The Aesthetic Essence of Art

Author(s): Richard Lind

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Spring, 1992), pp. 117-129
Published by: Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics
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 RICHARD LIND
The AestheticEssence of Art
Anyone familiar with the parallel evolution of
aesthetics and Westernart knows how new art-
forms, in a kindof punctuatedequilibrium,have
regularly dislodged each new art theory. In a
strategy designed to avoid any new embarrass-
ments, some contemporarywriters have sought
to define "art" in terms of a complex rela-
tionship within the so-called "artworld" be-
tween artists, their productsand the traditional
communityfor whom those productsare made.'
One of these writers, ArthurDanto, has plausi-
bly arguedthatall art makes some sort of "state-
ment" interpretableonly by artworld partici-
pants familiar with an appropriateart theory.
Nothing can be an artwork until an artworld
theory emerges by which it can be understood.2
There are good reasons to believe that "mak-
ing a statement,"in the broadestpossible sense,
is a necessary condition of art. But it is not
sufficient. Phenomenological analysis tends to
show thatan artworkmustbe aesthetic as well as
meaningful. Without this further specification,
what the artist has to say could not be dis-
tinguishedfrom many nonartisticforms of com-
munication. Indeed, for anything to be art, its
meaningmust subservethe aesthetic function of
the artwork,in a role I shall call "significance."
Our counter thesis, then, will be that the con-
cepts of "art"and "artwork"mustbe defined in
terms of the creation of significant aesthetic
objects.
Danto doesn't offer a readily accessible for-
mulation of his definition of "art," but it is
possible to piece one together from his various
pronouncements.At the heart of his theory is a
concern aboutthe basic difference between such
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism 50:2 Spring 1992
everydayobjects as clusters of real Brillo boxes
and putativeartworkslike Warhol'sBrillo Boxes,
the respective physical features of which are
virtually identical. If they are alike in every
physical detail, yet one is art and the other not,
somethingmust make for the distinction. Danto
points out that, of the two, only Brillo Boxes is
subject to "interpretation"by an artistic com-
munity,the "artworld."3
Consider,he says, a pairof hypotheticalneck-
ties painted all-over blue, respectively, by Ce-
zanne and Picasso. Only Picasso's would have
qualifiedas art:
For one thing, there would have been no room in the
artworldof Cezanne'stime for a paintednecktie. Not
everything can be an artwork at every time: the
artworldmust be ready for it. ... But Picasso's art-
world was ready to receive, at Picasso's hand, a
necktie: for he had made a chimpanzeeout of a toy, a
bull out of a bicycle seat...: so why not a tie out of a
tie?4
On the basis of suchobservationsDanto seems
to offer a set of necessary, if not sufficient,
conditionsfor "art":a) the use of some objectb)
to make an original statement c) interpretable
withinan artworldcontext. Conditionsa) andb)
are suggested in the explanationof Picasso's tie
as art: "Picasso used the necktie to make a
statement."-5 Danto points out thatthe statement
must be original since a fake does not qualify as
art.6 Condition c) is an explicit part of Danto's
conditions:
The moment something is considered an artwork, it
becomes subject to an interpretation. It owes its
existence as an artworkto this, and when its claim to
 118
art is defeated, it loses its interpretationand becomes
a mere thing.7
To see something as art demands nothing less than
this, an atmosphereof artistictheory, a knowledge of
the history of art.8
Danto is often accused of failing to specify
what makes a community an artworldcommu-
nity.9 But in The Transfigurationof the Com-
monplace he tells us that by means of artistic
theory the artist enables us "to see his way of
seeing the world."10 For instance, within the
tradition of art as self-commentary, Warhol's
Brillo Boxes, can be interpretedas propounding
"a brash metaphor:the brillo-box-as-work-of-
art."'1 Danto can thus claim thatthe artworldis
a communityof individualspreparedto see the
worldas the artistdoes throughhis statement.
Though this sketch may not do Danto full
justice, it at least enables us to see the beauty of
his main thesis that the function of art is to
convey meanings decipherableby an appropri-
ate artworld audience. The idea that anything
requiresan interpretiveunderstandingbefore it
can be experienced as a work of art seems the
only plausible explanationfor the fact that what
counts as art in one age would not have counted
as art in an earlier one. We might question
Danto'sclaim thatif Cezannehad paintedhis tie
blue it would not have been art; had he actually
producedone, we should now say it always had
been art-unappreciated art. But a principlehas
still been demonstrated:if such an artifact did
not even have the potential to be interpretedby
any artworld community, it would never be
deemed "art." The potential for "interpreta-
tion" therefore has to be an integral part of
anything'sbeing an artwork.
But Danto's subsidiary thesis, that the state-
ment of the artist consists of enabling us to see
the artist's"wayof seeing the world," makes his
artworld-interpretationcondition too narrow.
This condition implies that art must always be
about something in the world. George Dickie
has challengedthis "aboutness"requirement:
Consider a design which consists of a number of
interpenetratingtriangular-shapedareas and entitled
#23. Is it about triangles? About art? Nothing in the
paintingor its title gives one any reasonto thinkthatit
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
is about anything at all in any ordinary sense of
"about."12
Nonobjective art is by definition about nothing
at all. And obvious examplesof music-Schoen-
berg's serial pieces for instance-qualify as art,
even though they fail to "say" anything about
the world. So Danto's "aboutness"thesis leaves
out a significant segment of what the artworld
embracesas art.
II
That art makes statements is justifiable, how-
ever, so long as we view "making statements"
metaphorically-as a way of communicating
meanings that are understoodby an audience. I
am using the word "meanings" in the broad
phenomenological sense to signify whateveris
broughtto mind in accordancewith the principle
of association. Distantthunderthus "means"an
impendingrainstormin the same general sense
that the word "dog" means a certain species of
four-leggedanimal:both are signs thatregularly
remind us of something. Words have conven-
tional meanings, being based on agreed-upon
associations, but thereare othersorts of conven-
tional meanings as well. Clearly, art is able to
communicatea wide varietyof nonverbalmean-
ings that become intersubjectively"interpreta-
ble" in virtue of the shared associations of a
knowledgeable art community. Such meanings
are "interpreted"by those familiarwith the par-
ticularstyle, school, or traditionof the work.
Danto regards artworldmeanings as limited
to whateveris specified by particularart theo-
ries. In doing so, he seems to have overlooked
one basic meaningthat appearsto be universal,
present even where the work is nonobjective.
That meaningis authorship,by which we recog-
nize that what has been presented to us is the
productof a certain special activity on the part
of its creator.
After all, nothingis identifiedas an artworkif
it does not cause us to associate with it the idea
that it was specifically createdby someone to be
appreciatedin the appropriateway. Forinstance,
the very fact that Dickie's counterexample has
a title ("#23") is a sufficient clue to its artistic
intentions. Lacking any such sign, an absent-
minded doodle of a similar set of intersecting
triangles would not be considered an artwork.
