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There are two general ways to solve the problem of artistic subject matter.
One is to identify some region or type of reality - some mode
of being or some specific elements - to which art has either an exclusive
or a privileged access. This is the classical solution of Plato and
Schopenhauer, embodied in the theory of Forms; and it is the solution
of those who hold that art discovers and reveals essences, or ideals, or
values, or surface qualities. The other approach is to identify not some
specific subject-matter, but rather a specific and distinctive way of dealing
with any subject-matter whatsoever (25)
If my
argument is sound, art, by defining our sense of the particularity of
actual things and occasions, exercises a crucial influence on the terms
in which we confront the world and order our lives. That is, art plays a
critical role in man's moral education, in the sense in which I have defined
those terms. (34) the artist as a moral agent
A work of art
itself, as an artifact, is merely a physical object having certain properties
and characteristics. It is not a value itself-either intrinsic or
extrinsic - but is a vehicle of value. (34) value, since it expresses the expereicne of the artist, and also a
vehicle of market value
In the last analysis, and in its most fundamental terms, art is performance.
In the aesthetic life, whether as creators or appreciators, we are
above all performing: we are effecting a transformation of experienced
meanings to a higher level of clarity and stability. So our access to art is
measured by our ability as performers - our ability to enter fully, and
not only intellectually, into the artist's undertaking. It is only in this way
that men can be brought to a vivid and rewarding appreciation of good
art. (39)