ULOS , Special Issue of 1996 (SLU Research Vol 33 No.

1 June 2002

ULOS1, Special Issue of 1996:

A Case of Georg Lukacs’ Aesthetic Theory
By: Danilo S. Alterado, Ph.D.

The goal of all great art is connected to the dialectical approach

to objective reality. …it is to provide a picture of reality…of the
contradiction between appearance and reality…2 G. Lukacs

One of the most impressive achievements of the Critical Theory lay in the field of
aesthetics. Their interest on aesthetics is corollary to their critique of ‘enlightenment
rationality’ and their quest for an alternative rationality. Aesthetics is seen, somewhere as
an alternative way of doing philosophy. This thought is a relative result of the
ambivalence on Marx’s part with regard to the future role of philosophy considering it as
a remnant of bourgeois culture (that will vanish with the abolition of classes in society)
but at the same time continued to criticize existing society in philosophical critiques that
he claimed were ‘scientific’. The early exponents of critical theory (like Georg Lukacs
and Antonio Gramsci) take the unorthodox3 view that philosophy still had a role to play
in mediating between changing capitalistic forms and the development of workers’
understanding of their condition. They maintain that ideology is a kind of cultural
hegemony and it is an important aspect of power over society, even more than the modes
of material production. It is through the cultural hegemony of ideology that workers
reified capitalistic ideas and acquiesced to them. Consequently, ideology is a powerful
tool of capitalism, and the proper course is to question hegemonic bourgeois culture and
its control over the consciousness of the proletariat. This is the task of Marxist aesthetics.
The theme of ‘critical theory’ along the lines of the young Marx is taken up by a
group of philosophers and developed into a school of thought known as the Frankfurt
School. The Frankfurt School4 interest in culture is strengthened by their experience of
the United States and the achievement there of conformism by the dissemination of mass
culture rather that the use of terror. What the mass culture had in common with fascism,
in their view, is an increasing abolition of the distinction between the private and public

1
ULOS is a pilipino term which connotes ‘onward movement.’ Probably this term is derived from the key
word, ULO which means head, thus Ulos would mean “to head a movement onward” Ulos is a literary
journal of the Philippine underground/revolutionary movement.
2
Art and Objective Truth, p. 34, in Georg Lukacs, Writer and Critic, edited and translated by Arthur Kahn
(London: Merlin Press, 1978).
3
The term “Unorthodox” denotes not in conformity with the orthodox standard bearer of Marxism that is
Marxism-Leninism. Georg Lukacs as a member of the communist party, had been accused of revisionism
because of his unorthodox writings. Cf. G.H.R. Parkinson, Georg Lukacs , (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1977), pp. 1-18.
4
The school started as an institute for social research founded in Frankfurt in 1923. The major thinkers of
the 1920s – Lukacs, Korsch, Gramsci – were all active in politics, the Frankfurt School had no formal
political affiliation. Since almost all of the institute members were Jews, the rise of Hitler meant the
emigration of the whole school and it was eventually reestablished in New York in 1936, and only returned
to Germany after the war.

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ULOS , Special Issue of 1996 (SLU Research Vol 33 No. 1 June 2002

spheres by exploiting or creating needs in the individual in order to support a particular