Lind Aesthetic Essence
Unframed,untitled, unsigned, and unexhibited,
enterpriseslike whistling while you work, free-
associatingin yourdiary,or absentmindedlytor-
turing tinfoil into quirky figures lack only the
standardsigns of authorshipto qualify as art.
Art is always at least about itself; it conveys by
certain mutuallyunderstoodclues the idea that
it is the sort of thing created for a specific kind
of appreciationby a certain kind of audience.'3
The fact that authorshipis at least one conven-
tional meaningrequiredof all art would seem to
renderDanto'sthesis, that art makes statements
interpretableby an artworldcommunity, a via-
ble definitional condition, so long as we con-
strue "making statements"as conveying inter-
subjective meanings in the broadest possible
sense.
III
By itself, however,our modification of Danto's
condition is now too broad to catch only "art-
works"in its net. Withoutany specificationas to
what makes any community an artworld com-
munity,our requirementwould seem to include
any kind of artifact that conveys meanings in-
terpretableby a community-for instance, the
products of journalism, history, science, and
philosophy.If "art"does have a set of sufficient
conditions, we need to find at least one more
ingredient.I shall contendthatthe key condition
thatDanto'stheory lacks-and even eschews-is
the requirementthat the main function of art is
to produceaesthetic objects. 4 The idea that art
must be aesthetic is not exactly new; its most
prominent proponent was Monroe Beardsley.
But the difficulty with this particularcondition
has alwaysbeen to give a properaccountof what
makesanythingaesthetic.'5
I propose to spell out the aesthetic require-
mentof art by meansof an analysis of "aesthetic
object" workedout in earlieressays. 16The the-
ory was proposed as a corrective to the once-
popularthesis that an object becomes aesthetic
simply if one addresses it with a certain "aes-
thetic attitude."''7The attitude theory fails to
distinguishtakingan interestin something (giv-
ing it a "chance"to be interesting)fromfinding
it interesting(being interestedby or attractedto
it).'8 The described attitude does only the for-
mer;it is a special way of takingan interestin the
119
appearanceof things. The problem is that such
an attitudeis not always rewarded:"I am paying
full attention to x and x is not aesthetic," is
clearly not self-contradictory.19
It would seem that only when something
holds our interestin a certain way do we wantto
call it "aesthetic." My thesis, then, is that to be
aesthetic something must be attractiveto atten-
tion in a spectrumof ways one might variously
describe as "intriguing,""fascinating,""beau-
tiful" or "gorgeous," depending on the degree
and kind of perceptualinteresttaken. The term
no longer refers merely to the beautiful. Even
objects we would ordinarilyregardas "ugly"
withered old hags, for instance-can count as
"aesthetic"if they graband hold our attentionin
a certain way. I shall try to demonstratethat all
aesthetic objects are necessarily interesting,but
in a way that distinguishes them from other
interestingobjects.20
Are aesthetic objects necessarily interesting?
If we single out any natural, manufacturedor
artistic item as aesthetic, intuitively it is only
afterhavingcontemplatedit. No otheruse seems
relevant. But why, out of all the phenomena
continuously swimming through experience,
should we contemplatejust these items? Clearly
it is only because they somehow reward that
contemplationby "holding" our attention and
motivating us to continue to engage in their
contemplation.Indeed, it seems a contradiction
to say a sunset or piece of driftwood is aesthetic
but totally uninteresting.True, someone could
consistently say, "I'm bored with beautiful sun-
sets." But consider what such a statementactu-
ally means: the sunset remainsinterestingto the
eye ("beautiful") but the speaker is no longer
interestedin that sort of experience.
The fact that we speak of being aesthetic as a
matterof degree supports our claim. It is lex-
ically and syntactically correct to say that one
work is "more aesthetic"than another,or that a
particulararrangementis "not very aesthetic."
We could not mean simply that we are delib-
erately paying more attention to one than the
other; intense scrutiny is often disappointedby
admittedly unaesthetic objects. Intuitively, we
see that the more an item spontaneouslyelicits
discriminationthe more aesthetic we say it is.
Being contemplatively interesting thus seems
the only possible reason to bother to call any-
thing "aesthetic."
120
IV
So there are good reasons for claiming that all
aesthetic objects are interesting. Nonetheless,
not all interesting objects are aesthetic. How,
then, are aesthetic objects distinguished from
other sorts of interesting things? It has been
commonly observed that they are objects we
consider "for their own sake alone." Thus we
mightbe temptedto say thataestheticobjects are
those we find intrinsicallyinteresting. But there
are many things we may contemplate for their
own sakes that we do not necessarily call aes-
thetic-philosophy, mathematics, and even sci-
entific theories.21What makes aesthetic objects
different from these other intrinsicallyinterest-
ing phenomena?It seems a truism that to find
something "interesting" requires that one al-
readyhave, in the dispositionalsense, an "inter-
est" in it. The distinction we are seeking must
therefore lie in differences in human interests.
And thereis, I hold, a specialperceptual interest
in contemplatingaestheticobjects, quite distinct
from our theoretical interest in contemplating
philosophy,mathematics,and the like.
Our phenomenologicaltheory posits that our
interest in aesthetic objects is not a single mo-
tive, but a complex relationship between two
distinct levels of interest.22This structurepre-
supposesthatthe objective, the telos, of one sort
of interest, a meta-interest,can be to engage in
the very process of satisfying a second sort of
interest,its sub-interest.All so-called "hedonis-
tic" interests, for instance, seem to be meta
interests in that what they aim at is the enjoy-
mentof fulfilling some otherinterest. The hedo-
nist's motto, "Pleasure:to get it you must forget
it," implies this dependency of the pursuit of
enjoymenton the pursuitof some other interest.
For instance, our hedonistic "gourmet"interest
in enjoying a fine meal, depends on a second,
sub interest, that of hunger; if one ruins one's
appetite, one's gourmet interest will be frus-
trated even though one's hunger has been sat-
isfied. A similar structureseems to obtain be-
tween a) our hedonistic aesthetic interest and
b) a more basic interest in certain objects of
experience.
