Hi everyone, I'm new to aesthetic theory (and to this list) so please bear with me a while - I need some educated opinions!
I'm facing the unenviable task of putting into writing my personal approach to aesthetics - which naturally seems solid and incontestable to myself - and I'd be very grateful if anyone here could a) point me towards any established theories that might be roughly on the same lines with my idea (I haven't found any), and b) point out any significant flaws in my approach. What I'm getting at is a "descriptive" (as opposed to "prescriptive") aesthetics, one that instead of trying to explain what makes art good or bad (prescription), tries to explain how and why the aesthetic experience comes about (description). As I see it, any valid criticism of any artwork must seek to transcend subjectivism (personal taste), if it is to avoid the cul-de-sac of subjectivism/solipsism. I think I'll save everyone the embarrassment and post only a very crude outline of my main points: 1. A "work of art" is any thing produced by an artist with the explicit intention of producing a work of art. No narrower definition is possible without prescribing what is and isn't "art" 2. The physical form of an artwork is an accumulation of intentional choices (operations of imagination) of the artist. Choices made during the creative process are encoded in the physical form of the artwork; they could be called information, or evidence. 3. The essence of an artwork - the PRIMARY source of aesthetic experience - is located in this information about the creative process of the artist (and nowhere else). The evidence is an interface between the physical appearance of the work and the creative process. (This point seems to me crucial, as serious problems will arise as soon as we try to locate the essence anywhere else - say, "significant form", ideal proportions, likeness to ideas, etc.) 4. In order to understand a work of art, we must renounce (at least part of) our own subjective taste and seek identification with the subjective aesthetic of the artwork (that is, the subjective aesthetic of the artist during his creative process). Otherwise our taste judgements will interfere in the process of familiarizing ourselves with the work. 5. The intense familiarization of oneself with an artwork results in aesthetic judgment (taste) being replaced with empirical knowledge: to "like" a work then becomes equivalent with being well acquainted with it. Failure to derive aesthetic experience from a work typically results from inadequate familiarization (and that usually results from taste judgements interrupting the process). I could go on but I'll stop here for now... I'm sorry if my language is muddy, inarticulate or tautological - I'm not well-read on the subject, and all this is very much a layman's attempt at describing empirically what happens when I look at / listen to / experience art. Any thoughts / criticism / recommendations?
