Are there aesthetic "rules"?

Ron Raducanu

Ron Raducanu

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Feb 10, 2021
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Obviously we all want to make something that is pleasing to the eye and functional as a cutting tool.

The question is more towards shapes and lines. I look at lots of pictures and watch lots of YTs and many knives seem to have the same shape with respect to blade shape and what handle shape they go with. Is that something people expect?

For example, when you see a Bowie knife shape, it always has a guard. Whereas you hardly ever see a bushcraft type knife with a guard. That kind of thing. Are there reasons for this, or it more of a style question?

I don't even know if I'm asking the question correctly, but as a new knife maker, it's something I've been thinking about. Thoughts?
 
Yes and no. I try to follow a couple basics with my hunting/bushcraft knives.
1. Keep the pommel sharp. I got this from Andy Roy of Fiddleback Forge http://knife-gear.com/get-a-grip/ He also mentions that the handle length should be equal to/a little more than the blade length.
2. The spine should be a slight arch from tip to heel
 
Ron Raducanu said:
For example, when you see a Bowie knife shape, it always has a guard. Whereas you hardly ever see a bushcraft type knife with a guard. That kind of thing. Are there reasons for this, or it more of a style question?
Click to expand...

Are you familiar with the phrase "Form follows function?"

Most quality tools make function a significantly higher priority than form, so this means there's usually a reason why things are there.

One functional reason why most bowies have a guard is that the bowie is a fighting tool, and stabbing is a common act in fighting with knives, and it would be very bad if, while stabbing someone, the hand was to slide up the grip onto the blade and the guard helps prevent this.
Having a guard on a skinner, for example, might not be functional because it might get in the way, preventing efficient skinning of an animal. So if skinning game is something a bushcraft knife might do, then a having a guard might be a bad idea.

But it's also just as likely that decisions are made based on style preferences....
 
weo said:
Are you familiar with the phrase "Form follows function?"
Click to expand...

I am.

However, the classic tanto, which is used as a stabber, doesn't always have a guard. I realize it's fashioned after a wakizashi, which does have a guard, but Cold Steel's initially offering either didn't have a guard, or it was really small. Koss on YT makes tantos with no guard. And they are stunning.

That's kinda what I mean.
 
You'll have to wait for an answer from someone that knows more about tantos, then. But I'd be willing to wager that you'll get a mix of both form and functional reasons.
 
IMHO classic designs are hard to beat in terms of function. The level of craftsmanship is primarily in HT, finish and quality materials. There is a lot of room in handle construction and shaping, small details (like choil, sweeping grind, ricasso, guard shape...) and material choice to put your own signature.

I approach new designs or alternation of classic designs relatively critically. I am no against new designs per sé, but I think one really needs to understand why something is being altered (apart from looking cool or new).
 
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Ron Raducanu said:
Obviously we all want to make something that is pleasing to the eye and functional as a cutting tool.

The question is more towards shapes and lines. I look at lots of pictures and watch lots of YTs and many knives seem to have the same shape with respect to blade shape and what handle shape they go with. Is that something people expect?

For example, when you see a Bowie knife shape, it always has a guard. Whereas you hardly ever see a bushcraft type knife with a guard. That kind of thing. Are there reasons for this, or it more of a style question?

I don't even know if I'm asking the question correctly, but as a new knife maker, it's something I've been thinking about. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

There absolutely ARE rules to aesthetics. This is the intention of the term. But more on that later.

Form, or the operational shape of an object, is often governed by tradition, which is itself often governed by hidebound expectations of what an object should look like. So you get differing responses to, say, the so-called American tanto knife. Experts on traditional Japanese swords and knives will shake their heads at the angular chisel point of the tip while those who grew up looking at Cold Steel knives will say that a 17c Japanese knife is "not a tanto" because the point has a soft curve. Just look at debates about what the "original Bowie knife" looked like. It is quite the rabbit hole.

In its English use, aesthetics is a philosophical term. It is from the 18c and attempts to elicit classical sentiments for what is beautiful, or pleasing to the eye and edifying to the spirit. It is also an attempt to codify what in the visual and musical and even literary arts is in harmony with nature (or even Nature). See Hogarth's treatise on The Line of Beauty, which all knifemakers should examine, whether they heed it or not. Early Modern thinkers posit that these rules are set in nature, transcend culture, and are accessible to all educated minds. The immutability of aesthetic laws is part and parcel of Enlightenment thinking.