The sub interestof aestheticexperience is one
I shall call "perceptual"interest.I am using that
term in its broadphenomenologicalsense, rather
than limiting it to sensory perception. Percep-
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
tual interestis to be understoodas the interestin
makingintelligible what is immediatelygiven in
experience-sensory data or meanings or any
other sorts of phenomena.To make whateveris
"before the mind" intelligible is to discriminate
all discoverable relations of identity, equality,
proportion, similarity, and differences among
the presentedelements of experience-in short,
all formal relations. This activity is almost al-
ways subliminal,however,giving us the impres-
sion that we are merely "drinkingin" the com-
position of the phenomenon. I have elsewhere
describedthe process of satisfying one's percep-
tual interestas a focal "matching"operationby
which all formal relations of the given phe-
nomenon are discriminated until its structure
has become clear and distinct.23Perceptualin-
terest needs to be carefully distinguished from
"theoretical"interest, anothersort of interestin
intelligibility: while the latter is an inquisitive-
ness about hidden organization,the former is a
curiosity about manifest organization. For in-
stance, one's perceptual interestin a Corinthian
pillar would be to grasp its evident proportions,
whereasany theoreticalinterestin it wouldbe to
understandits unseen architecturaldynamics.
Satisfying perceptual interest is a cognitive
skill; infants spend hours perceptually"making
sense" of simple objects. The perceptualskills
of adults are so well honed, however, that we
hardly ever notice we are habitually satisfying
this goal-orientedinterest.Only when an unusual
arrangementdefies instantaneousclarification
do we find ourselves consciously interested in
makingsense of it, as when, for instance, we are
confrontedfor the first time with the nonobjec-
tive complexity of a JacksonPollock. However,
once a given arrayof data has been made intel-
ligible, we tend to rememberthe relationsso that
the elaboratediscriminationthat originally took
place is no longer required. Familiarityis thus
both the blessing and the curse of adulthood-a
blessing because it gets us through the world
relativelyunscathed,a curse becausemost of the
fascinationsof our youth have been inextricably
lost.
Perceptualinterestseems to be the only basic
interestcommon to the great range of items we
can find aesthetic. One can discover aesthetic
objects in every conceivable category, ranging
from the most concrete (brick yardponds, trash
heaps, and rusting machinery) to the most ab-
Lind Aesthetic Essence
stract (mathematical equations, philosophical
systems, and idle ideas). The only common
source of interest among such diverse phenom-
ena would seem to be theirpossession of formal
properties. Intuitively,we see that if something
fails to presentus with internalor external for-
mal relations that hold our perceptual interest,
we will not call it "aesthetic." Even a sunset
might not be singled out as aesthetic if it lacked
subtle relationsof hue or shape. Totally simple
sensuousthings-e.g., a monolithicfield of pri-
mary blue, a taste of salt or sweet, an over-
toneless electronicbeep-are never describedas
aesthetic. At the most abstractlevel mathemat-
ical formulaeare sometimes called "elegant"or
even "beautiful," but only because of the dis-
cerned relations of identity, equality, and pro-
portion. No one ever claimed to find the number
one in and of itself aesthetically pleasing. (If
there is beauty in Plato's "One," it is only be-
cause it is intricatelyrelated to everything else
under the sun.) Nothing lacking discriminable
relationswould everarouseour perceptualinter-
est and neitherwould it be called "aesthetic."24
V the application of the term "aesthetic" to its
But if the capacityto arousea perceptualinterest
is a necessary condition of anything being aes-
thetic, it is clearly not sufficient. Practically
everythingwe experience requiressome percep-
tual discrimination,but relatively few such ob-
jects count as aesthetic. The difference between
the aestheticand the nonaestheticwould seem to
be a matter of degree. Only those phenomena
that requirerelativelyextensive or highly active
perceptual discrimination seem to qualify as
"aesthetic."As such, they succeed in arousinga
greaterthanusual amountof perceptualinterest.
But why shouldit matterwhetherour perceptual
interest is increased or not? Any given interest
only aims at its own satisfactionand, once satis-
fied, ceases to assert itself. Its aim is to put itself
out of business, not to enhanceitself.
The only plausible explanation is that there
mustbe a second sort of interest,a meta interest,
riding "piggyback"on this perceptualinterest.
Only a second interest could account for our
interest in undergoing the heightened and sus-
taineddiscriminationrequiredto make an object
intelligible. Such an hedonistic meta interest
would aim at enjoyingthe fascinationthatoccurs
121
in heightened perceptual interest. "Enjoying"
that process does not necessarily mean that one
experiences intense pleasure-many aesthetic
experiences could not be so characterized-but
only that the ongoing process is found "attrac-
tive" to attentionin some way. Since every com-
plex thing we experience is of some perceptual
interest, it seems that only when that process
becomes enjoyable enough to motivate us to do
anythingaboutit do we call it "aesthetic."
Unlike our perceptualinterest, which merely
aims to make intelligible whatevercomes before
the mind, this second-level interestappearsto be
a practical interestin that it requiresmeans-end
thinkingin orderto get to its goal. The existence
of such a secondary interestis supportedby the
fact thatone can have an interestin experiencing
a poem, a painting, a sculpture or a piece of
music and yet be frustratedwhen the featuresof
the work fail to arouse any curiosity. This prac-
tical interestwould be what motivatesus to go to
plays, concerts, exhibits, sunsets,andotherstim-
ulating phenomena. It is the true "aesthetic"
interest, then, since only when it is capable of
being satisfied have we sufficient conditions for
object. According to our analysis, then, an aes-
thetic object is any phenomenon whose formal
relations are of sufficient interest to perception
to motivateand satisfy a practical interestin the
veryprocess of making it intelligible.25It is an
"object," then, only in the sense that it is the
phenomenalwhole thatemerges throughthe dis-
criminationprocess.
There is ample evidence for this definition:
1) It solves the problemof "disinterested" inter-
est. Since Kant, a whole tradition of aestheti-
cians have maintainedthatwhat makes anything
aesthetic is a kind of nonpracticalinterest, one
without "ulteriormotives." Critics have pointed
out that we often have ulteriormotives when we
enjoy music or other supposedly aesthetic phe-
nomena. But on our thesis, practical interest is
an essential ingredient in the aesthetic experi-
ence; only the perceptual sub interest is truly
"disinterested"in the Kantiansense. 2) It also
explains what art teachers have always known,
that the poles of utter simplicityand total chaos
are aesthetically deadly. If a phenomenon is
unintelligible, as any chaotic arrangementis by
definition, there is nothing to discriminateand
therefore no process to satisfy one's aesthetic
122
interest. And if a phenomenonis utterlysimple,
lackingeven any artworld"statement"thatmight
lend it some interest, there is, again, nothingto
discriminate. ("Minimal" art is not truly mini-
mal, in that sense.) 3) It furthermoreaccounts
for such well-known aesthetic "devices" as sub-
tlety, complexity,metaphor,and ambiguity. All
such features require extensive clarification,
hence perceptualinterest. 4) Lastly, it explains
the need for noveltyor originality in the aesthetic
realm. Because familiarityreduces the need for
extensive discrimination,familiarforms tend to
lose whateverinterestthey once possessed.
