tm hin, Denis. The Oot Soot NY B ham cbary, | Pass, 2009, | CHAPTER 3 | What Is Art? telling jokes, and using poetic or omamented language. (Even joke- h making has its specific universal characteristics: across ind as J) Thave observed in New Guinea, it is men, and not women, who have & / im that is not armchair speculation but has the backing +hnography, “It is human nature to grieve at the loss 1 deep chagrin at failure and defeat, to feel shat joy at the triumph over enemies, and pride in problems, overcoming obstacles, and achieving goals. Ie is human a: often to have divided impulses and to be dissatisfied even in the midst | of success.” Such an account of human nature, oriented more toward in- | tensity and complexity of social life, is 2 useful adjunct to other evol- tionary psychological views that emphasize physi ‘As much as fighting wild animals or finding suitable environments, our ancient ancestors faced social forces and family conflicts that be- came a part of evolved life, Both of these force-fields acting in concert produced the intensely social, robust, love-making, murderous, organizing, technology-using, show-off, squabbling, game- playing, friendly, status-seeking, upright-walki knowledge-seekin; wasteful, ve ing, omnivorous, riguing, clubby, language-using, conspicuously I If, as thinkers from Aristotle to the evolutionary psychologists have sug- gested, there is a human instinct to produce and enjoy artistic experi- ences, how might we begin to establish the fuct? What would a universal weory of art look like? Julius Moravesik is the contempo- ssopher who has given the most systematic thought to this Je species of primate we became. And along the way in basic question. He begins by stressing a fundamental logical poi developing all of this, the arts were born. transcultural investigation into art as @ universal category must be dis- tinguished from an attempt to determine the meaning of the word “art.” ‘This distinction between two kinds of question is regularly confused, intentionally dodged, or just plain ignored in much of the literature on the subject. “Arc” is a word in English, the history and vagaries of which can be efully studied. “This. mi Moravesik says, “but it is not i: be an interesting semantic exercise,” lirectly elated to the many phenomena we can examine” by broadening attention to the concept of art as ¢ univer- sal category. Consider again the analogy of language. It too is both a concept and, with the addition of quotation marks, a word in English. ‘We can argue at length about the meaning of the word “language,” how it ought to be defined—whether, given a particular definition, computer codes are “languages,” music isa “language,” or the song of a mocking- bird is an instance of “language.” But such disputes about the outer borders of the word’s meaning do not necessarily have any bearing on aa ‘Tue Arr INsTincT whether Greek or English or Iatmul is a language, Deciding whether any marginal case, music or birdsong, is or is not language could not dis~ prove the fact that Urdu is a language. The natural languages of the world form a natural category populated by indisputable cases, and recog of this fact must precede any theorizing about whether the concept of hee areas. to the universality of language, or of art, Morave~ sik argues, seeks lawlike generalizations that are neither trivially defini reavers build dams.” nor is the state k says, y specimen of tional nor accidental, generalizations of the sort Dam-building is not part of the defi even true of all existing beavers. Wh: is that under normal circumstances in the wi this species will build 2 dam." If true, such a generalization is worth nificant abo nal cases might require attention to the terms used ("he such hypothesizing, seeking neither definitional nor 2 ly desirable in empirical inquiries into the features phenomena such as art ion of “beaver, beavers. Ever. 5 is i of widespread so ‘Aesthetic theories may claim univers ditioned by the aesthetic issues and debates of 1 and Aristotle were motivated both to account for the Greek arts of their day and to connect aesthetics to their general metaphysics and theories of value, David Hume and, more especially, Immanuel Kant explored the emerging complexities of the fine-arts traditions of the eighteenth century. In the last century, as the philosopher Nol Carroll observes, the theories of Clive Bell and R. G. Collingwood mounted defenses avant-garde practices—“neoimpressionism, on the one hand, a poctics of Joyce, Stein, and Eliot on the other.” Susani n be read as providing a justific own times. Plato Carroll puts it, “something like the presupps form of artistic practice” in order to gain int can be made about Arthur Danto's continual theori ndrums and indiscernible harde’s black canvases or Andy Warhol techniques change and ‘Waar Is ArT? 49 Distortions in emphasis are compounded by another factor. Philoso- phers of art naturally tend to begin theorizing from their own aesthetic predilections, their own sharpest aesthetic responses, however strange or limited these may be. Kant had a keen interest in poetry, but his dismissal of the function of color in painting is so eccentric that it even suggests a visual impairment. Bell, who ca rience. This personal element can be vastly enriching