Aesthetic Experience and The Experience of Art

Art and Embodiment: From Aesthetics to Self-Consciousness
Paul Crowther
Print publication date: 2001

Print ISBN-13: 9780199244973
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: Oct-11
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199244973.001.0001
Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

Paul Crowther
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199244973.003.0003
Abstract and Keywords

This chapter attempts to articulate aesthetic experience and art in relation to
ontological reciprocity. Section I elaborates and comments upon Gadamer's
critique of formalism, with a view to highlighting its difficulties. It then argues
in Section II that, whilst a formalist aesthetic is indeed a valid mode of
experiencing art, Gadamer's content-orientated approach can be modified
and extended so as to reveal profounder and more significant aspects to
such experience.
Keywords: Gadamer, aesthetic experience, art, ontological reciprocity, formalism
Introduction
The dominant twentieth-century conception of aesthetic experience is,
broadly speaking, a formalist one. It holds characteristically that aesthetic
experience arises when, say, we perceive a painting in relation to its qualities
of line and colour and their interrelations, rather than in relation to the
content which those lines and colours represent. Such perception will be,
in essence, disinterested, that is, pursued for its own sake, rather than for
some theoretical or other extrinsic end.
This kind of approach to the experience of art first emerged in the
eighteenth-century philosophies of taste and finds its earliest systematic
statement in Kants doctrine of aesthetic judgement. That it should reappear
so extensively in the present century is due substantially to the trend
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towards non-representational art. It is true, of course, that Edmund Bullough

