Para-aesthetic Experiences

 toward a definition of art

 

     The definition of art has always been unstable and conflicted.  To some the label implies excellence, excluding doggerel of poetasters or the films of Ed Wood and Herschel Lewis.  Yet, apart from the fact that aesthetic value cannot be proven, it cannot be part of the definition or the expression “good art” would be redundant.  For much of the past many critics used a nearly class-based standard, admitting works of “high art,” while excluding folk art, popular, and mass forms.  Since the Romantics discovered folksong, however, this notion has withered, until now public media and such once august organs as the New York Times devote a good deal of their coverage to topics like Taylor Swift and new series from Netflix. 

     One way to approach a definition is to distinguish art from similar phenomena occupying neighboring semantic territory, what might be termed “para-aesthetic phenomena.”  Surveying all the arts, through the centuries and around the globe, the qualities that are generally considered to contribute to the definition of art often include the following.

 

1.  Art is a form of play involving manipulated symbols arranged and generally preserved for repeated consumption. 

2.  Art is beautiful.  Qua art, it has no other function, though it may be incidentally susceptible to other uses. 

3.  In part the beauty of art is achieved through formal or structural patterns.

4.  Art refracts lived reality, intentionally shaping the raw material of experience into significant fictions.

 

     Among the non-aesthetic forms of play are sports and games, as well as child’s play and make-believe.  Yet the footballer or the broad-jumper are dealing in physical challenges and not symbols, and the child, whether solitary or in a group, plays for the moment without a thought of preserving the fantasy for later visits.  The chief distinguishing characteristic of our species is the ability to manipulate symbols, and humans enjoy exercising this skill just as the lion relishes the pounce.  Verbal repartee may be artful, but, if not transcribed, would not be art.  The player of video games is constantly making decisions simply for the fun  of it, but the drama vanishes as soon as the play ends.  The maker of such a game game would have a stronger claim on the title of artist, though most critics would find such work too trivial to allow the maker entrance to Parnassus.  Certain works, such as true “happenings” or the sand paintings made by both Navajos and Tibetans, are likewise ephemeral, but in such cases the violation of the usual convention calls perhaps even greater attention to it.  A more precise formulation of the nature of art is required to define the frontiers of the aesthetic, but one may begin by thinking of objets d’art as artifacts of preserved play.

     Art is universally, though only in part, defined by the quality of beauty.  For a definition of beauty, Santayana’s formulation will do: beauty is “pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing.”  Yet many things can give us pleasure.  Good news, a gourmet meal, or a fulfilling sexual encounter may bring considerable pleasure and yet would not usually be considered art.  Still, some non-aesthetic pleasures include characteristics of art.  Cuisine is often considered a sort of minor art as the cook must make many decisions based on taste and the whole meal is presented to the diner as a coherent progression, an experience to some extent unified.  Sexual activity likewise may well present a series of actions, a sort of play, designed to make a designed effect, but they are scarcely designed for the consumption of anyone other than the participants.  Other attributes of art must be taken into account to sharpen the focus more tightly. 

     Much of the beauty of art is based of structural or formal patterns.  The simplest and most commonly invoked are unity and symmetry, but disunity and asymmetry may find an equally important place in certain circumstances.  Formal qualities are always present, but they are most obvious in genres like music and abstract visual art.  A fugue by Bach or a Rothko canvas derive their power largely from their consumers’ apprehension of such abstract patterns.  Yet abstraction is virtually never absolute.  The mind strives to make sense of written lines and visual forms like a child looking for shapes in the clouds.  Even a totally random arrangement will be read as having meaning.  In addition this formal standard is not unique to works of art.  People also judge how pleasant it is to gaze at non-aesthetic objects, the faces of others, for instance, based on similar criteria.  While formal beauty may be found in a variety of phenomena where its presence is a matter of chance, it is intentionally created by artistic design 

     Art typically conveys a theme, that is, it suggests certain aspects of lived experience.  Vulgarly, this is the familiar “moral of the story,” often the focus of classroom investigations through secondary school and beyond.  Though technically the work of art asserts no more than the proposition that “at one time the world may have some seemed like this to someone,” such themes are often (sometimes doubtless with justice) taken to represent the opinions of the author.  In contrast to the ancient trope claiming that art “imitates” reality, most contemporary critics would prefer to acknowledge that art always alters the raw material of which it is made, making such terms as “transforming” or “refracting” more accurate.  Of course, dreams, news stories and familiar letters also relate versions of lived experience without pretensions to artistic value. 

     Since each of the defining characteristics of art present in non-aesthetic experiences as well, the judgement of whether a given object is or is not art becomes probabilistic, likelier as the evidence mounts.  A further complication arises since art may be used in non-aesthetic ways.  For instance, a philologist may in the texts of Homer find evidence for linguistic development or a historian data for the study of ancient religion, but such researches are incidental and unrelated to the artistic value of the Iliad.  Likewise, non-art may be received as though it were aesthetic experience by the appreciator of photographs from the Webb telescope or of fractal patterns.

     Art does not exist without humans; it is socially constructed, not natural.  The very concept of art has not existed in  all cultures.  For those who recognize the category, there will always remain disputed boundaries.  While most work that pretends to the status of art must probably be admitted, regardless of value, most of the questions pertain to semi-art knocking on the door from outside.  An essay on flowers or fiddlesticks will scarcely be questioned by the gatekeepers of the club of art, while an essay about that essay will be relegated to mere criticism, though it may be as beautifully written, as indeed in theory might an essay on electrical engineering.  If one admits Maxfield Parrish and Normal Rockwell to museum status, is all illustration art?  Do the journalistic war reports of Hemingway and Ernie Pyle hold aesthetic value?  How about A. J. Liebling and Red Smith’s sports stories?  Style in dress may sometimes suggest a refraction of reality.   Journal entries and sketchbook improvisations are not usually intended to outlast the day of their creation, yet, once preserved, may, like the jottings of Pepys and Picasso, be highly valued.  Religious myth and liturgy, while clearly composed of narrative and drama, claim other primary uses.  Art’s definition is worth pursuing even if it cannot be precisely and finally formulated.  Art is, as well, dynamic, and will evolve even under study.