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21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 7. Ontology of Art

[in what sense varies types of art actually exist]

9 ideas
Art exists ideally, purely as experiences in the mind of the perceiver [Collingwood, by Kemp]
     Full Idea: For Collingwood (and Croce) the work of art is an ideal object; …they are things that exist only in the mind, that is, only when one perceives. …The physical work exists to make this experience available.
     From: report of R.G. Collingwood (The Principles of Art [1938]) by Gary Kemp - Croce and Collingwood 2
     A reaction: This means that the paintings in a gallery cease to be works of art when the gallery is shut, which sounds odd. I suppose 'work of art' is ambiguous, between the experience (right) and the facilitator of the experience (wrong).
A performance is only an instance of a work if there is not a single error [Goodman]
     Full Idea: The most miserable performance without actual mistakes does count as an instance of a work, …but the most brilliant performance with a single wrong note does not.
     From: Nelson Goodman (Languages of Art (2nd edn) [1968], p.186), quoted by Alessandro Giovannelli - Nelson Goodman (aesthetics)
     A reaction: Mereological essentialism applied to art! You need to be a highly theoretical and technical philosopher (which Goodman was) to maintain such a weird and contrary-usage proposal.
If artworks are not physical objects, they are either ideal entities, or collections of phenomena [Wollheim]
     Full Idea: In denying that works of art are physical objects, one theory (the 'ideal') withdraws them altogether from experience, and a second theory ('phenomenal') pins them too it inescapably and at all points.
     From: Richard Wollheim (Art and Its Objects [1968], 21)
     A reaction: I incline towards them being transient ideals, created by human minds. As with so much, we idealise and objectify them as 'works', and abstract their image from the instance(s) we encounter.
The ideal theory says art is an intuition, shaped by a particular process, and presented in public [Wollheim]
     Full Idea: The ideal theory of Croce and Collingwood says art is first an inner intuition or expression of the artist, resulting from a particular process of organisation and unification, which can be externalised in public form.
     From: Richard Wollheim (Art and Its Objects [1968], 22)
     A reaction: [compressed] As stated this doesn't sound very controversial or 'ideal'. I take it the theory is intended to be more platonist than this expression of it suggests. I think the idea that it is an 'expression' of the artist is wrong.
The ideal theory of art neglects both the audience and the medium employed [Wollheim]
     Full Idea: Because the ideal theory makes a work of art inner or mental, the link between the artist and the audience has been severed .....and it also totally ignores the significance of the medium.
     From: Richard Wollheim (Art and Its Objects [1968], 23)
     A reaction: Emily Dickinson had virtually no audience for her poetry. The medium used to perform Bach's 'Art of Fugue' seems unimportant. For paintings of painterly painters paint matters. For some visual art many different media will suffice.
A musical performance has virtually the same features as the piece of music [Wollheim]
     Full Idea: With the usual reservations, there is nothing that can be predicated of a performance of a piece of music that could not also be predicated of that piece of music itself.
     From: Richard Wollheim (Art and Its Objects [1968], 37)
     A reaction: He offers this as evidence that it fits the performance being a token, and music (and all other art) being a type. There are quite a few 'reservations'. Music too difficult to perform. Great music always badly performed.
Art works originate in the artist's mind, and appreciation is re-creating this mental object [Gardner]
     Full Idea: A strong tradition in aesthetics (the 'idealist' view) regards works of art as existing originally in the artist's mind, and the appreciation of art as a matter of re-creating the artist's mental object.
     From: Sebastian Gardner (Aesthetics [1995], 2.2)
     A reaction: He mentions Collingwood and Croce. Against this is the view (Idea 7268) that what goes on in the artist's mind is just irrelevant. Freud is important here, suggesting that the artist doesn't quite know what he or she is doing.
If paintings could be perfectly duplicated, it would be a multiple art form [Currie, by Bacharach]
     Full Idea: Currie claims that, in principle, all art forms are multiple. A superxerox machine, duplicating a painting molecule by molecule, would show that paintings are singular only contingently.
     From: report of Gregory Currie (An Ontology of Art [1988]) by Sondra Bacharach - Arthur C. Danto 3
     A reaction: This strikes me as correct. An original painting would then have the same status as the manuscript of a poem, giving it an authority, and being moving by its personal contact with the artist. But worth far less than current original paintings.
The dualistic view says works of art are either abstract objects (types), or physical objects [Lamarque/Olson]
     Full Idea: The dualistic view of the arts holds that works of art come in two fundamentally different kinds: those that are abstract entities, i.e. types, and those that are physical objects (tokens).
     From: Lamargue,P/Olson,SH (Introductions to 'Aesthetics and the Phil of Art' [2004], Pt 2)
     A reaction: Paintings are the main reason for retaining physical objects. Strawson 1974 argues that paintings are only physical because we cannot yet perfectly reproduce them. I agree. Works of art are types, not tokens.