proposed a very influential version of formalism in 1907; but it is with Clive
Bell and Roger Frys attempts to justify avant-garde developments in the
visual arts that formalist theory is really injected into modern philosophy of
art. Those working in the tradition of existential phenomenology, however,
have not appeared to accept the formalist position. Sartre, for example, tells
us that
Some reds of Matisseproduce a sensuous enjoyment in those
who see them. But we must understand that this sensuous
enjoyment, if thought of (p.32) in isolationfor instance, if
aroused by a colour in naturehas nothing of the aesthetic. It
is purely and simply a pleasure of sense.1
We find here a plea for a concept of the aesthetic which ties the notion to
the perception of representational content rather than formal qualities. HansGeorg Gadamer has argued a more subtle and extensive version of the
same thesis. He claims that when we judge a work of art on the basis of its
aesthetic quality [i.e. formal properties] something that is really much more
intimately familiar to us is alienated.2
In Gadamers terms, the something from which we are alienated is
the content made present by the artwork. Accordingly, in Section I of
this chapter I shall elaborate and comment upon Gadamers critique of
formalism, with a view to highlighting its difficulties. I shall then argue
in Section II that, whilst a formalist aesthetic is indeed a valid mode of
experiencing art, Gadamers content-orientated approach can be modified
and extended so as to reveal profounder and more significant aspects to
such experience.
I
A first point to note is that Gadamers critique (as advanced in Part One
of Truth and Method)3 does not simply seek to expand our concept of the
aesthetic, in the way that some theorists claim that non-representational
works expand our concept of art; rather, he is seeking to show that authentic
aesthetic experience is something different from the formalism of, as
he terms it, aesthetic consciousness. To establish this claim Gadamer
adopts two specific lines of attackthe logical and the normative. I shall deal
with these aspects of his argument in turn, and at length. First, Gadamer
claims that aesthetic consciousness is self-contradictory. He criticizes,
specifically, the notion that such consciousness is a function of perception
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in its own right or, as Kant for example (p.33) has it, the free play of
understanding and imagination. The reason for Gadamers objection is that
perception can never fulfil this free disinterested role, in that it always
tends towards a universal, that is, it is always taken up with the business of
applying or forming concepts. In practical terms Gadamer takes this to mean
that considerations pertaining to content can never be eliminated from our
perception of an artworks formal qualities. He informs us that
aesthetic vision is certainly characterised by its not hurrying
to relate what it sees to a universal, the known significance,
the intended purpose, etc., but by dwelling on it as aesthetic.
But that does not stop us from seeing relationships, e.g.
recognising that this white phenomenon which we admire
aesthetically, is in fact a man.4
Now, most contemporary philosophers agree that the demand that
perception presupposes concepts is an essentially logical one. Gadamer,
however, seems to take the relation as a contingent psychological fact.
Hence the ability of aesthetic vision not to hurry towards a universal. It is
as though we can briefly have conceptless pure perception, but that after
a few moments it inevitably converges upon a universal. This interpretation
not only fails to show that the formalist approach is self-contradictory, it
actually goes some way towards illustrating one of the central tenets of such
an approach; namely that the aesthetic experience or attitude is hard to
maintain, and constantly threatens to slip into a more practically orientated
mode of perception.
Even if we tighten up Gadamers argument, and insist that the relation
between perception and concept is a logical one, it still falls short as a
critique of formalism. Gadamer seems to think that the only way concepts
get a purchase in art is in the perception of representational content. There
is something to be said for this in a limited way, in that we tend initially to
see representational works in terms of what they are representations of.
However, this is not always the case, and even when it does occur it does
not prevent us from engaging in a more disinterested mode of perception.
It is crucial, of course, to be clear about the scope of the term disinterested
perception. Harold Osborne defines it as follows: attention is fixed upon the
qualities of the perceived object, not on (p.34) its usefulness or theoretical
interest or on the pleasures deriving or expected to derive from it.5
This simple observation makes the weakness of Gadamers position clear.
The formalist holds, characteristically, that whilst aesthetic experience is in a
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sense reductive or highly abstract, this does not mean that it fails to involve
concepts at all, but rather that it involves a different and more reflective
set of concepts than would be employed if we were simply perceiving an
artworks content. In other words, we approach it with different intentions.
The only formalist theory which Gadamers objection might conceivably
apply to is that of Kant. Yet even here the point would be open to issue, for
whilst Kant seems to say that the aesthetic judgement has no conceptual
element, he is logically committed by his general theory of judgement to a
contrary view. This, however, involves complex questions of interpretation
which I cannot go into here.
Let us now consider Gadamers normative objections to formalism. We are
told that aesthetic consciousness distinguishes the aesthetic quality of a
work from all elements of content which induce us to take up an attitude
towards it, moral, or religious, and presents it solely by itself in its aesthetic
being.6
Gadamers reservations about the worth of this purely aesthetic attitude
hinge upon two different, but related, points. First, aesthetic consciousness
abstracts from all conditions of a works accessibility, that is, it ignores
those questions of purpose, function, and content which make an artwork
a candidate for interpretation as opposed to a mere object of sensuous
appreciation. Gadamers reasoning here is founded on the presupposition
that, through language and related forms of communication, man is
engaged essentially in a quest for self-understanding. On these terms,
the transmitted text (using text in the broadest possible sense) gives
a historical continuity to the quest. It brings about a fusion of horizons
between the self-understanding of both author and audience whereby that
which is lasting and universal in the text, in other words that which is True,
can emerge and be known afresh. Hence, it is quite understandable why in
principle Gadamer should (p.35) see the content of the artwork as its most
accessible aspect. It is, as it were, the productive point of contact between
artist and audience.
This sort of argument, however, raises an enormous number of problems. I
shall confine myself to two of them. First, whilst the content of an artwork
may be its generally most accessible aspect, there is no reason why it
should necessarily be so. What is and what is not accessible in art is a
function, surely, of the capacities and intentions of the person seeking
access. What Gadamer is really saying, of course, is that content ought to
be that to which access is sought, in so far as it is keenly relevant to the
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task of self-understanding. However, whilst self-understanding may be a