for theory (Bell on abstract expressionism) or result in near absurdities (Kant on painting in. general). It ought, however, to incite skepticism in us all. General ac- counts extrapolated from limited personal enthusiasm may persuade us so long as we concentrate on the examples the theorist provides; often they fail when applied to a broader range of art. Beyond cultural bias and personal idiosyncrasy, adequate philoso- phizing about the arts has been impeded by a third factor: the character of philosophical rhetoric. Philosophy is most robust and stimulating — frankly, most fun—when it argues for some uniquely and exclusively true position and attempts to diseredit plausible alternatives. In the history of art philosophy, this has been a pers standing. Kant, for example, does not meré components of aesthetic experience from its primary sensual compo~ nents but, in sections of The Critigue of Judgment, denies the value of the latter entirely. Tolstoy is so dogmatic in his in canon, including most of his own greatest works. Bell, once again the * elevate the experience of form in ly irrelevant. Such extreme positions in aesthetics are chetori~ cally arresting in a way that more commonsense theories are not. They are also a pleasure for professors of aesthetics to teach, since they pro- le students with historical background, genuine (if absurdly one- ided) aesthetic insights, and the intellectual exercise involved in adducing counterexamples and counterargument. Along with the his- torical development of art itself, such theorizing pushes the argument50, ine Art Instinct forward—not in the direction of resolution, but only to incite more disputation. “Aesthetics today finds itself in a paradoxical, not to say bi tion. On the one hand, scholars and theorists have access— museums, on the Internet, firsthand via travel—to a wider perspective on artistic creation across cultures and through history than ever before. We can study and enjoy sculptures and paintings from the Pale sd toward endless analysis of an infinitesimally smi featuring Duchamp's readymades or boundary-testing ob- such as Sherrie Levine's appropriated photographs and John Cage’s 433". Underlying this philosophical direct that is never articulated: the world of art, itis supposed, understood once we are able to explain art’s most marginal or difficult in- stances. Duchamp's Fountain and In Advance of the Broken Arm are on the face of it the hardest cases that art theory has to deal with, which ex: plains the size of the theoretical iterature these works and their eady- made siblings have generated. The very size to a hope that being able to explain the most outs help us arrive at the best general account of all art ‘This hope has led aesthetics in the wrong direction. Lawyers like t9 say that hard cases make bad law, and an analogous danger threatens philosophical analysis. If you wish to understand the essential nature of ‘murder, you do not begin with a discussion of something complicated or emotionally loaded, such as assisted suicide or abortion or capi ishment. As whether such disputed cases are murder requires first that we are clear class of cases, ces of art willl d suicide may or may not be murder, but determining, on the ni are and logic of indisputable cases; we move from the uncon= troversial center to the disputed remote territories. The same principle holds in aesthetic theory. The obsession with accounting for art’s prob- Jematic outliers, while both intellectually challenging and a good way for teachers of aesthetics to generate discussion, has left aest the center of art and its values. What philosophy of art needs is an approach that begins by as afield of activities, objects, and experience that appears naturally ‘Waat Is Art? x ‘man life. We must first try to demarcate an uncontroversial center that gives more curious cases whatever interest they have. I regard this ap- proach as “naturalistic,” not in the sense that it is biologically driven (though biology is relevant to it), but because it depends on persistent ‘ross-culturally identified patterns of behavior and discourse: the making, iencing, and assessing of works of art. Many of the ways art sed and experienced can easily move across culture boundaries, manage a global acceptance without help from academics or From Lascaux to Bollywood, artists, writers, and musi tle trouble in achieving cross-cultural aesthetic understanding. The natu- ral center on which such understanding exists is where theory must begin. sts. often have lit- u Characteristic features found cross-culturally in the arts can be reduced to the version given below, which define art in ies of the experience of art. Th on the josen to suit a preconceived theoretical purpose; to the con trary, these criteria purport to offer a neutral basis for theoretical specula tion. The list could be described as inclusive in its manner of referring to the arts across cultures and historical epochs, but itis not for that reason a compromise among competing, mutually exclusive positions. Ie reflects vast realm of human experience that people have little trouble identifying tic. The philosopher David Novitz has remarked that "precise for- ins and rigorous definitions” are of little help in capturing the meaning of art cross-culturally. But