"Saskia na Cadal" le Rembrandt (mu 1655)
An ais-bhrath eaconamach
san raon-cèille estèatach.
An μηδὲν ἄγαν
["fòghnaidh na dh'fhòghnas"].
["fòghnaidh na dh'fhòghnas"].
______________________
The economic retrocipation
in the aesthetic meaning-aspect.
The μηδὲν ἄγαν ["not too much"].
In the modal meaning of the logical law-sphere and in that of language the expression of the cosmic coherence of meaning with the economic aspect appeared to be found only in the anticipatory spheres. But in the modal structure of the aesthetic and the juridical aspects this cosmic coherence with the economic sphere is expressed in the retrocipatory direction. The nuclear moment of the aesthetic aspect is harmony in its original sense, a modal meaning-moment found in all the other law-spheres only in an unoriginal, retrocipatory or anticipatory function (cf. harmony of feeling, logical-harmony, harmony in social intercourse, linguistic harmony, economic and juridical harmony, etc.). This aesthetic nuclear meaning cannot express itself in the modal structure of the aspect concerned without an economic retrocipation, which may be qualified as aesthetic economy. The aesthetically superfluous, the 'piling it on', the 'overdoing it', ought to be warded off in harmonic sobriety or economy if the harmony is to remain intact. And this standard is applied not only to a highly cultured work of art but also to a primitive product, because the aesthetic modality of meaning is not possible without economic retrocipation. What is sometimes called aesthetic exuberance or luxuriance is not meaningless in an aesthetic sense provided it is not in conflict with the basic modal principle of aesthetic economy.
This 'aesthetic exuberance' is not really 'superabundant'. It is no overabundance in the sense of 'disharmony' but the harmoniously-economic adaptation of the artistic expression to the aesthetic experience of the artist.
In its original meaning harmony always requires aesthetic unity in multiplicity on its law-side, in which the μηδὲν ἄγαν (nothing to excess) - notwithstanding the change of period in history - is of unassailable modal validity.
Only an irrationalist view of aesthetic, denying that an artistic genius is bound by laws and proclaiming him sovereign creator can repudiate this basic principle in the original meaning of harmony. A truly Christian aesthetics can never absolutize the individual aesthetic subjectivity and make it a sovereign creator of beauty not bound by norms of the Divine world-order. A Christian aesthetics will be the first to acknowledge the inspired artist's genius as an individual gift of God. It will be whole-heartedly hostile to rationalistic aesthetics. But it cannot give in to the ὕβρις [hubris] of an aesthetic irrationalism that denies any subjection to norms to be incumbent on the artist and works of art.
Such a denial would spell apostasy from the Christian basic Idea. In the Prolegomena we saw that such a view of aesthetics must cancel itself on account of its intrinsic contradiction. An aesthetic subjectivity without any determination by an aesthetic norm would be an absolutely chaotic, hence a meaningless, impossible ἄπειρον [limitlessness], which could no longer be called 'aesthetic' with any semblance of truth. Only a law can determine and delimit. The absolutely indeterminate cannot be determined by the aesthetic modality.
Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol II/ Part I/ Chapt 2/§4 pp 127-129)