pre-eminent concern of mankind, another defining characteristic of the
species is our capacity to create and appreciate artefacts for their own sake.
Gadamer completely overlooks, in other words, the possibility that formalist
appreciation may have an important role to play in self-understanding
conceived in a broader sense.
His argument also raises a second important difficulty: namely, if we stress
the importance of content in art, it is important to explain how this differs
from content, say, in a philosophical or historical text. Now, Gadamer claims
that the task of aesthetics is to provide a basis for the fact that artistic
experience is a mode of knowledge of a unique kind,7 but unfortunately
he himself does nothing to establish such a basis. We find the claim that
art is a unique form of knowledge, but with no criteria to establish what its
uniqueness consists in. One superficially promising way of providing such
criteria would be to invoke the notion which Gadamer takes as illustrating
the ontological structure of artistic representationnamely, play. Gadamer
holds that play is more than the subjective attitude of the players who
engage in it. Indeed, in so far as they commit themselves fully to the rules
of the game, that which is played achieves self-representation through
them. Transposing this model to artworks, Gadamer holds that, in effect, the
subject-matter of the work achieves autonomous self-representation through
the artefact-creating activity of the artist, and the interpretative activity of
the audience. Hence, in the play of representation, what is, emerges. In it
is produced and brought to the light what otherwise is constantly hidden and
withdrawn.8
Unfortunately, Gadamers introduction of the play analogy is entirely
gratuitous. No attempt is made to explain why this analogy is particularly
appropriate to art, and why it is more appropriate than other models.
Even more problematic is the fact that Gadamer equates the disclosure
of content, which takes place in the play of representation, with that of
recognition of essence. In so far, however, as he holds (in Aristotelian
mood) that any claim to knowledge involves a recognition of essence, this
merely returns us to the original problem of establishing how the artistic
experience gives knowledge of a unique kind. One senses that Gadamers
difficulty here arises from his play analogy finding its ultimate inspiration
in Heideggers idea that language is much more than the speakers who
embody it. On these terms language is not just a tool which the particular
speaker uses to grasp realityrather, it already embodies in its structure a
specific ontological world-view which the speaker inherits. Being itself, as
(p.36)
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it were, speaks through the speaker. Now, whether language is, in fact, so
ontologically committed is problematic. In relation to art the issue is even
more contentious in that the meaning of what is disclosed by the artistic
statement is as much, if not more, a function of how the artist handles his
vocabulary, that is, his own style, than some mere aspect of Being which
his statement serves to disclose. The nearest Gadamer comes to conceding
this point is in his observation that When someone makes an imitation, he
has to leave out and to heighten. Because he is pointing to something, he
has to exaggerate whether he likes it or not.9
Gadamer, however, fails to follow this up. This is quite understandable in so
far as it would involve the assignation of a central (though not exclusive)
role to those sensuous and formal properties of which he is so wary. Once
more, the influence of Heidegger is at work hereespecially the essay on
The Origin of the Work of Art,10 where Heidegger allows little scope for the
artists style over and above the ontological function of disclosing how and
what things are.
We find, then, that the first aspect of Gadamers normative (p.37) critique
of aesthetic consciousness fails. It overlooks the role which formalist
appreciation can play in self-understanding; and is unable to specify what
differentiates the knowledge yielded by artistic experience from that yielded
by our experience of non-artistic texts.
Let me now consider the second aspect of his normative critique. Gadamer
claims that the meaning which emerges in the experience of a works
content is something objective and enduring. We perceive, say, a portrait of
Charles V, and Charles V just is the object of the experience. The object of
aesthetic consciousness, in contrast, is something much more elusive. It
is founded upon each observer who experiences a work performing an act
of abstraction or differentiation which leaves the purely aesthetic surface
or object as a pleasing residue. This disintegration of the represented
object into, as it were, a multiplicity of aesthetic appearances means that
every encounter with the work has the rank and the justification of a new
production.11 It follows from this that One way of understanding a work
of art is then no less legitimate than another. There is no criterion of an
appropriate reaction.12
Gadamer is claiming, then, that the purely aesthetic object is fragmented
between particular observers, and leaves no room for objectivity in
interpretation. These points can be answered by a single argument, as
follows. Although the constitution of a purely aesthetic object is a function of
Page 6 of 17
the cognitive activity of those who observe an artwork, we are not entitled