even if, as Novitz says, there is “no ‘one way” to be a work of art, it does not follow that the converse “many ways” are so hopelessly numerous as to be unspecifiable, even if the do- main they refer to is as ragged and multilayered as that of art In fact, that they are specifable, however open to dispute, is required by the very exis- tence of a literature on cross-cultural sesthetics. A reminder: granting the existence of myriad marginal cases, by “art” and “arts” I mean artifacts (sculptures, paintings, and decorated objects, such as tools or the human body; and scores and texts considered as ob- jects) and performances (dances, music, and the composition and recitation lise are not2 ‘Tne Art INstINcT of stories). Sometimes when we talk about art we focus on acts of creation, sometimes on the objects created other times we refer more to the experi- ence of these objects. Working out these distinctions is a separate cask. The list cross: unique to art or its experience. Many of these aspects of art are with non-art experiences and cay and reminders of these are in~ cluded in parentheses at the conclusion of each entry. 1. Direct pleasure. The art object—narrative story, crafted artifact, oF visual and aut therefore the signal characteristics of art considered as a universal, performance—is valued as a source of immediate experi- for its utility in producing y of the something else that is either useful or pl pleasure of beauty, or “aesthetic pleasure,” a analysis from rather different sources. A pure, deeply can be ple plotted story can give pleasure (similar to the pleasure of crossword puzzle or grasping well-formed chess problem); pleasure, but so can the fins it portrays; surprising harmonic modula- ons and thythmic acceleration can give intense pleasure in music, and so h. Of the greatest significance here is the fact that the enjoyment of beauty often derives from multilayered yet distinguishable pleas- tures that are experienced either simultaneously or in close proximity to cach other. These layered experiences can be most effective when separa ble pleasures are coherently related to each other or interact with each other—as, roughly put, in the structural form, colors, and subject matter of a painting, ot the music, drama, singing, directed acting, and sets of an opera. This idea is familiar as the so-called organic unity of art works, their “unity in diversity.” Such aesthetic enjoyment is often said to be pleasure is called aesthetic pleasure when, from the experience of art, but it is familiar in many other areas of life, such as the pleasure of sport and play, of quaffing a cold drink on a hot day, or of watching larks soar or storm clouds thicken, Human beings ex- long list of direct, non~ notoriously associated with sex, or sweet and fatty foods, have ancient, evolved causes that we are unaware of in immediate experience.) ‘Wuat Is Art? 53 2. Skill and virtisity. The making of the object or the performance requires and demonstrates the exercise of specialized skills. These skills are learned in an apprentice tradition in some societies or in others may be picked up by anyone who finds that she or he “has a knack’ for them. ‘Where a skill is acquired by virtually everybody in the culture, such as inging or dancing in some tribes, there still tend to be stand out by vietue of special talent or mastery. Techni- tic skills are noticed in small-scale societies as wel , and where they are noticed they are universal The admiration of skill is not just intellectual; skill exercised by writers, carvers, dancers, potters, composers, painters, pianists, singers, ete. can cause jaws to drop, hair to stand up on the back of the neck, and eyes to flood with tears. The demonstration of skill is one of the most deeply moving and pleasurable aspects of art. (High skill s a source of pleasure and admiration in every area of human activity beyond art, perhaps most ports. Almost every regularized human activity can be tive in order to emphasize the development and admira- champions" of the most mundane or whimsical activities; this attests to a ‘universal impulse to turn almost anything human beings can do into an activity admired as much for its virtuosity as for its productive capacity.) 43. Style, Objects and performances in all art forms are made in recog- of form, composition, or expression. Style provides a stable, predictable, “normal” background ageinst which artists may create elements of novelty and expressive surprise. A style say derive from a culture or a family or be the invention of an individ- i involve borrowing and sudden alteration, as well as idaptability of styles can vary as ‘much in non-Western and tribal cultures as in the histories n be tightly circumscribed by tradition (Russian icon ly European liturgical music, or older styles of Pueblo pot- individualistic interpretive rion (much modern European art, or the arts of northern New Guinea). Very few historical arts allow no creative departure from estab lished style. In fact, were no variance whatsoever allowed, the status of a stylized activity would be called into question as an art; thi54 ‘Tue Art Instiner only in European tradi ences, have treated style as a metaphorical prison for artists, determining of form and content. Styles, however, by providing artists and their audiences with a familiar background, allow for the exercise of artistic freedom, liberating as much as they constrain. Styles can oppress ; more often, styles set them free. (All meaningful human activity tonomic reflexes is carried out within stylistic framework: gestuces, language use, social courtesies such as norms Iaughter ot body distance in personal encounters. Style and culture are virtually coterminous.) 