The Autonomy of Art: Fact or Norm? Herta Pauly The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 18, No. 2. (Dec., 1959), pp. 204-214. Stable URL http: flinks.jstor-org/sici%sici=0021-8529% 281959 12%29 18% 3A2%3C204%3ATAOAFO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism is currently published by The American Society for Aesthetics. Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at bhupulwww.jstororg/about/terms.hunl. JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of « journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial us. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hupulwww jstor.org/journalvtasfa hum Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission, JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to ereating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @jstor.org, hupshvwwjstororg/ Sat Nov 4 22:49:57 2006THE AUTONOMY OF ART: FACT OR NORM?* HERTA PAULY Whether art expresses, represents, or evokes emotions, fectings, ideas, or any experience not specifically artistic is a debate of long standing, Aside from call- ing dilettante audiences to the straight and narrow path of art contemplation, autonomist theory has had to defend itself against two opposed theories: Ro- ‘manticist philosophy and empirical psychology. The former made the expres- sion of feeling normative for art; the latter declared autonomy impossible. Gestalt, phenomenological, and semantic arguments have helped to mediate be- ‘tween autonomist and heteronomist theories. For instance, it is now quite gen- ‘erally acknowledged that beauty and expressiveness reside neither in the object nor the subject independently. The present analysis is therefore confined to two issues. Part I is a condensed critique of the elaim that autonomist theory ean be grounded in matters of fact. Part II treats with the question whether a com- bination of several arts, by infringing on their autonomy, necessarily obliterates ‘the unique beauty and character of each, ‘Though not a recent statement of the autonomist ease, Eduard Hanslick’s thesis lends itself well to a diagnosis of the first problem. The Beautiful in Music (1854) addressed itself to musie lovers, artists, and art crities who maintain that. the essence of music consists in representing or symbolizing emotions or feelings and effecting responses of feeling in the listener. According to this—heterono- mist—thinking, feeling is the substance, sound and structure the form of music. Heteronomists argue their ease by pointing out that music in fact causes emo- tional agitations in the listener. Hanslick insisted that “the beautiful is and re- mains beautiful though it arouse no emotion whatever, and though there be no cone to look at it.”" Musieal beauty and its effects are in fact specific and dis- tinct from emotional causes and effects. The beauty of musie resides in: Sound in motion. The form {the musical structure] is the real substance [subject] of ‘music in fact, is the music ite, in antithesis to feeling, its alleged subject which ean be called neither its subject nor its form, but simply the effect produced. (p. 82) Hanslick observed that despite its non-representational character (which safe- guards musie to some extent against associational digressions of the listener), music has an immediate effect upon the emotions. But, he pointed out, this is not entirely a musical effect. The presence of emotion while listening to music is to some extent the effect not of “musical” sound strietly speaking but of “physical” sound: sound waves. These effect emotional states in the human, and * This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Philosophical Associn- tion, December 28, 1958, Eduard Hanalick, The Beautiful in Music, trans, Gustav Cohen, ed. with an introduction by Morris Weite (N. Y.: The Liberal Arts Pres, 1957), p. 10, meAUTONOMY oF ART 205 animal, organism, We must distinguish carefully between physical sound and its effects and musical sound and its specifically musical effects upon the listener. “Where the mind is carried away by the purely physical elements of sound, art can pride itself the less on having reproduced this effect the stronger the effect is” (p. 89). Heteronomist theory derives first of all from a failure to dis- tinguish between these two kinds of effect. But Hanslick acknowledged that truly musical listeners also experience an agitation of feeling. This needs to be accounted for since feeling cannot be said to inhere in the music. Furthermore, the presence of specifically musical feeling, that is, feeling which is the effect of specifically musical sound, would modify ‘the autonomy of music as Hanslick understood it, namely, as grounded in fact; in a set of virtually diserete elements and effects, distinet