to say it is just a function of that activity. We are guided, surely, in forming
our attitude by the perceptible formal features of the work, and are able
in principle to justify and argue the validity of our response by reference
to them. This capacity, indeed, gives a rational continuity to aesthetic
consciousness.
However, whilst Gadamer might be prepared to admit that, in this sense,
aesthetic consciousness is rational subjectivism, he could still claim that,
in a profounder sense, it is a dangerous subjectivism. For example, he
mentions with approval that Kierkegaards theory of the aesthetic stage
of existence is developed from the standpoint of the moralist who has
seen how desperate and untenable is existence in pure immediacy and
discontinuity. Hence his criticism of the aesthetic consciousness is of
fundamental importance because (p.38) he shows the inner-contradictions
of aesthetic existence13 Whether Volume One of Either/Or is to be
interpreted in this clear-cut manner is, I think, problematic. The tentative
nature of Kierkegaards chosen title and the fact that he does present two
alternative world-views without explicitly committing himself to either one
of them suggests, I think, that the important question at issue is not the
content of the world-view as suchbe it aesthetic or ethicalbut the fact
that whichever world-view is chosen must be the result of an individuals
own free and authentic decision. This means, of course, that the individual
is alone responsible for the consequences of his decision, and that the freely
chosen world-view (even and perhaps especially the ethical one) brings with
it its own dilemmas and existential contradictions.
If we were to grant Gadamers point, though, and admit that a purely
aesthetic approach to life is inherently alienated, this would still not
invalidate aesthetic consciousness as such. There would surely be grounds
for saying that whilst existence demands serious moral and social decisionmaking of us, there is also some room for a less practically orientated and
more relaxed engagement with Being. Indeed, this aesthetic engagement is
vital if we are to have a truly integrated and balanced personality rather than
one which risks alienation through the obsessiveness of its own projects.
I have argued, then, that Gadamers attempt to refute the formalist
conception of aesthetic experience is unsound or inadequate. This, however,
leaves us with what Kant would have called the deductive question of
whether we are entitled to equate aesthetic experience with a formalist
approach. The answer to this, I think, is simply yes. The term aesthetic
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has gained its major philosophical and broader cultural currency through
being linked to the perception of formal qualities, or to activities pursued for
their own sake rather than for practical ends. Indeed, the aesthetic is now
synonymous with such things. This is a desirable state of affairs in so far as it
establishes a term which does enable us to immediately pick out one of the
most distinctive features of our experience of art.
However, approaching these issues via Gadamers work has at least one
very salutary effect. We begin to realize that pure aesthetic experience as
understood above is only one aspect of our (p.39) experience of art, and
perhaps a rather limited one at that. It becomes clear that if we can specify
why it is limited, and solve Gadamers problem about what is unique about
the way art presents its content, the road may be open to a more variegated
concept of the aesthetic experience of art. It is to this possibility I turn in the
following section.
II
Clive Bell14 and many others have claimed that in approaching artistic
representation we are faced with two alternatives. Either we look upon
a work in terms of its genuinely artistic, i.e. formal qualities, or else we
approach it from the point of view of its content, i.e. as a historical or
anecdotal document. This exemplifies what one might call the formalist
fallacy in aesthetics; that is to say, the dogma that what is uniquely artistic
about art is simply the possession of significant form. That this view is a
dogma is shown, I think, by the fact that artistic representation really does
re-present. The artist creates a formal configuration not just for its own
sake, or for the simple purpose of referring to some subject-matter; but,
rather uses the medium to reconstitute subject-matter or creative idea in a
sensuous form, that is with something of the immediacy which it has at the
level of the artists own experience. The poet uses language, for example,
not for mere description, but in such a way that his unique style preserves
and articulates his or her own perception of the subject-matter. Similarly,
the painter, and the novelist, not only handle their respective media in such
a way as to present a sensuous image (or images) of their subject, but in
their style of handling also articulate what the subject means to them. This
is why Merleau-Ponty15 notes that the artists style distends the content,
or throws it slightly out of focus. On these terms the unique significance
of artistic meaning lies in the fact that the meaning of its intersubjectively
accessible content is expanded by the individuality of the artist. We can, of
course, look at the (p.40) formal features of a work, and its content features,
Page 8 of 17
as though they were separate levels, but to do so is to miss out on a unique