system of domination.
In their treatment of arts, the Frankfurt School differs from the Leninist tradition
(where Lukacs’ aesthetic theory is more inclined to) in which art and literature are judged
primarily by the attitude they display towards class struggle. They consider the social
insights of a work of art more important that the political stance of the author. This view
is inspired from the work of Lukacs, though Lukacs’ rejection of most modern art forms
separated him from the Frankfurt School, who are extremely interested in contemporary
art forms. They give to art a more autonomous role than in the Leninist tradition. To
them, art is a protest against prevailing conditions and at the same time, transcends
society in so far as it hinted at more humane values.
Georg Lukacs’ aesthetic theory could be understood from this background (but
not limited to this perspective). As we shall see later, Lukacs’ thought moves from this
frame of thought.
The Philippine revolutionary movement5 had undergone crises in the late 80s to
the early 90s that led to the division of the organization into several factions. This is
mainly caused by the differences in political line anchored from their opposing reading of
the objective condition and their conflicting application of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
doctrine in the Philippine situation. In view of this, the mainstream6 of the underground
organization wages what they call as the ‘second rectification movement’. 7 The ultimate
aim of this movement is to redirect the revolution back to its proper course thus it
reaffirmed the basic principles it adhere to against revisionism. It believes that many of
these revolutionary principles were abandoned, clouded or diluted along the way, thus its
campaign cry is ‘back to the basics’!
One of these basic principles that was relegated into the side ways is the crucial
role of aesthetics in all lines of work of the revolution. It is on this belief that ARMAS
(Artista at Manunulat ng Sambayanan), the revolutionary organization of artists and
literary workers, published the special issue of ULOS (the literary journal for cadres, red
fighters and mass activists). ULOS has a twofold objective in this issue, first, to celebrate
the centennial of the Philippine Revolution of 1898; and second, to celebrate the initial
fruits of the second rectification movement.8 Many of the contributions in this issue are
rich and fitting examples for the nature of aesthetics in the Marxist tradition as espoused
by Georg Lukacs. ULOS echoes back the main task of the Marxist aesthetics/aesthetician
(in the Philippine context), “… pananatilihing buo ang loob ng rebolusnaryong pwersa
na tuparin ang mga itinakdang tungkulin nang sa gayo’y matiyak na patuloy na lalakas
and rebolusnaryong kilusan.” (to sustain unity and strengthen the revolutionary forces to
fulfill their avowed commitment.. to the revolution.).9

5
This refers to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist inspired revolutionary underground movement known as the
CPP-NPA-NDF led revolutionary organizations.
6
This refers to the main bulk of the organization that adheres to and reaffirms the basic principles laid
down in their ‘red book’, Philippine Society and Revolution.
7
The main aim of the rectification movement within the organization is to redirect and save the revolution
from the influence of revisionist political thoughts that plagued the organization. The first rectification
movement happened in the 1960s against the old communist party.
8
The ongoing revolution being waged is considered as the continuation of the unfinished Philippine
national democratic revolution of 1898. Cf. Introduction, ULOS, (Pilipinas: ARMAS, 1996), p. 5.
9
Ibid.

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ULOS , Special Issue of 1996 (SLU Research Vol 33 No. 1 June 2002

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of Georg Lukacs’

aesthetic theory to the Filipino readers. By way of ULOS’ guiding principles and its
articles as examples, the readers can recreate the imagery to which they can understand
the role of arts in the Marxist tradition. This paper will include at the end a reflection to
highlight the strength as well as the weakness of the Marxist aesthetics theory.

ULOS and Georg Lukacs’ Philosophy of Art

At the onset, it is important to note that Georg Lukacs anchors his theory of arts
from the Marxist doctrine, “ aesthetics, literary and arts are part of historical materialism
and they represent an application of dialectical materialism.”10 To understand the nature
of arts and to situate its role, it is necessary to start with the problem of art and objective
truth in Marxist-Leninist epistemology.
In the German Ideology, Marx said, it is not consciousness that determines social
existence/reality but social reality/existence determines consciousness. The objectivity of
the external world is independent of consciousness. Georg Lukacs affirms this,
The basis for any correct cognition of reality, whether of
nature or society, is the recognition of the objectivity of the
external world, that is, its existence independent of human
consciousness. Any apprehension of the external world is
nothing more than a reflection in consciousness of the
world that exists independently of consciousness. This
basic fact of the relationship of consciousness to being also
serves, of course, for the artistic reflection of reality. 11

A work of art, in its general sense and in Lukacs’ usage, is a copy, a reflection, an
imitation of reality. It functions in a way, as mediation between consciousness and
material reality. Unfortunately, in contemporary Bourgeois society, from the Marxist
view, consciousness is reified. Bourgeois culture perpetuates alienated consciousness. It
means that there is a gap between reality and the apprehension of reality, thus it leads to
the fact that there can be a false consciousness.
ULOS confirms and reaffirms the belief that artistic reflection of reality should
serve for the correct cognition of external reality. It empathically states, “…patuloy sa
paglalarawan ng iba’t ibang kulay at galaw ng buhay sa rebolusyon sa pamamagitan ng
mga obrang pampanitikan at pansining.” (through artistic expression, it continues to give
an [objective accounting] or picture of the different color and movements of life in the
revolution.)12 The same principle is emphasized in the first essay, “Ang Makauring
Panitikan ay Panitikan ng Pakikibaka” (A Class-Oriented Literature is a Revolutionary
Literature ).

