DEAD LEAVES BETWEEN PAGES: AN ESSAY ON THE DEFINITION OF ART

Many attempts within Western scholarship to define art have been centered around the confusion of art for the objet d’art. This has led to sundry endeavors in looking for definitions that would either incorporate many disparate objects or exclude certain objects for not satisfying the current aesthetic requirements. However, when these attempts at definition have to cope with increasingly complex reality based on, among other factors, politics, race, gender, and class, the definitions have tended to falter. For example, Western scholarship finds it easy to overlook art from other cultures because it does not fit “our” almost non-existent and definitely problematic definition of art.[1] The reasons for this dismissal are hard to justify on grounds of aesthetic expectations or logic. This paper advances the idea that there is a need to redefine art by shifting the center of interest away from what may be perceived as art objects (paintings, sculptures, etc.) or audiences (high or low, informed or uninformed). A new definition that incorporates the three -- artist, art object and audience - will more accurately define for us what art is by examining or highlighting the relationship linking these three into one total experience. Art, this paper contends, is the relationship forged between an artist and an audience in the process of contemplating any object created in any medium. This paper espouses the idea that art be understood not as an object but as a process, and in the true nature of processes, never static, always changing.

Another aim of this paper is to decenter the discourse on definitions of art[2] from an exclusively Western concern to one that includes some of those voices whose opinion has not been solicited despite being at the center of discussion. The issue of the definition of art demands the attention and unmediated contribution of all humanity. It concerns not just Western art institutions but also all those non-Western “others” which have created objects that merit aesthetic cognizance. It is necessary to include the rest of humanity with its multiplicity of languages in this discourse partly because it is experientially inadequate to reduce the achievements of the rest of humanity to the comparatively narrow judgement of a tiny racially defined strand of humanity. More important, Western art institutions, until recently, have enjoyed the remarkable luxury of engaging in a monologue of opinion formulation, telling non-Westerners what they are without a full understanding of the artistic expectations of those “others.”[3]

This essay is prompted by the challenge of having to formulate a definition that is inclusive of all art forms without being so vague as to be useless for analytical purposes. While a position such as that held by Morris Weitz[4] or that reviewed in Stephen Davies’s Definitions of Art would seem to preclude any possibility of opening up the discussion on defining art when they state that “artworks do not form a natural kind”[5] others, admittedly few of them, are likely to be persuaded to reopen such a seemingly exhausted[6] debate by using the tempting escape offered by Berys Gaut’s cluster theory of art.[7] There is still a need to bring together in one definition all the disparate forms of art without resorting to the nebulous world of platonic ideals. A satisfactory definition of art needs to be open-ended enough to accommodate not only previous art forms but any possible new ones be they within or without the traditional areas of the Western art historian’s concern.[8] A definition of this nature would have to try and accommodate Indonesian bell music, a Ghanaian painting or Nok sculpture within the same frame of reference that has evaluated Western art. Because there have been attempts to define art by scholars with different perspectives shaped by their background and practice, there has built up from within the discourse itself a groundswell of the need to recognize the necessity for a definition that is interdisciplinary in nature.

It is not one of the intentions of this paper to go over the ground already covered in the discussion of differences in definitions of art; that has recently been done and does not warrant a repeat here.[9] My interest is in addressing some emerging issues connected to theories of art and attendant questions concerning our attitude towards this discipline. Some of these concerns include the role of non-Western art in this discourse, the role of the audience in the definition of art, and the place of forgeries in the discourse on art; all of these issues hinge on how art is defined.

I would, however, like to start by examining the institutional theory of art since, for purposes of my explorations, it is at the core of my concerns.[10] Whatever their diverse views on art and its position in society, institutional theories of art do not question the basic idea that Western art theories and Western expectations should be used as a standard for measuring human art from non-Western cultural and regional backgrounds. It is my contention that Western theories of art are fundamentally institutional theories of art. And the limits of an institutional theory of art is that it is a deliberately created system of exclusion / inclusion practiced by a select set of individuals whose tastes are assumed to set the cultural standards of the day. These are aesthetes who have the power to elevate objects into art.[11] Yet this elevation of objects to art status is recognizably only a process of itemization[12] carried out by those recognized as embodying the accepted standards of artistic judgement. How many of these individuals form a credible group? Should opinion among them be unanimous? Who trains these individuals?[13] How does their taste come to establish itself as the standard? The gatekeeping role they play seems to be entrusted to only certain individuals who feel very uncomfortable with innovation or experimentation and usually exhibit an astounding lack of understanding or even interest when faced with art from other cultures.