sensuous meaning that arises from the fusion and self-transcendence of
the two, through style. It is ironic that Gadamer should miss out on this
point, since another of his crucial sources, Hegel, advances a very similar
thesis. For Hegel, the artwork has, in its content, the universality of thought,
but particularized in terms of a sensuous image determined ultimately
by the artists individuality. Hence we demand of the artwork sensuous
presencebut liberated from the scaffolding of its material nature. Thereby
the sensuous aspect of a work of art, in comparison with the immediate
appearance of things in nature, is elevated to a pure appearance; and the
work of art stands in the middle between immediate sensuousness and ideal
thought.16
This unique and defining position holds several crucial implications for the
experience of art. First, it calls into question the rigid distinction between
practical and disinterested approaches. Bell and Gadamer, for example, as
mentioned earlier, assume or imply that to be concerned with the content
of artistic representation is to be concerned with it in the practical way
which characterizes all our contact with texts which aim at theoretical or
empirical understanding. However, if we bear in mind that what we are
experiencing is a content mediated by the artists individuality, this clear-cut
approach becomes problematic. Whilst we are concerned with some aspect
of the world, this aspect is distended by style, and we are thus invited to
withdraw from our practical commitment to the world, and experience it from
a reflective or meditative viewpoint.
Let me now illustrate this in a little more depth. First, in everyday life we
divide the world (and even other persons) into the means and ends of our
various projects and interests. Even the traditional forms of knowledge
aim at an appropriate contact with the world, which reduces specific
phenomena into the laws and properties which determine their species or
genus behaviour. It is also true that much of our knowledge is pursued from
an anthropocentric viewpoint. We wish to know those aspects of phenomena
which will be of use in their appropriation and utilization. Art, in contrast,
with its sensuous showing, does give us the possibility of a more (p.41)
reflective contact with things and persons, which allows them to emerge
as existents with an integrity and significance of their own. This may seem
paradoxical, given the primacy I have accorded to the role of the artists
personal style. However, it is precisely because style does make objects
look different that our attention is arrested and drawn to them in a way
that it might not be if the objects were encountered in reality. By appearing
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differently, the object is, as it were, able to exist in a fuller way. This, I
think, points to the limitations of the recent Super Realist movement in
painting. By minimalizing the function of personal style, such works attain
only the level of photography, i.e. the recording of documentary fact. The
actual sensuous presence of the subject-matter is hypostatized, and reduced
to the status of visual data. It is seenbut not reflectively known.
Heidegger has taken artistic representations disclosure of how and what
things are to be its most essential feature, and links it to the ancient Greek
notion of aletheiaunhiddenness.17 Now, whereas the aesthetic attitude
would, as Kant puts it, be indifferent to the real existence of its objects, an
experience founded upon aletheia would not. Nevertheless, we could still
claim this experience as relatively disinterested and thence aesthetic in so
far as it involves the artworks subject-matter appearing and being known
in its own right, rather than simply as an object for practical appropriation.
The current mistake of the formalist tradition is to suppose that our
engagement with artworks must be absolutely disinterested or absolutely
practical, with no distinctive ground between the two. We find, however,
that just as the artwork itself lies between the sensuousness of particular
phenomena, and the universality of pure thought, so the experience of
art can fall between the total disinterestedness of the aesthetic attitude
and the practical appropriativeness of theoretical understanding. I shall,
in consequence, talk of the aletheic experience of art, that is, a noninstrumental aesthetic awareness of things and persons, which hinges
ultimately on a sense of wonder at the unique existence of specific things,
and at their potential or hidden aspects which the artist has revealed.
Let us define aletheic experience, then, as the wondrous apprehension of
thinghood. The philosopher can describe it, but only the artwork reveals it
par excellence.
We can go further, and make a distinction between external and
internal aletheia. The external sense is that noted in relation to Heidegger
above, that is, the reflective awareness of a representations subject-matter.
However, when a representation is particularly successful, it may also
make us reflectively aware of its own status as a made thing. Elements
of workmanship, material, meaning, and aesthetic form cohere in a selfdisclosive aletheia. We are aware, in other words, of the artworks own
thinghood, as well as that of its subject-matter. The paradigm case for
this aspect of aletheic experience is, of course, the visual artwork. It can,
however, also occur in literature, although the grounds for such an assertion
may not seem readily apparent. Richard Shusterman, for example, has
(p.42)
Page 10 of 17
drawn attention to the fact that the tendency to debar visual features from
playing a role in our appreciation of texts is more of an inherited dogma than
a well-argued contention.18 Hence, the modern critic should be prepared
in certain circumstances to take into account the aesthetic possibilities of
such things as peculiarity of line length and spacing; colour of ink; case,
size, and shape of characters; and choice of punctuation marks. Shusterman
is, I think, using aesthetic in a very broad sense here, and this leads us to
an immediate and rather fascinating problem. As Shusterman points out,
some writers (such as Apollinaire) have, in creating their works, devoted
much attention to aspects of the texts visual appearance. When the visual
aspects are emphasized in this way, we are, in Shustermans terms, justified
in attending to their aesthetic possibilities. Now, the strongest objection
to this view, according to Shusterman, is from the standpoint of aesthetic
puritythat is to say, the idea that to take visual aspects of a text into
account is to disrupt the aesthetic unity of our reading of it. It obtrudes
upon the sense of the text. Now, although Shusterman demonstrates
the inadequacy of this objection, he overlooks what is, I think, a more
fundamental problem; namely that in many cases the visual aspects of a text
can strike us quite forcefully even when it is clear that the author himself
simply wrote the original manuscript and was indifferent to how it would
be visually realized in print. The point is, that we would not have a single
unified aesthetic object consisting of the sense of the text and its visual
(p.43) presentation; we would have, rather, a disunified whole composed of
two distinct aesthetic objectsthe sense of the text (as exemplified in the
authors original manuscript) and the visual interpretation cum realization
of it, made by the printer. This, of course, opens up the rather neglected
question of the aesthetics of different editions of textsa question which I
cannot explore here. It strikes me, however, that in some cases an edition
of a text will do more than present us with two aesthetic objects, one from
the author and one from the printer. Rather, we will find that the visual
presentation of a literary work will enhance and make manifest the content
in such a way as to present the work in totality to reflective awareness as a
unified artefact. In other words, we would find that the work transcends both
its joint authorship and its two distinct aesthetic elements to become selfdisclosive. We would have aletheic rather than purely aesthetic unity.
I have so far been discussing aletheic experience in relation to
representational art. It can, however, arise in two other contexts. First,
in relation to abstract painting. It is here, of course, that the notion of
aesthetic formalism (at least since the apotheosis of Clement Greenberg)
seems to have a field day. However, if formal pleasures were the only
Page 11 of 17
significant aspect of our experience of such works, then there would be

