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The Art of Social Forms and the Social Forms of Art: The

Sociology-Aesthetics Nexus in Georg Simmels Thought

EDUARDO DE LA FUENTE
Monash University

This article examines the sociology-aesthetics nexus in Georg Simmels thought. The
article suggests that it is useful to divide Simmels linking of sociology and aesthetics
into three distinct types of propositions: (1) claims regarding the parallels between
art and social form (the art of social forms); (2) statements regarding principles
of sociological ordering in art and aesthetic objects (the social forms of art); and
(3) analytical propositions where aesthetic and social factors are shown to work in
combination. In the latter case, the sociology-aesthetic nexus moves beyond mere
analogy. It is argued that in those instances where Simmel shows that aesthetic
factors are central to the social bond the linking of aesthetics and sociology is
theoretically most insightful.

Western social theory, since Plato, has harbored a suspicion toward aesthetics and
aesthetic approaches to social life. The aesthetic has often been seen as the realm
of the irrational and the nondiscursive, as privileging individualism and relativis-
tic attitudes to the world. After all, how can art and aesthetics be of service to
social theory when these spheres of human activity tend to revolve around ques-
tionable concepts, such as the idea of genius and the highly subjective notion of
taste? What benefit is aesthetics to sociologists, if aesthetics, as claimed by one
of its strongest critics, is predicated on a denied social relationship (Bourdieu
1986:491)?
One of the few classical sociological theorists to avoid the sociological suspicion
toward aesthetics was Georg Simmel. As early as 1896, in an essay entitled Socio-
logical Aesthetics, Simmel (1968:74) boldly declares: The social question . . . is not
only an ethical question, but also an aesthetic one. Simmel not only wrote essays
on a variety of aesthetic topics ranging from art history to the cultural aspects of
modern everyday life, he also countenanced the possibility that the aestheticization
and stylization of social forms is what makes social arrangements binding and ef-
fective. In Simmels sociology, the parallels between social and aesthetic forms are
at times so strong that one is left with the impression that aesthetic factors actually
strengthen the social bond.
In this article, I examine the relationship between sociology and aestheticswhat
I term the sociology-aesthetics nexusin Simmels thought through three distinct
frames: firstly, situations where Simmel locates aesthetic principles of ordering within
social form (the topic of section Aesthetic Principles in Social Form); secondly,
instances where Simmel locates principles of social ordering within art and aesthetic
forms (the topic of section Sociological Principles in Aesthetic Form); and, thirdly,

Address correspondence to: Eduardo de la Fuente, Communications and Media Studies, School of
English, Communications and Performance Studies, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, VIC 3800,
Australia. Tel.: 61 3 990 34614; Fax: 613 9905 2135; E-mail: Eduardo.delaFuente@arts.monash.edu.au.

Sociological Theory 26:4 December 2008



C American Sociological Association. 1430 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20005
THE ART OF SOCIAL FORMS AND THE SOCIAL FORMS OF ART 345

circumstances where Simmel sees the mutual dependence of aesthetic and social
factors transcending mere analogy (the topic of section Beyond Analogy? The
Sociology of Social Forms Grounded in Aesthetics). While each aspect of the
sociology-aesthetics nexus in Simmels thought is instructive, it is in the third type of
insight that we are provided with a model of how social and aesthetic form combine
in specific social situations.

SIMMEL AS AESTHETIC SOCIAL THEORIST


There is a significant level of appreciation that Simmel determined his concept of
social formation by analogy to the aesthetic concept of form (Lichtblau 1991:55).
One of the first to stress this aspect of Simmels sociology was Arthur Salz (1965:236),
a former student, who claimed: [Simmel] conceived of . . . [sociology] as the study
of forms of sociation. But whoever speaks of forms moves in the field of aesthetics.
Society, in the last analysis, is a work of art. The aesthetic dimensions of Simmels
sociology have also been prominently discussed by Frisby (1991:73), who formulates
the relationship between sociology and aesthetics this way: Simmels emphasis upon
the forms of interaction . . . in his programme for sociology . . . indicates an interest in
revealing an aesthetic dimension of all social interaction that we do not immediately
perceive in our everyday life.
Yet sociologists have not always paid attention to the intersection of sociology and
aesthetics in Simmels work. For a long time, Simmel was discussed in sociological
theory as a formal sociologist, as a sociologist of small groups, or as a conflict
theorist (Coser 1956; Levine 1971:livlxi). The aesthetic dimension of his thought
remained largely unexplored. This is why, in his 1971 Introduction to Georg Sim-
mel, On Individuality and Social Forms, Donald Levine could claim the current
applications of his ideas is not, I think, the full measure of Simmels legacy. One
of the parts of this legacy that sociologists appeared not yet ready for was the
aesthetic dimension of sociality (Levine 1971:lxi).
The tide of Simmel appreciation centered on aesthetic themes seemed to turn with
Murray Daviss essay, Georg Simmel and the Aesthetics of Social Reality. Davis
(1973:320) aimed to counter the perception of Simmels sociology as disorganized
by showing that there were [i]somorphisms between his sociological and aesthetic
approaches to respective subject matters that revealed this thought to be more
unified in conception than is commonly thought. According to this commentator,
Simmels conception of society as a work of art had a foundational character that
ranks alongside other major claims regarding appropriate first principles for the
discipline:

Simmel attempted to establish a sociology that had its foundation in aesthetics.


He thus created a discipline whose orientation is quite different from that of
Marx, who grounded his sociology in economics and political sciencefrom
that of Durkheim, who grounded his sociology in biology and statisticsand
from that of Weber, who grounded his sociology in history and anthropology.
These sorts of sociologies have had their day. Perhaps the time has come to give
Simmels its due. (Davis 1973:328)

Discussions of the postmodern social bond have led to a stronger interest in


Simmel as an aesthetic social theorist. For example, Michel Maffesoli directly invokes
Simmels aesthetic sociology and has claimed that being aesthetic is the prevalent
346 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