The problem linked to the institutional approach to the definition of art does not vanish when we expand the scope of the defining authority beyond the individual to the society. If we allow, for whatever spurious reasons, that only one culture determines what object or sets of objects is to be elevated to the status of art with or without capital A, then the discussion terminates here. In recent times, however, artists and scholars of aesthetics have begun to openly voice their dissatisfaction with increasingly unacceptable attitudes towards not just non-Western art but even certain forms of pre-17th century traditional Western art.[14] For a long time, under the spur of Western (European) colonization of the rest of the world, the world of art, such as it is, has tried very hard, without success, to fit into the narrow and chauvinistic definition of art created for it by mainstream European-Western thought. This Western king-of-the-hill approach to the definition of art, while necessary for systems that seek to co-opt and colonize the “others” has constantly proved problematic because human aesthetic self-expression is simply too diverse and multicultural to be constrained into one narrow band of racially or culturally prescribed expression.

Artifactuality--> and the Problem of Art Definition

Sidestepping issues of politics of art for the moment, we notice that most problems arising out of an attempt to define art are centered around the assumption of the artifactuality of tangible art objects. Is artifactuality a necessary condition for all art objects?[15] If so, should we confine the making of art objects, and therefore the comprehension of what art is, only to the human species?[16] Is there a useful way of limiting the inclusion of all human-made object into this class of objets d’art?[17] How about objects which to all intents and purposes seem to fulfill our definition of art and yet are not human made but instead are created by other agencies? Does our noticing, a la Duchamp, that objects look like potential candidates for the class of art objects in itself suffice “to confer art status”[18] on these objects, or do we as humans have to do something physical to them for them to undergo this apotheosis? Furthermore, when one is confronted with all these human made objects such as a sculpture, a painting, a play, or a performance of music, what is the definitive quality that links all of them so that they are recognizable as participating in a class of objects designated “art”?[19]

Relevance Theory

Useful insights into the understanding of art as a relational property, a process,[20] are suggested in the Relevance Theory as developed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson.[21] In this theory they outline a Anew approach to human communication based on a general view of human cognition.”[22] I will elaborate on those elements in the Relevance Theory I consider crucial to the definition and understanding of art as a process.

To the extent that we agree there is a cognitive dimension to art[23] , indeed, to the extent that the aesthetic experience we subject ourselves to when we are face to face with an art object is within the field of cognition, to that extent we have to view the practice and appreciation of art as falling within the field of communication. Communication, according to Sperber and Wilson is a process involving two “information processing devices.”[24] The artist and the audience are involved in a communication process whose medium is the art object. What I would like to address now are two of the major lines of their Relevance Theory which directly suggest a reorientation of the awareness of art from being the mere contemplation of objects to the perception of processes involving a minimum of two people linked by a mediating agency.

Crucial to the understanding of the process of communication which, in our case, includes communication about art, is the basic idea that the two communicating “devices”[25] -- artist and audience, in this instance -- are involved in a process in which one device -- the transmitter – “modifies the environment of the other.”[26] Consequently, “ . . . the second device -- audience -- constructs representations similar to representations already stored in the first device.”[27] As Sperber and Wilson put it “[o]ral communication, for instance, is a modification by the speaker of the hearer’s acoustic environment, as a result of which the hearer entertains thoughts similar to the speaker’s own.[28] From this we can draw one conclusion about the nature of art: the artist and audience are involved in an interactive process where the artist, through her work, tries to modify the environment of the audience. At the same time the audience’s response to this artist is an attempt to modify the environment of the artist. Communication between the artist and audience, therefore, is ideally an active two way process.

Also, “modification,” in the case of art, can be understood to mean a form of persuasion from the transmitter to a recipient. For purposes of defining art, we can expand Sperber and Wilson’s idea about oral communication to include visual, tactile or any other form of communication. Paintings, sculpture and other highly visual forms are objects actualizing communication from an artist to an audience, any audience.

The other significant strand of the Relevance Theory is the pivotal concept of relevance itself.[29] It explains how, for example, an artist or art critic/historian decides, out of all the information available about any object out there[30], to select and concentrate on certain information to the exclusion of all else. This strand of the Relevance Theory advances the view that “relevance” determines the way we select and process information. Relevant information is that which is “likely to bring the greatest improvement of knowledge at the smallest processing cost.”[31] In the study of art, relevance then shows how the audience—art historian and dilettante alike—selects specific information to foreground in a discussion when issues concerning art are imminent.