10
Marx and Engels on Aesthetics, p. 63. Georg Lukacs, Writer and Critic and other essays, trans. Arthur
Kahn, (London: Merlin Press, 1978). This is also reiterated in the essay, A Marxist Philosophy of Art: The
Specific nature of Aesthetics (1963). Cf. G.H.R. Parkinson, Georg Lukacs, (London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1977).
11
Art and Objective Truth, p. 25. [Henceforth, references to this work will be abbreviated AOT]. Cf. Writer
and Critic, Ibid.
12
ULOS, p. 7.

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ULOS , Special Issue of 1996 (SLU Research Vol 33 No. 1 June 2002

Dahil ang kilusang rebolusyon’y patuloy na sumusulong at

sinusubok ng panahon, dumarami ang naiipong karanasan
ng mamamayan Kung hihimayin ang mga karanasang ito,
mababatid na tunay na makulay at masalimuot and
rebolusyon. Makapal, maraming himaymay, pasikut-sikot,
at sadyang madawag. Naglalakip ang tagumpay at
kasawian. Nagtatagis ang liwanag at dilim. May
namamatay, may nabubuhay. May namamahinga sa
pagkilos; pero mas marami ang nakakaigpaw sa mga
suliranin para patuloy na lumahok sa rebolusyon. Kilusan
itong nabibigwasan ng pagkakamali, nadidiskaril ang
takbo dahil sa paglihis, ngunit mapagpakumbabang
umaamin ng kahinaan at masigasig na nagwawasto at
patuloy na nagpapalakas. (Because the revolution is being
tempered by the different challenges of time, the
revolutionary experience of the people becomes so rich and
colorful. It is full of falling and rising, victories and defeats.
There are those who die, others survive; still others take
some rest but there are more who overcomes the difficulties
and challenges in order to advance the revolution. This is a
movement that is tempered with experiences of downfall
and defeat because disorientation but it was humble enough
to recognize its mistakes and weaknesses and resolute in its
resolve to rectify and continue to advance its goal.)13

False consciousness leads to the misreading of the objective reality and in the experience
of the revolutionary movement, this led to the disorientation that plagued the
organization.
To avoid this, for the Marxist, objective reality should be approached in the
dialectical manner. This thought is influenced by Hegel’s phenomenology that truth
emerges in process-dialectics. In the materialist application of this, Lukacs quoted Lenin,
Lenin’s theory of revolutionary praxis rests on his
recognition of the fact that reality is always richer and more
varied than the best and most comprehensive theory that
can be developed to apprehend it, and at the same time,
however, it rests on the consciousness that with the active
application of dialectics, one can learn from reality,
apprehend important new factors in reality, and apply them
in practice.14

Lukacs warns both the idealist and materialist application of dialectics in reality.
He attacks mechanical materialism is that it strives for the objective, but only in the
crudest form. On the other hand, idealism, (for instance, bourgeois aesthetics) loses touch

13
Ibid., p. 9. The English translations in this paper are not direct translations but a dynamic
correspondence. They are meant to give a gist/general idea of the pilipino text quoted.
14
AOT, p. 29 in Writer and Critic., [hereafter, references to this text will be abbreviated WC].

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ULOS , Special Issue of 1996 (SLU Research Vol 33 No. 1 June 2002

with material reality. Applying this theory of dialectics, Lukacs reiterates the goal of all
great arts where the universal is reflected in the particular work,
The goal of all great arts is connected to the dialectical
approach to objective reality. The goal for all great art is to
provide a picture of reality in which the contradiction
between appearance and reality, the particular and the
general, the immediate and the conceptual, etc., is so
resolved that the two converge into a spontaneous integrity
in the direct impression of the work of art and provide a
sense of an inseparable integrity. The universal appears as a
quality of the individual and the particular, reality becomes
manifest and can be experienced within appearance..15

