It is possible to claim that the theories of Katharsis and Rasa are the different sides of one coin. In some instances it is possible to encounter with an opinion that they are the representatives of the Western and Eastern thought. According to the researchers, “Rasa and Katharsis constitute the ends of theatrical presentation and both appear to answer a basic need of a contrafactual poetic: to express that meaning in terms intrinsic to the work (Gerow 264). Moreover, both concepts involve a vital component that responds to the audience that in some cases tend to define the entire work. Indian and Aristotelian notions may appeal to different meanings, but they both contain the similarities in terms of their relation to intrinsic and extrinsic context. In other words, both Katharsis and Rasa appeal to emotional response and aesthetical messages in the similar manner by providing borderline emotional experience and expressing a powerful aesthetical meaning of the play.
It was emphasized that the tastes of audience diminished and with the introduction of modernism in the late 19th century the art has molded into another form creating new rules and requirements to the plays. It is difficult not to agree with such statements as in the age of technologies and globalization art as the form of expressing one’s creativity became simpler and less sophisticated. The frames of categories defining an artist have blurred and it became difficult to determine aesthetics of some objects of contemporary art. From another point of view, like every era modern times has its own understanding of aesthetic experience. Here, the principles of Katharsis and Rasa in its traditional meaning managed to alter as well. Some people can still admire beauty of the nature or a piece of classic art, the others can have aesthetics experience by watching a plate of food. The idea of art for the art’s sake is not relevant in the present conditions, though it is important to find out how the notion of aesthetic experience developed through time and how it relates to the notions of Katharsis and Rasa.
Aristotle’s notion of Katharsis is one of the oldest and most discussed frameworks of the impact of the theater on the viewers. It states that tragedy influences the audience through the means of Katharsis, which effects the emotions of fear and pity, in order to involve the viewers into the controversy and eventually to purify their emotions (Turri 370). The Indian theater has developed a new form of aesthetic experience that was called Rasa, which was synthesized from the texts of Natyashastra and was further developed by Bharata (Murty 35). Rasa is a more complicated concept, which can be difficult to explain, as neither translators nor theorists can precisely explain what “Rasa” actually means. Some claim that Rasa refer to the term “essence”; the others imply that this term refers to the experience of the audience when they encounter with the feelings of ultimate blissfulness while observing the play (Murty 36). At the same time, it is possible to suggest that both theories of Katharsis and Rasa appeal to the similar experience in the audience by invoking genuine experience of emotional purification and ultimate psychological resurrection embodied in the aesthetic experience.
It was believed that such aesthetic experience has the connection with sensitivity, perception and feeling. It was claimed that essential aesthetic feelings is equal to exclusively positive experience and raise only the feelings of inspiration, admiration or joy. To this point of view, the experiences which involved beauty have higher qualities. Therefore, Rasa can evoke the ultimate aesthetic experience and bring purification through positive emotions. Despite previous assumptions about the ideal form or celestial nature of aesthetic experience, human sensibility became the main form of this concept. Art, comparing to the nature, has the specificity of beauty which is refined and specific. It was also emphasized that a person has to be neutral while examining piece of art and by this means to experience aesthetic pleasure without being prejudiced or biased. Any kind of prejudice can spoil the pleasure of aesthetic experience. It was considered art as a specific form of expressing one’s creativity, and a viewer as an individual who perceive an art object. That is why, to this point, to be neutral is crucial. Each person who had a previous judgment about an art object will not be able to feel aesthetic experience in the full manner.
Later, it was made a revolutionary statement by calling Rasa aesthetic experience a taste which is characteristic to a specific person. Comparing to the previous concept that aesthetic experience is the result of human sensibility, now it is a characteristic feature of the reason. Additionally, it was connected aesthetic experience with the neutral position of an individual. It was aimed to dissect aesthetic taste from emotions to prove that this concept is the form of mental experience of Rasa. It was emphasized that the main core of aesthetic experience is knowledge of universally acclaimed ideals, and not a simple enjoyment. To this point of view, these ideals are not abstract, but on the contrary, they have to be previously conceptualized and evaluated to consider particular objects ideal.
