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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Wittgenstein, in his characteristic way of indirectly bringing us to see an important feature in human life, said: ‘… art shows us the miracles of nature… (The blossom, just opening out. What is marvellous about it?) We say: “Just look at it opening out!” This essay discusses how works of art ‘blossom’ and thus elicit an imaginative human response. Its various parts focus on the connected theme that some sensible component is essential to the production and comprehension of art. Each part, however, investigates a different aspect of the theme and could stand on its own. What will be argued about this aesthetic factor in art will also be shown to cast light on our understanding of certain narrative texts and ceremonial acts of religion.
page 181 note 1 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Culture and Value, ed. by Wright, G. Von, trans. by Peter Winch (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1980), p. 56e.Google Scholar
page 182 note 1 Valéry, Paul, ‘The idea of art’, in Aesthetics (The Collected Works of Paul Valéry, vol. 13), ed. by Mathews, J., trans. Ralph Manheim (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964), pp. 73, 75, 77.Google Scholar
page 182 note 2 Valéry, Paul, ‘Degas dance drawing’, in Degas, Manet, Morisot (The Collected Works of Paul Valéry, vol. 12), ed. by Mathews, J., trans. Paul, David (New York: Pantheon Books, 1960), p. 78.Google Scholar He makes the same point at greater length in his ‘Reflections on Art’ in Aesthetics, op. cit. pp. 160 f.
page 182 note 3 The notion of an aesthetic factor as necessary to art is disputed in the current literature. For ‘pro-aesthetic’ see Valéry, , Aesthetics, passimGoogle Scholar, and Sibley, F., ‘Aesthetic and non-aesthetic’, Philosophical Review, LXXIV (1965).Google Scholar For ‘con-aesthetic’ see Binkley, T., ‘Deciding About Art: A Polemic against Art’ in Culture and Art, ed. Aagaard-Mogensen, Lars (Atlantic Highlands, N.J., 1976)Google Scholar, and Binkley, , ‘Piece: Contra Aesthetics’, journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 35:3, spring 1977, pp. 267 if.Google Scholar
page 183 note 1 T. Binkley, ‘Piece: Contra Aesthetics’, ibid. p. 273.
page 183 note 2 Rosenberg, Harold made this comment on Acconci's act, ‘Why should anyone see him? That his an is exactly like anything else is the point of it. Once you've got his idea, it is as superfluous to witness his performance as it would have been to follow Duchamp into a store to see him select his bottle rack’, The De-Definition of Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), pp. 243 f.Google Scholar For the above examples and more, see Rosenberg, , especially his chapter, ‘De-aestheticization’, pp. 28–38Google Scholar, and Battcock, Gregory, ed. The New Art, A Critical Anthology (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1973).Google Scholar
page 183 note 3 Benjamin, Walter, Illuminations, ed. Arendt, Hannah (New York, Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968), p. 226.Google Scholar See also Berger, John, Ways of Seeing (London, Penguin Books and the BBC, 1972).Google Scholar
page 185 note 1 Fry, Roger, Vision and Design (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 15.Google Scholar
page 185 note 2 Ibid. p. 19.
page 185 note 3 Ibid. pp. 25 f., my emphasis.
page 186 note 1 O'Connor, Flannery, Mystery and Manners (London: Faber & Faber, 1972), pp. 161 f.Google Scholar
page 186 note 2 Geertz, Clifford, ‘Found in translation: on the social history of the moral imagination’, Georgia Review, XXXI (winter 1977), p. 801.Google Scholar
page 186 note 3 Ibid. p. 803.
page 186 note 4 Ibid. p. 804.
page 187 note 1 Benjamin, , Illuminations, op. cit. p. 225.Google Scholar
page 187 note 2 Benjamin, , ‘N’, Philosophical Forum, XV, nos. 1–2 (fall–winter 1983–1984), N 19, 1, p. 37.Google Scholar
page 187 note 3 Todd, Jennifer, ‘Production, reception, criticism: meaning in art’, Philosophical Forum, XV, nos. 1–2 (fall–winter 1983–1984), pp. 116, 113.Google Scholar
page 189 note 1 Tilghman, B. R., But Is It Art? (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), p. 91.Google Scholar Tilghman, of course, is not the only one to argue this point. See especially Sparshott, Francis, The Theory of the Arts (Princeton University Press, 1982), Pp. 427 ff., 437 ff.Google Scholar
page 189 note 2 This Wittgensteinian point is also argued by Tilghman, , op. cit., in chapter 6Google Scholar, ‘Aesthetics and the complexity of perception’. A related discussion can be found in Scruton, Roger, Aesthetic Understanding, Essays in the Philosophy of Art and Culture (London: Methuen, 1983)Google Scholar, where he develops the idea of a ‘tertiary quality’ of understanding tied to primary and secondary qualities of perception, pp. 28 f.
page 190 note 1 This is basically a point developed by Tilghman, , op. cit., pp. 147 ff.Google Scholar, that I have adapted to my example.
page 190 note 2 As found in Hepburn, R. W., Wonder, and other essays (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1984), p. 38.Google Scholar
page 190 note 3 This notion was developed in a talk by Rabinowitch, given at Clare Hall, Cambridge University, 4 Dec. 1984Google Scholar, on Alberto Giacometti's ‘The Nose’. Confirmation of the ‘anti-mimesis’ theme by a number of twentieth century artists and critics can be found in Hepburn, R. W., WonderGoogle Scholar, ibid., p. 38 f.
page 191 note 1 This has been said to be especially true of sculptors Brancusi, Giacometti, David Smith, and Rabinowitch. Hoet, Jan, in Royden Rabinowitch, Exhibition Catalogue, Museum Van Hedendaagse, Kunst Gent, 1984Google Scholar, notes: ‘The sculptures of Royden Rabinowitch accomplish an interaction between the intrinsic qualities of the sculpture as an autonomous entity and the observer's autonomous being,’ p. 18.
I have discussed ‘how’ viewer's judgements can be made in my essay ‘Aesthetics, evaluation, and understanding in the context of post-modern art’, unpublished.
page 191 note 2 Giacometti discusses his idea of painting and sculpting ‘what he sees’, contrasting this with the ‘realistic sculpture’ of Greece and Rome, which he claims are not ‘visual’ but ‘conceptual’. He says: ‘I think we have such a received idea of what a head is in sculpture that it's become completely divorced from the real experience of seeing a head.’ While Rodin, and Houdon, have a ‘realistic look’, he sculpts ‘visually’. Giacometti: Sculptures, Paintings, Drawings, an Arts Council exhibition, London, 04/05 1981.Google Scholar The quote was from an interview with Giacometti by Sylvester, David, Autumn 1964, p. 3.Google Scholar
page 192 note 1 Sartre, Jean-Paul, Situations, trans. by Eisler, Benita (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1965), p. 191.Google Scholar