An Encounter with the Festive Quality of Beauty
Despite Gadamer’s remarks regarding how we, as humans, are inclined to walk past art nonchalantly, this was not the case for Rembrandt’s masterpiece. During a day layover in Amsterdam on our way to the United States, I urged my family to visit the Rijksmuseum to observe the source of my many late nights of confusion and mental strain from writing my final “critical analysis”, a rather hermeneutic task of aesthetic perception as Gadamer could argue, in art history class. To sum up my experience briefly, zooming into details of the leading lines of the company’s weapons on a JPEG file was not the same as being entranced in a void of timelessness which The Night Watch had brought upon each observer.
Hung in a grand navy room with high ceilings and over 3m tall, the oil painting was beautiful even from a distanced glance regardless of whether you enjoy kitsch or are connoisseur (two extremities). Upon our first lecture regarding how the three qualities of beauty manifested in art to reveal a truth, my personal encounter of being “overwhelmed” with The Night Watch was the first experience that popped into my mind (Gadamer, 32).
The painting exhibits art as play in Rembrandt’s depiction of purposeful motion and movement amongst the chaotic unity of its seventeen figures. What strikes me directly was how despite the variety of actions in each figure, I was able to take a mental picture of the overarching motion seen in the painting if I had looked away. Furthermore, Gadamer highlights how human play is unique in “its ability to involve our reason, that uniquely human capacity which allows us to set our aims and pursue them consciously (Gadamer, 23)”. Looking back to my analysis of the piece, it is rather the two figures of the captain and the lieutenant who converge beyond the painting, most prominently seen in the captain’s hand reaching forward, which invites you to “accept the challenge” to belong to the play (Gadamer, 26).
In art criticism, it is tempting to state how certain artistic elements are merely symbols of an artist’s greater commentary on “social conditions” (Gadamer, 32). Rather, Gadamer’s definition of art as symbol is seen in how the particular painting first and foremost attunes me with its unveiled presence: the painting’s physical size in the museum room. What is more significant, however, is its veiled presence which yearns us to compel how “there is no place which fails to see you. You must change yourself “ upon viewing the work as communicated in an almost a religious manner (Gadamer, 33–34). As I slowly took a closer look at the painting, more details became observable such as the chicken claw on the golden woman’s hand; it seemed that the art demanded an increased being and wholistic encounter (Gadamer, 39).
As a commissioned portrait of Militia Company of District II under Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, one may wonder how this work exhibits any festivity at all. After all, a portrait could be stated as a mere attempt at reproducing a moment in reality. Nevertheless, it is the effect of transcendence beyond space and time which one experiences when observing and contemplating The Night Watch which creates a “primacy of its own time (Gadamer, 41).” Pieper further expands on this phenomenon as he explains how festivity is inconceivable without an element of contemplation as true festivity occurs when man affirms the goodness and responds with joy. The encounter of the painting is not only a joyful memory but a “gift” which I look back on as a means to celebrate The Created Order. As he elaborates, “the medium of art makes it possible for us to see the invisible aspect of festivity which is to praise the world (Pieper, 53)”.
However, Pieper’s most controversial and poignant argument is one which involves how true festivity ultimately exists in ritual praise and worship. As the painting itself does not depict any distinctive forms of divine praise or religious content, Pieper could argue that as it is a “festival without gods”, it [the art as festivity] is inconceivable (Pieper, 34). However, I would argue that The Night Watch exhibits the three characteristics of beauty by Gadamer. Moreover, it orients me to understand that the encounter of beautiful art is directed towards something religious which will lead me to see the fullness of reality in offering one’s life as a response in return.
