藝術生態壁龕中的創作者、作品與觀者：淺談貢布里希與藝術社會學之間的關係 (Creators, works and spectators in the artistic-ecological niche: Issues related to E. H. Gombrich and the sociology of art)

Zusammenfassung

E. H. Gombrich wrote several articles in which he criticized the theory formulated by the art historian Arnold Hauser in Social History of Art and the “social determinism” of the philosopher G. W. F. Hegel. The main purpose of this paper is to review Gombrich’s critique, in order to master the interpretation made by Gombrich about the sociology of art and other related issues. The article consists of five sections. Section I reveals the essential content and purpose of the paper. Section II clarifies the sense in which Gombrich admits the existential significance of the sociology of art, and how he criticizes the radical socialhistorical determinism from the perspective of the personal constituent freedom of the artist. Section III discusses the concepts of the style and taste from the perspective of the “ecological niche”. As for the complicated components of the artistic value, they are rethought in Section IV, which emphasis on Gombrich’s anthropological approaches to this matter. The last section summarizes the fundamental ideas discussed in the former sections. Gombrich knows well the interaction which exists between the creator and the spectator as well as their corresponding fields. He refuses to deploy the sociological method as the only instrument to judge the value of artistic works. For he thinks that, in such a way, the human dimension of creation and contemplation may be forgotten, and the decisive factor in the direction of the artistic ecology may be obliterated by the tide of fashion. The various dimensions involved in the artistic creation－such as social orientation, fashion orientation, tradition orientation, the creator’s praxis orientation and the spectator’s experience orientation－are believed by Gombrich to be rooted in the one and same axis, which is the free choice of individuals in specific situations.