mode of social existence in our societies. The aesthetic mode of social existence
characteristic of postmodern societies, Maffesoli (1996:31) states, has little to do
with the fine arts and more to do with the aesthetic as a way of feeling and
experiencing in common. Simmels legacy is alive here in a contemporary account
of the social bond that is less pessimistic than many other postmodern variants.
Maffesoli (1991:19) asserts, in the absence of shared norms, aesthetics in the widest
sense is able to take on the functions of aggregation and reinforcement . . . [associated
with] sociality. The emphasis on the aesthetics of sociality leads Maffesoli (1996:39)
back to Simmel, whose work, he claims, rests on the intuition that form is the very
thing, precisely, that expresses, at best, the base of being-togetherness.
However, discussions on postmodernity have also run the opposing risk to older
receptions of Simmel within sociology. Recent scholarship has tended to focus on
aesthetics at the cost of recognizing Simmels genuine sociological ambitions. For
example, Mike Featherstone suggests Simmels importance lies in anticipating the
aestheticization of everyday life that we now recognize as an essential part of
postmodern culture. The value of Simmels thought lies in that it can be used to
direct us towards the way in which the urban landscape has become aestheticized
and enchanted through the architecture, billboards, shop displays, advertisements,
packages, street signs, etc., and the embodied persons who move through these
spaces (Featherstone 1991:280). The tendency to regard Simmel as primarily a
cultural theorist has been criticized by Jeremy Tanner, who has argued that the
revival of interest in Simmel, due to his anticipating of important themes in
postmodern theory, is as incorrect as the older tendency to emphasize the more
specifically sociological aspects of his thought (e.g., his theory of dyads, conflict,
domination, and subordination). What is perhaps most interesting about Simmel
is that he treats aesthetic form as a generative deep phenomenon within the social
order and conversely sociological principles of ordering as aesthetically generative
from within art rather than as external determinants (Tanner 2003:32).
One aspect of Simmels status as an aesthetic social theorist merits clarification:
namely, the problem that many of his formulations about aesthetics and sociology
are couched in terms of analogy. The issue was first commented upon by Simmels
contemporaries. Weber (1972:160) was amongst the first to note Simmels analogical
method and suggested that the latters sociology betrayed a creative intellect able
to illustrate an argument through totally heterogeneous subject matters. He also
added that the specialist interested in questions of facticity might be led to
bitterly throw one of Simmels books in the corner and [be] finished with his
judgment of it (Weber 1972:16061). Emile Durkheim (1965:48) reviewed Simmels
Soziologie and similarly concluded that the authors proofs generally consist only
of explanations by example; some facts, borrowed from the most disparate fields,
are cited but . . . they often offer no idea how to assess their value. Some decades
later, Everett Hughes was more positive toward the method involved, claiming he
read the writings of Simmel not so much for what they say about religion,
law, or povertyalthough that may be very rewarding; rather, he read them for
the unexpected dimension to analysis that makes Simmel so intriguing. Hughess
assessment is that, in Simmel, we hardly ever have a straightforward analysis of any
aspect of society. We have something that resembles a game, a form of detached
but passionate intellectual play that takes social life as its material (Hughes
1965:117).
However, why did Simmels form of intellectual play so often drift toward aes-
thetics? It could be that Simmels own aesthetic inclinations resulted in a preference
THE ART OF SOCIAL FORMS AND THE SOCIAL FORMS OF ART 347

for the indirectness of the analogical mode. 1 There is also the Kantian influence
discernible in Simmels sociology. In The Problem of Sociology, Simmel (1965:320)
suggests there is no such thing as society as such and that to treat an abstrac-
tion as something real is a fundamental mistake. For a Kantian, this might in and
of itself justify an analogical mode of exposition. After all, it was Immanuel Kant
(1952), who, in Critique of Judgment, argued that analogy had a role to play in
circumstances where our knowledge of a thing was indirect. His example was our
knowledge of God, whom we can ever only know through indirect means as human
concepts are not of the same order as the divine. In trying to understand phenomena
via concepts from a different order of reality, we are often reduced to inference by
analogy rather than proof by rigorous syllogistic inferences (Kant 1952:Part 2,
p. 135).
Yet Simmels use of aesthetic analogies throughout his sociological writings in-
volves the making of significant theoretical points. While the theoretical propositions
involve what appear at times to be intuitive leaps from one order of reality to an-
other, Simmel seems to have taken his aesthetics too seriously for the analogies to
have been accidental. Paraphrasing Schiller, Simmel wrote of the importance of aes-
thetics: Through the morning door of beauty you entered the land of knowledge
(cited in Scott and Staubmann 2005:xii). In the following sections, I will argue that
the morning door of beauty leads in three distinct directions in Simmels thought.

AESTHETIC PRINCIPLES IN SOCIAL FORM


Presented at the first meeting of the German Sociological Society in 1910, and
later published as a chapter of his Grundfragen in 1917, Simmels sociology of
sociability provides us with various clues as to why its author held that social forms
are like aesthetic forms. The analysis sets out that sociability is a perfect topic for
the sociology of interaction as it involves society without qualifying adjectives
(Simmel 1950:44). Underpinning this assumption is the notion that the sociability
threshold is crossed when interaction becomes freed from all ties to purposeful
content and the principle that starts to dominate the form is the feeling of being
sociated (Simmel 1950:4344). Simmel lists various types of sociable intercourse
e.g., brotherhoods of knights, medieval guilds, and bourgeois associationswhere
the original content or purpose of sociability was transformed in due course
into pure sociability. As content and purpose recede, sociable interaction enters
the play-form of sociability. It is at this stage in the process of the development
of the social form that sociability enters into a relation to external existence parallel
to the work of art and its relationship to reality. This is the central proposition
Simmel is advancing through his aesthetic analogy in the reflections on sociability.

1 Bryan Green (1988:83) suggests the epithet aesthetic is commonly applied to Simmels work and
overlaps with other stylistic correlates such as [m]odern, urban, skeptical, relativistic . . . poetic, artistic,
essayistic. However, Green claims that neither subject matter nor lifestyle is a sufficient basis for
calling Simmels writing aesthetic:

There is no doubt of Simmels involvement with aesthetics. He wrote extensively on art and the
aesthetic attitude to life. Also, his style of life was marked by aestheticism: exquisite domestic decor,
weekly gatherings of gifted and beautiful people, a passion for collecting objects dart, especially from
Japan, and acute sensory sensitivity. . . . Aesthetics can be written about in nonaesthetic modes, and
the analogical extension of art collecting to Simmels collection of examples is only metaphorically
persuasive (Green 1988:9697).
348 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

However, the analogy can be further broken down into six components. I will
term these analogical inferences. The analogies could be said to be inferences because
Simmels method is to look at his objectin this case, the social form of sociability
through a variety of perspectives or frames, rather than attempting to advance
causal explanations. In each case, he detects strong parallels between social and
aesthetic forms.