VI
It remainsto be shown thatthe attemptto create
something "aesthetic," in the sense just spec-
ified, is anothernecessary condition of "art." It
is impossible, of course, to show in one short
essay just how each and every possible category
of art satisfies this condition. But those who
have gone on record as opposing any aesthetic
requirementof art have conveniently given us a
short-cutstrategy.Theirown gambithas been to
trot out what they take to be obvious exceptions
to the generalizationthatall art is designed to be
aesthetic. Therefore, if even these supposed
counter instances can be shown to conform to
our condition, the burden of evidence falls on
critics to show that there really are any genuine
exceptions.
There seem to be two main strategies for
denying that the function of artworksis neces-
sarily to be aesthetic. One is to show that there
are acknowledged artworksthat clearly are not
designed to be aesthetic, a position for which
Timothy Binkley is known.26 The other is to
argue, as Danto has done, that if artworksevoke
an aesthetic response, it is of a different order
thanthatof ordinaryobjects and is thereforenot
a definitional feature.27By considering the art-
works on which these writers base their respec-
tive claims, I believe I can show that neither
strategyprevails.
Binkley'santi-aestheticismcentersaroundDu-
champ'snotoriousL.H. 0. 0. Q., which amounts
to a copy of the Mona Lisa, mustachioed and
goateed graffiti-style. According to Binkley,
you can only appreciatethe true Mona Lisa by
looking at it, but to appreciateL.H. 0. 0. Q. you
only need a descriptionof it.
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
When you look at the artwork[L.H. 0. 0. Q.I you learn
nothing of artistic consequence which you don't al-
readyknow from the descriptionDuchampgives, and
for this reason it would be pointless to spend time
attendingto the piece as a connoisseurwould savora
Rembrandt.28
Binkley implies that while the Mona Lisa is
concerned with a certain sort of experience that
might be called "aesthetic," any such response
to L. H. 0. 0. Q. is purely incidental. Rather, it
"creates primarily with ideas."29 Being aes-
thetic is, therefore, not a necessary conditionof
being art, he concludes.
But Binkleyfails to recognizethat "ideas"(as-
sociated meanings) are as much subject to per-
ceptual discrimination, hence capable of being
aesthetic, as any other feature. Certainly ideas
are an integralpartof literaryobjects. Binkley is
justified in denying that a description of the
meaning of L. H. 0. 0. Q. is in itself particularly
aesthetic. But if we needn't see L.H. 0. 0. Q. to
appreciatewhatin it is of artistic"consequence,"
as Binkley claims, why didn't Duchampsimply
describe his idea? Why go to the trouble of
exhibiting it? The fact is that there is a crucial
experientialdifference between a mere descrip-
tion of L.H.0.0.Q. and the visible artwork
itself.
Obviously Duchampis poking fun at the "se-
rious" artworld. But a considerable aesthetic
effect is produced by presenting his audience
with a visual pattern associated with two in-
compatible meanings. One of them is a stale
icon everyone would mechanicallyrecognize as
"great"art, the Mona Lisa. The otheris another
familiarphenomenon-graffiti-but in the unfa-
miliar setting of an art gallery. The targetaudi-
ence's understandingis such thatthe same object
cannot be both art and graffiti. "What is this
doing here?" one wants to ask. L. H. 0.0. Q.'s
ambiguityand ambivalenceautomaticallywake
up one's discriminativecapacities. Visual and
abstractattentionscour the image for clues that
will reconcile its conflicting meanings. In the
process an entire visual/conceptual complex
comes aestheticallyalive. One may be disturbed
by it, but one is also intrigued.
True, it is the sought-after idea behind the
work that sustains our interest in L. H. 0. 0. Q., as
Binkley suggests. But it does not follow that
simply communicatingan idea is therefore the
Lind Aesthetic Essence
work'sprincipalfunction. If it were, why make
the audiencedig for it? Why must we go through
such an odd experience only to be told, perhaps,
that the artworld has become too stodgy. Du-
champ's purpose, rather, would seem to be to
jolt his jaded audience with an enigma, one that
isn't easily laughedoff because it seems to be at
the expense of art.30It's the effect, not the mes-
sage that Duchamp clearly means to communi-
cate in exhibitingthis work. Remember-this is
a man who has said he does not believe in "posi-
tions"or "belief" or "judgment."'31
VII
Unlike Binkley, Danto is willing to concede that
all art may induce an aesthetic response. But he
denies that it could be a definitional condition,
using a comparisonbetween Duchamp'sFoun-
tain andthe simple upside-downurinalin which
it is embodiedto make his case:
Butcertainlythe workitself has propertiesthaturi-
nalsthemselveslack:it is daring,impudent,irrever-
ent, witty and clever.Whatwouldbe the sight of
aesthetesmooningoverthe gleamingsurfacesof the
porcelainobject...: "How like Kilamanjaro! How
likethewhiteradianceof Eternity...!" No: theprop-
ertiesof theobjectdepositedin theartworldit shares
withmostitemsof industrialporcelainerie,whilethe
propertiesFountainpossessesas anartworkit shares
withtheJulianTombof Michelangelo.32
Danto insists thatthoughour responseto such
a work may be "aesthetic," it is of a different
"order"of aesthetic response from the kind we
haveto a mere realthing.33This distinctorderof
responses cannot be a definitional requirement
of art because what makes our aesthetic re-
sponse to something like Fountain different
from our response to a "real thing" is what
makes it a workof art to begin with.
Wecannotappealto aestheticconsiderations in order
to get ourdefinitionof art, inasmuchas we needthe
definitionof art in orderto identifythe sorts of
aestheticresponsesappropriate to worksof art in
contrastwithmerethings.34
Danto'sargumenthinges on whetherthere is an
"order"of aesthetic response appropriateonly
to items that satisfy his definition, i.e., which
123
make an artworld"statement."Fountainis sup-
posed to illustratethis claim.
But Fountain seems to achieve its aesthetic
effects, as did L.H. 0.0. Q., by presenting an
arrangementthat directs our attention to two
conflicting meanings, a) that of a distasteful
utilitariandevice for eliminating human waste
and b) thatof an exalted object of art, suggested
by its exhibition in a gallery. Here again our
failureto reconcile mutuallyexclusive meanings
triggersa rediscriminationof what would other-
wise have been merely familiarlyrecognized. In
this case discriminationdoes indeed discover a
quasi-sculpturalarray of symmetries and pro-
portions in the "gleaming" surfaces of which
Danto speaks. At the same time, one finds one-
self searchingfor clues to an explanationfor the
deliberatecoalescence of these most unsettling
associations. The just-realized aesthetic char-
acter of the urinal's surfaces enters into one's
speculations on just what Duchamp means by
this piece. An ironic meaning-connectionbe-
tween urinalsand art suggests itself: shornof its
utilitarianfunction, even a urinalcould pass for
a work of art-perhaps a literal fountain. How
then can Art be the lofty thing we take it to be?
