Relationship to art Production and the Idea of Constructing an Aesthetic

Relationship to art Production and the Idea of Constructing an Aesthetic

Introduction

A work of art is something which is unlike anything else. It is art which, best of all, gives us the idea of what is particular.

It is due to feeling (friendship, love, affection) that one human being is different from others. To label, classify someone one loves, that is impious.

It is due to feeling alone that a thing becomes freed from abstraction and becomes something individual and concrete. So, contrary to what is commonly believed, the contemplation of particular things is what elevates a man, and distinguishes him from animals (Simone Weil, 1978)

Although there are illuminating analogies between language and the arts, a significant difference between linguistic and artistic meaning is that whereas there are synonyms in language, there is an important sense in which it would reveal a failure to understand the nature of art to suppose that what is expressed in or experienced in response to one work of art could be expressed in or experienced in response to another.

I want to consider this issue in relation to the emotions, and since my argument applies indiscriminately to expression and response, I shall henceforth use these and related terms interchangeably. As an initial formulation of a thesis which I hope will become clearer, I suggest that emotions can be seen as forming a spectrum, with, at one extreme, those feelings which are characterized in a general, relatively undifferentiated way, such as anger, joy, and fear, and, at the other extreme, those which are highly particularized. Placing on the spectrum depends upon the variety of intentional objects, i.e. the possible objects on to which typical behaviour may be directed, and by which each such emotion is identified.

Thus, feelings at the former extreme may be identified in widely different ways as they are intentionally related to a diverse range of objects. For example, there are many ways in which one may correctly characterize behaviour as fear-behaviour. Such an emotion may be directed on to any of a variety of different objects, as for instance in fear of dogs, of financial loss, of heights, of embarrassment, of examinations, and so on. So that to say simply that someone is afraid is to provide only a very general characterization of his feeling, since there are widely different kinds of intentional objects of fear.

I believe all relational theories of art are fundamentally mistaken. Certain objects, due to their intrinsic exhibited qualities, are art-regardless of their creators' intentions. 1 When defining what art is, it is the artist's effect that matters, not the cause.2 In a recent article Jerrold Levinson3 reasserts his relational theory of art originally presented in "De- fining Art Historically."4 Levinson, inspired by institutional definitions, such as George Dickie's, introduces some important qualifications.5 For ex- ample, the required relation does not consist in some "overt act" performed in an "institutional setting" within the "artworld," as in Dickie's ...