Communication, Sperber and Wilson suggest, entails claiming someone’s attention. Hence to communicate is to imply that the information communicated is pertinent to whatever an audience wants to observe.[32] In our art example, any object that claims an art historian’s specialized attention is trying to communicate information relevant to the understanding of issues concerning art. There is an intrinsic aesthetic quality in the object observed that demonstrates the artistic relevance of the transmitted information to the person observing this object. According to this theory, then, any art critic who takes an interest in an object to which he/she responds by having to refer to that field of knowledge only accessible to art critics (historians, anthropologists, etc.) would seem to confer art status to that object. The knowledge to which this individual consciously or unconsciously refers is that which is relevant to evaluation or discussion of art. This is what Sperber and Wilson mean by relevance. And this is what Dutton among other Western art critics do to African and other “tribal” art:

For the art historian, an object becomes a relevant target of study when it already has certain features recognizably belonging to the field of art study and appreciation. For the Western art historian confronted with non-Western art, the fact that he/she is persuaded to regard this object however cursorily as an objet d’art means that there are sufficiently recognizable aesthetic features in this “tribal” object to persuade him/her that it can be evaluated by the same criteria as those art objects in the Western canon.

Communication only takes place, Sperber and Wilson assert, when a mutual cognitive environment[34] is established by two individuals linked by the same process. An individual’s cognitive environment[35] does not create any communication for the simple reason that this individual is only in a state of awareness but has not needed to communicate what she is aware of to anyone else. She only begins to communicate with someone when her state of awareness about an object coincides with someone else’s; when she shares a mutual cognitive environment with that other person. Because these two “devices” have to come together to create this environment, one cannot, as we often do in the discussion of artist and audience, talk of the primacy of one device over the other. None of the two parties involved in the discussion of art (artist, audience) is more important than the other. They have established a symbiotic relationship where they are mutually dependent on one another for survival. Without society that provides the audience, art cannot exist. One must of necessity include society in the discussion of how to define what constitutes art.

A mutual cognitive environment created by two people—”devices,” a la Sperber and Wilson—contemplating the same art object includes the history, gender of the participants, politics, aesthetic expectations, language, experience, spiritual beliefs, education and many other cultural factors. If these two people are to have a common ground, if they have to be on the same plane, the language of their interaction has to be a commonly agreed upon lexicon which helps them communicate with least misunderstanding and maximum effectiveness. For there to be an adequate understanding of an art object, the person contemplating it has to be fully informed as to the extra cultural and historical information that goes to form the context that illuminates this work. This is the type of knowledge that, for example, the Western art historian takes for granted when discussing art produced within the Western tradition,[36] yet the same art historian has nothing to go by, is totally lacking in essential knowledge about, aesthetic expectations of African or South Sea Islands cultures when confronted by art from these places. The average Western art historian, not wanting to admit that it might take him or her a long time to comprehend the artworld of these non-Western peoples decides to take a short cut by demanding that this non-Western art fulfills, albeit at a lower level, the Western Artworld’s standards of artistic expectations.[37] There is very little attempt on the part of the Western art historian to establish a mutual cognition environment between himself / herself and non- Western artists.[38] The art objects that these non-Western artists produce, while seemingly accessible to the Western art historian actually are still inaccessible at a spiritually and aesthetically more significant level.[39] To put it in metaphoric language, Western art historians are experts on apples even as non-Western artists create mangoes. The furthest that a Western art historian can go is to discuss, in general and non expert terms the mango as a fruit.[40] He has yet to take meaningful steps in understanding the “mangoness” of this non-Western fruit.

In circumstances where one society holds power over another, a situation easily analogous to colonialism, there is no mutual cognitive environment between the members of those in power and the colonized.[41] Only people on the same social, cultural plane are likely to create a mutual cognitive environment. However, social reality in a colonial situation is such that neither nations nor people today are exactly on the same plane. The difference between the different levels of planes is the cause for differences in perception of reality or art.[42]

In a hierarchically structured society, education has been used to force those not in power to conform to the ruling class=s perspective on politics, economics, and in this case, art. This is all the more apparent in a colonized society where factors of racism are added onto the already existing class structure to create a great disparity between, for example, artistic philosophies and aesthetic expectations of the colonizer and the colonized. The role of art schools and anthropological studies in this context has always served to entrench the colonizer’s interests and interpretation of the world to the colonized.[43] Art education serves to create a mutual cognitive environment sanctioned by the colonizer.

I would like now to examine closely the roles of these three components of the communication process in art: the artist, the audience, and the stimulant or mediating agency.

The role of the artist is to create. It is not to determine who is going to be the audience for his work (despite statements from artists such as Kafka to the contrary[44] ). An artist arrogating to himself the right to tell the audience how to evaluate and interpret his work is not only straying on a field that is not his area of expertise but consequently, as a result of this straying, he is likely to find himself without an audience, Nick Zangwill=s following assertion notwithstanding: “Although many works of art involve an audience, or are intended to do so, it seems that some works of art bear no actual or intended relation to an audience.”[45]

