Ornamental Aesthetics by Davis Theo;

Author:Davis, Theo;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2016-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CONCLUSION

In Elisa New’s discussion of Dickinson, she reassures us that in one poem, “[t]‌he butterfly’s resplendence” is “not merely decorative,” and that in another, “[t]he ‘Fuzz’ on which the bee subsists is not decorative.”140 It is the heart of New’s argument that the beautiful, in American literature, is not decorative or trivial but is, instead, “the face of Being itself.” Beauty in American literature is not there just as it “adds a bit of grace to the world but as it expresses the Grace that supports the world.” My understanding is similar, insofar as beauty does have a “philosophical prestige,” and even a potentially religious standing, in this literature.141 But it is antithetical to the idea that ornamentation names something other than this beauty of Being, and it is antithetical to that view because I don’t believe, with New or with the Western tradition, that it is through representation or encapsulation in form that grace, presence, or the Open are known. In her discussion of Jonathan Edwards, New writes that “ ‘Glory’ is not a decorative attribute … Glory is where God graces nothingness with his light.”142 Yet such gracing is what ornamentation does: it is an activity that does not encapsulate or tell of reality, but goes toward and along with it to honor it.

Ironically, using the dismissive phrase “merely decorative” is to touch upon ornament’s most important manifestation: as a way of seeing form as contingent in nature. And “merely decorative” is an appropriate phrase insofar as it uses ornamentation to make a judgment about what matters, even if it is made against ornamentation. Form is merely ornamental insofar as it is form that serves to mark attention and value rather than to embody thought. This is, again, the way that work “opon” anything—like butterflies stepping straight into the firmament, or flinging spangles on a bush—could continue to be of interest, or even just could continue at all, after having stepped straight into the unframed Open.

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