It is important to emphasize that both visions established fundamental knowledge for the understanding of Rasa aesthetic experience and its meaning. Their findings and theories is the main basis of modern tendencies in this field. The researchers’ main innovations were determination that the source of aesthetic experience lies in the mind of both the artist and the viewer, understanding that the characteristics of an object are important only to the point where they invoke inner positive feelings and knowledge, claim that aesthetic experience has to be perceived with the neutral feelings, not involving any kind of bias or prejudice.
In addition to this fact, there are some scholars who insist that the notions of pleasure and aesthetic experience are similar. The theory suggests that Rasa aesthetic experience can be produced by a numerous forms of daily activities, even the plainest forms like scratching one’s head or twisting the tongue. It is possible to suggest that such ideas also yielded from the same tree of marginalization overwhelming contemporary society. It is a fact that a daily life certainly has the ability to grant a person to experience aesthetic feelings. For example, when a person lives in the area of striking natural beauty or a person’s profession is connected either to art or viewing it.
Even without such premises an individual can undergo a process of aesthetic experience while going to work and seeing a rainbow, though it is important to remember that mixing routine procedures and aesthetic experience is incorrect. Primitive daily pleasures and aesthetic experience are different concepts which cannot be mixed due to devaluation of aesthetic experience as an exclusive process. Identifying pleasure as aesthetic experience produces the confusion of the after-effect, which is pleasure, and reason, which is aesthetic experience (Grissom 88). Aesthetical emotions exude joy, pleasure, and inspiration, however not every pleasure is caused by aesthetical experience. In this case, one can experience the substitution of concepts which is inappropriate as it leads to delusional perception of aesthetics and its experience. In its own term, pleasure can be experienced by multiple other ways not involving the concept of aesthetic experience.
However, nowadays one can suggest that there are the reasons for trivializing of the notion of aesthetic experience, and the field itself. The art of almost every form experiences stagnation and even degradation. The reasons are multiple, from the previously mentioned concepts of the blurred lines determining the artists and arts, to the concepts of individuality of every art form despite aesthetics of an art object. Such liberties in understanding the art and spreading the frames of determination of the art objects led contemporary art to the phase of stagnation.
This can be one of the reasons why the concept of aesthetic experience is understood as the simple pleasure. It is important to notice that with the stagnation of art, principles of aesthetics and experience is devaluing and diminishing. Believes that every expression of human creativity can be called as art, the knowledge of aesthetics disappears (Gerow 188). How is it possible in such circumstances to determine what objects have aesthetic traits and what has not? This rhetorical question is a dilemma that touches contemporary art world. When the beauty of nature is eternal and aesthetical experience can be possessed at every stage, the field of art loses its value.
However, some scholars noting the problem in the contemporary society with the concepts of aesthetic experience draw different conclusions. The most vivid example is Arnold Berleant who considers that aesthetic experience has to bear moral values to become credible and productive. The scholar points to the fact that today aesthetic experience is used as the modern terrorism aiming to impose wrong values. The researcher literally proposes to apply censorship on art to produce “correct” aesthetic experience. In the light of previous assumptions of the trivialization of art, censorship however, is rather radical form of determining of the basic aesthetic values. Additionally, aesthetic experience and the field itself have never been bound with the principles of morality. It is important to note that aesthetic experience does not have the purpose to learn someone and impose any kind of values as its appearance is justified by its own existence. “Aesthetic experience serves no utilitarian purpose. It is experience for the sake of experience in and of itself” (Määttänen 6). Moreover, aesthetic experience cannot be immoral or the one required censorship for producing pleasure.
Works Cited
Gerow, Edwin. "Abhinavagupta's Aesthetics as a Speculative Paradigm." The Journal of the American Oriental Society 114.2 (1994): 186-199.
Gerow, Edwin. "Rasa and Katharsis: A Comparative Study, Aided by Several Films." The Journal of the American Oriental Society 122.2 (2002): 264-277.
Grissom, Harriette D. "Feeling as Form in Indian Aesthetics." East-West Connections 7.1 (2007): 86-95.
Määttänen, Patsy. “Aesthetic Experience: A problem in Praxialism– On the Notion of Aesthetic Experience”. Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education 1.1 (2000): 1-13.
Murty, G. R. K. "Uttararamacarita of Bhavabhuti: Readings into Catharsis and Rasa." IUP Journal of English Studies 9.1 (2014): 34-47.
Turri, Maria Grazia. "Transference and Katharsis, Freud to Aristotle." International Journal of Psychoanalysis 96.2 (2015): 369-377.
