OK, folks, here's the newest addition to my sagging bookshelves: The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 2nd edition, Vincent B. Leitch, gen. editor, Norton & Co., 2010. More than 2500 pages of delicious brain food. You can start anywhere and I've been reading all about the Affective Fallacy, a valuable topic for all discussions of the aesthetic. It would be so wonderful, in my opinion, if we were to carry on our discussions with some attention to the standards of discourse implemented in the Anthology instead of turning to harried newspaper journalists who rummage through their undergraduate term papers to paste together an overview for an editor favoring a Palinesque intellect.
Just as an example, isn't it like a breath of mountain air to inhale the distinction between the meaning of words (as in the dictionary) and the suggestion of words; that is, what a word means vs what it suggests? Is this not applicable to visual art? What an image means vs. what it suggests? Sometimes the two categories harmonize, sometimes not; sometimes there are ambiguities with respect to several meanings of an image and several "meanings" of its suggestion/s, both verbal and visual and experiential. What fascinating tangles! I'm sure others of you have your wilted and marked-up copy of the Anthology. I suggest we discuss Intentional and Affective Fallacies. why? Because there seems to be a habitual need here (romantic) to conflate the author with the work on the one hand and the audience with the work on the other. The work itself is something but it is not the author and it is not the viewer. What standard identifies the work itself? If the artist's intention does not identify art and if the feeling of the viewer (the art affect) does not identify art, why do we claim that they do and how do we ever identify the artwork as a separate thing? Wouldn't that be more fun that reading Berg's sweeps of newspaper journalism? i think so. Now, back to page 1257 in my brand new book. WC