WhateverDuchamp'smeaning,attentionremains
riveted on a complex phenomenon in which
meaning and sensuous arrangementalternately
clash and fuse, and continuallyseduce.
Whatcan we say aboutDanto'stwin aesthetic
"orders"? Since our response to the urinal's
sensory featuresare obviously quite appropriate
to the appreciationof Duchamp'smeaning, it is
clear that we are not dealing with two funda-
mentally differentkinds of aesthetic experience
here. Our response to the visual/tactile display
andto the associatedmeaningsin this case is one
single response. And it seems categorically the
same as all otheraestheticexperiences, an inten-
sified and prolonged discriminationthat con-
stitutesa heightenedperceptualinterestin mak-
ing sense of what Duchamp has presented us
with. Hence, Danto cannot use this example
justly to dismiss the aesthetic as a definitional
condition of "art" on the groundsof two kinds
of aesthetic response. Fountainevinces no such
division.
On the otherhand, there are good reasons for
claiming that Duchamp did intend Fountain
to present us with what is, by our definition,
an "aesthetic object." Fountain surely has
 124
something to say, but it was designed in such a
way that one would undergoan aesthetic degree
of discriminativeattractionin "deciphering"it.
Since Duchamp took the trouble to exhibit his
work in just this way, it is hardto believe he did
not meanto fascinateas well as shock us with his
"daring,impudent,irreverent,witty and clever"
piece.
Though we cannot consider other proposed
counter-instanceshere, the foregoing analyses
at least demonstratehow it is possible to detect
aesthetic interestwhere it may not have been so
obvious. In all likelihood, all such "counterex-
amples" simply rest on a narrow or murky no-
tion of what makes anything "aesthetic." True,
there will always be ostensible instances of art
where it will be unclear,even utilizing our defi-
nition, whetheror not one is dealing with some-
thing aesthetic. But I believe one will find that
these very same cases are the ones we are intui-
tivelyunsureare "artworks"as well. If the incor-
porationof our definitionof "aesthetic"into the
meaningof "art" results in the same borderline
cases as those confrontedby our intuitivesense of
art, thenthe definitioncan be saidto approximate
very well thatwhich it seeks to encapsulate.
VIII
I have arguedthat to engage in "art" one must
try botha) to makea statementandb) to produce
an aesthetic object. A successful definition of
thatterm, however,will have to show how those
conditions work together, since they seem to
specify objectives that go in conflicting direc-
tions. To complicate matters, we have also ob-
served that there is only one sort of conveyed
meaning, that of "authorship,"attributableto
all works of art. That would imply that the
definitionsof "art"(the process) and "artwork"
(the product) would have to be inextricably
linked, since what the artisthas done or is doing
would have to be an essential part of the mean-
ing of any artwork.In short, when we recognize
anything as an artwork, it is only because we
understandit to be the result of art, the creative
process. My proposedphilosophicaldefinitions
of those two terms reflect thatrelationship:
The process: "Art"is the creativearrangementof one
or more media with the immediateprincipalpurpose
of communicatinga significantaestheticobject.
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
The product:An "artwork"is any creative arrange-
ment of one or more media whose principalfunction
is to communicatea significantaestheticobject.
These descriptions employ certain stipulative,
technicalterms requiringcarefulelucidationand
argument.
There are only two main points on which our
two definitions differ: a) "Arrangement"refers
to a process of arrangingin describing "art,"
whereas it refers to the relationshipswithin the
mediumresultingfrom such arranging in regard
to "artwork".Thus the ambiguity of the word
"arrangement"neatly reflects the ambiguityof
the word "art" in its applicationto both process
and product. Additionally, it is a conveniently
neutralword, applying equally well to any me-
dium.35b) The respectiveattributionsof "func-
tion" to "artwork"and "immediatepurpose"to
"art" acknowledge that to ascribe a function to
anything is to imply the immediatepurpose its
maker intended it to serve, as against any ul-
terior purposes the artist might have harbored,
such as fame or fortune. Bearing in mind these
differences, we will concentrateon "artwork,"
from which the meaning of "art" can be ex-
trapolated.
a) 'Anycreative arrangementof one or more
media...." An artwork must be deliberately
wrought in some way since art is a function
class-it somehow succeeds or fails-and there
is no function without purposiveness. Even
those naturalor accidental objects employed in
"found" or "ready-made"art are intentionally
manipulatedin a minimalway, if only to label or
display them. To call the process "creative,"
then, implies at least a modicumof deliberation
regarding the perceptualeffect-how it would
look, sound or mean-no matterhow otherwise
uncontrolledthe technique. "Creative"also im-
plies the production of something unique, re-
flecting the general sentimentthatthe makingof
mere copies and forgeries is not "art,"although
making ostensive copies has sometimes been
acceptedbecause the worksactuallyhave some-
thing original to "say" aboutthe originals. The
artworld'srequirementof originality in art no
doubt stems from the fact that we require art
to be perceptually fascinating, and familiarity
worksagainstthatend.
It does not follow, however,thatcopies, such
as Romanreproductionsof Greeksculpture,are
Lind Aesthetic Essence
not artworks. The advantage of defining "art-
work" as an "arrangement"is that it not only
incorporatesthe process into the meaning of the
product,but it also distinguishesthe work from
any specific instantiationof it in the medium.
An "arrangement"' is simply the set of relations
fashioned by the artist in the medium and its
context; any number of artifacts can therefore
have the same arrangement.To the extent that
they embody the original arrangement,the arti-
facts of copyists may be said to embody "art-
works," but not by the copyists; they are clearly
the "work" of the original artists-Myron,
Praxitalesor whomever.By shifting the identity
of the artworkfrom any artifactto its "arrange-
ment," we also solve the problem of deciding
which artifact is the work of art when the artist
himself producesmultipleinstancesof his work.
On this account every playing of Beethoven's
"Fifth" instantiatesthat symphony, every cast-
ing of Rodin's "The Burghers of Calais" pre-
sents his sculpture.
By "medium,"I nmeanany sort of discrimi-
native elements by which the experience of an
audience can be controlled, including not just
sensory data and the meanings of words and
symbols but the very context of the artifact
as well. Only pure imagination, the presumed
"medium"of the "ideal" theory of art, must be
ruled out because it does not satisfy our condi-
tion of communication, discussed below. On
this account one can certainly engage in the
process of art throughimaginativemanipulation
of a medium, but there would not seem to be
a "work" until the imagined arrangement is
finally embodied in a medium. Intuitively, we
see that while Michelangelo may have arranged
the anatomy of the David (engaged in art) "in
his head," the sculpture (the artwork)is in the
marble.
b) "... whoseprincipalfunction is to commu-
nicate...." Function is the mode of action by
which somethingfidlfillsits purpose (O.E.D.). It
thus refers to what the object actually does,
ratherthan simply what the artist intended. De-
fining "artwork"in terms of "function"there-
fore has certain clarifying advantages. First of
all, it enables us to dismiss total failures as
nonart; it does not matter what the artisan in-
tends if the artifact fails to communicatea sig-
nificant aesthetic object. Nothing is art, we
claim, if it does not so function, which would
125
explainwhy we will not acceptanythingas "art"
simply becausesomeonehas labeledit as such.