4 Novelty and creativity. Art is valued, and praised, for its novelty, creativity, originality, and capacity to surprise its audience, Cre ins, Some writers, particularly in the social sci- explore the deeper possibilities of a medium or theme. Though these kinds of creativity overlap, The Rite of Spring is creative most strikingly in the first sense, Pride and Prejudice in the second. The unpredictal creative art, its newness, plays ag style or formal type (sonata, novel, tragedy, and so fort novelty are a locus of individuality or genius in art, ce pect of art that is not governed by rules or routines. Imaginative graded in art according to its ability to display creativity. (Creativity is, called for and admired in countless other areas of life, We admire creative solutions to problems in dentistry and plumbing as well as the arts. The persistent pursuit of creativity shows itself, for example, in the reluc- tance of careful writers to use the same word a second time in a sentence ‘where synonyms are available; the thesaurus exists less for greater preci~ sion in writing than for the sake of pleasurable creative varity.) '5 Criticism. Wherever artistic forms are found, they exist alongside some kind of critical language of judgment and appreciation, simple os, more likely, elaborate. This includes the shoptalk of art producers, the public discourse of critics, and the evaluative conversation of audien Professional crit d to the tion by wide variation across and within cultures with regard to the complexity ism, Anthropologists have repeatedly commented on its ru larger audience; critics routinely criticize each other. There is ‘Waar Is Art? 55 mentary development, or near nonexistence, in small, nonliterate soci~ ‘ties, even those that produce complicated art. tis generally much more claborate in the art discourse of literate European and Oriental history. es where the potential achievement is complex and open~ ended. There is generally to performances in the hundred-meter dash: the fastest time wins, no matter how inelegantly. It is only where crit politics or religion, for instance—t urally similar to art criticism.) 6. Representation. In widely varying degrees of naturalism, art ob~ jects, including sculptures, paintings, and oral and written narratives, ‘and sometimes even music, represent or imitate real and imaginary ex- petiences of the world. As Aristotle first observed, human beings take an irreducible pleasure in representation: a realistic painting of the folds in ared satin dress, a detailed modelof a steam engine, or the tiny plates, verware, goblets, and lattice-crust cherry pie on the dinner table of a dolls house. But we can also enjoy representa’ wwe can take pleasure in how well a representation is accomplished, and ‘we can take pleasure in the object or scene represented, as in a calendar rendering of a beautiful landscape. The first is about representation as such; the second is reducible to pleasure in the subject matter, rather than representation in itself, Delight in imitation and rep- any medium, including words, may involve the combined impact of all three pleasures. (Blueprints, newepaper illustrations, pass- port photographs, and road maps are equally imitations or representa~ tions. The importance of representation extends to every area of life.) 7 Special focus. Works of art and artistic performances tend to be bracketed off from ordinary life, made a separate and dramatic Foeus of experience. In every known culture, art involves what the art theorist Ellen Dissanayake calls “making special.” A gold-curtained stage, plinth in a museum, spotlights, ornate picture frames, illuminated showcases, book jackets and typography, ceremonial aspects of public concerts and plays, an audience's expensive clothes, the performer’ black tie, the pres- ence of the czar in his royal box, even the high price of tickets: these and countless other factors can contribute to a sense that the work of art, or a for succes If are complex or uncertai tical discourse becomes struc~ mn for two other reas56 ‘Tue Art Iw artistic event, is an object of singular attention, to be appreciated as of experience and a ing and presentation, however, ae not the only factors of specialness: it is in the nature of art itself to di tion, Although some products with artistic son sble episode that can be said to possess a recog: jowever, with almost all art 6 as president tions, World Series games, or roller coaster tides.) to express indivi snt in art practices, achieved. Where a productive activity has entry bookkeeping or filling teeth, there is little room and no demand ial expression. Where what counts as achievement in a pro- ductive activity is vague and open-ended, as in the arts, the demand for expressive indi ly to arise. Even in cultures that produce what might seem to outsiders to be less personalized arts, viduality, as