Is Aesthetics a Metatheory in Relation to Art Criticism?

This article addresses the comparative analysis of aesthetics and art criticism, as well as describes their special aspects and objectives, considers different viewpoints on the interrelation of these areas – the ideas of Beardsley and R.Barthes in particular. The article further develops Barthes’ ideas concerning radical changes that have taken place in contemporary art criticism. In particular it deals with the assumption that art criticism has no relation to truth. Thus, the viewpoint of Beardsley, who insists that aesthetics is a metatheory in regards to art criticism, is subjected to argumentative scrutiny. The article analyzes the idea that art criticism must be carried out on the basis of aesthetic values only, without taking into account other social circumstances of creation and functioning of any work of art. A work of art may have value (cognitive, moral etc.) outside aesthetic categories and it can be assessed from different points of view. According to Beardsley, objective aesthetic arguments may be reduced to three universal canons: unity, complexity and intensity, – a thesis, which is also subjected to argumentative scrutiny. It is also stated that criticism cannot exist outside of ideology, which is proved by the entire history of its development. The article also describes the evolution art criticism and demonstrates that art critics can switch from the standpoint of artists’ defense to that of the defense of public interests. The article puts forward the idea that aesthetics as well as art criticism are drifting towards literary works rather than philosophy. At the same time aesthetic, unlike art criticism, does not cease to be a science, although imprecise and inexact.