I would still argue along with Berys Gaut that the artist’s intentions in this case count for very little in determining what should be the audience’s reactions: The fact that an artist intends to produce a great work of art is neither necessary nor sufficient for her to make such a work. Such an intention indicates her ambition, but does not measure her achievement.[46] Artists telling the audience how to interpret their works are crossing that line of demarcation defined by the relevant theory as separating the receiver from the sender in a mutual cognitive environment. The artists’ actions are as out of place as an audience legislating a limit on an artist’s creativity.[47]

The audience is an essential component of the creative process [48] . The contribution of the audience to the realization of an object as art is just as important as the artist’s role. Without the audience, without a consciousness to evaluate those qualities in the created object, there is no art. This indispensability of the audience to the artistic process manifests itself more clearly in some art forms than in others. Nevertheless, the importance of this “device” in creating a mutual cognitive environment can more easily be seen in performance art forms such as play productions, concerts, live music performances, dances, and others. From this perspective, I would like to differ with Nick Zangwill’s rather strange statement that “... a theory of what is to be art should not invoke any relations to an audience. Art has nothing essential to do with an audience”[49]

There is need, she suggests, of finding “... a place for audience construction in the appreciation of art.”[51] I would argue that the audience has always had a place; it is especially the theoreticians who still have to figure out what this place is.

The issue of whether an audience is “educated” or not is not germane to this discussion.[52] Education, in this context, is a process of indoctrination into the values of the people in control of the educational process. It is an attempt by a group with a certain impression of art to impose its view on another group which, for whatever reasons, is not in the know about that particular art. Acceptance and use of expressions such as “Art with a capital A” or “Art with a small a”[53] tell us more about the aesthetic tastes of different classes in society without elaborating on the nature of art. In the language of the theory of relevance, to educate someone is to persuade, coerce, or indoctrinate that person to create a mutual cognitive environment with oneself. This is why, when a Western trained art historian tries, for example, to access African art forms, he at first approaches these art forms with the wrong understanding of this art: the artist of whatever piece did not create that piece with the art historian in mind. He/she had a completely different audience, African in this case, with which together they created a mutual cognitive environment through the recognition of the communicative function of a specific art object. Picasso, for example was asserting his creativity within a European tradition when he said that he did not need to know any more about the Congolese masks that reoriented his thinking along cubist lines “All I need to know is in that mask.”[54]

Behind this refusal to learn about the cultural and sociopolitical contexts of the origins of the mask is Picasso’s implicit recognition that in using African masks he is creating neither African nor human—in so far as human means universal—but essentially Western European art. Those elements he recognizes as possessing energizing qualities in these masks are attractive to him because he sees them furthering his development not as an African or universal artist but as a Western/European artist. He is not interested in understanding the cultural context of the Congolese masks because, most probably, it is not in his professional, social, or financial interest to establish mutual cognitive environment with these African people. On the other hand, it just may be possible that Picasso, demonstrating an even more fundamental rejection of African artists and their humanity never even imagined that he had anything to learn from the society that had created the masks he so admired.

Mediating Agency

It is important to pay close attention to the mediating agency since this has, because of mistaken identity, been the object of attention in discussions on the definition of art. While there has been some unease about selecting this object for identification as art, nevertheless it has remained the focus of attention in many discussions on art. We need to look at the characteristics of the mediating agency (art object) by examining its structure and function.

The mediating agency which has dominated Western thought as the objet d’art does not appear in one medium or genre. Its structure ranges from simple to complex; expensive to garbage; from single items to a composite/association of different items oftentimes using different media. The simplicity or complexity of an objet d’art, the assumed cash value it may command in the market place, bear no relevance to the nature of this object’s role in the stimulation of the audience=s imagination or its “excellence.”

Most critical remarks about the harmony, balance, euphony of an objet d’art refer to this section of the mediating agency. The assumption is that because the agency—object d’art—is euphonious or exhibits a sense of balance should create a feeling of balance on the observer (audience). This assumption at times has proved to be false as people who observe forms of art that irritate them will attest.[55] The sophistication or lack of it of art objects is really a comment on the structure. The assessment of harmony, balance, euphony, etc. is a comment on the structure. How an object, process or experience is framed[56] will decide whether what we are contemplating is a work of art or something else. The nature of the relationship between this object and the audience is not static.[57] To what individual or social purpose the object is put, what its origins are, also affects how it is understood, evaluated, received, or rejected.