from psycho-physical elements and responses. Hanslick described convincingly the difference between passive, free-associa- tional, emotional hearing and the disciplined, attentive, even “intellectual” character of truly musical listening (pp. 91, 92). In support of his position, a variety of examples can be cited of a predomi- nance of behavioristie over aesthetic effects in our own response or that of others, (1) The sounds of some musical instruments give to some people a feeling of discomfort (a primitive medieval grind-organ makes some people sick, but attracts insects and toads [Olga Schwindt]) 2 (2) Some dance movements are hated by some dancers. A predominance of physical and associational aversion to the movement seems evident, though it is not strictly distinguishable from a nogative aesthetic re- sponse. (8) There are people with a good “physical” ear but a poor “musical” ear: i.e,, some HiFi mechanics. (4) Absolute piteh is no sure sign or concomitant of musicality. (5) Supersonic waves (though not heard, of course) have therapeutic or de- structive effects upon animal and human organisms. (6) Behavioristic effects of oratory exceed artistic and intellectual effects. However, such examples give only proximate evidence that physical, psycho- physical, and aesthetic “feelings” are distinguishable data, ‘Examples to the contrary: (1) Can we distinguish between physical and aesthetic effects of music upon ‘8 catatonic schizophrenic? That we observe a physical and behavioral change in him does not prove that this effect is produced strietly by the physical properties of sound, including rhythm. (2) Laughter, when being tickled, is a reflex “feeling”; while laughter in re- sponse to comedy or a joke, is probably a response mixed of aesthetic and reflex feeling. Both are “a funny feeling, (3) To what extent is the agitation effected by drum beats, sudden loud or dissonant sounds, powerful or “neck-breaking” bodily movement and *Concert of primitive modioval instruments, Ascona, Switzerland (August 1957); Olga ‘Schwindt, performer and lecturer.206 ERTA PAULY distortion in dance, or seulpture, the effect of the “physical” or of the “gesthetic” clements? In seeing a play, to what extent is the experience of any kind of tension, suspense, surprise, boredom, or curiosity a physi- cal oF nervous or an aesthetic one? (4) Body movement, ordinary and in dance form, has qualities of “feeling” ‘without any added contents or expressiveness of an intended sort. Occasionally, thus, we can trace a marked difference between reflex and aes- thetie effects. But can it be said that the physical elements cause physical re- sponses and the musical elements cause musical responses? Hanslick did not deny that even the truly musical causes can trigger off the wrong responses in ‘the unmusical listener. He did not consider enough, however, to what extent also the musical effects are caused by the physical elements since the two do not exist apart from one another. If the dualism between physical and aesthetic ‘lements does not come out entirely explicitly in Hanslick’s discourse, it is be- ‘cause his interest was primarily practical, not metaphysical. Still his defense ‘of autonomy depends logically on this dualism. In the writings of more recent aestheticians the dualism has virtually disappeared. The question is therefore whether autonomist theory has been redefined accordingly. ‘The musical effect furthermore depends on the psycho-physical organism of the listener. The aesthetic actuality therefore depends on all “four” of these factors. Hanslick’s test ease was whether art expresses and evokes feeling Can it be said that he and like-minded autonomists have weakened their own posi- tion inadvertently by being subject to a kind of semantic confusion about the meaning of “feeling” and that this gave rise to a pseudo-problem? We refer ‘with the same term “feeling” to (1) that which music in the strict sense effects; (2) incidental effects of music: physical and behavioristic ones; and (3) feelings present while listening, but not direetly its effect: associational digressions (pathetic fallacy), day-dreaming while the music is “going on.” ‘The use of the same term for the authentie as well as the digressional types of agitation makes the entire agitation seem non-musical for, though the term “feeling” is used ‘equivocally, itis understood univocally. ‘This makes the heteronomous element, which Hanslick admits exists, appear more glaring than it would if different ‘words were used to denote the agitations eaused by musie and those not eaused by music. * Passages strongly suggestive of the dualism are: ch, I, pp. 10-18; eh. II, pp. 47-88, p. 88; eh. IV, pp. 7-78; eh. V, p. 2, pp. 100-101; eh. VI, pp. 104-106. ‘Bmst Cassirer, Zesly