Writing an aesthetic theory that is faithful to the standpoint of historical

materialism is not at all an easy task. Georg Lukacs experienced this difficulty. In his
critical standpoint, he sees the possibility of a disadvantage that he may give a one-sided
answer to the question ‘What is Art?’ Lukacs likewise, complains that it is not
immediately clear how the method of Marxist dialectics is to be applied in the field of
aesthetics. The classics of Marxism, he says, “do not provide even the skeleton of an
aesthetics; there can be no question of constructing a Marxist aesthetics by a mere
exposition of text”16 In this regard, the Marxist aesthetician, then, must to some extent
work on his own. Yet he is not original in what he does because the method he employs
are derived from the study of the whole body of Marxist classics. The Marxist
aesthetician owes a debt to more than these. He also adhere to the great intellectual
traditions that preceded Marxism, particularly, Lukacs mentions Aristotle and Hegel. 17
From the preceding account, we can understand that Georg Lukacs struggled to
keep his aesthetic theory within the framework orthodox Marxism. We shall observe later
that he will recognize the necessary tension created between the work of art and the
external reality. The difficulty comes from his close adherence to Marxist epistemology,
where the external world/reality is independent of consciousness and it is always richer,
varied and inexhaustible and no theory, concept, idea, reflection or copy can totality
grasp it, Lukacs concludes that truth cannot be grasped directly and objective reality
cannot be captured directly.
Dealing further on this question, Lukacs does not go beyond classical Marxism.
He holds on to the view that thought and sensations are copies of reality. He says that
ideas are true or false, not simply by virtue of their coherence or non-coherence with
other ideas, but by virtue of their relations to the external world. To call an idea a copy is
not necessary to say that it is true; as we have seen, magic may be said to reflect reality in
a way. A true idea, we may infer, is a good copy, a false idea is a bad one; but the point is
that such ideas are about the external world; their truth or falsity is measured by their
relation to it.18

15
AOT, p. 34 in WC.
16
Lukacs, The Specific Nature of the Aesthetics, pp.17-18, in Parkinson, Georg Lukacs, p. 128.
17
The Specific Nature of the Aesthetics, p. 18. Ibid.
18
Ibid.p.130.

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From this discussion, Lukacs is making an argument on the specific nature of a

work of art. He wants to distinguish a work of art from other types of reflection. The
artist gives its own contribution in making a reflection of reality through a work of art. A
work of art is not simply a crude or a one-sided reflection of reality, but also the artist is
saying something about the nature of reality or about reality itself. This is like hearing
Hegel saying that every work of art contains a kernel of an important truth about reality.
In here, it follows then, that in every work of art the artist creates, as it where,
reality becomes manifest and experience within the appearance, the reflection. The artist
can create in a work of art the ‘historical here and now of its origin.’ 19 Lukacs is not just
saying that a work of art is historically determined. He means that a work of art
transforms the past into an ‘experienced present’, making the historical here and now
come alive. The work of art awakens in man ones sense of history.
The four articles in ULOS, one short story and three poems, are good examples to
this aspect of the nature of art as seen by Georg Lukacs. The short story is entitled,
“Ingkong Belong” (“Ingkong” is the traditional polite way of calling or addressing an old
man). The memories and pains of a veteran soldier of the Philippine Revolution of 1898
are depicted in this story. Through the craftsmanship of the author, the story manages the
meeting of three generations of revolutionaries with different perspectives. The first
poem is entitled, “Ang Sigaw ng Dakila” (The Cry of the Noble) authored by no other
than the founder and leader of the 1930 Communist Party of the Philippines, Crisanto
Evangelista. “Sometimes the Heart Yearns for Mangoes” and “The Giant Oak” are
contributions of Jose Maria Sison. The former is a poem expressing his nostalgia to his
motherland, the latter is a tribute to the Maoist Thought. These articles embody the
awakening of one’s sense of history and nationalism.
Up to this point, we have seen that Georg Lukacs is making an account on the
specific nature/character of a work of art. Faithful to his earlier assertion, Lukacs goes
farther and stresses that the work of art “creates its own world,…distinct from everyday
reality.”20 A work of art, once fashioned in a certain form, has its own life, a new world
emerges through all the details of the work
With this assertion, Lukacs steps on the breaks and ask the query, “Does not the
establishment of such particularity in a work of art precludes the fulfillment of its
function as a reflection of reality?” Defending his thesis, Lukacs argues,
It merely affirms the special character, the peculiar kind of
reflection of reality there is in art. The apparently
circumscribed world in the work of art and its apparent
non-correspondence with reality are founded on this
peculiar character of the artistic reflection of reality. For
this non-correspondence is merely an illusion, though a
necessary one, essential and intrinsic to art. The effect of
art, the immersion of the receptant in the action of the work
of art, his complete penetration into the special “world” of
the work of art, result from the fact that the work by its
very nature offers a truer, more complete, more vivid and
more dynamic reflection of reality than the receptant

