David the Invincible

The Aesthetic Orientation of David the Invincible

In the ancient Greek original of David’s Definitions of Philosophy, the definitions of art and science were terminologically inherited from ancient thinkers. In this respect, the word τέχνη  is the most capacious and polysemous. Its three main meanings are practical knowledge, art and craft. In the ancient Armenian version of the Definitions, this word was written as արուեստ (aruest) and արհեստ (arhest). In this case, the difference between these two terms is sooner stylistic than semantic. In the works of the Armenian grammarians and philosophers of the Hellenistic school, the terms have been polished and unified to so great an extent that they have almost no semantic indistinctness. However, concepts and objects are historically more mobile than their names, and therefore changes are historically inevitable in the initial bonds between the sign and the denotatum, as a result of which, for instance, we have a discrepancy between the specific and abstract as well as modern and historical meanings of words. The polysemy of the words արուեստ and արհեստ cannot disorientate us if we perceive their meaning in the context of ancient Armenian philosophical literature. However, as soon as we change our viewpoint and try to find, in the early medieval thinkers’ propositions, the definition of art as a specific form of expression or disinterested activity, we will inevitably come across terminological “indistinctness” and the apparent indefiniteness on concepts. While desiring to interpret ancient authors in the mode of our thinking or to “force” them to speak the language which we understand, it is hard for us to acquiesce to the idea that they did not envisage the problems which interest us. In the propositions of the outstanding thinkers of antiquity (including treatises on rhetoric and poetry), aesthetic concepts come to unified modifications and terms. The aesthetic sphere of human activity was cognized without specially singling out aesthetic terms and defining the concept of “aesthetics”. In the medieval thinkers’ propositions, the limits of aesthetics, just as those of the theory of art, remain more than indefinite, regardless of the stand we choose for understanding them. The concept of art as practical knowledge and, in the narrower sense, as artistic creative work was synthesized in David’s theory of knowledge.

In the works on the history of Armenian philosophical and aesthetic thought (V. Chaloyan, A. Adamyan, G. Gabrielyan, S. Arevshatyan), a study has been made of David’s theory of knowledge as well as the place which art holds in his classification of the forms of knowledge. Without referring to these researches, let us try in this case to revive the medieval meaning of the word արուեստ (aruest).

In the word  արուեստ,  արու(aru) is the root, while եստ (est) is the suffix. Such a construction make the word equivalent to the Latin word “virtus”¹, which means courage, a fast, a virtue, talent, superiority², and so forth. The explanation of the word արուեստ in the New Dictionary of the Ancient Armenian Language (which says certain skill, ability) corresponds to those meanings. The most ancient example of  the literary use of this word in Faustos Buzand’s work. He said: “…թմբկահարք և սրնգահարք, քնարահարք և փողահարք, իւրաքանչիւըն արուեստօք պէսպէս ձայնիւք բարբառեցան.”⁴. The matter in question in artistic skill. In that same passage, use is made of the word արուեստական (aruestakan), which was derived from արուեստ and which means a professional musician, a singer⁵ and, in a more general and modern sense, an artist. In this case, the word արուեստ is an attribute, while the word արուեստական, is a qualitative concept. The second form of the word արուեստ, which has been attested since ancient times, is արութիւն (arutivn), whose meaning is “power, courage as well as general or particular virtue”⁶, i.e., etymologically it also corresponds to the Latin word “virtus”.