on Man, ch. 9. Cassirer argues that the difference between emo- tional and assthetic agitation is often obscured because we describe the effects of art by fudjectives taken from ordinary life: eg. “serene,” “cheerful,” “grave,” and forget that these terme are anslogous only. Casirer thus argues that aesthetic responses are discreet; we only lack the voeabulary for aesthetic feelings. Similarly, C. J. Ducasse, The Philgcophy of Art, meant the following as criticism of Hanslick: “Tho realm of feeling contains not merely love, fear, anger, ete, but a vast wealth of other unnamed but just as truly em tonal experiences” (quoted by John Hospers, Meaning and Truth in the Arts (Chapel Hil, 1916), p92). Likewise, and cited by Hoepers, J. W. NV. Sullivan in Beethoven: Hie Spiritual Development says: "The fact that words and language are so inept for describing the renc- tions evoked by music must thus be blamed on the poverty of language, not on any lack of relation between the states and events and situations which language normally describes and the musical experience.”AUTONOMY OF ABT 207 However, employing different terms would not change the facts; for the agi- tation of the true listener is in fact not completely different from agitations ‘caused by non-artistic stimuli. The semantic confusion, if any, is the alternate one. If we tried to make a strict verbal distinction between the three forms of response, we would tend to confirm the misconception that the responses are entirely distinct. This dilemma derives from a difficulty still besetting aes- theticians and psychologists. Psychology has not as yet explained adequately those response factors which we sum up under the concepts “feeling” and “emo- tion.” As Rudolf Arnbeim,* concurring with Meyer and Duffy,* has pointed out recently, feelings and emotions are mistakenly thought of as a category per se “Emotion is not an additional mode of experience but a component of all ex- perience.” If, therefore, the autonomy of art is made to depend on the absence of feeling as its effect, the theory is self-defeating. But since all responses to art are a kind of agitation, or feeling, feeling is not extraneous to the experience of art, for without feeling (so broadly understood) there would not be any experience. If then feeling is indispensible to aesthetic experience, are there uniquely aes- thetic feelings? Defenders of the autonomist position have tried to affirm that there are. The difficulty here is how to avoid the conception of a psyche com- posed of ordinary faculties of feeling plus an aesthetic faculty. I. Cassirer" pro- posed that the emotions undergo “a kind of transubstantiation.” With this meta- photical concept he at once affirmed that feeling is an authentic effect of art, that aesthetic feeling differs completely from ordinary feelings, and he ruled ‘out the notion of an additional faculty; but the psyche, though an indivisible unit, according to him is capable of a total change. Despite the caution Cassirer exercised by choosing the term “transubstantiation,” he suggested that the autonomy of art is grounded in matters of fact, without, however, clearly defin- ing these. ‘Hanslick, more suspicious of feeling than Cassirer, reasoned that the actual concurrence of musical sound and musical feeling has to be explained by some common cause, since music does not embody or directly represent feeling. Note ‘that if such a common eause does exist the autonomy of music as he understood it is modified if not entirely cancelled by the very datum which explains the existence of truly musical feeling, He found such a “pineal gland,” causal nexus, in “the dynamic properties of feeling which music can represent” (p. 24). But though these imply the de facto heteronomy of music, Hanslick considered ‘these common properties 60 minimal as to confirm rather than disprove his the- sis, ‘Since the argument from a common nexus is relevant to the second issue we ‘Rudolf Ambeim, “Emotion and Feeling in Paychology and Art," Confinia Peychiatrica, 1, 2(1988), 70-71 *M.F. Meyer, “That Whale Among the Fishes—The Theory of Emotions,” Peychol. Rev’, 40 (1982), 292-300; E. Dufly, “Emotion: An Example of the Need for Reorientation in Paychology;” Poychol. Rev, al (1084), 184-198. " Ernst Casirer, op. cit. (Anchor Books), ch 9, p. 190. ‘Similarly C. C, Pratt, The Meaning of Afwsic (N. Y, 1931), saya: “The tactile compo- nent in music” can represent or suggest physical events to the listener. Cited by M. C. Beardsley, Aesthetics: Probleme in the Philosophy of Criticiom (N.Y. 1958), p. 255. For similar material, ee the sume section, “Notes and Queriey.”208 HERTA PAULY have to discuss, it needs at least a brief examination. Is a causal nexus, the one named or any causal nexus between