Analogical Inference 1: Sociability is Like Art in that it is an Autonomous Form


Simmel initially draws upon the analogy between sociability and art in explaining a
process he labels the autonomization of contents. He suggests that intelligence,
will, creativity, and feeling initially wrest materials from life according to prac-
tical purposes (Simmel 1950:41). Thus, for example, cognition of things involves,
in the first instance, useful knowledge. Initially, humans measure things and try to
understand how things work for practical purposes such as the maintenance and
promotion of life (Simmel 1950:41). The form of cognition that we term science
emerges only when knowledge becomes a value in itself and knowledge is free
to choose its objects and shape them according to the purely scientific need of
perfecting knowledge.
The same applies to art and sociability. To the extent that creativity first emerged
out of interpretation of realities, concrete or abstract, in terms of spatial systems,
or of rhythms or sounds, or of significance and organization, art has its origins
in practical needs (Simmel 1950:42). Humans initially draw, paint, sculpt, and or-
ganize sound and rhythm to fulfill practical purposes. When these interpretations
have become purposes in themselves and artistic forms of valuation are applied to
the products of creativity then we have art. The analogy here is that sociability was
also born of specific needs and interests [which] make men band together . . . [until]
all these sociations are also characterized, precisely, by a feeling, among their mem-
bers of being sociated and by the satisfaction derived from this (Simmel 1950:43).
Sociability is that form of society where being together with one another involves
superseding the initial drive toward doing things together for a specific purpose
or interest.
The autonomization of content is therefore a process whereby practical needs
and the materiality of objects are transformed into something uniquely aesthetic (in
the case of art) and something uniquely social (in the case of sociability). Simmel
(1950:42) describes art as wholly separated from life and as taking from life only
what it can use, thus creating itself, as it were, a second time. The dynamics
of life, which initially gave rise to the interpretation of spatial systems, rhythm,
sound, and significance, reenter art as already preformed materials that can be used
toward purely aesthetic purposes. The same happens with sociability, and all other
autonomous forms: From the realities of life they take only what they can adapt to
their own nature, only what they can absorb in their autonomous existence (Simmel
1950:43).

Analogical Inference 2: Sociability is Like Art in that Artifice


and Style are Necessary
Simmel (1950:48) uses the aesthetic analogy to discuss the artificial world of so-
ciability. He suggests that it would be a mistake to see the so-called artificial or
highly refined character of sociable intercourse as either a problem or a sign of
THE ART OF SOCIAL FORMS AND THE SOCIAL FORMS OF ART 349

its fragility. Sociable intercourse requires that interactants act as-if all are equal.
The free-flow of sociable intercourse demands that external considerations such as
rank be left behind. Acting as if everybody is equal, and equally interesting, is an
essential aspect of the social form.
In this instance, the aesthetic analogy is deployed by Simmel to explain why the
form moves in this direction, as well as to offer a justification. Simmel proposes that
what is often regarded as the artificial character of sociability is in fact its neces-
sary stylization. And just as aesthetic forms cannot do without forms of artistic
stylization neither can social ones. Simmel (1950:40) proposes that a sociability that
disguises purpose and interest is no more deceptive than a painting that eschews
depicting real scenes. Indeed, it may often be the case that a painting, trying hard to
imitate the outside world, ends up being more deceptive: a painting becomes a lie
when it tries, in a panoramic effect, to simulate reality (Simmel 1950:49). This is an
intriguing defense, and justification, of stylization in social life. Style creates a bar-
rier that stops external existence from rushing in and distorting sociable interaction.
Artifice is a social necessity rather than a deceptive device.

Analogical Inference 3: Sociability is Artful but the Similarities to Art are not Literal
The aesthetic analogy is at its most literal when Simmel discusses how certain aspects
of sociability are clearly artful in character. One of these is coquetrya topic on
which Simmel (1984) wrote a separate essay. He refers to coquetry as the play-form
of the erotic drive and sees its successful deployment during sociable intercourse as
an artful achievement. Indeed, in ordinary discourse we speak of the art of
seduction.
But Simmel warns against taking the aesthetic characteristics of coquetry too
literally. It is an interaction where men and women talk and flirt but where they do
so ironically and playfully, a social performance where the exchanges are a mere
silhouette . . . of their serious imports (Simmel 1950:51). The aesthetic character of
coquetry therefore lies in its form, which Simmel compares to art in its use of
suspension, distance, and ideality. Coquetry ceases to be coquetry when the
erotic drive takes over; at that point, we have, not sociable interaction, but a
private affair between two individuals . . . [taking] place on the plane of reality
(Simmel 1950:51).
The analogy here is meant to highlight that it is not in the art-like qualities of
sociability that the parallels between it and art reside. This is why Simmel mentions
artistic devices such as suspension, distance, and idealization in his account.
These are techniques in art that allow reality to be played out upon the theatrical
stage, the painted canvas, or within the narrative of the novel. In the case of drama,
the playing out quality of what happens on stage is recognized by actors and au-
dience both. As Simmel (1973:305) says, in On the Theory of Theatrical Performance:
The play actor as a living person has as little to do with the dramatic work of art
as a material canvas coated with paint has to do with a painting as a work of art.
In both cases, the content is transformed into something else: a symbolic playing
out of life. The message is that one cannot take appearances in art too literally. The
same is the case in social form of sociability: Sociability transfers the serious, often
tragic character of . . . problems into the symbolic play of its shadowy realm which
knows no frictions, since shadows, being what they are, cannot collide (Simmel
1950:54).
350 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Analogical Inference 4: Sociability is Like Art in that Content MattersBut Only


as the Medium of Form
Here Simmel relies on the analogy of painting to demonstrate the relationship of
sociable conversation to content. He asserts that a painting is a painting whether its
mode of representation is naturalistic or not. Yet even a modern perspectivistic
painting may contain a piece of actual, three dimensional reality of its object
(Simmel 1950:52). Indeed, it was one of the hallmarks of Cubism that no sooner
had art shattered the idea of perspective and the solidity of three-dimensional objects,
that painters started including real materials such as pieces of cloth, wallpaper,
and fragments of musical scores on their canvases. The inclusion of real objects
provided artists, such as Picasso and Braque, with a fresh element of reality in
their otherwise constructivist works. It also suggested a recognition, on the artists
part, that texture is an important dimension of visual form. The real object stands
apart from the paint on the canvas, reminding the viewer that other visual objects
exist and they have a different texture to paint on canvas.
Simmel asserts something similar happens in sociability when real objects ap-
pear as a focal point of interaction. Conversation is a constructed form, but objects
from the real world enter into it in the shape of what gets talked about. The topic
of conversation is the indispensable medium through which the lively exchange of
speech itself unfolds its attractions (Simmel 1950:52). But the intrusion of these
real objects, in sociable conversation, cannot be any greater than that of an external
object in a Cubist painting. Otherwise, sociable conversation becomes untrue to its
own nature and risks degenerat[ing] into serious quarrel or some other form of
personal disclosure. The contents of sociability can no more govern it than real ob-
jects can dictate the form of a painting. They are simply the indispensable medium
through whichto paraphrase Simmelthe form maintains its liveliness and its
attractions unfold.