Secondly, when an artifactdoes in fact fulfill
the role we have specified, the notionof function
shifts the burdenof proof to the skeptic. Clearly,
we judge the function of a thing principallyby
internalevidence. If an artifactwere designed in
such a way as to be perfectly useful as a knife,
we should say that that was its function. Only
concrete evidence to the contrarywould change
our judgment. Are the Lascaux cave paintings
artworks?Their fulfillment of that role, in the
absence of controvertingevidence, would qual-
ify them as art. Since pre-historicalartifactsthat
happen to be significantly aesthetic objects are
generally treated as artworks, our shift from
intentionto function seems to reflect the way we
actuallyunderstandthe concept of artwork.
Another advantageto defining "artwork"in
terms of function is that it enables us to account
for both good and bad works of art. Clearly,
whether or not anything man-made is good or
bad depends entirely on the extent to which it
fulfills its function. Bad art is like a bad knife; it
fails to satisfy its function well. And if an art-
workhas little perceptualinterestor little to say,
that is when we say it is bad.
To say that communicating significant aes-
thetic objects is a "principal" function of art-
worksis to say thatany otherfunction, such as to
convey informationor be useful in some way,
cannot overshadow its aesthetic function. That
this condition is part of what we mean by "art-
works" is apparentfrom the fact that when the
dominant purpose of a somewhat significant
aesthetic artifact is clearly something else we
tend not to regard it as an instance of art. The
fine line between "art" and mere "craft," for
instance, fairly obviously depends on how vig-
orously an item is significantly aesthetic. Such
objects displayed in museums or galleries as
artworks are almost always overwhelmingly
aesthetic or strikingly meaningful. Wherever
utilitarianand aesthetic purposes conflict it is
the former that are compromised. This distinc-
tion is especially obvious in architecturewhere
only instances possessing salient aesthetic fea-
tures (Wright's "Falling Water")or significant
"statements"(Le Corbusier's"Chapelof Notre
Dame du Haut") attainthe statusof art.
In sayingthatthe functionof art is "to commu-
nicate" aestheticobjects I am using the verb in a
126
special sense close to that of its root, communi-
care- "to makecommon to many" (O.E.D.). Its
stipulativemeaning here is "to make available
for intersubjectiveexperience," for which pres-
ently there is no term. On the one hand, this
requirement excludes the strictly personal;
clearly a snapshotwould not count as art if one
took it just to remembera lover. On the other
hand, it still includes acknowledged artworks
neverintendedactually to be shared.Many theo-
ries claiming that art is "public" have been
challenged with the obvious artworks of such
"private"artists as the reclusive Emily Dickin-
son. But we have said that communicationis a
ffunctionof an artwork, and function is largely
determinedby manifestcapacityfor use. Thus,
if someone like Dickinson deliberatelyproduces
something the obvious function of which is to
communicatea significantaestheticexperience,
it will not matter, according to our definition,
whetherit is ever actually displayed.
All that is needed for a work to satisfy this
communicativefunction, then, is thatthere be a
"referenceclass" of past, presentor futureindi-
vidualsin a positionto interpretand appreciateit
as a significant aesthetic object. Danto's "art-
world community" is in that sense presupposed
by our requirementof "communication." But
the referenceclass need not belong to any "main-
stream"artworldpublic. It can consist of any set
of percipients, no matterhow small, who could
eventually share the necessary associations and
sensitivities. Cezanne's "blue tie" would have
finally been vindicated as "art" according to
this condition, given that its referenceclass has
been realized.
Ix
c) "... a significantaesthetic object." "Aesthetic
object" has already been defined. By requiring
that the intended aesthetic object be "signifi-
cant," our definition implies that at least some
of whatart "says"is necessarilysubsidiaryto its
aesthetic impact. This requirement solves an
importantproblem: there are meaningful aes-
thetic artifactsthatdo not qualify as "art";most
instancesof propaganda,journalism, advertise-
ment, and rhetoric, though designed to capture
our attention, do not count. The problem with
nonartisticaesthetic statementsis thatthe mean-
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
ings conveyed by these artifacts simply distract
attentionfrom whateveris aestheticallyinterest-
ing about them to what they are about, thus
inhibitingan artistic function in orderto satisfy
a nonartisticfunction.It follows thatthose mean-
ings that make anythingan artworkmust some-
how enhance, ratherthan detractfrom, the aes-
thetic interestof the object.
We must distinguishtwo phenomenologically
distinct ways in which an artifactcan mean any-
thing-I shall stipulativelycall them (1) "signifi-
cance," meaning that participates in the aes-
thetic object, and (2) "information,"meaning
extraneousto the aestheticobject.36The signifi-
cance/information opposition is explicable in
terms of the focus of attention.By "attention"I
mean the focusing of consciousness on any phe-
nomenon, whethersensuous or not. It is just as
possible to attend to something abstract-the
meaning of a poem for instance-as to some-
thing concrete. And it should be obvious to any
reflective person that when we concentrateat-
tention on any phenomenonin this way it comes
to the foreground of experience, whereas if at-
tention should stray to something else it will
recede into the background.A shift in attention
can always reversethe focal role of a phenome-
non's meaning, as when one explicitly shifts
from noticing the meanings of a poem to con-
centratingmore on its soundpatterns.
To say that a phenomenon is informativein
our special sense, then, is to say that when we
understandwhat a phenomenonmeans, our at-
tentionconcentratesentirelyon what it is about.
Informative meaning is an associated pattern
which comes to dominatethe foregroundof ex-
perience at the expense of the arrangementim-
mediately given in the experience, which sinks
into the background. For example, when one
reads a newspaper, one ordinarily disattends
from the printed words to what they "inform"
one of, leaving the sight of the words in the
"margin" of experience. The reason informa-
tive meanings cannot be an essential ingredient
of art, then, is that they distract attention from
the immediate arrangement,the discrimination
of which is needed for the apprehensionof an
aestheticobject. That would explain why propa-
ganda, rhetoric, advertisement, "illustration,"
or pure "information"are all generallyexcluded
from the realmof art. Even if initially aesthetic,
they differ from art in that they attractattention
Lind Aesthetic Essence
to and "through"the aesthetic "surface" to the
message, leaving potentially aesthetic features
unappreciated.True, some examples of adver-
tisement or propagandastrike us as artworks-
Toulouse-Lautrec's Moulin Rouge handbills,
the Nazi film "Triumphof the Will"-but only
because the "look" of the thing dominates the
message. We really don't look at them as adver-
tisementsor propaganda.