The mediating agency acts as a screen that sifts thoughts/communication from the artist. The artist’s ideas of the world, ideas consciously or unconsciously formulated by her society, are the core philosophy of this art. This agency is the most misunderstood area (by Western critics) in contested forms of art; contested because, as Sally Price observes: “. . . South American Indians do not generally serve as consultants about which feather headdresses deserve center stage in (Western) museums.”[58]

This agency also transforms communication from the artist so that this communication has an even wider meaning/significance than that probably intended by the artist. The message communicated is never under the total control of the artist. Sometimes, many times, the artist communicates ideas he/she does not clearly understand for they have to do with the totality of the culture as observed and lived by all those in the artist’s society. To confine the interpretation of the message of a work of art to statements from the artist or his assumed intentions is to severely limit the nature of the message transmitted by the mediating agency. If the artist then cannot herself fully explain the message of her work, where does the extra meaning embodied in the created mediating agency come from? The artist is only a unit in the stream of history. When he/she creates, he/she creates within a tradition he/she did not invent and therefore can only modify but certainly does not create from nothingness.[59] The art object as the mediating agency is the one thing that suggests to the audience within what field of thought to understand ideas suggested by the artist. Like all stimulants, until the audience observes the art object, there is no relationship created between the artists and the audience and consequently, there is no art.

The mediating agency as a stimulant of the artistic process will always change; it will always be new, different depending on human ingenuity, inventions of new materials, and acceptance of new perspectives (creation of cubism from African masks, etc.). The challenge for theory is to recognize new stimulants in time (old, new), space (South Sea Islands, Africa) without falling into sociological, political, gender, racial, etc. traps that tempt one to remain faithful to the outdated and false hierarchical narrow vision that has dominated the Western art historian’s thought.

The response of the audience in asking, for example, whether a particular art work is art is an indication of the audience engaged in the interpretation of the mediating agency: those questions or comments do not in any way affect the structure of the art object. They are questions and comments in the area of interpretation. The art object remains untouched.[60] Some of the comments/criticisms refuse to go beyond the mediating object,[61] deciding to limit themselves to the analysis of this medium instead of contextualizing it in order to understand the creator of the mediating agency and what message this agency carries for the audience. This is a failure to understand the significance of the mediated experience.

Art, when understood as a tangible entity, presents itself as a puzzling array of objects in various states of completion that perplex any thinking that would see them as a unified group. Whereas it may generally be agreed among many that a sculpture or a painting can be seen as a “complete” work of art, this certitude wavers in the face of performed arts. Which work is the artistic object: the playscript or the production? The labanotation or the executed dance? The music score or the performance? The immediate reply to this might be in favor of the performance as the actual representation of whatever the artist may have had in mind. However, this leads to the next question: what performance is the performance? Which is the definitive version of a piece of music, the official recordings or the bootleg versions? What print of a photograph is the standard? Is the decision in favor of one print or the other based on aesthetic considerations or on extraneous factors? Extending similar questions to paintings and plastic arts, the question still is: when does a painting fulfill its role as an art object? Is it when the painter says she is through with the painting or when it is framed? Or is it when it is exhibited? To resolve this some would wish to avoid the whole issue by arguing that artworks do not form a natural kind. I believe there is a way of seeing all these works, paintings, dances, plays, sculptures as various processes that link artists to their audiences. These objects and performances are the mediating agency between on the one hand an artist and on the other an audience. How this mediating agency acting as a stimulant of the artistic process is made, what genre it belongs to, how it is framed (defined), what it costs are not issues that define art. They only explain certain dimensions of a multidirectional process.

From this statement we can already detect answers to some of the problems that have bedeviled previous attempts of defining art. That object used as a vehicle for communication between the artist and audience should not bear the sole burden of being called upon to stand in for art. To base the definition of an entire process of interaction solely on this object is not only to ignore the roles of the artists and the audience but also, in the process, it is to leave out important criteria for the understanding of the nature and function of the artistic process.

Definition of Art

Art is not an object; it is not an artifact, and neither is it an immutable entity. It is mediated interaction between artist or artists and audience. This mediated communication determines the nature of the communication even as it modifies the cognitive environment created by the artist or artists and audience. In the process, it is also modified by the artist, audience, and art object.[62] Definitions that reduce art to tangible objects, while expedient for the marketplace, are not very useful for those experiences that are not easily reducible to objects but instead are closer to an experience of processes. It is necessary that the definition of art recognizes the constantly changing nature of its field arising from new visions of artists, encounters between art forms of different backgrounds, and the totality of human progress.

References

Apter, Andrew. “Africa, Empire, and Anthropology: A Philological Exploration of Anthropology’s Heart of Darkness.” Annual Review of Anthropology 28 (1999): 577-98.

Blocker, Gene. The Aesthetics of Primitive Art. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994.

Bowden, Ross. “What is Wrong With an Art Forgery?: An Anthropological Perspective.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57 (Summer 1999): 333-343.

Brand, Peg Zeglin. “Glaring Omissions in Traditional Theories of Art.” In Noel Carroll, ed. Theories of Art Today. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000: 175-198.

Cohen, Ted. “High and Low Art, and High and Low Audiences.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57 (Spring 1999):137-43.

Davies, Stephen. “Non-Western Art and Art’s Definition.” In Noel Carroll, ed. Theories of Art Today. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000: 199-216.

