Re-Thinking Aesthetics by Berleant Arnold;

Author:Berleant, Arnold;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2014-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Aspects of Intuition

In tracing the dimensions of aesthetic intuition, it is hard to avoid falsifying the subject. The primary virtue of a theory of embodiment lies in the fact that it does not admit of separation, and it is in the failure to recognize this that most theories of art go astray. In one fashion or another, aesthetic theory has been reductive in its practice, operating by a logic of division. On the one hand, theories of art have attempted to show how art can be resolved into something more clearly understood, such as language, symbol, emotion, or verisimilitude, thus denying its distinctiveness by reducing it to a common denominator of culture. On the other hand, until recently it has been the main achievement of aesthetics to reserve art to its own special region by isolating the object and assigning to the viewer an attitude of disinterested contemplation. Thus by the tactic of keeping art cognitively distinct and aesthetically separate, both the scholar and the appreciator have sought to tame the irrepressible nature of the enterprise.

Intuition, as we shall pursue it here, suggests a way out of this arithmetic of experience, for it shows how it is impossible for art to be subdued by a tactic of reduction and division. Yet in a sense we shall unwillingly be risking a similar error. There are many uses of intuition, and in commenting on them successively, it is important to realize that many of these aspects may combine in the fullness of our experience of art. One facet of intuition does not necessarily exclude another but each suggests some aspect of the landscape of aesthetic experience. To apply a well known metaphor, aesthetic theory is a map which, by removing itself from the terrain, represents abstractly by sharp discriminations the directness and continuity of the region of experience to be travelled.

Some features of intuition pervade all its facets. One is struck by the sharpness and clarity of the experience, by the vividness with which we perceive in the realm of art. Perception may be subtle or subdued but it is never dull, unless its force is that of dullness itself, in which case it is vividly dull, emphatically and overwhelmingly dull, as in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Another pervasive trait of aesthetic intuition lies in its striking directness or immediacy. When art is effective, it exhibits a forthrightness from which we cannot turn aside without turning away. Art’s impact, when once it is captured, is straightforward and penetrating. Still another general aspect of aesthetic intuition lies in its character of intrinsic perception, dwelling on the properties of an object for the sake of their inherent qualities.6 Here is where the semantic theories of art go awry by assigning a mediating role to art. Art is never replaceable without being sacrificed; it is never an aesthetic means exclusively, although it may be a political or moral one. Perhaps the most useful characterization of this aspect of intuition lies in speaking of the presentational quality of art.

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