Now compare art of the 17h and 18c with the 19c Impressionists. What travesties Seurat, Degas, Van Gogh, and others were! And less than a century later Duchamp, Picasso, and others! Nevermind his "Nude Descending A Staircase", Marcel Duchamp signed a goddamn urinal and put it in a gallery, for crissakes! This was in 1917, only a century after Napoleon! You don't have to be a Ph.D to read the message: "I am pissing all over your aesthetics."

OK, as a former scholar of these things, I can wax on about them endlessly and you definitely don't want that. Others have written about the subject a great deal better than I ever will. So let me end with this recommendation as a Deweyite: Educate yourself as best as you can in the traditions that come before us. Visit museums (in person as much as possible, virtually when necessary) to discover what has come before our current era and understand the contexts in which they swam. Play with the ideas of those who came before and interrogate their intentions. Find out where they were stretching the boundaries of what came before them. Then make some decisions on where you want to be on the spectrum. Will you adhere to Classical lines? Will you follow Enlightenment rules of aesthetics? Will you be a Modernist? Or maybe you will be Postmodern and jumble the aesthetic rules simply to please yourself. But whatever you do, examine your motives for doing so. If you come across a sense of style that pervades your work across many pieces, you may be treading on a new set of aesthetic rules that are original to you!

As for my take on knife aesthetics, I am particularly traditional in my tastes: Scandinavian knives should not have guards, tantos should have gently curving points (Lynn Thompson be damned), Bowies are ever evolving and can take a variety of forms (because, history), pocket clips belong on box cutters not Buck knives, and, for reasons not clear to me, the shape of Shirogorov knives makes me viscerally uncomfortable. To name only a few.

So yes, there are aesthetic rules, but the knife police aren't coming to arrest you for breaking them. Form often follows function, but sometimes form follows thought, and every knife is an intellectual exercise until it fills your hand and makes its first cut.

Zieg
 
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The Zieg said:
There absolutely ARE rules to aesthetics. This is the intention of the term. But more on that later.

Form, or the operational shape of an object, is often governed by tradition, which is itself often governed by hidebound expectations of what an object should look like. So you get differing responses to, say, the so-called American tanto knife. Experts on traditional Japanese swords and knives will shake their heads at the angular chisel point of the tip while those who grew up looking at Cold Steel knives will say that a 17c Japanese knife is "not a tanto" because the point has a soft curve. Just look at debates about what the "original Bowie knife" looked like. It is quite the rabbit hole.

In its English use, aesthetics is a philosophical term. It is from the 18c and attempts to elicit classical sentiments for what is beautiful, or pleasing to the eye and edifying to the spirit. It is also an attempt to codify what in the visual and musical and even literary arts is in harmony with nature (or even Nature). See Hogarth's treatise on The Line of Beauty, which all knifemakers should examine, whether they heed it or not. Early Modern thinkers posit that these rules are set in nature, transcend culture, and are accessible to all educated minds. The immutability of aesthetic laws is part and parcel of Enlightenment thinking.

Now compare art of the 17h and 18c with the 19c Impressionists. What travesties Seurat, Degas, Van Gogh, and others were! And less than a century later Duchamp, Picasso, and others! Nevermind "Nude Descending A Staircase", Duchamp signed a goddamn urinal and put it in a gallery, for crissakes! In 1917, only a century after Napoleon! You don't have to be a Ph.D to read the message: "I am pissing all over your aesthetics."

OK, as a former scholar of these things, I can wax on about them endlessly and you definitely don't want that. Others have written about the subject a great deal better than I ever will. So let me end with this recommendation as a Deweyite: Educate yourself as best as you can in the traditions that come before us. Visit museums (in person as much as possible, virtually when necessary) to discover what has come before our current era and understand the contexts in which they swam. Play with the ideas of those who came before and interrogate their intentions. Find out where they were stretching the boundaries of what came before them. Then make some decisions on where you want to be on the spectrum. Will you adhere to Classical lines? Will you follow Enlightenment rules of aesthetics? Will you be a Modernist? Or maybe you will be Postmodern and jumble the aesthetic rules simply to please yourself. But whatever you do, examine your motives for doing so. If you come across a sense of style that pervades your work across many pieces, you may be treading on a new set of aesthetic rules that are original to you!