music and the effected feeling, sufficient for negating the autonomy of music? As it appears in Hanslick’s argument, the nexus strongly modifies autonomy understood as a matter of fact. If, then, “dynamic properties of feeling” cancel the autonomy, would “dynamic prop- erties...” also cancel it? Seen from the other side of the problem: would a more limited nexus be sufficient to account for the specific effect of musie on the tener? Evidently a nexus is required significant enough to account for the pres- ence of the effect but at the same time negligible enough so as not to cancel the autonomy of the art. Too minimal a nexus would fail to elicit the response of feeling; too maximal a nexus, as, for instance, the atomic structure of the uni- verso or even Wilenski’s “universal order”® would be a nexus too unlimited, for it would include all possible effects and therefore would not account for the ‘musical feelings in particular.%” Hence, to make the matter dependent on a nexus which is suficient to account for the effect but minimal or limited enough s0 as not to cancel the autonomy would render the decision one of differential caleu- lus, But if the distinction between autonomy and heteronomy should depend on so infinitesimal a difference, the distinction between autonomy and heter- onomy is rendered insignificant. Complete autonomy or heteronomy thus ean- not be asserted on the basis of a waxing or waning nexus Can autonomy as a matter of fact be upheld on another basis? Cassirer and others have tried to avoid the like-causes-like principle by detecting more or Jess constant correspondence between certain formal features of works of art and human responses to these.!" Also in this context, Cassirer, for example, seems to have thought of autonomy as grounded in facts though by using analo- gous language he shied away from tacking down a simple nexus.!* 'R, H, Wilenski, The Modern Movement in Art (1027): “Classical art assumes that art is gronter than the artists and thet the artist is merely a link between the spectator and some universal onder which man ..is always seeking to discover” (Preface, p. 1). Cf. below, Part IL, my criticism of Wagner's theory. Op. city ch, 9: “The imege of passion is not the passion itself. The poet who represented 1 passion does not infect us with this passion. At a Shakespeare play we are not infected ‘with the ambition of Macbeth ...or the jealousy of Othello.” Cassirer’s intention here is to find the optimum position between pure formalist theory on one hand and imitation and ‘etiotionalist theory on the other. Hospers, op. cit, p. 96, elesrly denying the nexus theory, Adeseribes the concurrence of music and feeling as one of a “felt correspondence” due prob: bly to some “mysterious affinities between life experiences and musical ones.” "The difference between correspondence and nexus theories is, however, & tenuous one. Ct, egg, Dewitt H. Parker, Phe Principles of Aesthetics (N. Y., 1947), ch. 8: "The resident value” or “intrinsic value” of art: ‘Through empathy (the author does not use the term, however), an identity of experience between artist and observer or the character portrayed is established (pp. 26-27). Or, by the same author, The Analysis of Art (1924), in Melvin Rader’s A Modern Book of Eethetics, p- 358: "The unity of a work of artis the counterpart of a unity within the experience of the beholder." In the context of the question whether aesthetic qualities reside in the art object or en- tirely in the aesthetic attitude of the observer, the most plausible statements to my mind tre given by Lucius Garvin in the article “The Paradox of Aesthetic Meaning,” PPR, 8, 1 (1947), and Vincent Tomas, “The Concept of Expression in Art,” APA Yearbook (1982). ‘The former writes (pp. 104-105): "The emotion obtained, though actually outside the object contemplated (namely in the contemplator) is phenomenologically within the object, beingAUTONOMY OF ART 209 In their autonomist position and their formalist emphasis, Hanslick, Cassirer, and others are heirs to Kantian aesthetios, but insofar as their theories imply the claim to being descriptive of matters of fact, they deviate from their prede~ cessor. Kant also had defined pure aesthetic contemplation as not emotional, sensuous, ete, in the ordinary sense. His concept of “disinterested pleasure” and aesthetic freedom is the archetype of later formalist theories. But Kant did not rely on a criterion taken strictly from fact. Though not claiming that a pure ‘esthetic contemplation, or judgment of taste, is absolutely impossible, he co fined his analysis to the theoretical distintion between pure and mixed and in that case not truly aesthetic contemplation. Kant’s principle of autonomy therefore is absolute as principle. Complete