no reason apart from institutional ones (i.e. the whims of the art-world)
why we should value them more than mere decoration or non-Warholian
wallpaper. However, abstract works are, of course, artefacts whose made
aspect sometimes strikes us quite strongly. Indeed, whereas something
like wallpaper disappears into its decorative function and is taken for
granted, the raison dtre of the abstract painting is very much more selfcontained and self-revelatory. We find that many such works are not simply
sensuous configurations, but unique sensuous configurations. I do not
mean simply that they have the formal unity of an aesthetic object, but
rather that form links up with material elements into the overt ontological
unity of a made-thing. This unity, however, will not always show through.
A great deal of op art and post-painterly abstractionism succeeds only
as aesthetic objectand sometimes not even that. Similarly, a number
of abstract expressionist works lack formal and material unity to such a
degree (e.g. Robert Motherwells Je Taime) that we have no reflective
awareness of unified thinghood. Its more a case of heres some paint, and
heres a canvas that just happen to be stuck (p.44) together. In the best
work of painters such as Pollock, Rothko, and Morris Louis, in contrast, the
ontological unity of form and material stand in clear relief, to yield authentic
aletheic experience.
Let me now discuss a general context outside art where aletheic experience
can occur.
When an artefact of any sort fulfils its function in a supremely effective way,
a kind of zest can overflow from its use, which I think is aletheic in character.
A functional artefact has a certain definiteness of sense that is determined
by its function in getting specific kinds of jobs done. Now, it may be that a
certain piece of equipment is so well made, or fulfils its function so well, that
it overflows this narrower meaning and makes us aware of it as a piece of
equipment, i.e. as a made-thing. A piece of faulty equipment may of course
draw our attention, but this attention will not be simply a regard for the
thinghood of the artefact, it will rather be framed in terms of new projects
whats gone wrong here?; how can I put it right? In other words, our
attention will be practical, an involvement with a certain narrow aspect of the
world, rather than the non-instrumental awareness and wonder which is the
root of the aletheic.
I am arguing, then, that in general terms a well-made or efficient artefact
can make us reflectively aware of its own ontological integrity. We need,
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however, to make a qualification here. Richard Shusterman maintains (as

