Cheerskep confuses me. He claims that an artwork 'never brought him to the a.e., as if it can 'communicate' anything at all. The artwork can only foster certain cognitive functions, as any sensed experience does, and Cheerskep then imagines something, a feeling, a story, a sentiment, a desire, and more, perhaps and as he does that he also reflects on it, judges it, savors, it, or, to use his favorite word, 'cherishes' it. If the artwork were to to communicate or deliver something, it would then have the most-feared ontic status. And Cheerskep rightly rejects the ontic status of something which is by its own nature not physically measurable.
What Cheerskep seems to be saying is that he favors form above all. He's a 'significant form' guy in the modernist tradition of Bell, Fry, and a host of others. OK, but it's a difficult position to defend nowadays since it's impossible to measure what significant form is without arbitrary standards, meaning transient tastes and social habits. Far better, in my view, to go the other way and admit that sensual experience can be the source of imaginative creativity, both for an artist and for audiences. Each member of each group imagines individual propositions as aesthetic. The fact that many of these people tend to agree is simply a result of their common heritage and life experiences, generally adopted. Yet, I suspect that if any one of them were to reflect deeply and critically, they would note how their aesthetic experiences and judgments do differ from one another in both small and great ways. The aesthetic experience is an instance of private imagination for no purpose other than indulging it. The artwork is an invitation to have a sensual experience, culturally devoted to the delight of creative imagining for its own sake, an aesthetic sake. It does not need to be that way. Everyone, I suppose, has encountered the surprise of seeing something ordinary in a suddenly new way. In this they are seeing aesthetically, at least in the sense of contexts. They are regarding the thing imaginatively and reflecting on the delight (reflection is always delightful) of that imaginative experience. But the museum, theater, or concert hall, th movie house, and maybe the place of worship, are culturally identified places where this imaginative experience is enshrined as in "this is where aesthetic imagination is protected for its own sake". So I can agree that Cheerskep is right when he claims that no artists' intentions ever had anything to do with his aesthetic experience. I can question why he restricts that to 'significant form' as he recognizes it because it seems self-limiting, but is, I readily admit, clearly valid as far as it goes. (An analogy might be the pleasure one takes in watching a film with a favorite actor regardless of what the film portrays otherwise). I do reject his contradictory notion that the artwork's content can be delivered to him even as he rejects an ontic status for it. It it's not there it can't be delivered. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, September 27, 2012 11:39:05 AM Subject: Re: "Art-speak for Dummies" > I wrote: > > "I have never been "brought to experience" an a.e. > > because of an "explanatory" remark about the work -- by its creator or > any > > other > > commentator." > > Joseph responded: > > "But isn't there the possibility that you might have misunderstood a work > of > art/the artist's original intent?....Bradbury says that everyone has > misunderstood the message of FAHRENHEIT 451." > Yes. But, never, ever, has the so-called "message" of work given me an "a.e.". 'War is hell, jealousy is bad, man needs his illusions. You can't recover the past, you can't escape the past.' Some good, and a million awful, stories can be said to have exactly those august "messages" as themes. Not once has my being informed of the creator's "intent" changed my "aesthetic" reaction to the presented work.