In basing ourselves on this common linguistic aspect, let us recall the famous words of Movses Khorenatsi: “…բազում  գործք արութեան գտանին գործել և ի մերում աշխարհին” (“many feats of courage exist also in our country”). The matter in question is spiritual feats and moral values. The historian imparted this meaning also to the word արութիւն: “…ոչ ինչ գործ արութեան և քաջութեան եցոյց”⁷, which means “not having created values and exhibited courage”. Finally, the third, comparatively later form արուեստ is the word արհեստ (arhest)^8,  which was used as a synonym of the former in ancient in the new, modern Armenian language. From the standpoint of the question which interests us, important fact is that the word արուեստ in its ordinary sense contained the idea of artistic skill. This word is converted into a term in the grammatical and philosophical works of the Hellenistic school. The ancient Armenian translation of Grammar written by Dionysius the Thracian, being the basis of all the scientific terminology in medieval Armenia, says: “Art (արուեստ) is an empirically elaborated system (բաղկացութիւն) which is intended for performing something useful in life (առ ի պիտանացու ինչ իրս որ ի կենցաղումս ^).9 This formulation was in invariable postulate for the Armenian authors of the Hellenistic orientation, just as, incidentally, for the authors of the late Middle Ages. It was in harmony also with the synthetic thinking of the Middle Ages, according to which artistic creative work was not separated from the practical everyday and spiritual-cultural spheres of activity. In David’s Definitions, art is subordinated as a specific system (բաղկացութիւն) to the epistemological theme and is certainly differentiated not aesthetically: “Art (արուեստ τέχνη) is causally substantiated general knowledge (καθδλου νϋώσίς μετά λσγου), or art (արուեստ-τέχνη) is ability (possession) of conjugation with imagination (βαδιζουσα μετά φαντασιας), or art is definite ability and knowledge, and it also coordinates, i. e. , creates everything in a proper way (ըստ կարգի –τάξις, in a proper order-H.H.).¹⁰

Art did not interest David the Invincible as self –sufficient activity or activity which was independent of practical aims. Therefore one should not look for aesthetic modifications in the direct sense of the word in the definitions. Prof. A.A. Adamyan quite correctly described David’s artistic and aesthetic views by saying “art as knowledge”. A.A. Adamyan showed that the grammarians and interpreters of the Hellenistic school as well as David the invincible introduced ancient rationalism into the medieval theory of art.¹¹ It should be noted that the problem of essence and the functions of art were also analyzed epistemologically in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. But the concepts in Metaphysics have a somewhat different semantic orientation: in Aristotle’s terminology it is difficult to find a basis for our notions.¹² In Aristotle’s works, for instance, the word τέχνη is so polysemous that it cannot be brought into conformity with the concept of art¹³.In Plato’s works, too, this word’s meaning is so broad and universal that it is almost impossible to translate it¹⁴.

It is difficult to say how David the Invincible imagined the sphere of artistic activity and whether he regarded artistic creative activity in general as a specific form of knowledge. This is difficult not only because he did not write any aesthetic treatises, but also because none of the authors belonging to that epoch and that literary environment had left us such words. Coupling the meaning of the term mainly with grammar, rhetoric and literature, the Armenian interpreters of Dionysios the Thracian had made it more specific and limited. This would have been a different question if David the Invincible preceded the skeptics and not vice versa. Denying ancient skepticism, David the Invincible was undoubtedly acquainted with the skeptics’ aesthetic views and with Sextus Empiricus’s proposition that “any real art science are perceived on the basis of the artistic and scientific functions revealed by them.¹⁵ Unlike the philosophers on the classical period, who, in their thinking, used categories of greater integrity and studied the world more than their self, the skeptics with their emotional and extremely fine self – contemplation had imparted a new quality to the differentiation of concepts. As a representative of both the new epoch and the monoconceptual world, David the Invincible is integral in the Attic sense and optimistic in the Christian sense. For him, philosophy as the “art of arts and the science of sciences” (Aristotle) is the way to comprehend absolute immaterial being, divine being. According to him, reality is knowable because, just as Plato’s “cosmos”, it is single and monoconceptual. Practical knowledge is only a stage on the way to comprehension and, at this stage, the difference between the artistic and inartistic expression of the process of creative work and its result is not and cannot be a subject of discussion. As Prof. V. Chaloyan had noted, David’s concept of արուեստ (τέχνη) coincides with Aristotle’s concept of φρόνησις (practical knowledge).¹⁶  It should be added that the Greek work φρόνημον semantically coincides with the ancient Armenian word արութիւն.