19
The Specific Nature of the Aesthetics, Ibid.p. 132.
20
AOT, p. 36 in WC.

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ULOS , Special Issue of 1996 (SLU Research Vol 33 No. 1 June 2002

otherwise possesses, that it conducts him on the basis of his

own experiences and on the basis of the organization and
generalization of his previous reproduction of reality
beyond the bounds of his experiences toward a more
concrete insight into reality.21

The created world of the work of art is a necessary illusion intrinsic to art. The
experience of the work of art involves the contradiction between the illusion of the work
of art and material reality. Here lies a tall task/challenge to the Marxist aesthetician.
At this point, the literary pieces in ULOS seem to depart from this aspect of the
nature of art as described. The literary pieces in ULOS somewhere creates/recreates a
certain world but not necessarily fictional and illusionary worlds. The works of art in
ULOS reflect correctly and in proper proportion the important factors objectively
determining the area of life they represent. They recreate the ‘objective world’ they
represent to the reader and allow the reader to enter into such world in order to
understand the objective world the work of art mirrors. ULOS does not claim that it
reflects the objective, extensive totality of revolutionary life because it is aware of the
fact that the totality of reality is beyond the possible scope of any artistic creation. In the
short story, “Pag-aalay” (Offering), one enters the world and understands the life of the
fulltime activists/cadres in the underground movement. One can almost feel and smell
the action of an actual arm encounter between the red fighters and the military in the
short story, “Engkwentro” (Encounter). There is also a totality that is created in each
work of art.
When Lukacs’ speaks of the work of art creating its own world, he wants to
emphasize the ‘self-containment’ of every work of art, meaning, a work of art stands in
its own. In its own, a work of art is a ‘totality’. We have to take note that the work of art
is a reflection of reality not the objective reality itself. When, in a work of art,
represents/reflects a fragment of objective reality, it creates a world, as if this world is the
real one and the totality of the objective reality. Perhaps, this is what Lukacs is referring
to when it speaks of the necessary illusion intrinsic in every work of art.
Here, we reach another feature of the work of art that ULOS and Lukacs
converge. As we are saying, the short stories in ULOS create as it where, a totality of a
world. Lukacs also, speaks of this as the evocative character of the work of art.
According to Lukacs, art evokes feelings, emotions or passion but these are not end in
themselves. The emotional effects of the work of art are not just unintended. They must
be a result of a conscious direction on the part of the artist. Also, what the work of art
evokes are not emotions of any kind. What the work of art evokes is the experience of
totality, the experience of a world. It is the objective world as reflected by man.22 Here,
Lukacs is making a connection of an idea he adapted from Hegel applied in the case of

21
AOT. P. 36. Ibid.
22
Lukacs reason in saying this is that he regards the way to self-knowledge as going through knowledge of
what is external to one, knowledge of the society in which one lives. Such knowledge, by virtue of Lukacs’
view about dialectics, must be knowledge of totality. Cf. Parkinson, Georg Lukacs, pp.132-133. This theme
of ‘totality’ is related to the ‘self-containment’ of every work of art. Cf. AOT, pp. 36-40.

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ULOS , Special Issue of 1996 (SLU Research Vol 33 No. 1 June 2002

aesthetics. He holds that man can know himself only in knowing the world that surrounds
him. This arrival to self-consciousness is mediated by the work of art.23
It has been seen how a work of art, by evoking a world in the reader, leads him to
self-consciousness. To Lukacs, the work of art does much more than this. It turns the
audience/reader into what he calls ‘man’s totality’, and it produces in him a ‘catharsis’.
The catharsis of which Lukacs speaks is a transformation, by means of the experience of
works of art, of the individual into the integral, all-sided man. Lukacs sums this up by
saying,
A shaking of the recipient’s subjectivity, such that the
passions that manifest themselves in his life receive new
contents, a new direction, and are purified in such a way
that they become the spiritual basis of virtuous powers.24

This cathartic character that is present in a work of art is illustrated in ULOS. It

believes on the transformative capacity of the work of art. In the essay, “Ang Makauring
Panitikan ay Panitikan ng Pakikibaka” (A Class-Oriented Literature is a Revolutionary
Literature), we read,
Ang pagpapayabong ng rebolusyonaryong panitikan ay
mahalagang sangkap sa pagpapanibagong-lakas ng
kilusang rebolusyonaryo. (The flourishing of the
revolutionary literature is an important aspect for the
strengthening of the revolutionary movement.)25

