MAOR214: Aesthetics 1

Definition of Aesthetics: Exploration of what aesthetics entail and its purposes.
Key Question: What is aesthetics? What does it do?

Common associations with the term aesthetics:
- Beauty: Primary association with the term.
- Visual Appearance: The look of something; its qualitative assessment.
- Qualitative Judgements: Not bound solely by functionality, but by other aesthetic qualities.
- Emotional Responses: Example given of experiencing classical music and physical reactions (goosebumps).
Notions of Balance & Symmetry:
- Symmetry’s connection to aesthetics and beauty in Western thought.
- Concept of Golden Ratio as it relates to perception of beauty.

Origin of term ‘aesthetics’ in the 18th century.
- Response to scientific and industrial revolution
- Concerned about reducing the human experience to rationale
Aesthetic objects and values or judgments:
- Aesthetic as judgment: Beautiful vs. ugly.
- Emergence of aesthetics during the periods of industrial and scientific revolutions as a counter-movement (Romanticism).

Question posed about whether aesthetics is universally shared or specific to Western traditions.
- Western is noted for perfection and symmetry
  - Indicates a value for perceived perfection, potentially reflecting the value of perceived perfection
- The notion of aesthetics is rooted in western ideologies
Historical connection noted between Western aesthetics with biblical influences and philosophical thought (Plato, Thomas Aquinas).
- Plato: understood to be an early rationalist, and suggests idealised realm of forms
- Bible: made in God’s image and God is supposedly perfect

Plato’s Realm of Forms: Explains ideal beauty as independent of physical manifestation.
- Example with geometric shapes, like triangles.
- Pursuit of knowledge and aesthetics seen as interconnected.
Traditional Western Aesthetics:
- These notions are not universally accepted and are specific to Western philosophy.
- Began with preoccupation with beauty

Transition to discussing Māori aesthetics, indicating minimal academic exploration.
Suggestion that aesthetics embodies a set of principles or values emerging from cultural worldviews.
Maori seem to have valued disrupted symmetry
- Perhaps because perfect symmetry rarely exists in nature
- Spirals are a common feature
When facing socio-economic inequalities, it is difficult to focus on seemingly less important areas compared to basic necessity research
Aesthetics can indicate an underlying set of principles informing a particular art movement or theory
- If so, what could they be for Maori:
  - Example of Aesthetic Object: Tino rangatiratanga flag presenting a Māori worldview through colors representing different realms (black, white, red).
    - Te Korekore (Ranga)
    - Te Ao Marama/humanity
    - Te whi (Papa)
      - Also symbol for Maori sovereignty

Definition: Wharenui as a meeting house within a marae (cultural=-c ]complex).
Functionality: Used for events, gatherings, hospitality, community centre
Symbolism:
- Reflects genealogies and heritage through its design and carvings.
- The physical structure is seen as the body of an ancestor.
- Represents the essence and connection to ancestry through whakapapa (genealogy).

Visual Aspects:
- Symmetrical design.
- Significance of the red color, often represents chiefly status and deep cosmological meanings.
  - Also the clay formed woman
  - Papa’s pubic mound
Cultural Significance:
- Encodes both history and cosmology, plays a role in memory and identity.
- A tool of oral tradition through its visual representations.
- O’Connor and Macfarlane notes it manifests whakapapa, and notes how whanaungatanga is central to the Maori worldview
- Encode information visually, but not in text form
  - Pneumonic tool of learning
    - Wharenui can be regarded as being such concerning the memorisation of whakapapa as they are understood to be a symbolic representation of ancestors - representing an outstretched body
      - Diagram found in slides concerning the building being made of head, ribs, spine, and arms
        Koruru (gable head) is the face
        Maihi (bargeboards) arms
        Kuwaha (door) mouth
        Tahuhu (ridgepole) spines
        Heke (rafters) ribs

Wharenui as Cosmos:

Papa is the floor
- Ranginui is floor
  - Posts separsate the earth and sky
    - Te Ao Marama is the space humans inhabit
      - Te Po (world of night) outside

Spacial orientation

Van Meijl
- East coast wharenui tended to face east (sunrise)
  - Far north, faced north (where Maori go when they die)
- Understood, when walking through wharenui, traversing time and space
  - Past is what is in front of us, future is behind as it is not what is seen
More senior sit closer to house, future leaders to back

Tina Makereti

Definition: Pare as the upper part of a door frame, significant in transitioning between worlds.
- Pare is also the name for a wreath
Significance of Pare:
- Acts as a boundary between the physical world and the spiritual realm.
- Symbolic representations of femininity, particularly tied to concepts of life and death (e.g., Hine nui te pua).
- Transition to enter te poho (body of the ancestor)
  - More or less transcending realms or states
- “Many pare depicted a female figure with her legs outstreched, often representing the goddess of death, Hine-nui-te-Po.” - Van Meijl, 1993
  - May represent the vagina as the portal to life, or transition between states
  - A vagina was also what led to Maui’s demise in pursuit of eternal life for mortals
  - Witehira (2013) claims that Maori carvings evidence the significant spiritual role of women, demonstrated by the consistent depiction of the female form

Ralph Bathurst: Links between aesthetics, social identity, and ethical practices in Māori culture.
The interconnectedness in Māori beliefs imposes ethical obligations to entities in the world.

Wharenui and Pare serve not just as aesthetic objects but articulate deeper truths about Māori worldviews and identity.
- The emphasis on craftsmanship reflects cultural values and resource allocation.

What they looked like mattered

Greta care and skill was necessary to produce them
- Indicates it required lots of artisans and experts
  - Also exhibiting the importance and value of art and craft in traditional Maori society
    - Despite not producing surplus, they prioritised art and aesthetic

Wharenui embodies cosmological stories and principles, representing ideologies of life, death, and ancestral knowledge.
Research References: Various experts highlighted (Angus McFarlane, Deirdre Brown, Anne Salmon) elucidating different aspects of Wharenui and Pare's significance.
- Brown states porch represents mythical world, as it typically faces Hawaiki and sunrise
- Interior regarded as present and living world

Confirmed importance of supporting Māori narratives and traditions in contemporary society.
Emphasizes the need to contextualize Māori aesthetics within broader practices and ideologies reflected in modern art forms and literature.

Invited questions and discussions post-lecture to facilitate understanding of Māori aesthetics beyond mere visuals.