Analogical Inference 5: Sociability is Like Art in that it is a Symbol


or Condensation of Reality
Sociability is highly symbolic in character, but since it is also self-referential, how
and what does it symbolize? Simmel discusses the symbolism of sociability when
considering the type of sociability that emerged in the Ancien Regime. In court so-
ciety, etiquette . . . [became] a value in itself (Simmel 1950:55). At times, its highly
refined and coordinated conduct gave sociability the appearance that it had be-
come its own caricature . . . a desultory playing ground with empty forms, a lifeless
schematism which is even proud of its lifelessness (Simmel 1950:5556); sociability
as empty symbol or pure form.
Yet what do we mean when we say that sociability is a symbol, even a highly
schematized or empty one? Simmel advances the view that we should separate
the degree of refinement of a form from its symbolic function. A symbol is not
meant to be a representation or imitation of life. The proper function of symbols is
to condense life forces, andin this senseoverly refined sociability ceases to act as
a proper symbol. The analogy with art is used to make the point:

Sociability is a symbol of life as life emerges in the flux of a facile and happy
play; yet it is also a symbol of life. It does not change the image of life beyond
the point required by its own distance to it. In like manner, if it is not to strike
THE ART OF SOCIAL FORMS AND THE SOCIAL FORMS OF ART 351

one as hollow and false, even the freest and most fantastic art, however far it is
from copying of reality, nevertheless feeds on a deep and loyal relation to this
reality. (Simmel 1950:55)

Simmels point is that art, even of the most fantastic or imaginative sort, should
give us a sense of reality. Indeed, it is the distance that art establishes from life,
through its own symbolic forms, that allows art to more completely, consistently,
and realistically reveal the deepest nature of . . . reality than could any attempt at
grasping it more directly (Simmel 1950:56). Simmel recognizes that an art that is
not realistic runs the risk of becoming formulaic and schematic. Yet, according to
the aforementioned quote, the key characteristic of successful art is that it is above
life and yet connected to the deepest layers of reality. It is the same with successful
social forms. As they become more independent of life, they are a symbol of life
that appears to float above it. As a consequence: the independent and self-regulated
life, which the superficial aspects of social interaction attain in sociability, will strike
us a formula-like and irrelevant lifelessness, or a symbolic play whose aesthetic
charms embody the finest and subtlest dynamics of broad, rich social existence
(Simmel 1950:56). Either outcome is possible. However, Simmels point is that one
of these outcomes is aesthetically more valuable and satisfying for all concerned.
The aesthetically pleasing symbol is the one that uses its distance to reality, to reveal
reality in a condensed and sublimated form.

Analogical Inference 6: Sociability is Like Art in that it Provides Relief from Life
An important point of similarity, for Simmel, between art and sociability pertains
to these realms constituting a sphere of freedom. As autonomous forms, art and
sociability provide a feeling of liberation and relief from the forces of reality
(Simmel 1950:57). Again, it would be a mistake to take the stylized qualities of
autonomous forms as a sign of their superficialityi.e., to see them as all substance
and no style. It is precisely the serious person who takes delight in sociability.
Sociable intercourse could not offer any liberating, relieving, or serene aspects,
to such persons, if it were really nothing but an escape from life or a merely
momentary suspension of lifes seriousness (Simmel 1950:57).
Sociability, therefore, belongs to a category of life forms wherein, by being un-
burdened of life, we nevertheless have it (Simmel 1950:56). Simmel again turns to
art and aesthetic pleasure to make his point. He says of art, it seems to reveal
the mystery of life, the fact, that is, that we cannot be relieved of life by merely
looking away from it (Simmel 1950:57). Indeed, the power of autonomous forms
lies in that, through their unreality, such forms possess the ability to give shape
to experiencing the sense and forces of [lifes] deepest reality (Simmel 1950:57).
The aesthetic experience brings us back, through its distance to the rest of the life,
to the dynamics and patterns of life itself. It does this through the stylization of
life something that occurs in the contemplation of nature, as well as art: the view
of the sea frees us internally, not in spite, but because of the fact that the swelling
and ebbing and the play and counterplay of the waves stylize life in the simplest
expression of its dynamics (Simmel 1950:56). This is not a mimetic theory of
art and aesthetic pleasure, as what is replicated is the form rather than the content
of reality. The relationship between autonomous form and external content is the
following: aesthetic sensation is created when there is a concentration and exchange
of effects such that the contents of life reappear sublimated and diluted in
352 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

form. What we enjoy, when looking at the sea or at a work of art, is that the tasks
and seriousness of life . . . reverberate only dimly, since their gravity has evaporated
into mere attractiveness (Simmel 1950:57). Herein lies the liberating and relieving
powers of both art and sociability.

FORM IN THE ANALOGICAL INFERENCES


What are we to make of Simmels analogical inferences between art and social forms?
For contemporary readers accustomed to the sociological denunciation of aesthetic
autonomy (Bourdieu), and the postmodern thesis that art and everyday life are sig-
nificantly blurred (Baudrillard), Simmels arguments regarding the parallels between
aesthetic and social forms sound decidedly anachronistic. They seem to echo the
aestheticism of the 19th-century art for arts sake school, and the emphasis on
form appears to foreshadow the kind of formalism for which the 20th-century
artistic, architectural, and musical avant-gardes became infamous (Brown 1990:42;
Davis 1973:324). As the translators of his art historical study, Rembrandt, readily
admit: From the point of view of much current analysis, Simmels insistence on
the autonomy of the aesthetic sphere and his meticulous avoidance of reference to
social, cultural, or autobiographical context may seem hopelessly retrograde, even
reactionary (Scott and Staubmann 2005:xvii). They add that the maintenance of a
dualistic distinction between the aesthetic and the social realm, usually traced back
to Kants influence, is generally thought of as the antithesis of modern sociocultural
analysis (Scott and Staubmann 2005:xvii).
Indeed, Simmels sociology appears to replicate Kants conception of the work of
art as obeying an inner teleology, and of aesthetic delight as involving disinter-
ested pleasure. The Critique of Judgment declares: Beauty is the form of finality
in an object, so far as [what is] perceived in it apart from the representation of an
end (Kant 1952:Part 1, p. 80). Any object that promotes delight with a recognizable
end fails to meet Kants criteria of the beautiful. A comparable intellectual move is
present in Simmels sociology of sociability in that association or conversation are
seen to cease being purely sociable when extraneous motives or factors are allowed
to intrude. Why the beautiful is a question of form is also decidedly Kantian. Simmel
claimed to have learnt from Kant that only the form of things bears it beauty
(Frisby 1991:74). Why is beauty only expressible through form? Frisby (1991:75) con-
cludes that Simmel is following Kant in seeing form as having a two-fold importance:
We respond subjectively to the form of things . . . with an internally harmonious feel-
ing . . . [And in beautiful forms] what is individual is transformed into the universal.
These two aspects of the aesthetic are evident in Simmels sociology, to the extent
that Simmel (1950:54) sees sociability as a situation where all convergence and di-
vergence are strictly commensurate with inner realities and where [t]here is nothing
left over but a phenomenon whose play obeys the laws of its own form and whose
charm is contained in itself.
There is also a teleological, or developmentalist, account of form in Simmel that
might reinforce perceptions of him as an unredeemable modernist. Simmel could
be said to be operating with a three-stage model of form, where in stage 1, there
is no separation of subject and object, and material reality is undifferentiated; in
stage 2, the subject becomes conscious of purpose and realizes that he or she can
shape the world toward such ends; and, in stage 3, purpose recedes and the formal
character of objects start to dominate (Brown 1990:43). This model of progression,
THE ART OF SOCIAL FORMS AND THE SOCIAL FORMS OF ART 353