Dahil sa mahirap at masalimuot ang rebolusyon, mulat din

ang panitikang ito na may pinanghihinaan ng loob, may
bumabagsak ang moral. Ngunit mas marami naman ang
nagsisikap na magpatuloy. Kaya’t ang panitikanng
rebolusyonaryo’y mapanlabang panitikan, itinataas ang
moral ng mga pulang mandirigma, kadre at aktibistang
masa para patuloy silang manalig sa tagumpay ng
rebolusyonaryong pakikibaka. (Since the revolution is
difficult and arduous, ULOS is aware that there are those
who become exhausted physically and morally. But there
are also many who struggle and strive to continue. The task
of ULOS is to strengthen, sustain and heighten the moral of
the red fighters, cadres and mass-activist for them to remain
faithful and hopeful for the victory of the revolutionary
struggle.26

23
Hegel holds that objects are really the mind in a self-estranged or alienated form; the return from
alienation is the mind’s realization of this fact. Lukacs rejects this as a theory about the nature of the
external world, but believes that something similar holds in the case of aesthetics. Ibid. p. 133.
24
The Specific Nature of the Aesthetics, p. 818 quoted in Parkinson, Georg Lukacs , p.136.
25
ULOS, p. 9.
26
ULOS, p. 12.

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To this end, there still the unresolved issue of the objectivity of the artistic
reflection as presented in the work of art. This problem is inherent in the specific nature
of art as a ‘self-contained’ reality and the artist intervention as regard to the interplay of
artistic form and content. Lukacs insists on the partisanship of objectivity in the work of
art,
This partisanship of objectivity must therefore be found
intensified in the work of art – intensified in clarity and
distinctness, for the subject matter of a work art is
consciously arranged and ordered by the artist toward this
goal, in the sense of this partisanship; intensified, however,
in objectivity too, for a genuine work of art is directed
specifically toward depicting this partisanship as a quality
in the subject matter, presenting it as a motive force
inherent in it and growing organically out of it.27

Lukacs criticizes bourgeois aesthetic theory as always degenerates into

subjectivism. Such subjectivism is manifested by the “social isolation of the personally
dedicated artist in a declining society… this is mirrored in the mystical, subjective
inflation of the principle of form divorced from any connection with life. This ‘art for art
sake’ theory evolves into a theory of a contemptuous, parasitic divorce of art in life, into
a denial of any objectivity in art, a glorification of the ‘sovereignty’ of a creative
individual and a theory of indifference to content and arbitrariness in form.”28
What is the objectivity of the artistic reflection of reality? Lukacs answers,
The objectivity of the artistic reflection of reality depends
on the correct reflection of the totality. The artistic
correctness of a detail thus has nothing to do with whether
the detail corresponds to any similar detail in reality. The
detail in a work of art is an accurate reflection of life when
it is a necessary aspect of the accurate reflection of the total
process of objective reality, no matter whether it was
observed by the artist in life or created through imagination
out of direct or indirect experience.29

Lukacs considers the significance of the dialectical unity of form and content in
art as a resolution to the issue of the objectivity of the artistic reflection of reality. Here,
using the Marxist eyeglasses, he is reaffirming the interrelationship of form and content
as seen by Hegel. “Just as in the process of the reflection of reality through thought, the
categories that are most general, the most abstracted from the surface of the world of
phenomena, from sense data, therefore, express the most abstract laws governing nature
and men. It is only a question of making clear what this highest level of abstraction
signifies in art.30”

27
AOT, p. 40. in WC. It is in this light that Lukacs likewise speaks of ‘healthy and sick art’. See Healthy or
Sick Art? WC, pp. 103-109.
28
AOT, p. 42.
29
AOT, p. 43.
30
AOT, p. 45.

