Although Arthur Pontynen was trained as a specialist in East Asian art and culture, the focus of his academic research research and teaching centers on a cosmopolitan but now commonly neglected choice. We can either seek a violent aestheticism in our lives, or we can seek truth, goodness, and beauty. In the face of a dominant yet failed Modernist-Postmodernist ideology today so common in the academy, Dr. Pontynen advocates development of the critical language by which we can pursue the truth.
The conflict between relativism and the pursuit of truth is developed in Dr. Pontynen's “For the Love of Beauty: Art, History,” and the “Moral Foundations of Aesthetic Judgment” (Transaction Publishers, 2006).
Dr. Pontynen research first focused on how a Modernist-Postmodernist view of Asian cultures destroys the truth claims of those cultures. His research then led to a study of how that view also undermines the Classical-Judaeo-Christian foundations of Western culture. The conclusion is that the Modernist-Postmodernist tradition is deeply subversive of the very existence of culture itself--with terrible consequences.
By advocating the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty he offers a view of fine art and culture that not only affirms the foundations of the traditional West, it affirms also that such a pursuit is a cosmopolitan solution to the failure of what is now a worldwide cultural malaise.
Dr. Pontynen holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Iowa and has taught at the University of Iowa, Lewis and Clark College, and Stephen F. Austin University. He is former Chairman of the Department of Art at the University of Wisconsin--Oshkosh, and has been awarded Smithsonian, Heritage Foundation, and National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships. His numerous publications and reviews are found in a wide variety of venues including the “Art Bulletin,” “Oriental Art,” “Bulletin of the Field Museum,” “ACE: Art and Christian Enquiry,” and “American Outlook Magazine.”
Although Arthur Pontynen was trained as a specialist in East Asian art and culture, the focus of his academic research research and teaching centers on a cosmopolitan but now commonly neglected choice. We can either seek a violent aestheticism in our lives, or we can seek truth, goodness, and beauty. In the face of a dominant yet failed Modernist-Postmodernist ideology today so common in the academy, Dr. Pontynen advocates development of the critical language by which we can pursue the truth.