from undifferentiated content to the dominance of form, seems to govern the kind of
explanations we encountered in the sociology of sociability. Analogical Inference 1, for
example, is based on the premise that art and sociability involve the differentiation of
form and content, and then the dominance of form at a higher levelwhat Simmel
terms the autonomization of content. In short, the movement of form is toward
autonomy.
But Simmels focus on form is neither uniquely Kantian nor modernist (in the
sense of being driven primarily by a teleology). Simmel could also be said to be
operating within a tradition that takes form seriously because symbolic life is, to a
large extent, form dependent. From Ernst Cassirer to Susanne Langer there is a rich
tradition of placing the study of forms at the center of philosophical and cultural
analysis. Indeed, one of the key insights of this tradition is that, without form, there
is no symbolic communication. Langer (1967:199) is very close to Simmels discussion
of forme.g., Analogical Inferences 5 and 6 discussed in the last sectionwhen she
declares, in volume 1 of Mind: Every artistic form reflects the dynamism that is
constantly building up the life of feeling. 2 Langers (1942, 1953) major contributions
to aesthetic theory, Philosophy in a New Key and Feeling and Form, present the
argument that art neither imitates nor directly shapes feelings; rather, it presents the
forms of feeling present within humans interacting with the world. For Langer, art
symbolizes the very structure of psychic process by exhibiting its generic features
(Hart 2004:243). Art is a sphere of symbols, differentiated from actual reality, where
through sense and imagination we get to perceive life analogically. The similarities
between Simmel and Langer have been appreciated by Lloyd Sandelands (1998:59),
who, in Feeling and Form in Social Life, sees the former as suggesting that true
society is today confined largely to artificial worlds . . . The plainest examples of
society are made deliberately strange by devices that mark them off from everyday
reality. The feeling built up by form is evident in that the museum, the concert
hall, the theatre, and the sporting arena all are spatially and socially differentiated
from the rest of life. Feelings of sociality often require an artificial world, free from
the frictions and distractions of everyday life. Sociable situations therefore resemble
aesthetic ones, in their need for boundaries: Preparations are needed. Boundary-
maintaining devices and rules are required to defend activity against disruption
(Sandelands 1998:59).
Yet the relationship between sociology and aesthetic theory in Simmels writings
can be developed further. There is more to his account of the aesthetics of social
life than the insight that form separates art, or for that matter any type of aesthetic
experience, from the rest of life. We also find that Simmel was willing to discuss
the link between social and aesthetic form in terms of the principle of ordering that
artworks and stylized objects entail. Here we are dealing not so much with the art
of social forms as with the social forms of art.

2 One major difference between Simmel and Langer is in the art forms that dominate their aesthetic
theories. Langers Philosophy in a New Key takes music, and musical meaning, as the very paradigm of a
nonmimetic art where form allows for an analogue of feeling to unfold through the sensations of tone
and rhythm. Davis (1973:320) argues that Simmels conception of society is based not on all the sensory
modalities in different aesthetic genres, but only on art that is essentially visual. After his failed doctoral
thesis on music, Simmel showed a bias toward painting, sculpture, and architecture by undertaking art
historical studies of Rembrandt, Rodin, and Michelangelo. The question is whether the penchant for
spatial and visual metaphors limits the sociological framework. One critic claimed: When we say society
is a configuration, like that of a great painting, there is little we can say about verbal communication
because paintings do not talk (Duncan 1965:100). For reasons of space, this issue cannot be further
pursued in this article.
354 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

SOCIOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES IN AESTHETIC FORM


The social forms of art seem to be as important to Simmel as the art of social
forms. We get insights into the sociological significance of art and aesthetics in
Simmels discussion of style. He advances the view that style is one of the
modalities through which aesthetic phenomena reveal their principles of ordering.
The essay, The Problem of Style, declares: style is the aesthetic attempt to solve
the great problem of life: an individual work or behavior, which is closed, a whole,
can simultaneously belong to something higher, a unifying encompassing context
(Simmel 1991:70). What style expresses, in the language of art, is the particular
kinds of unity that combinations of individuality and generality entail.
The comparison, here, runs in the opposite direction to that of the discussion of
the art of social forms. In the analysis of the social forms of art, we see the
kinds of contrasts and collisions between individuality and generality that art
and aesthetics share with the fields of politics, economics, and morality (Simmel
1991:63). In Simmels writings on style, we also get a more consistent picture of how
aesthetic form is in fact a sociohistorical product. For example, Simmel claims that
if moderns envy the apparent unity of earlier styles, this is a sociological issue:

The unity and lack of problems we envy in Greek antiquity and many periods
of the Middle Ages are based on . . . an unproblematic general foundation for
life, that is to say, on the style, which arranged its relationship to the individual
production much more simply and freer of contradictions, than is possible for
us, who have a variety of styles at our disposal in all areas, so that individual
work, behavior and taste have a loose optional relation to the broad foundation,
the general law, which they do require after all. (Simmel 1991:70)

In modernity, aesthetic form is confronted by multiple stylistic possibilities. But


this is not where the theoretical significance of style, for Simmel, primarily resides. 3 It
lies in the fact that style is the supreme example of a supra-individual form involving
a general feeling, a non-contingent norm (Simmel 1991:70). Without some element
of generality individual taste is, in a sense, without style. Style always entails some
degree of social commonality. Yet style orders the feeling of generality present
in aesthetic situations in different ways. It can obey, what Simmel terms, either the
individual law or the general law.
The law of individual style is most discernible when we approach the works of
the great masters. Simmel (1991:64) says that we speak of Boticellis or Michelan-
gelos style, of Goethes or Beethovens and are right to do so because these
figures have created a mode of expression from their very individual genius. The
shared property, in this instance, is the style that we perceive flowing from the depths
of an individual being. The individual law is then a kind of generality that oper-
ates between two limits: it is more than an individual artistic personality but always
less than the imitation of that individual style by others. A style that comes from