autonomy is empirical and hence ‘contingent. But this does not affect the validity of the principle. Kant therefore id not need to determine whether art empirically possesses properties which can also produce heteronomous effects (though he did not deny that they do). His critique is confined to value theory and to establishing a norm of pure aes- thetie pleasure and judgment and a norm the validity of which does not depend on whether it is ever completely fulfilled. As such, that is, as transcendental norm, autonomy remains valid and of paramount importance for aesthetics, ‘We have maintained so far that the autonomy of art cannot be defined on the ground that it is a matter of fact and that the presence of feeling as such in aes- thetic experience does not disprove the autonomy, unless the feeling ean be traced clearly to causes lying outside the work of art. In the remaining part we are examining autonomist theory as opposed to combining several arts. The utonomist claim here is that art experience not only is unique as compared with other kinds of experience but that each art is so unique that it cannot be eom- bined successfully with any other art. " Does the combination of several arts: music and poetry, drama, or dance, by modifying the autonomy of each, necessarily obliterate their unique beauty and character? Autonomist theory maintains that each art is absolute in the sense that its beauty or expressiveness is brought out only if artists adhere to the material and formal elements of one art; in combining several arts, their in- trinsic qualities are compromised and their beauty is diminished or obliterated. Heteronomist theory argues that combining two or more arts ean bring out the beauty of each and increase their power of expression. The erucial question here is whether autonomy has really but one opposite. While it is finally a matter of seeing or hearing whether two arts combined in Derocived as one of its qualities” This view (copoused by Santayana and Ducasse), the Author commen, “at the nme time suggests the immanence of the mesning within the pet= ceptual fel, required in aesthetics.” Vincent Tomas, op. et, pp. 142-143: “In large measure, the task ofthe artist who is objecting, embodying, or expressing feeling is one of selecting, from among a varity of materials, each item of which is already charged with specie feeling impor, that one or combinetion of them which, when contemplated by him, feels like the feeling he wishes to expres,210 RTA PAULY 1 particular work obliterate or enhance each other, philosophically we are com- mitted to analyzing the theoretical basis of the issue. Since Hanslick treated this issue also, his argument against combining the arts may serve once again as representative of autonomist theory. ‘His concern with the problem derived from his long controversy with Richard ‘Wagner over the latter's vision of the music drama. According to Hanslick, combining music with poetry or drama deprives music of its very essence. Even if words were adapted to fit the music, the listener's attention would be divided between intellectual and musical listening. But actually in such combinations ‘music is adapted to the words. Composers have to compromise the intrinsically musical laws of beauty, adapting rhythm and melody to the rhythm and mean- ing of words and dramatic action. ‘This forces music into heteronomy and de- prives it of its own substance. ‘While Hanslick opposed the enslavement of music to words and dramatic ac- tion, Wagner, the alleged heteronomist, demanded the union of the theatrical arts with music. In this he was motivated primarily by an alternate evil which beset the operatic style of his day. As state director, he objected to the personal autonomy of star singers which disrupted the dramatic and musical unity of an opera. So he avoided down-stage arias to integrate solos with the dramatic whole. Hanslick objected to “the annihilation of the singers.” There were the autonomous ballet “interludes” and, worst of all, the trivial libretti to whieh the ‘greatest composers had to resign themselves. Poets were restricted in their po- etic freedom by the established musical style. Wagner, a great Beckmesser him- self, meant to break up this artless state of multiple autonomy by uniting the operatie arts in & form comparable to that of an orchestra in which each instru- ‘ment was both distinet and part of larger Gesamtkunstwerk. Hanslick saw in this a compromising of all arts involved; not their integration or a new creation, ‘As musicologist, Wagner ascribed this multiple autonomy, that is, the hetero- geneity of opera, to a kind of musical fall of sin: he subscribed to the Romanti- cist theory"® that tone-language and word-language originally were and essen- tially are interdependent and together form a more complete language. Their separation had worked to the detriment of both, having left each art in a bar- ren, self-defeating isolation. Poetry had run stagnant in linguistic convention, ‘and abstract prose had finally degenerated to mere rhetories for the benefit. of performing virtuosi (p. 140).!