Dickie, George. “The Institutional Theory of Art.” In Noel Carroll, ed. Theories of Art Today. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000: 93-108.

Diop, Cheikh Anta. Civilization or Barbarism: Towards an Authentic African Anthropology. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Lawrence Hill Books, 1991.

Dutton, Denis. “But They Don’t Have Our Concept of Art.” In Noel Carroll, ed. Theories of Art Today. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000: 217-37.

Dutton, Denis. “Tribal Art and Artifact.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51, (Winter 1993): 13-21.

Eliot, T.S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” In T.S. Eliot, ed. Selected Essays. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc. 1964: 3-11.

Forna, Aminatta. Through African Eyes. New York, NY: Public Media Home Vision, 1995.

French, Marilyn “Is There a Feminist Aesthetic?” In Hilde Hein and Carolyn Korsmeyer, eds. Aesthetics in Feminist Perspective. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993: 68-76.

Gaut, Berys “Interpreting the Arts: The Patchwork Theory.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51, (Fall 1993): 597-609.

Goffman, Irving. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974.

Ogbechie, Sylvester Okwunodu. “Contested Vision: Ben Enwonwu’s Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II” Ijele: Art eJournal of the African World (2000), http://www.ijele.com/ijele/vol1.2/ogbechie.html.

Price, Sally. Primitive Art in Civilized Places. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Solomon, Robert C. “On Kitsch and Sentimentality.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 49 (Winter 1991):1-14.

Sperber, Dan, and Wilson, Deidre. “Précis of Relevance: Communication and Cognition.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10 (1987): 697-754.

Stecker, Robert. “Is It Reasonable to Attempt to Define Art?” In Noel Carroll, ed. Theories of Art Today. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000: 45-64.

Weitz, Morris. “Role of Theory in Aesthetics.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, XV (September, 1956-57): 27-35.

Young, James O. “The Cognitive Value of Music.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57 (Winter 1999): 41-54.

Zangwill, Nick. “Art and Audience.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57, (Summer 1999): 315-332.

Notes

1. In Stephen Davies, Definitions of Art, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991) the author confines himself to the debate on definitions of art in “Anglo-American philosophy,” p. 1.; Stephen Davies “Non-Western Art and Art’s Definition” In Theories of Art Today, edited by Noel Carroll, (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000): pp. 199-216. This is a corrective to his Anglo-American position in the earlier work; Denis Dutton. “But they Don’t Have Our Concept of Art” In Theories of Art Today, pp. 217-37. This discusses a growing awareness of other people’s voice in the new “cross-cultural” debate on aesthetics.

2. Especially as carried out in Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Davies’s book Definitions of Art and Carroll’s Theories of Art Today can be seen as extending the discussion dominated by contributions to this journal into a book form.

3. Many conscientious scholars are beginning to recognize this and the overwhelming task of asking “natives” of the rest of the world for their opinion is confining many a would be art critic to the Western world’s stockade of overspecialization.

5. “Artworks do not form a natural kind; typically artworks are manufactured with the specific intention that they be artworks. And the variety of forms and categories of art suggests that there will be no intrinsic, exhibited property that all and only artworks share” ibid., 37.; “According to Tilghman, Weitz concedes too much in denying that artworks share a common property” ibid., p.9; “... art has no essence.” W. B. Gallie quoted in Stephen Davies, ibid., p.7; essentialist and anti essentialist positions ibid., pp. 7-9; “Weitz’s claim is not only that all past attempts to define art have failed, but that any attempt to provide an essential definition of art is doomed to failure for the reason that art has no essence...” ibid., 5; Morris Weitz, “Role of Theory in Aesthetics.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, XV (September, 1956-57): pp. 4-5.

7. “The patchwork theory...challenges the still dominant theory of philosophical aesthetics, which seeks to discover general theories that encompass all the arts at a high level of abstraction. The patchwork theory, in contrast, allows for different theories of the individual arts and encourages a sensitivity to substantive issues which affect the conditions of interpretation in each of these arts” Berys Gaut, “Interpreting the Arts: The Patchwork Theory.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51 (Fall 1993): 607. The patchwork/cluster theory of art provides a vital key into recognizing the validity of theories on art which are not necessarily grounded in “traditional”-- meaning Western -- experience. However, the one factor overlooked in this theory is that not all theories are viewed or treated in Western scholarship as equal. Also see Berys Gaut in Noel Carroll, Theories of Art, pp. 40-2.

8. “‘Art,’ itself, is an open concept. New conditions (cases) have constantly arisen and will undoubtedly constantly arise; new art forms, new movements will emerge, which will demand decisions on the part of those interested, usually professional critics, as to whether the concept should be extended or not. ... With ‘art’ its conditions of application can never be exhaustively enumerated since new cases can always be envisaged or created by artists, or even nature, which would call for a decision on someone’s part to extend or to close the old or to invent anew concept.” Morris Weitz, “Role of Theory in Aesthetics.” p. 32.