3 There are various other sociological insights in Simmels Problem of Style that pertain to the
historicity of style. For example, we are told that what drives modern man so strongly to style is the
unburdening and concealment of the personal . . . It is as if the ego could really no longer carry itself . . . .
And thus puts on a more general, a more typical, in short, a stylized costume (Simmel 1991:69). Yet
the laws of style have a greater significance for Simmels sociology and do more than just illustrate the
historical character of forms: they also suggest an analogy for the relationship between life and form in
general.
THE ART OF SOCIAL FORMS AND THE SOCIAL FORMS OF ART 355

outside or is shared with others and the period ceases to obey the law of stylistic
individuality (Simmel 1991:65).
Style obeys the general law when the impression of an object is less marked by
claims to uniqueness. Simmel (1991:92) gives the example of certain unremarkable
statues of the Seventeenth century where we are above all aware of the baroque
character; or, neo-classical portraits from around 1800 where what excites our
attention is that they have been painted in a naturalistic style. In the case of
Oriental art, the foreignness of sensibility prevents us from grasping the indi-
viduality of the work of art, and our appreciation of the objects also remains at
the level of what period style they represent. The applied arts also encourage
these attitudes, in that, although individually designed, they are often intended for
the home and supposed to be the source of the calming effect, the feeling of
security and serenity with which the strictly stylized object provides us (Simmel
1991:67).
What sociological significance is Simmel trying to draw out with this distinction?
Simmel (1991:67) assures us that the point of differentiating objects that obey the
general law of style from those that obey the individual law is not to denigrate
the latter: it is to highlight that they represent in the aesthetic sphere a different
principle of life . . . not an inferior one. The sociological importance lies in trying to
understand how style orders life. It does so through a principle of generality which
either mixes with the principle of individuality, displaces it or represents it (Simmel
1991:65). Style serves to relieve any artwork or aesthetic object of its particularity;
although, the manneror, what Simmel terms, the law of perception and feeling
varies. The dialectic of style is such that the tension between subjective personality
and objective environment can be resolved in a manner that emphasizes either
individuality or generality (Simmel 1991:69).
The writings on style reveal that aesthetic forms reflect principles of ordering
life. A similar interest in aesthetic processes of ordering is also present in Simmels
art historical study, Rembrandt. In a chapter entitled Individualization and the
General, Simmel considers two sets of attitudes toward life in portrait painting: one
in which the individual case typifies a more general category; and another where the
impression of individual uniqueness is given optimum artistic visualization. Simmels
paradigmatic cases are, respectively, the Renaissance and Rembrandt.
The conception of life, in Renaissance portraiture, is one where personality is
made knowable through types: general categories [are applied] to the inner life:
a person is clever or stupid, generous or petty, good-natured or malicious, and so
on (Simmel 2005:66). The person here enters portraiture as a fixed symbol and is
highly stylized to reflect social or psychological categories. The principle of form
that Renaissance painting obeys is not painterly; it derives from the architectural
theoreticians of the period:

With total consistency this principle [of form] arrives at the point characterized
by the architectural theoreticians of the High Renaissance: architectural beauty
must be produced once and for all out of the universally valid proportions of
the mass of the material. The absolutely general form, developed out of the
material principle, is inherently diametrically opposed to the principle of life.
(Simmel 2005:67).

In this paradigm, aesthetic form obeys the principle of abstraction and there
is a mechanistic and rationalist attitude toward the individual case. There is life
356 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

in general in Renaissance paintings; but life has not yet emerged as a sequence of
realities, each its own enclosed totality.
By contrast, [w]ith Rembrandt, we are not dealing with a total life that dissolves
forms and is still in some way exterior to them, but rather with a purely individual
life (Simmel 2005:70). For example, Rembrandts faces do not tend to be designed to
depict characterwhat the artists of the Italian Renaissance, in particular, saw as
an important source of insight into the individual. Instead of depicting the individual
as an invariant sociological or psychological type, the individual is presented as a
dynamic unity: For Rembrandt . . . [the] solid continuous, relatively atemporal feature
of the personality is dissolved into the flow of its total states . . . the inner centrality
of the human being . . . [is] immersed much deeper into the bed of life (Simmel
2005:79).
Simmels characterization of portraiture as involving different styles of individ-
ualization takes an interesting sociological twist: he claims that, in a sense, it is
Renaissance painting that is more explicitly sociological. Through its depiction of
individual traits that in the last analysis are typical, the individualization charac-
teristic of Renaissance portraiture is a sociological one, consisting of being differ-
ent from others, of distinguishing oneself (Simmel 2005:87). However, rather than
commending this principle of stylization, Simmel (2005:89) praises Rembrandts
individuality where sociological difference vis-`a-vis other beings is totally irrele-
vant. Nothing in Rembrandts portraits are socially coloredthe only type of
connection, in this representation of individualization, is between the individual
appearance of the human being and the total stream of life leading toward it
(Simmel 2005:89).
Why does the latterdespite its apparent asociological bentserve as a better
model for theorists of society? Simmel (2005:92) asserts that the type of generality
present in Renaissance portraiture comes from a habit of thought that tends to
have the effect of giving social units a mysterious quality, outside, and above, the
individual: the state is [seen as] something other than the sum of its citizens, the
church something other than that of the believers . . . as though one had already ex-
plained such constructs as mere abstractions that somehow became independent of
that which is common to the individuals. This kind of thinking is inherently mecha-
nistic and can only ever see, in single appearances, abstract generalities. Rembrandts
approach to portraiture is more desirable and obeys a different kind of formal law:

There seems be a kind of formal law: to the extent that a construct as a whole
has a strong, unified individual life, its parts forfeit their individual emphasis,
and likewise their evenness of form . . . [Often this] can only be overcome by the
ingenious vitality of the creator. Otherwise, however, one will observe in orna-
ments, as in state constitutions, religious communities, and phases of personal
existences, that typical association, namely, that the strength and vital unity of
the whole stands in a relation of inverse proportion to degree of individual
differentiation, and to the formal or inner equality of the parts. Thus, what one
can call the generality of these Rembrandt portraits is not that one, to a degree
abstract, that emerges as, or out of, the equality of meaning of relatively individ-
ual features, but the unity of inner life . . . [Rembrandt] succeeds in this because
his individualism is precisely an immanent generalization. (Simmel 2005:9495)

The formal law in operation, then, in Rembrandts portraits, is the principle of


immanent generalization. It is a situation where the content (the human face,
THE ART OF SOCIAL FORMS AND THE SOCIAL FORMS OF ART 357

body, and what animates them) is in perfect synthesis with its form (perceptible hu-
man features depicted through what Simmel (2005:93) terms the dead juxtaposition
of paint spots). Simmel seems to be saying that ornaments, state constitutions,
religious communities, and phases of personal existence often do not comply
with the principle of immanent generalization. Art, on the other hand, does; or, at
least, it can. In art, it is possible for the strength and vital unity of the wholeto
paraphrase the aforementioned quoteto be proportionate to the degree of individ-
ual differentiation. In Rembrandts portraits, we see an art where the membranes
have been torn up, washed away by the surge of life in which each singularity of
life is enclosed (Simmel 2005:9293). It represents a principle of form involving the
cooperation of totally dependent features into a unity of expression only out of
their common relation (Simmel 2005:94).
With this excursus into Simmels art theoretical writings we have come a full
circle, since the principle of form found in the Rembrandt study also appears in
the sociology of sociability: [in sociability] the individual has to function as part
of the collective for which he lives; but . . . in turn, he derives his own values and
improvements from this collective (Simmel 1950:54). In short, sociability also obeys
the principle of immanent generalization. It is a miniature picture of the societal
ideal that might be called the freedom to be tied down (Simmel 1950:54). Art
and sociability are forms where the elements cohere more or less freely. This is why
in the Conclusion to Rembrandt, Simmel (2005:160) states: There is little that
is analogous to art when it comes to symbolizing the relationship between the
individual and the supra-individual.