As for my take on knife aesthetics, I am particularly traditional in my tastes: Scandinavian knives should not have guards, tantos should have gently curving points (Lynn Thompson be damned), Bowies are ever evolving and can take a variety of forms (because, history), pocket clips belong on box cutters not Buck knives, and, for reasons not clear to me, the shape of Shirogorov knives makes me viscerally uncomfortable. To name only a few.

So yes, there are aesthetic rules, but the knife police aren't coming to arrest you for breaking them. Form often follows function, but sometimes form follows thought, and every knife is an intellectual exercise until it fills your hand and makes its first cut.

Zieg
Click to expand...

One could say the terms "aesthetics" and "tanto" get tossed around in the same garbled way. :D
 
Mecha said:
One could say the terms "aesthetics" and "tanto" get tossed around in the same garbled way. :D
Click to expand...
I agree. "Aesthetics" is usually used simply to mean "how something looks," and is often associated with complete subjectivity. I suppose there's no problem with this colloquial use as long as we understand one another. Tanto is a funny one, though. It just means "short sword" in Japanese, but of course references certain blade types throughout history and location. So you'd never point at an Italian cinquedea and say, "Oh, look, a tanto!" But damn, if a cinquedea isn't one hell of a (short) sword!

I was giving my brother-in-law a little info on knives from Spain. He was a Hispanophile, married to a woman from Madrid, went back to Spain with his family several times a year, and was asking if I wanted him to bring me back anything. I said, "Yes, a nice traditional ratcheting navaja!" He looked at me blankly and said, "Navaja just means 'knife'. You'll have to be more specific than that." But all of us here know exactly what I meant. So what is a navaja? Well, in Spanish it's just a knife. But it can mean something specific, and the aesthetics of the 18c folding navaja are specific to the degree that period deviations from it can be surprising.

Puukko is likewise a seemingly fixed form. In Finnish it just means knife. It is not the most used word for knife; that would be veitsi. But a puukko could take a wide range of forms and still be a puukko in the Finnish language. But when Benchmade came out with their knife called a puukko, as a Scandinavian knife lover I was hoppin' mad. I was ready to go puukkojunkkarit on those paskiaiset! Perkele! But what was the problem? It was a knife, after all. Call it whatever you want. But it violates the traditional lines of a Finnish field knife: It has a ricasso and a sharpening notch. Its grip is strangely formed to one's palm. It has a slight drop point. It has a secondary bevel! It just looks wrong for something to be called a puukko. But have a look at Heimo Roselli's vaarinpuukko. Upswept blade. Slight finger guard. It does not look like a puukko should. But it is a knife. It is from a traditional Finnish knife smith. What're you gonna do? Aesthetically, the vaarinpuukko is a troubling knife. It has a strange transition from blade to handle that interrupts the eye's trip along its length. (Full disclosure: I have one and it is one of my favorite knives of all time.) Compare it to Roselli's other puukot, particularly the Carpenter's Knife. That knife says puukko to me. Its lines make sense. They even have a slight reference to Hogarth's Line of Beauty, if you squint just a little. Both knives are puukot. The vaarinpuukko does not win points for tradition, though.

Well, that digression went far afield, I think. Aesthetics can be wide ranging as a discussion, no doubt!

Zieg
 
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The Zieg said:
I agree. "Aesthetics" is usually used simply to mean "how something looks," and is often associated with complete subjectivity. I suppose there's no problem with this colloquial use as long as we understand one another. Tanto is a funny one, though. It just means "short sword" in Japanese, but of course references certain blade types throughout history and location. So you'd never point at an Italian cinquedea and say, "Oh, look, a tanto!" But damn, if a cinquedea isn't one hell of a (short) sword!