noted earlier) that when the visual aspects of a text do strike us forcefully
and are visible, those aspects are candidates for aesthetic appreciation.
This, I think, parallels in some respects the distinction which Barthes draws
in S/Z19 between the conventional readerly text and modernist writerly
textwhere the interrelations of writing, reading, and language itself
become manifest and problematic. Now, it might be thought that such
visible or writerly texts invite aletheic experience by their very selfreferential nature. This, however, would be an unfounded assumption. Some
of Mallarms later poems, for example, go far beyond the conventional
handling of the medium, by introducing elaborate spacing of individual
words, lines, and stanzas. However, these are not merely self-referential
literary devices. They serve to reinforce and complement an evocation of
the transcendental which is Mallarms fundamental intention, (p.45) and it
is only by their function in relation to this that the poems own ontological
status as a little lyrical object becomes manifest. Works in the genre of
Concrete Poetry, or the dreary novels of Robbe-Grillet, in contrast, far from
being self-disclosive existents, appear as mere obscurantist signs in the
service of some vague theory about poetry or fiction itself. Their ontological
structure is not integrated, but rather awkwardly distended towards the pole
of the universal and theoretical, with their status as particular and unique
instances of poetic or fictional artefaas relegated to secondary importance.
This is also true, I think, of a great deal of visual art, such as almost all the
work of Robert Rauschenberg, and similar attempts to integrate abstract and
representational elements in the context of a single work.
The moral to be drawn from these points is that when an artist uses a
medium in an innovatory way, or in a way which seems to call attention to
itself, this will only yield aletheic experience when the innovatory devices
serve as a means in the creation of unique and unified artefacts, rather than
as ends-in-themselves. It is the vice of the writerly text, and its counterpart
in painting and sculpture, to try and show what can only be said. Indeed,
their ontological status as artworks becomes entirely superfluous in so far
as what they attempt to say is better expressed in ordinary theoretical
discourse, or depends upon such discourse for its intelligibility.
Now, whilst aletheic experience is (like pure aesthetic experience) an
important aspect of our encounter with artworks, it is not, I think, the
most fundamental one. As we have seen, for example, its internal mode
can occur outside the context of art. There is, however, one aspect of
experiencing art which is somewhat more profound than the aletheic, and
Page 13 of 17
which occurs only in the context of art. I shall briefly expound it as follows,
freely adapting ideas from Gadamer and Merleau-Ponty.
First, no embodied consciousness ever has an experience which exists
in itself as a self-subsistent state. We look at things and understand
them essentially on the foundation of our previous experiences, and our
expectations of the future. A specifiable individual experience is, thence,
always given in the context of the general continuity of our lives. Now, in
creating an artwork, an artist is engaged essentially upon experiencing
some subject-matter or creative idea, not just with his or her body and mind
but with (p.46) the artistic medium. In creating a work, the handling of the
medium is a constitutive part of an artists experience of the subject-matter
or idea, and is informed by past experience, and anticipations of the final
appearance of the work. When it is complete, the knowledge gained by the
artist from this specific enterprise is integrated into the continuity of his or
her life, ready to inform future creations. But of course, the work itself is
left behind. It is now discontinuous with the artists actual bodily states, and
yet it preserves both his or her style of experiencing the subject or idea,
and, implicitly, all the experience which informed the creation of the work.
It is experience become concrete, and intersubjectively accessible. It is a
microcosm of the artists own being.
Now, if artistic creation were simply the emanation of unique, indefinable,
genius, we might look at the work, say how wonderful, and leave it at that.
However, what the artist has done is, in general terms, far from indefinable
he or she has simply consummated, in a specific instance, what is common
to every human being. Each person qua finite embodied consciousness has
a distinctive style of relating to and articulating the intentional objects of
experience, but the artist does so in a way which makes this stylization overt
and lasting. We could say, in fact, that through its fusion of style and subjectmatter the artwork exemplifies the essence of human experience as such. I
use exemplify in Nelson Goodmans senseof possession plus reference,20
On these terms, the artwork is a human experience, which transcends the
practical continuity of life, and, in so doing, returns us to the very nature of
experience itself. Once more, it is worth pointing out that philosophers and
others can talk about the structure of the human condition, and, indeed,
move us profoundly by their observations. However, to make an intellectual
analysis of a subject removes us from the sensuousness of an encounter with
it. The work of art, in contrast, embodies and shows in its very structure that
which philosophy can only refer to.
Page 14 of 17
I am claiming, then, that the experience of an artwork can bring a unique

