After having read Plato, Croce and Gadamer, I still strongly believe that representation is an essential function of artworks. However, I now view the act of representation itself in a slightly different light. Prior to these readings, I argued that artworks have to represent something outside of themselves because humans create artworks and use points of reference to base their work off of. I still firmly believe that, but I don’t think artwork has to be purposely representative of one object or thing or be an objective representation but rather can be subjective and differ from culture to culture or from viewer to viewer as Croce says. I’ve come to the conclusion that art can be literally representative or be extremely abstract and represent colors and feelings and whatever the artist was trying to convey. So in short, I believe art is representative but not in a constricted sense.
Plato argued that art, specifically poetry,was twice removed from the truth as it is a replica of a copy of the one true idea or meaning of a thing created by God. Plato’s theory of mimesis (imitation) was based on whether or not art was a true and literal representation of some “idea” found in the natural world, and I think he correctly stated that it is not, in the literal sense. However, what I think Plato fails to grasp is that even being an imperfect replication of an idea or of an essence of something is still representative in itself because it can take on an entirely new meaning by being imperfect.
I think Croce grasped onto that idea of an imperfect representation with a slightly different meaning when he describes art as a “contemplation of feeling” or “lyrical intuition.” He argues that art cannot be philosophy or history or mathematics or natural sciences because those subjects don’t contemplate, because there is a distinction between reality and unreality. However, art can’t be pure feeling either as most artwork is not emotional in its’ immediacy. It doesn’t make you writhe on the floor in terror, but it’s a unity between images and feelings, and they can’t exist without each other nor are they completely intertwined. While he seems to be saying at first that art is not mimetic at all and can’t be truly representative or it takes on a purpose outside of art, some practical purpose, I think he is arguing that art is representative of the feeling that the artwork evokes coupled with the knowledge of the actual subject itself. For instance, Croce argues that to see art as purely mimetic is to give it a practical, functional purpose that detracts from the art itself and makes it merely a practical purposeful object not a piece of artwork. For example, if you looked at Picasso’s “Le Reve” and said it depicts a woman or represents a woman and that is its only purpose, you would be eliminating the “art” in the artwork. However, if you recognize the hints of “peace” or restful dreaming or of sleep or of solitute and acknowledge that it means more than just a physical woman, it does become artwork and is representation of a conglomerate of things. In this sense, artwork is representative but in a subjective sense. Art can represent any feeling that the viewer connects with the image or piece of work.
Gadamere touches on this extra element of representation in his essay “Art and Imitation.” I like how he interchanges the word “expression” for representation because it seems to be a more all encompassing word and allows for a unity between the practical and whimsical aspects of art that can be “represented.” I think he makes a really good point when he states that “if an artist could express what he has to say in words, he would not wish to create and would not need to give form to his ideas” (93). The fact that the artist is giving forms to ideas through creation of an artwork speaks to the fact that the artwork has to be representative or expressive of those ideas. I also thought Gadamere made a great point when he mentioned Kant’s legitimization of art and said that art is a product of genius without rules. It is almost as if any artwork that is not clearly representative of something else or some idea is representative of creative freedom and of the beauty of subjectivity.
I think he goes on to further this point when he makes the connection between art and recognition and imitation. Gadamere argues that it is recognition that makes mimetic art or imitations in general so pleasant to us. He argues that while recognition does make imitation enjoyable, “the degree of similarity between the original and its mimetic representation should not be compared.” This comparison between imitation and original is Plato’s entire problem with artworks in a nutshell because the imitation will never be good as the true copy. I take this as him saying that you shouldn’t analyze the representation or think of it as absolute truth but rather see artworks as a beautiful expression of an essence and as a representation of a feeling and a thing at some point in time.
This theory works particularly well with Modern art that is extremely hard to recognize and is very abstract. Gadamere argues that even then, somehow, the viewer can still capture a sense or a glimpse of what the artist is trying to represent. He writes that even though modern pictures can be made up of multiple elements that “dissolve into something unrecognizable, we can still sense a last trace of familiarity and experience a fragmentary act of recognition.” I think this is very true. For example, look at this piece of modern art. While it’s unrecognizable and unrepresentational in many ways, your mind may wonder to the circular shapes, records, ripples in the water, the colors of red and black suggest some deep emotion, etc. and it’s easy to see how there is expression and representation and even recognition in literally every piece of art.
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