I was giving my brother-in-law a little info on knives from Spain. He was a Hispanophile, married to a woman from Madrid, went back to Spain with his family several times a year, and was asking if I wanted him to bring me back anything. I said, "Yes, a nice traditional ratcheting navaja!" He looked at me blankly and said, "Navaja just means 'knife'. You'll have to be more specific than that." But all of us here know exactly what I meant. So what is a navaja? Well, in Spanish it's just a knife. But it can mean something specific, and the aesthetics of the 18c folding navaja are specific to the degree that period deviations from it can be surprising.

Puukko is likewise a seemingly fixed form. In Finnish it just means knife. It is not the most used word for knife; that would be veitsi. But a puukko could take a wide range of forms and still be a puukko in the Finnish language. But when Benchmade came out with their knife called a puukko, as a Scandinavian knife lover I was hoppin' mad. I was ready to go puukkojunkkarit on those paskiaiset! Perkele! But what was the problem? It was a knife, after all. Call it whatever you want. But it violates the traditional lines of a Finnish field knife: It has a ricasso and a sharpening notch. Its grip is strangely formed to one's palm. It has a slight drop point. It has a secondary bevel! It just looks wrong for something to be called a puukko. But have a look at Heimo Roselli's vaarinpuukko. Upswept blade. Slight finger guard. It does not look like a puukko should. But it is a knife. It is from a traditional Finnish knife smith. What're you gonna do? Aesthetically, the vaarinpuukko is a troubling knife. It has a strange transition from blade to handle that interrupts the eye's trip along its length. (Full disclosure: I have one and it is one of my favorite knives of all time.) Compare it to Roselli's other puukot, particularly the Carpenter's Knife. That knife says puukko to me. Its lines make sense. They even have a slight reference to Hogarth's Line of Beauty, if you squint just a little. Both knives are puukot. The vaarinpuukko does not win points for tradition, though.

Well, that digression went far afield, I think. Aesthetics can be wide ranging as a discussion, no doubt!

Zieg
Click to expand...
This reminds of some of the debates that happen in the HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) world, especially in the Italian 16th and 17th century material. There's a lot of debate about whether a particular master was talking about 'arming swords' or 'sideswords' or 'rapiers' or 'broadswords' or any number of other categories. The problem comes from the fact that the Italian masters don't have any of those terms - all the single-hand swords are called 'spada'. Often, the accompanying artwork was not drawn by the master (or necessarily even approved by him - often the publisher commissioned the art, not the author). There's also a tendency for the artists to use older styles of sword than are current with the treatise, maybe because they look better, or because the more open hilts make it easier to see the position of the hand.

And most of the authors don't describe the sword they expect you to use at all - just get your spada and go. For example, Giovanni Dall'Agocchie, writing in 1572, puts a little effort into describing the offhand dagger you should use. He gives extremely detailed measurements of the lance you should use for jousting (and even includes a little ruler on the edge of one page, so you can be sure that your 'inch' matches his). But he gives zero information about the sword - nothing about blade length, nothing about hilt style, nothing about weight, etc. He expects you to use whatever you have in hand.

But us modern reinterpreters will still waste a lot of breath (and spill a lot of digital ink) arguing about what type of 'spada' he had in mind.

-Tyson
 
The Zieg said:
I agree. "Aesthetics" is usually used simply to mean "how something looks," and is often associated with complete subjectivity. I suppose there's no problem with this colloquial use as long as we understand one another. Tanto is a funny one, though. It just means "short sword" in Japanese, but of course references certain blade types throughout history and location. So you'd never point at an Italian cinquedea and say, "Oh, look, a tanto!" But damn, if a cinquedea isn't one hell of a (short) sword!

I was giving my brother-in-law a little info on knives from Spain. He was a Hispanophile, married to a woman from Madrid, went back to Spain with his family several times a year, and was asking if I wanted him to bring me back anything. I said, "Yes, a nice traditional ratcheting navaja!" He looked at me blankly and said, "Navaja just means 'knife'. You'll have to be more specific than that." But all of us here know exactly what I meant. So what is a navaja? Well, in Spanish it's just a knife. But it can mean something specific, and the aesthetics of the 18c folding navaja are specific to the degree that period deviations from it can be surprising.