reflective awareness of the nature of the human condition itself. This moving
revelation and celebration of the enigma of embodied consciousness is
what I shall call empathic experience. In (p.47) a sense it marks the logical
extreme of all human self-awareness, in that the only way beyond it is to
invoke communion with a transcendental reality, i.e. religious experience.
We do well, of course, to take note of Ivor Richards warning about ART
envisaged as a mystic, ineffable virtue.21 However, if we are going to
account for the special significance which the artwork holds for us, and are
going to do it in any depth, we will ultimately come up against considerations
similar to the ones described above. Of course, I do not want to say that
every work of art gives us apocalyptic visions of ultimate reality, but simply
that by virtue of their peculiar structure of meaning, works of art are well
appointed to one certain thingmaking us stop for a moment to see and
wonder at what we have created, at what surrounds us, and what we,
in essence, are. This fundamental awareness is a simple but potentially
shattering experience that is the proper root of the aletheic and empathic.
Not exactly the heights of windy mysticism, one would have thought.
I have outlined, then, in a very rough and ready way two profound aesthetic
aspects of the experience of art. I do not take these to be an exhaustive
taxonomy of such aesthetic experiences; indeed, it may be that both the
aletheic and empathic admit of analysis into various subdivisions. There is
much work to be done, then, in differentiating our experience of art into
new and revealing categories. If we fail to carry through this programme
and confine our discussion to the old warhorse of aesthetic experience in a
narrow formalist sense then there is, I suggest, a risk of aesthetics becoming
once more something of a dreary discipline.
Notes:
This is a revised and extended version of a paper of the same title which was
originally read at the Annual Conference of the British Society of Aesthetics
at College Hall, London, Sept. 1981. I am grateful to participants in that
Conference for their comments, and particularly Professor Eva Schaper who
chaired the discussion.
(1) J.-P. Sartre, The Psychology of Imagination (Methuen, London, 1972),
2201.
Page 15 of 17
(2) H.-G. Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. and ed. David E. Linge
(University of California Press, London, 1976), 5.
(3) H.-G. Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. William Glen-Doepel (Sheed
and Ward, London, 1975). See esp. the section entitled Critique of the
Abstraction of Aesthetic Consciousness, pp. 8090.
(4) Ibid. 81.
(5) Harold Osborne, Aesthetic Perception, British Journal of Aesthetics, 18
(1978), 313.
(6) Gadamer, Truth and Method, 77.
(7) Ibid. 87.
(8) Ibid. 101.
(9) Ibid. 103.
(10) Martin Heidegger, The Origin of the Work of Art, in Martin Heidegger:
Basic Writings, ed. and trans. D. F. Krell (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London,
1978), 14987.
(11) Gadamer, Truth and Method, 85.
(12) Ibid.
(13) Ibid.
(14) See e.g. Clive Bell, Art (Chatto & Windus, London, 1914), esp. 337.
(15) See e.g. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Indirect Language and the Voices of
Silence, in Signs, trans. Richard C. McCleary (Northwestern University Press,
Evanston, Ill., 1964), 3984.
(16) G. W. F. Hegel, Aesthetics, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 1975), 38.
(17) Heidegger, The Origin of the Work of Art, 164.
(18) Richard Shusterman, Aesthetic Blindness to Textual Visuality, Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism, xli/1 (1982), 8796.
Page 16 of 17
(19) Roland Barthes, S/Z, trans. Richard Miller (Cape, London, 1975).
(20) See Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art (Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1968),
529.
(21) Ivor Richards, The Principles of Literary Criticism (Routledge & Kegan
Paul, London, 1970), 11.
Page 17 of 17

Aesthetic Experience and The Experience of Art

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Art and Embodiment: From Aesthetics to Self-Consciousness

Print publication date: 2001

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

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Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

towards non-representational art. It is true, of course, that Edmund Bullough

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

task of self-understanding. However, whilst self-understanding may be a

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

as though they were separate levels, but to do so is to miss out on a unique

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

significant aspect of our experience of such works, then there would be

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

however, to make a qualification here. Richard Shusterman maintains (as

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

I am claiming, then, that the experience of an artwork can bring a unique

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

Aesthetic Experience and the Experience of Art

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