9. cf. Stephen Davies. Definitions of Art (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991); Stephen Davies “Non-Western Art and Art’s Definition” in Noel Carroll. Theories of Art Today (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000).

10. For a good discussion on an institutional theory of the definition of art see Davies Definitions of Art, pp.78-114; George Dickie. “The Institutional Theory of Art” in Carroll, Theories of Art, pp. 93-108.

12. Yet despite itemization being almost an exercise in futility, libraries, archives, museums, tables of content in art books, and other forms of collections usually attempt this exercise by grouping together all their materials either into “art” or non-art objects. The only ones who have been “unfortunate” enough to have their system of classification exposed to public question have been museums and other places of public display. The controversies that sometimes have accompanied these displays are good for the museums because of the attention they attract.

13. Wollheim raises similar questions, although in a satirical voice, aimed against George Dickie’s ideas in “The Institutional Theory of Art” in Theories of Art edited by Noel Carroll, p. 94. A partial answer to these questions is that departments of Fine Art in Western academic institutions are mainly responsible for this gatekeeping role. These perpetuate the attitudes that one finds in the Western marketplace of art.

14. Davies puts this issues clearly when he writes in “Non-Western Art and Art=s Definition” in Noel Carroll, Theories of Art, “Now, if it is silly (as I think it is) to suggest that Bach’s music or Michelangelo’s statues or Shakespeare’s plays became art retrospectively, only when they were appropriated by the (Western) art establishment and thereby were abstracted from their original settings and functions, it must be accepted that there is a broader notion of art than is covered by the rubric of fine art. ... So, we can agree with the anthropologist who argues that non-Western cultures do not share the Western notion of fine art without also accepting that this shows them to lack art or its concept.” (my emphasis), p. 202. However, as can be seen in the underlined section, he still does not find it problematic that it is the anthropologist, and not the art historian, who evaluates for the Western world non-Western art.

19. Stephen Davies, Definitions of Art, “It is arguable that not even art’s paradigm instances share a common property. What intrinsic, perceptible feature is common to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a Song Without Words by Mendelssohn, Donne=s Hymn to God the Father, Picasso’s Guernica, Austen=s Pride and Prejudice, Michelangelo’s David? It is not obvious that there is any perceptible, aesthetic property common to them all.” p. 15.

20. This attention to art as a process is not new. For example, Stephen Davies, Definitions of Art, points out to these properties of art: “Weitz’s essay reoriented many theorists towards an appreciation of “‘complex, nonexhibited relational features of art’” p. 2. Indeed many recent discussion of this problem seems to hint at this idea. Nick Zangwill seems to point to the resolution of moving our understanding of the nature of art away from object-oriented definitions to an acknowledgment of some type of “relational property” between the art object and the audience. He elaborates on it by stating that art could be seen as “something that has (or is intended to have) a disposition to produce certain experiences in certain circumstances.” Nick Zangwill, “Art and Audience,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57, (Summer 1999), p.317.

21. In their Relevance: Communication and Cognition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995) which they later summarize in “Precis of Relevance: Communication and Cognition,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10 1987: 697-754.

23. cf. “It is often said that one reads for pleasure, but that is not quite right, since certain works can be harrowing or upsetting, and hence painful to read. Rather, one is looking in such works for a valuable experience, and what one values includes not just pleasure, but also encompasses cognitive insight, experience of emotional depth, etc. Nevertheless, it is true that one takes an evaluative stance in reading, for one’s concerns are not purely (non-evaluatively) cognitive” Berys Gaut, “Interpreting the Arts: The Patchwork Theory,” p. 599. See also James O. Young “The Cognitive value of Music,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57 (Winter 1999). Marxist approaches among other sociological perspectives tend to recognize this cognitive dimension to art.

29. “Relevance of a phenomenon to an individual: Extent condition 1: A phenomenon is relevant to an individual to the extent that the contextual effects achieved in processing it are large. Extent condition 2: A phenomenon is relevant to an individual to the extent that the effort required to process it is small” ibid., p.703.

30. “There is a vast array of properties which works possess, but which may be totally irrelevant to their interpretation - for instance the fact that a painting is currently worth one million dollars, or that it was produced in a German city whose name begins with a character with an umlaut.” Berys Gaut, “Interpreting the Arts: The Patchwork Theory,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51, (Fall 1993): 606.

34. Sperber and Wilson, “Precis of Relevance: Communication and Cognition,” define a mutual cognitive environment as “any shared cognitive environment in which it is manifest which people share it.” p. 699. This can also be defined as an exclusive cognitive environment because the recognition of what links together these two beings also excludes others from this environment.