Puukko is likewise a seemingly fixed form. In Finnish it just means knife. It is not the most used word for knife; that would be veitsi. But a puukko could take a wide range of forms and still be a puukko in the Finnish language. But when Benchmade came out with their knife called a puukko, as a Scandinavian knife lover I was hoppin' mad. I was ready to go puukkojunkkarit on those paskiaiset! Perkele! But what was the problem? It was a knife, after all. Call it whatever you want. But it violates the traditional lines of a Finnish field knife: It has a ricasso and a sharpening notch. Its grip is strangely formed to one's palm. It has a slight drop point. It has a secondary bevel! It just looks wrong for something to be called a puukko. But have a look at Heimo Roselli's vaarinpuukko. Upswept blade. Slight finger guard. It does not look like a puukko should. But it is a knife. It is from a traditional Finnish knife smith. What're you gonna do? Aesthetically, the vaarinpuukko is a troubling knife. It has a strange transition from blade to handle that interrupts the eye's trip along its length. (Full disclosure: I have one and it is one of my favorite knives of all time.) Compare it to Roselli's other puukot, particularly the Carpenter's Knife. That knife says puukko to me. Its lines make sense. They even have a slight reference to Hogarth's Line of Beauty, if you squint just a little. Both knives are puukot. The vaarinpuukko does not win points for tradition, though.

Well, that digression went far afield, I think. Aesthetics can be wide ranging as a discussion, no doubt!

Zieg
Click to expand...


There are knives made without consideration for either good function or aesthetically pleasing form:

https://bladeforums.com/threads/tacticlol-knives-ii-the-return-of-ridiculous.1390046/

:D

Bad art (and knives) exist, and it's not just in the eye of the beholder.
 
Tyson A Wright said:
This reminds of some of the debates that happen in the HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) world, especially in the Italian 16th and 17th century material. There's a lot of debate about whether a particular master was talking about 'arming swords' or 'sideswords' or 'rapiers' or 'broadswords' or any number of other categories. The problem comes from the fact that the Italian masters don't have any of those terms - all the single-hand swords are called 'spada'. Often, the accompanying artwork was not drawn by the master (or necessarily even approved by him - often the publisher commissioned the art, not the author). There's also a tendency for the artists to use older styles of sword than are current with the treatise, maybe because they look better, or because the more open hilts make it easier to see the position of the hand.

And most of the authors don't describe the sword they expect you to use at all - just get your spada and go. For example, Giovanni Dall'Agocchie, writing in 1572, puts a little effort into describing the offhand dagger you should use. He gives extremely detailed measurements of the lance you should use for jousting (and even includes a little ruler on the edge of one page, so you can be sure that your 'inch' matches his). But he gives zero information about the sword - nothing about blade length, nothing about hilt style, nothing about weight, etc. He expects you to use whatever you have in hand.

But us modern reinterpreters will still waste a lot of breath (and spill a lot of digital ink) arguing about what type of 'spada' he had in mind.

-Tyson
Click to expand...
You are spot on, Tyson. Matt Easton has aired this issue recently on his YouTube channel echoing many of your points (though with different examples). I'm glad you brought it up as I'm also a HEMA practitioner amd see these problems, too.

Zieg
 
Mecha said:
There are knives made without consideration for either good function or aesthetically pleasing form:

https://bladeforums.com/threads/tacticlol-knives-ii-the-return-of-ridiculous.1390046/

:D

Bad art (and knives) exist, and it's not just in the eye of the beholder.
Click to expand...

And then there's the bad art that's so ugly and impractical that it loops back around to being kind of awesome (although I'm still not sure how you would pick this up or put it on without stabbing yourself in a few places:
K.O.D. said:
If that's the king, then this is the emperor:

OgGa0j2.png


And this one is more just "lol" than tacticlol.

lvN8RlV.png
Click to expand...
 
Tyson A Wright said:
And then there's the bad art that's so ugly and impractical that it loops back around to being kind of awesome (although I'm still not sure how you would pick this up or put it on without stabbing yourself in a few places:
Click to expand...
Not really a fan of art knives but man, that flows And jumps.
The shapes I try to think of were made by God and used by Scagel, Coke and Ferrari to name a few.
James
 
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