opposed to competent execution, can be a focus of atten: struct not found in non-Western and tribal cultures has been cepted and is certainly false, In New Guinea, for example, tradi carvings were unsigned. This of small settlements where soc everyone knows who the most esteemed and talented carvers are, knows their works without marks of authorship. Individual talent and expressive personality i respected in New Guinea as elsewhere. (Any or- dinary activity with a creative component—everyday speech, lecturing, home hospitality, laying out the company newslette-—opens the bility for expressive individuality. The general interest in individu: ordinary life seems Jess about the contemplation of expression than about knowing the quality of mind that produced the expression, ‘9. Emotional saturation. In varying degrees, the experience of works of artis shor through wis a, Emotion in art divides broadly into eee eer eeeer 7 two kinds, fused (or confused) in experience but analytically distinct. First are the emotions provoked or incited by the represented content of art— the pathos of a scene portrayed in a painting, a comic sequence ina play, vision of death in a poem. These are the normal emotions of life, and as such are the subject of cross-cultural psychological research outside of aesthetics (one taxonomy currently used in empirical psychology names seven basic emotion types: fear, joy, saciness, anger, disgust, contempt, and surprise). There isa second, alternative sense, however, in which emotions are encountered in art: works of art can be pervaded by a distinct emo- tional flavor or tone that is different from em content. This second kind of em s caused by represented ied or expressed emotion is connected the first but not necessarily governed by it. It is the emotional tone we might feel in a Chekhov story or a Brahms symphony. It is not generic, a type of emotion, but usually described as unique to the work—the works emotional contour, its emotional perspective, to cite two common meta~ phors. (Obviously, many ordinary, non-art life experiences—falling in love, watching a child take its first steps, listening to an elegy, seeing an athlete break a world record, having a heated row with a close friend, viewing the grandeur of nature—are also 10, Intellectual challenge. Works of art tend to be designed to utilize the combined variety of human perceptual and intellectual capacities to the full extent; indeed, the best works stretch them beyond ordinary limits, The full exercise of mental capacities isin itself a source of aes- thetic pleasure. This includes working through a complex plot, putting evidence together to recognize a problem or solution before a character in a story recognizes it, balancing and combining formal and elements in a comy of an opening melody recapitulated at the end of a piece of music. The pleasure of meeting intellectual challenges is most obvious in vastly complicated art, such as in the experience of War and Peace or Wagner's Ring, But even works that are simple on one le readymades, may deny easy explanation and give pleasure in tracing out their complex historical or interpretive dimensions. (Games such as chess or Trivial tash iru, cooking from complicated recipes, home handyman television quiz programs, video games, or even working tums can offer challenges of exercise and mastery that result in achieved pleasure.)8 ‘Tue Art Instinct a. Art traditions and institutions. Art objects and performances, as much in small-scale oral cultutes as in literate fons, are created and to a degree given significance.by their place in the history and tradi ‘ions of their art. As philosopher Jerrold Levinson has argued, works of identity by the ways they are found in historical traiti in lines of historical precedents. Overlapping this notion are views, argued by philosophers Arthur Danto, Terry Diffey, and George Dickie, to the effect that works of art gain meaning by being produced in an art world, in what are essential art gaint ly constructed art institu sir minds to readymades ose t0 ex tions. Institutional theo and conceptual art because the interest of pausted by their importance in the historical tion, Such works stand in contrast to other canonical works such as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which, although open to extensive his- torical and institutional analysis is able to gather for itself a hu enthusiastic world audience of listeners who know little or nothing. of its institutional context. Even a minimal appreciation, on the other hand, of Duchamp's Feunzain requires a knowledge of art history, least of the contemporary art context. (Virtually all organized social activities—medicine, warfare, education, politics, tec . and sciences—are built up against a backdrop of historical and institutional traditions, customs, and demands. Institutional theory as promoted in modern aesthetics can be applied to any human practice whatsoever.) 