* Music had only developed its formal values Cf, W. H. Wackenroder (1773-1798): Music expresses feeling and is the universal hu man language. E. T. A, Hoffmann, Beethovens Insirumentalmuaik; Ludwig Teck (1808), Preface to the Mimelieder aus dem achuaebiachen Zeitalter: “all works by the most di- ‘verse artists ate pats of one poesy, of one art...” Most influential in Germany isthe work of Joh. G. von Herder. Oper und Drama. ‘Tis was written in 1851, i, three years before Hanslick’s book here referred to, Wagner's book was not aimed at Hanalick in particular, (unless the author of an trtiele in the Brockhaus Encyclopaedia, to which Wagner refer, waa Hanclick). In this book, Wagner intended “to refute the idea that out of the modem opera ...out of the n= satura relationship between the art of poetry and musi the creation of « higher type of drama i to be expected” (p. 19), nd "to refute the idea that opera isa monstrosity because it aime on the basis of absolute music to bring about the true drama.” Wagner intends to vindicate oper, but not mith absolute mse, Bl, Deulache Bibliothek (Berlin, no date), p. 20,AUTONOMY OF ART an (absolute music) for lack of opportunity to discover its other potentials and also had yielded to the temptation of mannerism (p. 47). So far, attempts to re- unite the two arts in opera had failed because, alienated as they were, the union ‘was trapping both in an embarrassing and forced togetherness. The combin: tion was made tolerable only by making one art stoop to the other as ite “slave and working hand” (p. 231). The drama of the future would have to redeem both arts by using each according to its true nature."* Admittedly, this would require some modification of each but, done properly, neither art would be de- prived and both would be enriched. The composer would discover « wider range of musical form and expressive powers through truly dramatic libretti (p. 27, n. 2). The poet, liberated from fixed and narrow musical forms, would in tum supply the composer with a poetic language congenial to melodie treatment. It also would deliver both arts from their bondage to the star-and-stunt cult of traditional oper ‘Wagner thus did not think of music as an independent art; it needs poetry for its own completeness.1* But furthermore, the philosophical thesis implied is that music has a subject to which it refers." The immediate referent is “the feeling of the speaker and actor” (p. 33), HERE LImS THE CLEARLY HETERONOMIST ant oF WaGNen's THESIS. For its fullest expressiveness, music needs words and itis the language of feeling, However, the complete meaning of his thesis is that in expressing feeling, music does not refer to something extraneous to itself, for ‘music and poetry both refer to their own ultimate ground which is “das Wesen des Menschen dem Gefuehl dargestellt” (p. 33). This is the second and final referent. It also is that ground and essence from which the arte had fallen. In other words, Wagner did not make a precise distinetion between the subject— man’s Wesen as the cause—and the subject—man’s Wesen as the referent of art. ‘Music and poetry subsist in the Wesen des Menschen and represent it to man's feeling in sensuous form. The language, art, also subsists in, is immediate ex- pression of, man's essential nature. Since feeling and essential nature are non-sensuous, theoretically one might conclude that the more diverse and multi-sensuous the art media, the more eom- plete will be the representation of such contents. Wagner drew this conch ‘Thus, while Hanslick maintained (1) that each art is discrete and hence not mixable with the other, Wagner postulated the genetic unity of the two arts and declared the present discreteness of each a symptom of disintegration. (2) While for Hanslick feeling was largely suspect aesthetically, for Wagner feeling was the proper subject of music. (3) Hanslick, in order to account for the concur rence of musical listening and musical feeling, tried to detect. a minimal causal nexus; Wagner asserted the primacy of a maximal common nexus, analogous to “The Tondichter has to choose the sounds (Tne) of verve according to their affinity in expremive power in such manner that they represent to feling this related (verwandt) content as s particular member of the orignal kinship of all sounds."