Significance, in contrast, is to be understood
as meaning that shares the phenomenal fore-
groundwith the immediatelygiven pattern.For-
mal purists like Roger Fry claim that one can
attend only to the immediate object or to its
meaning, but not both.37But, as our analysis of
Duchamp's Fountain illustrates, meaning and
form can be all baked together in one spicy
confection. What we get in such cases are two
subsystems, one phenomenally given and the
otherhabituallyprojected,co-discriminatedas a
single comprehensivewhole. The purists' mis-
take was to reject all meanings, ratherthan see
that, unlike informative meaning, significant
meaningfuses with the immediateobject, mak-
ing it all the morefascinating.
The means to artistic fusion are limited only
by the genius of the artist. Some examples:
a) The simplest form of significance occurs in
the representationalarts, where that which is
representedis anchored in the arrangementof
the mediumby formalcomposition. The interre-
lationshipof colors, shapes, and other features
of a painting,for instance, keeps one from dwel-
ling on subject matterin isolation from its pre-
sentation on the canvas. b) Artificiality in the
mannerof referringto subject matteris another
aesthetic device that prevents attention from
strayingto the "real" world. Such "distancing"
devices as characters speaking in iambic pen-
tameter, stylized depiction, and surrealistic or
abstractrepresentationweave a wholly artistic
"world."c) Again, meaning is marriedto form
by mutual relevance, as when the sounds of
alliterationand assonance are relevant to what
a poem delineates, when combinations of hues
"express" the mood of a scene, or when the
music's rhythm matches that of its program.
d) Finally, the self-referentialwork of the twen-
tieth century-in all media-succeeds in being
significant by directing its "observations"to-
ward its own arrangement.When a work is sig-
nificant, thatpart of the world to which it refers
127
does not come across as "outthere";it is present
"here"withinthe patternsof artifice with all the
immediacyof the medium.38
As we have observed, of the various sorts of
meaning a work of art can convey, only author-
ship is universal. But it must be shown to be
significant, not just informative. Authorshipis
automaticallysignificant, I maintain,because it
is a causal set of meanings, the endpoint of
which is the immediateobject itself: to think of
the means of productionis to thinkof an activity
culminating here, in the present arrangement
of the medium. Thus every successful artwork
seems to communicate,at the very least, a sense
of it's creator'spresence and intent,thanksto the
way we have learned from critics, teachers, art-
ists and othersto "read"the clues of authorship.
The artist'suniquestyle, concepts, technique,
point of view, and emotional attitude are an
integralpartof the experience of the work, built
into the piece, and notjust backgroundinforma-
tion. One hears Beethoven'spower, admiresthe
brushstrokesof Frans Hals, marvelsoverShake-
speare 'sturn of phrase, enjoys Duchamp's wit.
Of course the creatorwho "inhabits"the workis
not the real, historical author but a dramatis
persona supplied by the imagination. Yet this
immanentauthoris so centrala significancethat
anything else meant by the work strikes us as
what this author means. The significance of
authorshipgoes a long way towardsexplaining
why there have been so many adherentsto the
expression theory of art. Artistic expression,
after all, is simply what we experience as the
artists' participationin their own works. It adds
anotherdimensionto our aestheticenjoyment.
The necessity of authorshipas a significant
meaning is reflected in actual practice. For in-
stance, certain examples of furniture, furnish-
ings, table ware, instruments, and even appli-
ances are increasingly exhibited as artworks.
Yet numerous other examples of equally inter-
esting instancesof "industrialdesign" are never
so regarded. Where do we draw the line? We
seem to includeonly those aestheticartifactsthat
appear, by the way they are arranged or dis-
played, to announce their having-been-created-
by-someone-to-be-aesthetic.Considerthe perti-
nent comments of a maker of iron furniture
widely regardedas art: "This is furniturewith
a very expressive nature. Its visual meaning
overtakes its so-called functional meaning."39
128
Suchexpressivequalitiescommunicatethe pres-
ence of the artist, and on those grounds a utili-
tarianartifactis admittedinto the realmof art.
x scribed eitherhow works of art ought to make a
I have arguedthat the term "artwork"refers to
anythingcreatedto be a significantlymeaningful,
perceptually interesting object of experience.
The ultimate test of the definition, however, is
a) whether it actually picks out all those items
presentlyregardedas artworksandb) whetherit
anticipates any and all designated artworks of
the future. To satisfy the first requirement, it
must include all instances that are convention-
ally denoted by the term and exclude all those
that would not be. The definition seems indeed
to be properly inclusive: a) All the traditional
forms of art clearlyhave the functionof commu-
nicatingsignificantaestheticobjects, as we have
seen. b) So also do such twentieth-centurychal-
lenges to tradition as "happenings," "earth-
works," "anti-kinetic"music, "DaDa," "mini-
mal" art, "found" art, "conceptual" art, and
"pop" art, whose aesthetic character derives
more from their significance than the arrange-
ment of the medium, as exemplified by Foun-
tain. c) Even nonobjective art and music are
accounted for, since these aesthetic objects at
least have the significance of authorship.
Convtrsely, the definition is also exclusive in
a way that conforms to contemporarypractices
of the art community. As we have noted, it
banishes purely imagined "artworks"but ac-
cepts conceptual art. It counts copies as "art-
works," but only as the creation of the original
artist. It would exclude rhetoricor propaganda
from the realm of art, no matterhow attractive,
unless the item could stand on its own as a
significant aesthetic object. It rules out mean-
ingless ornamentationthat lacks even the sense
of the presence of an artist, such as "elevator"
music, "mechanical" grillwork, and the like.
And while our definition includes examples
from such recently recognized categories of art
as architecture, cinema, photography, "folk"
objects, pottery, and furniture, it bars those in-
stances not principally concerned to be signifi-
cantly aesthetic.
But does the definition anticipate all future
instances of art? As noted at the outset of this
essay, innovations in art have always shattered
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
prevailing theories. It might seem, then, that
the continued evolution of art could similarly
threaten the definition now in question. But
most of history's failed art theories have pre-
"'statement"(as "imitation," "representation,"
or "expression")or in what way they should be
aestheticallyappealing(as "psychicaldistance"
or "significantform"). Hence, most such theo-
ries have not been on the same conceptuallevel
as ours but are subsumedby it. Responding as
they have to new schools or genres of art, they
really ought to be considered subconcepts of
art-theories of kindsof artworks.