12 Imaginative experience. Finally and pechaps the most important of all characteristics on this list, objects of art essentially provide an imagina~ ‘ive experience for both producers and audiences, A marble carving may realistically represent an animal, but as a work of sculptural art it becomes an imaginative object. The same can be said of any story well told, whether mythology of personal history. The costumed dance by firelight with its intense unity of purpose among the performers, possesses an imaginative element quite beyond the group exercise of factory workers. ‘This is what Kant meant by insisting that a work of art is a “presentatio offered up to an imagination that appreciates it irrespective of the exis- tence of a represented object: for Kant, works of art are imaginative ob- jects subject to disincezested contemplation. All atin this way, happens in ‘a. make-believe world. This applies to noni abstract arts as mu as to representational arts. Artistic experience takes place in the theater of and the imagination. (At the mundane level, imagination in problem-solving, planiing, hypothesizing, inferring the mental states of others, or merely daydreaming is virtually coextensive with normal human conscious life. ‘Trying to understand what life was ike in ancient Rome is an imagina~ tive act, but so is recalling that I left my car keys in the kitchen. However, the experience of artis notably marked by the manner in which it decou- ples imagination from practical concern, freeing it, as Kant instructed, from the constraints of logic and rational understanding.) m ‘Taken individually or jointly the features on this list help to answer the question of whether, confronted with an artlike object, performance, ot ¥y—from our own culture or not—we are justified in calling it art. ist identifies the most common and easily graspable “surface fea- tutes” of art, its traditional, customary, or pretheoretical characteristics that ate observed across the world. Not included in the list are elements of technical analysis more likely to be used by critics and theorists, such, as the analytical terms “form” and “content.” In this respect, a chemist’ analogy for the list would be the enumeration of the defining features of a liquid, rather than the defining features of methanol. Through his~ tory and prehistory, people have had an immediate understanding of the difference between a liquid and a solid, without needing scientists to &x- plain the difference to them. Whether a liquid contains methanol, how= ‘ever, requires technical analysis that might escape ordinary observation. ‘Moreover, while there are borderline cases of liquids, methanol has an ‘unambiguous technical definition: CH OH, We may need expert opin ion to tell us whether something is methanol or whether it has methanol in it; we need no experts to tell us whether methanol is # liquid. Jn this sense, “Is it at2” is not a question that ought to be given over to ‘experts to decide for us. The question, in fact, normally provokes such thoughts as, Does it show skill? Does it express emotion? Is it like other ‘works of art in a known tradition? Is it pleasurable to listen to? More expert-oriented technical questions, such as “Does it have form and con- tent?” or “Is it written in iambic pentameter?” are not a first Line of inquiry that comes to mind in trying to figure out whether something is art.60 ‘LHE Art INSTINCT Again, might it happen one day that neurophysiologists will discover a new, technical method for identifying artistic experiences (through bra scans or suchlike) or that physicists will invent some kind of mol analysis that allows them to distinguish, say, works of art from pieces af ordinary whiteware or automobile parts? An absurd spec pethaps, but note that if science ever achieved such a method for i ‘The cluster criteria tell us what we already know about the arts. The sted at the edges, with items subtracted or added to it, but governing what counts as inv gists, philosophers, anthropologists, cri Other nontechnical features might H. Gene Blocker, who has written bal so- cieties, regards it as significant that artists a at only as pro- fessionals but as innovators, lyalienat ." Having Africa, Tcan agree, observed this in New and this is often a component of their interest to ever, are none of these things—for instance, cheap form of prints or MPs files. Costliness is relevant to art, but all discourse about art. These include the necessary conditions of (3) being an artifact, and (2) being normally made or performed for an audience, Works of art are fundamentally intentional artifacts, even if they possess any number of nonintended meanings. This includes found objects— pieces of driftwood and the like that are tra {jects in the process of selection and display. Being made for an a also a refinement on artifacteality and substantially important standing art, but be a useful addition to the lst, as it applies -med into intentional ob- (00 thin Wnar Is Ant? or to countless other kinds of human actuality outside the arts. Every social cor communicative ac is essentially connected to the idea of an audience. ‘Also missing from the list is one further feature that has been inflated by academics into a defining criterion of art: Being expressive or repretenta= tive of cultural identity, In the sense that all art arises in a culture and is therefore a cultural product, the claim is trivially true, Normally, however, idea that artists in- cir experience, to affirm cul~ is is no more true than to claim, for example, that artists and that audiences expect somehow to pay them: its sometimes yes, sometimes