(“Der Tondichter hat ‘nun die Toene es Versos nach ihrem verwandtachaftichen Auedrucksvermocgen #0 bestimmen, dass sio...dieeon verwandten Tnhalt als ein besonderes Glied der Urverwandt- schaft aller Toene dem Gefuehl darstllen” [p. 256). “Music as its own subject is not music at all but an abetraction of both music and poetry,—a monstrosity (Unding)” (p. 38) Sich berichen auf ..cinen Gegenstand” (p, 83).212 HERTA PAULY 8 common womb,* and thus required an explanation of the present duality of the two arts. ‘Wagner's theory, then, is representative of heteronomist thinking on several counts. It also shows that heteronomist theory, if carried far enough, tends to cancel its significance as a theory about art; for if too inclusive nexus is posited, nothing can be foreign to the nature of art since not only the various arts but all stimuli of feeling could be said to refer to and spring from such a ‘Furthermore, even if an original common nexus between two arts could be discovered, this would not prove their reciproeal heteronomy once each art has developed a high degree of individuation and a wide range of expressiveness within its own reach. The “separation” of the arts therefore is not simply alienation” in Wagner's sense; it is differentiation, accompanied by higher degree of self-sufficiency. This makes the combination of several arts overly rich sometimes and, as Thomas Munro has observed,” too distracting for the ‘audience. ‘However, the essential argument against strict autonomists, implied in Wag ners point of view, is that autonomy does not have only one opposite. There possibly is @ third category: @ union of two or more arts in which the intrinsic qualities of each are brought out and a third art form emerges, inferior to neither ‘of the two arts by themselves. Whether this third eategory is true to faet must be determined finally by reference to fact. Can it be shown then, that combinations have brought out each art in a composite work? We shall use the relationship between dance and music as an example sinee here the controversy is active at present. ‘To begin with, contemporary American dancers are explicitly monistie in their thinking about so-called “physical” and “aesthetic” factors of dance movement. Directly connected with this monism is their autonomist stand con- ‘cerning feeling and expression. The subject of dance is bodily movement in space. The beauty and expressiveness of the dance is not to be sought in added ‘emotional or intellectual contents.*® Many dancers are sceptical about dramatic themes as well since these easily render the dance « pantomimic sign-language. ‘Modern dancers are at once critical of their immediate forebears who tended to be emotionalist and of the ballet which they reject as empty formalism. In theory at least, the absolute dance is now the aristoeratie version. But in this respect the dance has had a special problem, its relationship to music, In our cultural orbit, the concert dance has been dependent on music. Even where dancers have not aimed at “interpreting” music, their work usually has been composed to a ready-made piece of music, written primarily as abso- Iute musie, though the composer may have borrowed topically irom folk or that maternal Urmelodio of which word-language once was born” (p. 258). » Thomas Munro, "The Afternoon of Faun’ and the Interrelation of the Arts," JAAC (Dee. 1051), 05-111 * Note the identity of thie with Hanslick’s aesthetics, despite the latte’ implicit dualism of physieal and musical factors.AUTONOMY OF ART 213 courtly dance forms, Such music, furthermore, was composed for performance by 4 particular musical instrument primarily, not for human bodily movement. ‘Much so-called dance music is hardly danceable. Some of Chopin's waltzes, for example, are too pianistie, written for fingers, not for complete bodies moving in space. One eause of conflict between dance and music, modern dancers have pointed out, is that the music of our culture has adhered mostly to very sym- metrical, mechanized rhythms, whereas the movement of the human body, if given free rein, moves in patterns of asymmetrical rhythmic balance. Orchestral musie for the most part is entirely self-sufficient, Dancing “it” usually is danc- ing “to it,” and the dance is a distracting appendage, helping neither music nor itself, When dancers object that the dance so far has been but a “handmaiden” ‘to music, this is understating the case: it, has not even helped the music. Are the excuses for the heteronomy of the dance heretofore justified, and is the dance inherently an autonomous art? It is true that in the past the dance ‘usually adapted iteelf to musical structures; but it is not quite true that this servitude was artificial and due to the tyranny of convention. Judged by con- ‘temporary standards at least, the dance as a concert art, was not as yet strong ‘and differentiated enough