The acceleratedpace of artistic experimenta-
tion in the twentiethcenturyhas made it easierto
extrapolatethe general frameworkwithin which
art progresses. Artists appearto have been ex-
ploring ever wider possibilities of a) types of
media, b) ways to arrange the media aesthet-
ically, and c) ways to make their arrangements
significant. Since these factors are all contem-
platedby ourdefinition, whateverhas countedin
the history of art as a breakthroughhas never
amounted to a revolution in the meaning of
"art," but only the discovery of some radically
new possibility for presenting significant aes-
thetic objects to a public capableof interpreting
and appreciatingthem. History gives us no rea-
son to suspect that art should be the sort of
process thatcontinuallyredefines itself.40
RICHARD LIND
Department of Philosophy
Universityof Tulsa
600 SouthCollegeAvenue
Tulsa,OK74104-3189
1. The most recentmajorwritingsto take this position are
Arthur Danto's The Transfigurationof the Commonplace
(HarvardUniversity Press, 1981) and George Dickie's The
Art Circle (HavenPublications, 1948).
2. Danto, The Transfigurationof the Commonplace,
p. 135.
3. Danto, "The Artistic Enfranchisementof Real Ob-
jects," TheJournalof Philosophy61 (1964), p. 180.
4. Danto, "The Last Work of Art: Artworks and Real
Things" in Aesthetics: A Critical Anthology, eds. George
Dickie and R.J. Sclafani (St. Martin'sPress, 1977), p. 557.
5. Danto, "The Last Workof Art," p. 557.
6. Ibid., p. 560.
7. Ibid., p. 561.
8. Danto, The Transfigurationof the Commonplace,
p. 135.
Lind Aesthetic Essence
9. Anita Silvers, "Once Upon a Time in the Artworld"in
Aesthetics: A Critical Anthology, eds. George Dickie and
R.J. Sclafani(St. Martin'sPress, 1977), pp. 183-195.
10. Danto, The Transfigurationof the Commonplace,
p. 207.
11. Ibid., p. 208.
12. Dickie, TheArt Circle, p. 24.
13. The specifics of "authorship"will be discussed in
muchgreaterdetail in Section IX, below.
14. Danto, The Transfigurationof the Commonplace,
p. 94.
15. In "An Aesthetic Definition of Art" in Wat is Art
(Haven Publications, 1983), p. 21, Beardsley describes the
aesthetic experience as follows: "It takes on a sense of
freedom from concern about matters outside the thing re-
ceived, an intense affect that is neverthelessdetached from
practicalends, the exhilaratingsense of exercising powersof
discovery, integrationof the self and its experiences." This
descriptionis far too impressionistic, and one can think of
innumerableinstances of art to which few if any of these
conditions seem to describe one's response, even when one
would say the item is "aesthetic."
16. I shall rely heavily on argumentsI have alreadymade
in "Attention and the Aesthetic Object," The Journal of
Aestheticsand Art Criticism39 (1980): 131-142; "A Micro-
phenomenologyof Aesthetic Qualities," TheJournalofAes-
thetics and Art Criticism 43 (1985): 395-397; "Aesthetic
'Sympathy'and Expressive Qualities" in Aesthetic Quality
and Aesthetic Experience, ed, Michael Mitias (Rodopi,
1988), pp. 45-63.
17. The most clearly worked out exposition of the aes-
thetic attitude would seem to be that of Jerome Stolnitz,
"The Aesthetic Attitude" in IntroductoryReadings in Aes-
thetics, ed. JohnHospers (Free Press, 1969), pp. 17-27.
18. Lind, "Attentionand the Aesthetic Object," p. 132.
19. Ibid., p. 132.
20. It mightbe objectedthatdefining "aesthetic"in terms
of interest would render "aesthetically interesting" redun-
dant. But such phrases, along with "erotically appealing"
and "sensuouslyattractive,"merely specify how an interest-
ing thing is interesting.
21. Of course, some philosophical or mathematicalfor-
mulaeor systems are sometimes regardedas aesthetic("ele-
gant" or "beautiful").They can and will be accountedfor.
22. Lind, "Attentionand the Aesthetic Object," pp. 134,
135.
23. Ibid., pp. 136-139; Lind, "A Micro-phenomenology
of Aesthetic Qualities,"pp. 395-397.
24. Two JAACreaders have challenged this claim with
such seeming aesthetic simples as "a deliciously cool blue
patch" or "the final note of a musical piece." But those
129
examples ignore subtly discriminatedinternal and external
interrelations.As any Gestaltpsychologist would point out,
the "deliciouslycool" qualityof a color patchwoulddepend
on its admixtureof primaryhues, its specific saturationand
brightness, and the particularbackgroundcolor with which
it contrasts. And the peculiarresonanceof the musical tone
would be a function of its overtone structureplus its role in
the overallcompositionof the piece.
25. This descriptionsummarizesthe more detailedanaly-
sis in "Attentionand the Aesthetic Object,"p. 140. I should
like to add that while sensuous or erotic attractionare not
necessary conditions, they are not precludedby definition
from contributingto an aestheticobject'sappeal.
26. Binkley, "Piece: ContraAesthetics," TheJournal of
Aestheticsand Art Criticism35 (1977): 260-277.
27. Danto, The Transfigurationof the Commonplace,
p. 94.
28. Binkley, "Piece: ContraAesthetics," p. 266.
29. Ibid., p. 266.
30. The conflicting meaningsare furthercomplicatedby
the risque French pun pronounced by stating the title,
L.H.O.O.Q.: "She has a hot ass."
31. "Art as Non-aesthetic: I Like BreathingBetterThan
Working"in Aesthetics:A Critical Anthology,eds. George
Dickie and R.J. Sclafani (St. Martin'sPress, 1977), p. 546.
32. Danto, The Transfigurationof the Commonplace,
p. 94.
33. Ibid., p. 94.
34. Ibid., p. 94.
35. According to the O.E.D., "arrange"means "to put
(the partsof a thing) into properor requisiteorder."
36. Admittedly,Clive Bell has alreadyused "significant"
to indicatethe capacityof a form to give rise to an "aesthetic
emotion," but Bell squandereda perfectly good term on
what most aestheticians today deem a viciously circular
definition. Because the term "significant"ordinarilymeans
either a) "full of meaning;highly expressive or suggestive"
or b) "notable"(OE. D.), the combiningof these meanings
comes close to our stipulatedmeaning-that the object itself
is notablein virtue of its meaning.
37. Fry, Transformations(Chatto & Windus, 1926),
pp. 4-27.
38. I do not mean to imply that becauseart must be "sig-
nificant"it cannotalso havesomethingimportantto say about
the world. Indeed, some of the greatestworksof art seem to
employ a sort of dialecticbetweenthe two sorts of meanings.
39. Danny Lane, as quoted in "Barbariansat the Gates of
Art," Newsweek7 (May 1990), p. 67.
40. I am heavily indebtedto the readersandeditorialstaff
of JAACfor their very helpful criticisms of the initial drafts
of this essay.