no, Incidentally, art tends to be used to affirm cultural identity principally in situations of cultural opposi- tion and doubs. It is unlikely that Cervantes, Rembrandt, or Mozart saw affirming Spanish, Dutch, or Austrian culture as a major function of his ‘work (this despite each being a proud Spaniard, Dutchimaa, and Austrian). ‘Wagner, who set himself overtly against French and Italian music, isa dif- ferent story; he consciously saw himself as promoting a Teutonic identity. Tis hard to see Indian music in its horneland as aimed at affirming Indian identity; it usually comes to serve that function only when Indians move abroad and join Indian cultural societies in Stuttgart or Seattle, Local artistic forms offered to their natural, local audiences seldom occasion wor- ries about affirming cultural identity, such art offers only beauty and enter- ment to its closest, most natural audience. In retrospect, we may come to regard Shakespeare as affirming Elizabethan cultural val chat «a construction we impose on him, His intention was to create theatric tertainments for the Globe audience. Affirming cultural identity, however important it may be, is not a criterion for recognizing. instances of art. tend in their work, and audies tural identity intend with their work to be pa Vv While the cluster-critesia approach to understanding art does not spec ify in advance how many of the criteria need be present to justify calling an object art, the lst nevertheless presents in its totality a definition of art: any object that possessed every feature work of art. The d& ge art, avant-garde art, or other controversial cases. It only directs attention back to the qualities the list would have to be a ion does not excludeco ‘Tae Art Instinct ‘that works of art arguably must to some degree share, and it does this by ‘enumerating the features of indisputable cases—Rembrandt’s Night Watch, Lisat’s Spanish Rhapsody, Brecht’s Mother Courage. Such canoni- cal works, having everything on the list, wll therefore stand at one end of a continuum that has at its other end non-art objects and perfor- ogging drains. These latter may feature a fe enough to make them works of art. The sat allows us to crank out an answer assessing hard, marginal, or border! Consides, for instance, a case that has been repeatedly brought up for discussion by my stud ig events such as a World Cup fina soceer or the American Super Bowl, Such events present spectacles that can embody great ski audiences. They display a great sense of oceasion and are subject 10 end less postgame cr criteria for hhaps (9) em ‘Nevertheless, many people would resist the idea that such champi- onship matches taken as a whole are works of art or artistic performances, (which is not to deny the artistry of some virtuoso players or of the dividual moves). The reason to resist calling such games works of art has to do with the absence of what must be weighted as one of the most im- portant items on the list: (12) imaginative experience. For the ordinary on, but in reality, eemains the overwhelming issue. the decisive interest-generating issue. Wi expressed, tic works, but rat ‘Were sports fans authentic aesthetes, so my care little or nothing for scores and results but only enjoy games in terms of style and economy of play, skill and virtuosity, and expressiveness of movement. There is also the question of how teams engage in a soccer match with each other. A Haslem Globetrotters basketball performance isa true artistic event, because both sides in the match are actually coop- erating to entertain their audience. In this respect, they are acting like a Waar Is Art? 63 jazz combo or the many people who work together to produce a studio film: their actions are done for the audience, not simply to win the {gune—which in championship matches literally puts soccer and football teams at cross-purposes, ‘A championship game is not essentially (or not enough, anyway) a Kantian “presentation,” a make-believe event, offered up fv contemplation but is rather @ real-world event, rathe battle. The fact that soccer and football could have so an advantage of my list. Ideas and objects such as * grasped alongside the rise of the theories that give them a place in un- ing, The arts, in ways rough and precise, were created and direct enjoyed long before they came to be objects of theoretical rumination. ‘They are not technical products needing expert analysis but rich, scat tered, and variegated realms of human practice and experience that ex- {sted much earlier than philosophers and art theorists. In this respect, the arts are like other grand, vague, but real and persistent aspects of hu- friendship, society, ot war, Despi disputed and borderline cases, they can be in many cases eas nized across cultures and through history. As for the fear that a defini- tion of art might constrain the very creative imagination we observe and ‘encourage in the arts, that makes about as much sense as worrying that a definition of the word “book” will take us down a slippery slope to- ‘ward censoring literature, or a definition of “language” will constrain what I have to say. The arts remain what they are, and will be, Aesthetic theory is merely their handmaiden. It is she who must perfect her tune. fare root” of “neutron” have come to be y recog