Investigation in the history of Armenian philosophical thought show that the system of the theory of knowledge elaborated by David the Invincible has the following hierarchy: sensation, imagination, and opinion, judgement and thought. Art is in the middle of this hierarchy: it is higher than then sensation but lower than theoretical knowledge and philosophy. If account is taken of the fact that the stages of knowledge established by David the Invincible are interconnected by unity and difference, the place held by art as a form of knowledge will become quite definite: It is in both the sphere of sense perception and the sphere of rational knowledge: art links sensation and experience with theoretical knowledge and philosophy. When this link is “է ընդհանուր գիտութիւն հանդերձ պատճառաւ՞ (καθόλου γνώσις μέτά λόγου), art and science are not differentiated. However, when this link is explained as the “ability (possession) of conjugation with imagination “ունակութիւն ճանապարհորդեալ հանդերձ երևակայութեամբ” (βαδιζουσα μετά φανταζσας), the features of their differentiation arerevealed.

What do ճանապարհորդել (going) and երևակայութիւն (imagination) mean? If the aspect of rational experience (μετά λόγου, causally substantiated) were not emphasized at the matter question was imaginary, unreal notions. In the Russian translation of the Definitions (translated by S. Arevshatyan), the word ճանապարհորդեալ (literally, to travel) was translated by the word conjugation, which, in the given context, indicates that art is the skill or ability to combine the practical with the theoretical. The dictionary meaning of this word is just as interesting. The word βάδισις used in the Greek original of the Definitions means course, process. In this respect, of account is taken also of the word երևակայութիւն (φαντασια, imagination), which means knowledge of an absent object, notion (which should not be confused with the word fantasy), we can explain one of the aspects which distinguishes art from science, i.e., a process which is in conformity with notion. Imagination, or notion, is at the lower steps of knowledge, i.e., it is lower than experience but higher than sensation. At the same time, is it a more dynamic aspect of knowledge, an indispensable property of the process of creation, i. e., an attribute of the process. By saying հանդերձ պատճառաւ (“causally substantiated”) and հանդերձ երևակայութեամբ (“conjugated with imagination”), David the Invincible found the point of contact, as it were, between a plan and its realization. However, we are interested in another aspect of the propositions. It is very enticing to see the awareness of intuition in creative work standing after the word երևալայութիւն (imagination). However, this is improbable because of the following postulate of David’s: “Art is also an empirically elaborated system (բաղկացութիւն) of well-mastered skills that is intended for realizing something useful in life.”¹⁷  If the word երևակայել (to imagine) means to mentally “see” the absent, i.e., an object which, in this case, in not sensually perceived, the word ճանապարհորդել (going) means to successively pass, is one’s imagination, the steps of creation and find a link between a plan and its realization, between a notion and an object. David the Invincible thus approached a very intricate law of the creative process (both artistic and scientific), i.e., the dialectics of the object and the subject. The words երևակայութիւն and ճանապարհորդել mean aesthetic modifications to us because, in  David’s terminology, they act as auxiliary concepts which explain relations between the rational and sensual forms of knowledge.