in itself, and by a necessity springing from its own stage of development, it imitated the existing musical pattems. If the music should suddenly stop in the middle of a Pavane or Minuet, the effect would be similar to a sound film when the sound track gives out. However, the symmetri- cal, repetitious rhythmic patterns of traditional dance forms were not simply evidence of their bondage to music. Both arts shared the tastes of the period which favored such rhythmic styles, and both music and dance adopted them. Seventeenth and eighteenth-century music and ballet exemplify this. Both re- flected, for one thing, the rationalism of the period. “Lawfulness,” in the form of “clear and distinct ideas” had become an aesthetic ideal. Classical ballet sug- gests and deliberately represents the desire to reduce the body and space to precise geometri¢ harmonies. With regard to historical dance forms, one might argue that a more perfect union between dance and music existed then than does today when the danee is struggling for greater prominence. Furthermore, sym- metrical rhythm is not only conventional or rationalistic. It is primary—in dancing more so than in any other art, for the simple reason that when the hu- ‘man body moves in space, its rhythm is primarily footy beeause human beings have two feet. Lay dance, including folk and courtly dance, military marching, ‘or magical ritual retains this natural element. Only when the dance became more of a stage art did the elementary pattern give way to using the entire body to the fullest, modifying also the progression of the feet. Only now that the dance (again according to contemporary criteria) has reached artistic maturity is it commensurable with music. Only now therefore can be determined whether (1) for the dance, also, autonomy is possible and (2) whether dance and music combined ean enrich each other or necessarily render one dependent. Among the attempts to establish the dance in its own right, the most radical has been to recommend the silent dance. It gives a dancer the opportunity to explore the dynamic and kinaesthetie potentials of bodily movement without214 MERTA PAULY the erutches of ready-made structural patterns of a musical composition. Sup- porters of the silent dance are the fundamentalists of the profession. Their remedy does not seem to work: dancers should admit that a dance, be it ever 50 complete in itself, is enriched by music. One reason for this seems to be that strongly dynamic movement in space seems artificial in an atmosphere of ab- solute silence. The contrast between dynamic spatial intensity and soundles ness is odd, because the absence of sound is not @ neutral but a negative quality; it is blank. What Wagner said of musie without words or vice versa is true of the dance in greater measure. However, the dance, though dependent, does not depend on a master but on a servant. Let someone else decide whether this vio- lates its autonomy. At any rate, less radical than the silent dance is the practice of using only minimal accompaniment, like that of percussion instruments. Thi remedy provides for greater autonomy of the dance but not for the music, Tt amounts to a reversal of the order of command, ‘The present trend is toward the perfect union of the two arts. Wherever feasi- ble, dancers and musicians compose their works together and aim at the greatest equivalence between their arts and unity of the composite work#* Some theo- rizing about it 2s well as a search for a common nexus is again going on.*# For reasons we have tried to elucidate, the detection of a causal nexus is not very rewarding. But on the basis of a considerable number of stecessful unions be~ tween dance and music, we conclude that different art forms do not inevitably obliterate each other, or, to put it in more precise language, that one plus one does not necessarily make zero. * For a recent extmple, note Martha Graham's Clytemnestra with musie by Halim-El- Dabh. Igor Stravinsky’s ballet music is an especially interesting case. He writes (in his Autobiography) that he believes “music is, by its very nature, sentially powerless to ex- press anything at all” (Simon and Schuster fed of 1990), p. 83). Stil, when he had composed Petrushka, it occured to him that his work had a close afinity with the rebellion of = ‘mythical figure common to many countries: the poor, funny, ugly, sentimental, and mis- fruided character, known in France as "Pier," in Germany as “Kasperl," and in Russia as “Petrushka.” (See his Autobiography and Edwin Evans, The Fire-Bird and Petrushka [Ox- ford, 1983], p.25.) Cf. Licia Diugossewski, “Notes on New Musi for the Dance,” Dance Observer (Nov. 1067), pp. 199-185. (Mise Dlugosmewski is 8 musician and has composed music for Brick Hawkins! dances)