Examining the Garbage Dumpster, Essay Example

The object that I have chosen for my aesthetic analysis is the cigarette lighter. This is an object that most people do not find to be valuable from an aesthetic viewpoint. It is also an object that is associated with some of our more basic habits. Certainly, cigarette lighters come in many different forms and designs. This particular cigarette lighter is rectangular in shape, and the object’s length is approximately three times longer than the width. It is colored in a primarily black paint, with the presence of additional red and silver streaks on one side of the object. In the upper-center of the lighter is written the text “West”, which is apparently a brand of tobacco producer. The design of the streaks is perhaps related to the company logo for West, since the angles of the streaks are similar to a red streak that is behind the words “West.” Although interrupted by the fairly minimal streaks, the fairly uniform color of the cigarette lighter is also contrasted with a silver top of the object, from where the flame emerges to light the cigarette.

Now it is clear that such an object is normally not considered to have any aesthetic value. The cigarette lighter is a fairly banal object, one that we encounter in our everyday lives – depending on whether we know any smokers – numerous times a day. The cigarette lighter is just one of the many banal objects that comprise our daily existence. Accordingly, its basic lack of aesthetic value is primarily related to the fact that it is merely one of the thousands of these everyday objects – it would seem that from the sophisticated view of aesthetics, that the cigarette lighter is no different than a toothbrush, a tea kettle, or a refrigerator. The object disappears from our everyday viewpoint because it is so common. It does not exist in a space that we normally associate with art. The cigarette lighter is not normally conceived as an aesthetic object because it does not exist in this way in our everyday lives.

Can we change our way of looking at the cigarette lighter as a possible piece that has aesthetic value? This does not mean that we would have to move the lighter to an art gallery, much like Duchamp did with his ready-mades. In this way, the location of the object is not of the most paramount importance. Rather, aesthetic reasoning gives us another view upon this banal object of the lighter. The principles of formalism, for example, allow us to pay more careful attention to the lighter and invites us to understand its aesthetic potential. Certainly, traditional theories of formalism emphasize some type of idea of beauty or some type of special property. This approach teaches us to pay very close attention to the form of the cigarette lighter itself, without any consideration of its practical function. Accordingly, we can say that what the formalist aethstic theory does from the outset is that it separates the object from all its functions and places it into a different context. We now treat the cigarette lighter not as a practical means of fulfilling an end, but rather we examine the cigarette lighter in terms of its aesthetic potential, which is to say, we examine the lighter in order to decide how it may either satisfy pre-existing conditions of beauty and aesthetic principles or perhaps introduce us to new forms of artistic excellence.

Certainly, the cigarette lighter in question was crafted with a purpose in mind. The careful design of the lighter suggests that whoever made it wanted to communicate to the user a certain idea. In the case of this particular lighter, the design itself shows us that the artist gives a high value to the aesthetic principles of simplicity in presentation. The overwhelming black color of the object evokes a type of minimalism, which suggests that the artist values as an aesthetic characteristic not loud and garish colors, but rather a sleek design. The cigarette lighter, nevertheless, also draws attention to itself in its very simplicity. Here, it teaches us about an aesthetic formal property of simplicity of design, of an economy and minimalism of presentation. Heavy ornamentation is not the precise aim of this cigarette lighter, but it is rather to express, to the extent that we consider it to be an aesthetic object, that simplicity in aesthetics is a valuable principle in itself. If we closely relate formalist theories of aesthetics to our object in question, it can furthermore be said that the object communicates the artist’s idea that beauty is found in simplicity. That is to say, if we consider that the artist wished to make a beautiful cigarette lighter, the aesthetic property he or she above all values is that of minimalism.

The lighter’s blackness is only interrupted by the aforementioned streaks of color, which themselves are minimal. This corresponds to the ideas of simplicity that seem to underlie the aesthetic-formal concept of the piece. The streaks of course clearly contrast in their color with the overall darkness of the lighter. But the streaks are done in such a way as to only evoke a minimal difference from the black background, so that there is no antagonism in the lighter’s composition. The difference between the colored streaks and the black background still suggest to the viewer an aesthetic balance and harmony. In this regard, it can be said that the designer of the lighter had a clear concept of aesthetic form with which he or she employed so as to create the lighter. This is a concept defined in terms of a value placed on the notions of simplicity, balance and minimalism.

The aesthetic formalist approach gives us new insight into the everyday object of the cigarette lighter. Certainly, it is important to note that cigarette lighters come in many different types of designs. This suggests that there is a certain thought that goes into the design of the lighter from an aesthetic perspective. In the case of the lighter in question, the principle of simplicity that appears in the lighter from the viewpoint of a formal aesthetic theory suggests that the author of this piece makes a clear association between beauty and minimalism.