In David’s definition, imagination and process are dialectically unity is expressed by the word (τάξις, order): “art is definite ability and knowledge (cognition – H. H.); it also indicates, i.e., creates everything in a proper way (order-H.H.)”¹⁷. In the work of an anonymous medieval interpreter of the Definitions, the concepts of կարգ (order) and ճանապարհ (way) are almost identical (“ որպէս ընդ ճանապարհ գնալ կարգու կատարել”). In the interpretation, “going” is the contemplation of not only an image, but also the process and steps of its creation, just as when a house is being built (“նախ զհիմն և ապա զորմունս. Յես որոյ և զձեղունս”).¹⁸   But the concept of կարգ (or τάξις, order) reveals for greater depth in the context of ancient and Hellenistic propositions than in medieval ones. According to David the Invincible, կարգ -τάξις is the ultimate aim in which process and imagination, a plan and its realization are united.David the Invincible used the word կարգ τάξις in the sense of Plato’s τάξις and κόσμος. Plato used these terms in different senses: ontological, ethic and, partially, aesthetic senses.¹⁹ However, in the Definitions, the word կարգ τάξις is used as an epistemological tern, and only in the general context of David’s works and his literary environment does is acquire the significance of an aesthetic modification. If account is taken of the fact that David used the words τέχνη and արուեստ as attributes and not as qualitative concepts (“ ունակութիւն ոմն”), is can be maintained that art for ancient and Hellenistic thinkers as well as medieval thinkers was an attributive concept (which described the type of skill /ability/). This specific creates կարգ (order), which is the aim of art, the product of creative work, a consummate quality. The limits of our searches are fount here. The կարգ is a complete whole in both nature and art. In the most perfect form, the idea of  կարգ is given proportionally, harmoniously and expediently with respect to Plato’s cosmos.

The question of the difference between science and art is very slightly considered only in the places of David’s definitions where he spoke about the difference between the two forms of knowledge, which he denoted by the terms արուեստ τέχνη and մակացութիւն έπιστήμη. According to David the Invincible, theoretical knowledge is true both in itself (“ըստ իւրում բանին”, “in essence”) and with respect to its subject (“ըստ ենթակային”, “according to the subject”),²⁰ and this means that any theoretical knowledge is higher than practical skill. Of course, the matter in question is science. However, when it is maintained that art, being true “in essence, can make an error with respect to the subject (“ըստ ենթակային”), the matter in question is no longer art as we understand it, but practical activity in general. This question is raised similarly in Aristotle’s Metaphysics: “Science (έπιστήμη) relates to being, while art (τέχνη), to formation (γένεσις).”²¹ There may be aesthetic aspects²² in this case and in the above-mentioned propositions and definitions of David’s, but the question is raised differently. The difference between art and nature, and not between art and science or art and craft was important to David the Invincible. “We say ‘conjugated with imagination’ owing to nature, since nature also is possession, as it possesses existence in things which embody in themselves, i.e., in a person, in a stone and other things, but it creates in the proper way (in the proper order-H.H.), and not by imaginiation^.”23 Consequently, nature is also a system (բաղկացութիւն), a result of a “certain skill” (“ունակութեան ուրումն”), and it also has a process and a result. Let us recall that Plato applied skill to the whole χόσμος. However, nature as a system is the objective will and not the result of imagination, David the Invincible wrote: “when the master of art (τεχνίτης) begins his work, he at first creates in himself an idea of a thing and only then does he realize it. However, nature never preliminarily creates in itself an idea of a thing.”²⁴  Nature  is its own object and is created on its own, while a “master” (արուեստաւոր τεχνίτης) imagines what should be created. Nature is order, a person is a manifestation of this order, while art as order is the result of human imagination. As for the difference between art and craft, i.e., the difference between artistic and inartistic orders, it is outside the framework of David’s theory of knowledge.

In David’s aesthetic orientation, the idea of order (կարգ  τάξις) was the most significant and viable one. What order means in the ancient theories of art is a special question. Another such question is what are the medieval interpretations and modifications of Plato’s theory of order. Only one thing can the stated for the present: in the Middle Ages, mostly the streamlining function was ascribed to art, because the principle of imitation or reproduction (mimeses) was practically and theoretically rejected. Medieval thinkers borrowed especially the idea of order from the ancient theories of art. For instance, Augustine and Boetsii , who were the early medieval adherents of the Plotinian wing of Neoplatonism, regarded art as an attribute of rational cognition. Although they rather closely approached the aesthetic them proper as compared with David the Invincible, they in principle remained the interpteters of Plato’s idea of order. No wonder after David the Invincible and the early medieval thinkers, the perception of art in  medieval Armenia did not transcend the framework of the concept of order evenwhen the term itself was not used. Ovanes Yerznkatsi (12^th century) wrote: “What is art if it is not the initial vision (notion-H.H.) and comprehension of all being by science (knowledge-H.H.) a proper way and in good time (առնել զամենայն ինչ ի ժամանակի իւրում և ըստ պատշաճի).”²⁵ He used the Armenian Grecophiles’ formulation and, in his epistemological theme, too, the aesthetic aspect is seen only because he related a painter’s and a musician’s skill to the sphere of art. Thus, the idea of order is something which can reveal and explain the meaning of medieval art and help us guide ourselves with respect to its history and theory.