35. A cognitive environment, Sperber and Wilson state: “consists not only of all the facts that he is aware of, but of all the facts he is capable of becoming aware of at that time and place.” ibid.

38. Because of the history of colonialism, conquest and general justification of the dehumanization of the “other.” Needless to say, as in all cases, there are some exceptions such as Sally Price . Primitive Art in Civilized Places. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).

39. Most of the Western criticism of art in these cultures is that it is functional. However, there is little attempt to understand what the spiritual and aesthetic significance of this function is to the people who created the art in the first place.

41. Look, for example, at conflicts in interpretation of art issues in the following: Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, “Contested Vision: Ben Enwonwu’s Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II,” Ijele: Art eJournal of the African World (2000) available from http://www.ijele.com/ijele/vol1.2/ogbechie.html; Marilyn French “Is There a Feminist Aesthetic?” In Aesthetics in Feminist Perspective edited by Hilde Hein, (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993), p. 68.

42. Peg Zeglin Brand “Glaring Omissions in Traditional Theories of Art.” In Theories of Art Today, edited by Noel Carroll, (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), p. 189; Marilyn French “Is There a Feminist Aesthetic?” In Aesthetics in Feminist Perspective edited by Hilde Hein, (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993): 68.

43. cf. Andrew Apter. “Africa, Empire, and Anthropology: A Philological Exploration of Anthropology’s Heart of Darkness,” Annual Review of Anthropology 28 (1999): pp.577-98. See also Cheikh Anta Diop’s Civilization or Barbarism: Towards an Authentic African Anthropology. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Lawrence Hill Books, 1991.

44. Franz Kafka had a small circle of friends including Max Brod who were his intended audience. The size of the intended audience does not matter. The most important fact is that the audience must be represented in the creative process otherwise the mutual cognitive (artistic) environment is not created. An audience is not just a mass audience.

47. Not that this has not been tried. Consider, for example, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani=s hostile reaction to Chris Ofili=s “The Holy Virgin Mary”; available from (http://www.princeton.edu/~progrev/99-00/n4_mf.html), or any other censorship boards that continue to exist even in those societies that have a tradition of tolerance for the arts.

48. “Thus far, the artist=s intentions and the audience=s experiences seem to be on par. ... It might be thought that this shows that the artist and the audience are equally constitutive of what is to be art” Nick Zangwill, “Art and Audience,” p. 320. Despite it being a tentative and far from conclusive statement, Nick Zangwill is right in his conclusions. The artist and the audience are at par when it comes to defining the nature and function of art.

52. “What are we to make of the fact that some monumental works of art sustain two seemingly very different audiences, and some do not?” Cohen, Ted. “High and Low Art, and High and Low Audiences,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57, (Spring 1999):137; “... a great deal of the finest art we know appeals to various audiences in many different ways. The different constituencies within such an audience are not always divisible into high and low appreciators: sometimes these divisions are along quite different lines.” ibid., p. 141.

53. cf. Stephen Davies “Non-Western Art and Art’s Definition.” In Theories of Art Today, edited by Noel Carroll, (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000); Ted Cohen, “High and Low Art, and High and Low Audiences,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57 (Spring 1999):137-43.

55. cf. Ted Cohen, “High and Low Art, and High and Low Audiences”; Ross Bowden, “What is Wrong with an Art Forgery?: An Anthropological Perspective,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57 (Summer 1999): 333-343; Robert C. Solomon. “On Kitsch and sentimentality,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 49 (Winter 1991):1-14.

57. It is almost axiomatic that any innovations in art are always frowned upon and regarded by the establishment with suspicion until eventually this relationship is transformed into one of approval. The reasons for this transformation are as varied and as arbitrary as the origins of the innovation itself. There are also many instances of art styles or fashions falling out of favor.

59. cf. T.S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Artist.” In Selected Essays edited by T.S. Eliot, (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc. 1960): 3.

60. This is where the Duchamp experiment is interesting: what is the role of the art historian in creating an art object? Whose judgement is valid in the process of conferring art status to an art object? These questions can also be reversed so that we ask whether it is possible to remove art status already conferred on an art object.

61. In the Picasso comment quoted above (endnote 54) the artist directly admits that he will evaluate all human art from a strictly European perspective. What he eventually created was Western art: it had nothing to do with African art since the mutual cognitive environment he was able to create was not with an African audience but with a Western and Westernized audience.

62. In this definition I have avoided a theory that is based purely on either the artist=s intention, the art object or the audience. Nick Zangwill, “Art and Audience” cautions in the case of an audience based theory: “A pure audience theory would be left with no way of distinguishing works of art from appreciable nonart.” p. 315.

IJELE: ART EJOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN WORLD

ISSN: 1525-447X