Compared with art . . . religion has a less favorable form . . . For religion, the uni-
fication of transindividuality and individuality is a constriction because religion
is grounded in the former . . . [O]f all the great areas of intellectual endeavor
the possibility to express in the full peculiarity of style, in artistic personal-
ity, in individual works, the totality of meaningful existence without contra-
diction and as though there were no duality, is given to art alone. (Simmel
2005:161)

Simmel seems to be saying that in art, we see form in operation, as nowhere else.
Art binds the individual to the totality of existence differently to religion and other
areas of intellectual endeavor. Yet we still need to ask: Are there situations where
the specific kind of ordering processes represented by art are present in social form
as something other than analogy?

BEYOND ANALOGY? THE SOCIOLOGY OF SOCIAL FORMS


GROUNDED IN AESTHETICS
I conclude by arguing that Simmels deployment of the sociology-aesthetics nexus
moves beyond mere analogy in, at least, one short, but highly significant, text: his
Sociology of the Meal. Simmels argument here is that the social form in question
is sociological, to the extent that it becomes more explicitly aesthetic: in so far as the
meal becomes sociological matter, it arranges itself in a more aesthetic, stylized and
supra-individually regulated form (Simmel 1997:131). As such, the meal provides a
model of a situation where social and aesthetic form converge, and we get an insight
into the role that aesthetic factors can play, more generally, in processes of social
bonding.
358 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Simmels case study, and his linking of it to aesthetic theory, is preempted by Kant
in Critique of Judgment. The pleasure one might derive from sociable dining is listed
by Kant under the category of the agreeable arts. Kant (1952:Part 1, p. 165) regards
these as distinct from the fine arts; but still considers them genuine aesthetic
phenomena due to the fact that, in an agreeable art, the feeling of pleasure is what
the subject has immediately in view. He then presents the following as possible
candidates under the category of the agreeable arts:

Agreeable arts are those which have mere enjoyment for their object. Such are
all the charms that can gratify a dinner party: entertaining narrative, the art of
starting the whole table in unrestrained and sprightly conversation, or with jest
and laughter inducing a certain gaiety. Here, as the saying goes, there may be
much loose talk over the glasses, without the person wishing to be brought to
book for all he utters, because it is only given out for the entertainment of the
moment. (Kant 1952:Part 1, pp. 16566)

The art of dining, therefore, pertains to how the meal focuses the attention of its
participants through its charms. Its aesthetic qualities include the art of arranging
the table for enjoyment and anything else that promotes the free flow of conversa-
tion between guest and guest (Kant 1952:Part 1, p. 166). Like Simmels social form
of sociability, Kants agreeable arts require some level of closure from the world,
which is why loose talk over the glasses cannot be held to be significant once the
sociable interaction ceases. Dinner conversation needs to be seen for what it is: a
device to maximize the reciprocal pleasure derived by those participating in the given
moment. Yet Kant argues that a meal involves the kind of aesthetic pleasure that is
driven by organic sensation. Unlike fine art, it is incapable of producing the kind
of communicability of a pleasure that reflection as against mere sensation
entails (Kant 1952:Part 1, p. 166). This qualification opens up an important source
of differentiation between Kant and Simmel on the sociological importance of the
agreeable arts.
What then is Simmels conception of the sociology and aesthetics of the meal? His
starting point is that [o]f all the things that people have in common, the most com-
mon is that they must eat and drink (Simmel 1997:130). This is a commonality that
flows from the most basic of instincts, yet it is a commonality that does not, in and
of itself, produce a form of social bonding that could be termed sociological. Yes,
we must all eat and drink, but eating and drinking are also among the most selfish
and individualistic of acts. Compared to other aesthetic experiences, the gestation of
food is totally closed off as an aesthetic experience. Simmel says people can hear
the same sounds and see the same images but there is no ingesting the same food.
This is what Kant also had in mind when he claimed that the agreeable arts do not
possess universal communicability. They are based purely on sensate, and thereby
purely individual, experiences of taste. Yet, for Simmel (1997:130), this is the central
paradox of the meal: it links the exclusive selfishness of eating with a frequency of
being together, with a habit of being gathered together such is seldom attainable on
occasions of a higher and intellectual order. In its sociological structure, it therefore
attains a synthesis of individuality and commonality rare even among the cultivated
arts.
Simmel considers the full aestheticization of the meal as a process with a prehistory
that points toward the meal shedding its basis in purely individual needs. The supra-
individual form is prefigured in the following forms that highlight the potential for
THE ART OF SOCIAL FORMS AND THE SOCIAL FORMS OF ART 359

eating to be socialized: the sacrificial meal of Semitic antiquity; the mystical union
of the Christian communion, where the bread is equated with Christs body; and
the medieval guilds and later the English trade clubs, where rules evolved dealing
with whom one could eat and also the order in which persons at a communal table
could be served (Simmel 1997:131) All these examples point toward the fact that as
the meal becomes more of a sociological matter, the food recedes in importance
and it is the form of its consumption that starts to dominate. Thus, for Simmel
(1997:131), the first triumph over the naturalism of eating occurs when temporal
regularity predetermines when a circle of people assemble together to eat.
Simmel detects an interesting intermingling here of aesthetic stylization and nor-
mative regulation. It is formal norms that initially place the meal above the fluc-
tuating needs of the individual and [elevate] it into an aesthetic stylization which
now acts back upon the former (Simmel 1997:132). The meal rises above the an-
archic impulse to satisfy ones own needs through aesthetic stylization, including a
code of rules, ranging from holding the knife and fork to the appropriate subjects
of table conversation (Simmel 1997:132). Through its aesthetic stylization, the joint
consumption of food becomes more than an exercise in sensory pleasure; it becomes
the social form of the meal.
At this point, it becomes clear that Simmel is claiming much more on behalf of
the meal than Kant is in his discussion of the agreeable arts. Note how Kant uses
food to highlight the private, rather than sociological, character of that which is
merely agreeable:

As regards the agreeable every one concedes that his judgment, which he bases
on a private feeling, and in which he declares that an object pleases him, is
restricted merely to him personally. Thus he does not take it amiss if, when he
says that Canary-wine is agreeable, another corrects the expression and reminds
him that he ought to say: it is agreeable to me. This applies not only to the
taste of the tongue, the palate, and the throat, but to what may with any one be
agreeable to eye or ear . . . With the agreeable, therefore, the axiom holds good:
Every one has his own taste (that of sense). (Kant 1952:Part 1, pp. 5152)