NOTES

1. G.Acharyan, Etymological Root Dictionary of Armenian, Vol.1, Yerevan, 1971, p. 332 (in Armenian).
2. See Ancient Greek-Russian Dictionary, compiled by I.Kh. Dvoretskii, Moskow,1958,p.1084 (in Russian)
3. New Dictionary of Ancient Armenian, Vol.1, Venice, 1936, p.372 (in ancient Armenian).
4. Faustos Buzand, History of Armenia, Tiflis, 1912, pp. 347-348 (in ancient Armenian)
5. See M. Abegyan, Works, Yerevan, Vol. 2, 1967, p 193 (in Armenian)
6. New Dictionary of Ancient Armenian, Vol. 1, p. 374
7. Movses Khorenatsi, History of Armenia, Tiflis, 1913, pp. 12, 13 (in ancient Armenian). The word արութիւն is usually translated as courage, which in our opinion gives a one-sided idea of the given concept.
8. See G. Acharyan, Op. cit., Vol. 1 p. 332
9. N. Adonts, Dionysius the Thracian and Armenian Interpreters, Petrograd, 1915, p. 42 (texts in ancient Armenian).
10. David the Invincible, Definitions of philosophy. Critical text and Russian translation by S. Arevshatyan, Yerevan, 1960, p. 103. Davidis Prolegomena et in Porphyrii Isagogen Commentarium, Berolini, 1904, p. 43 (texts in ancient Greek).
11. A. Adamyan, “Questions of Aesthetics and the Theory of Art”, Iskusstvo, Moskow, 1978, pp,209-217 (in Russian).
12. See Aristotle, Works, Vol. 1, Mys1, Moskow, 1976, pp. 65-67 (in Russian).
13. See A. F. losev, History of Ancient Aesthetics. Aristotle and Late Classicism, Iskusstvo, Moskow, 1975, p. 361 (in Russian).
14. A. F. Losev, History of Ancient Aesthetics. High classicism, Iskusstvo, Moskow, 1974, p. 16 (in Russian).
15. Sextus Empiricus, Works, Vol. 2, Mysl, Moskow, 1976, p. 38 (in Russian).
16. V. Chaloyan, History of Armenian Philosophy, Yerevan, 1975, p. 144 (in Armenian).
17.  Definitions of Philosophy, pp. 102-103. Davidis prolegomena, p. 43.
18. Interpretation of the Book of Definitions, Mashdots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts , Matenadaran, manuscript No.32o1, p. 170a.
19. See A. F. Losev, History of Ancient Aesthetics. Sophists. Socrates. Plato. Iskusstvo, Moskow, 1969, pp. 374-379 (in Russian).
20. Definitions of Philosophy, pp. 104-105.
21. A. F. Losev, History of Ancient Aesthetics. Aristotle and Late Classicism, pp. 363-364. In this respect, an indirect aesthetic theme is envisaged.
22. This question has been considered fundamentally erroneously in my book Theatre in Medieval Armenia. Questions of History and Theory, Yerevan, pp. 305-307 (in Armenian).
23. Definitions of Philosophy, pp. 102-103.
24. Ibid.
25. Matenadaran, manuscript No. 2173, p. 278a.

                       Yerevan 1980      H. Hovhannissyan