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In the Marxist sense, the task of art is the reflection of concrete reality but reality
is so vast and a work of art can only provide an extract of reality. Here lies the
significance of the artistic form. It is the responsibility of the artistic form to prevent this
extract of reality to collapse to the effect of an extract but keep it as a self-contained
whole. Lukacs elaborates further,
Since the work of art has to act as a self-contained whole
and since the concreteness of objective reality must be
reconstituted in perceptual immediacy in the work of art, all
those factors which objectively make the concrete concrete
must be depicted in their interrelation and unity. In the
work of art, any extract, any event, any individual or any
aspect of the individual’s life must represent such a context
in its concreteness, thus in the unity of all its inherent
important determinants. These determinants must in the
first place be present from the start of the work; secondly,
they must appear in their greatest purity, clarity and
typicality;…No matter how paradoxical it may sound, an
intensification of concreteness in comparison with life must
therefore accompany the process of developing artistic
form and the path to generalization.31

The content of the work of art must be transformed into a

form through which it can achieve its full artistic
effectiveness. Form is nothing but the highest abstraction,
the highest mode of condensation of content, of the extreme
intensification of motivations, of constituting the proper
proportion among the individual motivations and the
hierarchy of importance among the individual
contradictions of the life mirrored in the work of art.32

Given all of these, Lukacs assigns a tall task to the Marxist aesthetician of having
“the responsibility of developing the concept of form as a mode of reflection to
demonstrate how this objectivity emerges in the creative process as objectivity, as truth
independent of the artist’s consciousness.”33
ULOS is also aware of this task and challenge. To be faithful of its avowed
responsibility, it reminds the revolutionary artists, “kailangan ng manunulat na tuwirang
lumahok sa rebolusyon, makipamuhay sa masang manggagawa’t magsasaka,
maglingkod sa inaaping uri at patuloy, walang sawang magsulat na taglay ang
makauring paninindigan.” (the artist needs to participate/join in the revolution, live with
the basic masses – workers and peasants, serve the oppressed classes and continue to
work with the proletarian standpoint.)34

31
AOT, pp. 47-48.
32
AOT, pp. 50-51.
33
AOT, p. 53.
34
ULOS, p. 10.

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The dominance of the bourgeois culture in the contemporary society makes the
task of the Marxist aesthetician formidable. The task of Marxist aesthetics can only be
achieved in constant struggle against bourgeois aesthetics. A relentless struggle against
the subjectivization of art dominant in contemporary bourgeois aesthetics must be
waged.35 This struggle wage by Marxist aesthetician is not a separate struggle from the
other forms but an integral part of the whole revolutionary struggle.36

Concluding Reflection
The contribution of the Marxist thought lies on its view of social transformation.
It promotes a purposeful human action to carry through this transformation. It portrays a
worldview where things are not fixed, and it strives for change. In view of this, Marxism
emphasizes an ideal of social power for the oppressed masses. Marxism also has the
strength of its critical role. Its critical perspective could not be ignored for it plays a role
in helping people see the shortcomings and weaknesses in their own social systems. It is
in this light that aesthetics plays a crucial role. Aesthetics is a potent tool for the masses
to critically analyze their reified situation, to work collectively to change this oppressive
situation and to rally themselves to decide the direction of their history.
Marxist aesthetics recognize this power of art/images within a culture. Since
Marxism is a critique of capitalist-bourgeois culture, then, Marxist aesthetics is a critique
of the power of art/images in a capitalist-bourgeois culture.
In this strength lies also the weakness of the Marxist theory of art. Marxist
aesthetics is reduced as simply an appendage to application of dialectical and historical
materialism and its rigid compliance to the Marxist epistemology led to its own
impoverishment. In the actual revolutionary praxis, aesthetics is subordinated to the
political theories and policies that advance class struggle. There are no room for artistic
exploration and speculation. This is so because Marxist theoretical and critical work
typically reduces culture either to ideology and meaning or to an anti-humanist concern
for the production of meaning. Since Marxist aesthetics is not broad enough, this poses a
serious political consequence for it fails to engage popular conceptions of art.

Bibliography
Lukacs, Georg. Writer and the Critic and Other Essays, Trans. Arthur Kahn.

35
AOT, p.57.
36
ULOS, p.11.

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London: Merlin Press, 1978.

Parkinson, G.H.R. Georg Lukacs, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977.
Nelson, Cary (Ed). Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, London:
Macmillan Education,1988.

Giordano, John. Aesthetics Part III: The Critical Theory of the Image in Contem-
Porary Society (Lukacs to Baudrillard).Lecture Notes/Handout on Advance
Aesthetics, Summer 2001.

____________. ULOS. Pilipinas: ARMAS, 1996.

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