects" in "Die Künstler" and Their Relation to Schiller's Concept of "Schein", by Marie-Luise Waldeck
The Modern Language Review © 1963

on controversy over whether music could/ought to represent things outside music, pp. 114-29

on controversy over whether music could/ought to represent things outside music. Wendt, Urban, Gottfried Weber, Friedrich Schlegel, Trahndorf, K. F. Krause, F. K. Griepenkerl

cited by Holly Watkins. chap. 6 "The Reign of Genius." Chua says pp. 4-18 = clear and succinct discussion of relationship between instrumental music and mimetic theories of art in 18th c.

Hogarth: Dance and the Movement from Vision to Imagination; Eye and Mind

Kant: Phantom Sensations and Mistaken Subjects; Representative Pleasures

Siegel cited by Edward Green in conference paper "Steiner, Korngold and the musical expression of physical space"

"the world, art, and self explain each other. each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites."

artistic effect is also ontological effect, statement about what reality is like. 

Critical forests; On image, poetry and fable.

includes Sulzer Allgemeine Theorie

cited by mark evan bonds - chapters 2-3 for relationship of organicism and aesthetics in late 18th and early 19th centuries

cited by mark evan bonds. includes Schlegel's "On Incomprehensibility"

Cited by Gitelman Always Already New

Burrow-Giles Lithographic Company v. Sarony. 111 U.S. 53; 4 S. Ct. 279; 28 L. Ed. 349; 1884 U.S. LEXIS 1757

 

This landmark Supreme Court case rose about when Burrow-Giles lithographic company when Napoleon Sarony, a photographer of “Oscar Wilde No. 18,” sued the company for copyright infringement when it distributed lithographs of the photography without author’s consent and permission. The Company’s main argument was that photographs are products of a mechanical process, and is therefore not an art, and are not protected under article I, section 8, clause 8 of the United States Constitution—photographs are not produced under authorship as other means of art, such as writing and painting, are. Supreme Court concludes that Congress has the constitutional power to extend copyright protection to new emerging medium of expression, such as photography that represent “original intellectual conceptions” and “ his own genius and intellect.” The Court first argued that since Sarony included “Copyright, 1882, by N. Sarony,” at the corner of his photograph, it gave sufficient notice to the public of his exclusive right to the work. Secondly, although the Constitution does not include photographs under works of authorship in which are protected under copyright, it is only because the technology, when the statute was written in 1790, was not in existence. Providing the evidence that charts and maps were included under protection in Copyright Act of 1790, the court concludes that since photographs are a medium in which “idea of mind given a visible expression,” they also qualify under copyright protection under the constitution. Court goes further on, stating no ordinary photography of which “transferring to the plate the visible representation of some existing object” will not be given a copyright. Only photographs that are “useful, new, harmonious, characteristic, and graceful…entirely from his own original mental conception” and in effectively doing so—showcasing enough expression and originality to be granted such a protection. With this case, Supreme Court demonstrated a great activism in promoting and introducing new medium of expression to the culture. However, the last clause to the court’s argument, that a photograph must express sufficient originality according to court’s standard to be considered an art, creates a very subjective and aesthetic basis to which future photographic art/and recreations of the medium are to be judged. Words that were used by Justice Miller to describe an original photography are words conceptualized with different meanings according to every person’s mind and artistic taste. Law should be a concrete rule which should be understood and interpreted, to an extent, on a same level, and the aesthetics required by the court’s decision set minimal base to which people can agree on. This was the first real case in which the court’s decision in granting the copyright based entirely upon a subjective and aesthetic decision. I will argue the loosely set standards in the decision created inconsistency and unpredictability in future cases and did little to mold society a clear conception of photography as art.

"It would be a dangerous undertaking for persons trained only to the law to constitute themselves final judges of the worth of pictorial illustrations, outside of the narrowest and most obvious limits" Justice Holmes, Bleinstein v. Donaldson(1903) Despite Court's reservation about being judges of aesthetics values which grants 2D art an authorship, great display of judicial activism by courts have been demonstrated since Burrow-Giles v. Sarony(1884), where the court has reshaped copyright law through "aesthetic" determinations that newly define originality and authorship in two dimensional art. As a result, couple issues are at stake. 1) The change in the norm and societal definition of originality and authorship in 2D art. 2) Should such qualitative (subjective) analysis be used, or new quantative standards of determining originality is needed? 3) Lack of consistency and coherency in court's decision over time, and no predictability; does it promote progress? The fundamental question arises: should courts be making aesthetic decisions? I will be focusing on judicial activism displayed in cases about authorship of 2-D art determining what is copyrightable, most importantly in photography. Looking through landmark cases starting with Burrow-Giles v. Sarony(1884) to as recent as Bridgman Art Library v. Corel Corp(1999), I will argue that court's lack of "quantitative standards" in determining originality of each work created inconsistency and failed to create a societal norm of authorship and originality in 2D art realm. I will propose that legislation is needed in which the government clearly defines consistent, more quantative standards to judge "originality" of a two dimensional art to determine its qualifications for copyright privilege.

This thesis argues that the value codings inaugurated by
retail exchange exert a powerful influence over the aesthetic reception of gaming as a
set of enjoyable, exchangeable and exhaustible encounters. At the same time, the
mere fact that gamers talk about and contest each others' valuations in online forums
shows that there is nothing natural about such a valuation, and that the boundaries of
value codings and the boundaries of what constitutes fun are tested, if not traversed.