How does one explain Simmels difference with Kant on the aesthetics of the meal?
The simplest way to put it would be to say that for the former the meal surpasses
mere agreeableness and becomes, in the terms of the latter, beautiful. For Kant,
the senses, and especially the senses involved in deriving pleasure from food, are
too subjective for aesthetic theory to derive an account of how beauty expresses,
simultaneously, ones own pleasure and that of others. As Carolyn Korsemeyer (1999:
56) surmises, in a book about food and philosophy, for Kant: Only a pleasure that is
free from practical desires, including the appetites of hunger and thirst, can transcend
individual whim and idiosyncrasy and lay claim to universal agreement.
Simmel would agree with Kants definition of the beautiful. His achievement in
the Sociology of the Meal is therefore to show that the form conforms with
Kants definition of aesthetic pleasure: the meal arises above both the physical act
of eating disappears and externally prescribed good form (Simmel 1997:132).
In Simmels conception of the meal, we have left behind the kind of sensory taste
discussed by Kant and entered the domain of aesthetic satisfactionincluding the
requirement of the social communicability of pleasure. As Simmel (1997:132) puts
it, where one . . . demands aesthetic satisfaction from a meal, over and above the
goal of satisfaction, an additional expense is required. That additional expense is
360 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

the effort that every individual must employ in fulfilling the collective needs of the
group. Indeed, the demand of joint aesthetic satisfaction is not only easier for a
community to support than the individual, but . . . is inwardly also more likely to be
legally supported by the latter than by the former (Simmel 1997:132). Aesthetic
satisfaction binds the individual inwardly and the community, sharing the meal,
makes that satisfaction possible.
The manner in which aesthetic stylization and social form converge in the meal
is repeatedly highlighted by Simmel. Aesthetic stylization shapes the relation of the
individual to the contents and the relation of individual to the group. Thus, we find
Simmel highlighting the role played by the plate, as a stylistic development, within
the aesthetics of the meal. The shift from the communal bowl to the individual
plate is symbolically important for the following reason: The plate symbolizes
the order, which gives to the needs of the individual that which is coming to the
individual as a part of the structured whole, but, in return, does not allow the
individual to encroach beyond his or her limits (Simmel 1997:132). The plate acts
as both agent of individualization and a formal common ground for the exercise of
that individuality. The form itself is binding on all participants, as can be seen from
the fact that the plates on a table must always be completely identical . . . different
plates or glasses for different people would be absolutely senseless and ugly (Simmel
1997:133).
Here we have then a social form grounded in the aesthetic stylization of the
contents. In demonstrating this, Simmel has succeeded in showing what sociological
form owes to aesthetic form and vice versa. This is no small achievement, for it
involves, as Gronow (1998:15) notes, turning the central problem of Kants aesthetics
into a sociological one. The initial, and foundational, problem of Kants aesthetics
was: How are we to understand aesthetic pleasure without reducing it either to the
subjective or to determination by an empirical category external to the feeling? If
taste is either purely individual or social (empirically given in Kants terms), then
the aesthetic judgment becomes purely tautological.
Given his desire to avoid an externalist, or what he calls an empirical account,
Kant struggles with the social dimension of aesthetic pleasure. He was willing to
recognize that the impulse to society was natural to mankind and that a man
abandoned on a desert island would not adorn either himself or his hut (Kant
1952:Part 1, p. 155). But the interest indirectly attached to the beautiful by the
inclination towards society cannot be the primary focus of aesthetics for Kant
(1952:Part 1, p. 156), as this would be to pass from aesthetics to some other realm
of experience, such as the moral feeling. Thus, [t]he empirical interest in the
beautiful exists only in society and is not to be the central focus of a philosophical
aesthetics (Kant 1952:Part 1, p. 155).
Simmels achievement is to show that there are situations, like the meal, where
the whole antinomy of taste between the subjectivity of feeling and its general
communicability in a sense disappears or is made obsolete (Gronow 1998:150).
The sociological form of the meal is nothing without the aesthetic stylization of its
contents, and, in a sense, the form only lasts as long as people are deriving reciprocal
aesthetic pleasure from it (Gronow 1998:150).

CONCLUSION
The sociology-aesthetics nexus in Simmels thought is many sided. It involves, as
seen in the section Aesthetic Principles in Social Form, a series of provocative
THE ART OF SOCIAL FORMS AND THE SOCIAL FORMS OF ART 361

analogies regarding how sociability resembles art as a self-enclosed symbol that


condenses real life and provides some relief from it. This involves a theory of form
that ties aesthetic sensationlike Langerto the feelings for life that artistic form
has swelling within it. In the section Sociological Principles in Aesthetic Form,
we saw that the analogies also run in the opposite direction, and that Simmel was
quite prepared to discuss the principles of social form in art and in aesthetic objects.
His theory of style construes stylistic modalities as involving different kinds of rela-
tionships between individuality and generality. As an instance of the individual
law, Simmel compared the aesthetics of portrait painting in the Renaissance to that
of Rembrandts highly individuated subjects. He concluded, ironically for a sociolog-
ically informed art theorist, that the model of individualization found in Renaissance
portraits, which often works by relating the individual to abstract social categories, is
inferior to that of Rembrandt, which sees form as a unity where the elements follow
the principle of immanent generalization.
Simmels interest in how aesthetic forms intersect with sociological principles of
ordering moves beyond analogy in his writings on the sociology of the meal. Here,
the sociological development of the form and the aesthetic stylization of the contents
are one and the same. We saw that in this piece, the sociology-aesthetics nexus moves
to a different, and higher, plane of synthesis as Simmel reached for a sociological
solution to the fundamental problem of Kants aesthetics: the antinomy between the
individual feeling associated with aesthetic sensation and the social communication
of that aesthetic experience. Simmels solution, in Sociology of the Meal, could
be said to be ingenious. It shows that the Kantian problem of trying to grasp
the aesthetic in isolation from the social is, in certain situations, a nonproblem.
Some social forms require a grounding in aesthetics in order to fully develop as
sociological entities. That Simmel chose such a mundane and everyday aesthetic
phenomena as the meal to make these significant theoretical points indicates that,
for him, aesthetics was not entirely about art or what cultivated people regard as
serious pursuits. Toward the end of the Sociology of the Meal, Simmel (1997:135)
states: The indifference and the banality of the field with which these remarks are
concerned should not deceive us into believing the paradoxical depth of this type is
not equally alive within it. Aesthetic forms are more than just surface phenomena.
In such mundane phenomena, we see the bridge that links the elemental to the
stylization and aestheticization of its ultimate forms (Simmel 1997:135).

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